March 2, 2018
Now we just have to worry about the robot overlords.
Quite possibly, octopi are too stupid to take over the world. According to Slate, there are an awful lot of questionable and questionably presented stories on the intelligence of octopi. [more inside]
The Terminal Tunisian Troglodytes
"In the arid valleys of southern Tunisia’s Djebel Dahar region, people have lived for centuries in underground houses whose earthen casing provides protection against searing summer heat and winter winds. But in recent decades, rural depopulation has meant fewer people live in the homes, which are composed of rooms hewn into the walls of an excavated circular courtyard. The few remaining families say they are attached to the homes and the land or see no way of moving." [more inside]
Now available - Donkey Kong 3: The Great Counterattack (Sharp X1 rom)
Recently noted in the briefest of passing comments "... in Donkey Kong 3, Donkey Kong fought an exterminator. Nobody really cares about that one..." except they do. The extremely rare, officially-licensed Donkey Kong game has finally been released to the Internet, and now the entire world can experience the bizarre journey of Donkey Kong 3: The Great Counterattack. Thanks to some dedicated fans, a copy of the Sharp X1 version of the game was dumped (with that process written up and link to the rom) and now you can play it in an emulator (Windows only, sorry). Or you can watch YouTube user Nintendo Era play (and talk) through levels 1-8 (36 min), levels 9 and 10 (4 min), levels 11-15 (20 min), and levels 16-20 (30 min). [more inside]
Too damn bad, the ranger is dead.
“Firefighters lose their self-control and run into the fire instead of away from it. Night and day are often reversed: during a fire daylight is masked by smoke, haze, and ash; but nighttime is lit by firelight. Water is no longer a cooling, nourishing, healthful resource: snowmelt streams are tepid, springs boil, and water sources become undrinkable because of ash content.” A scholarly look at the stories told by and about early Forest Service rangers fighting wildland fire, from the Forest History Society [pdf]. [more inside]
I think my least-hated favorite fish is sole. Sole has no eyes.
It seems the Cold War is being fired back up (wait, what?), and all this revived nuclear posturing and recent events in Hawaii bring to mind 1987. That was the year Roger Waters released his second solo album, Radio K.A.O.S. [YT album, ~41m30s] -- Side One: Radio Waves, Who Needs Information, Me Or Him, The Powers That Be [more inside]
Double or nothing? (The Lynchian Strip)
Asking the Wrong Questions: Reiteration and Doubling in David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Mullholland Drive, and Inland Empire
“But then what does he eat? And how does he process it?”
So How Does a Centaur Eat, Anyway? by Judith Tarr [Tor] “The upshot of all this is that because the Centaur’s delivery system for nutrition is a human or humanoid head and torso—therefore a human-sized jaw, teeth, and esophagus—the Centaur must necessarily live on human food, and its horse stomach will have been modified to accommodate an omnivorous diet. The Greek tradition backs this up, with Centaurs eating bread and meat and drinking wine. There is no way the conventional Centaur can chew grass or hay with a human jaw, let alone consume it in sufficient quantities to support the mass of its body.” [more inside]
Rise and Fall of Dorm-Style Living
What 19th & 20th century SRO living used to be and what it's morphing into, which is essentially dorms for new adults. After SROs became declasse and were phased out, they've come back in the form of the Commons Tragedy of the Commons [more inside]
Saltalamacchia is the biggest NOB
A look back at the looks on the backs (of sports uniforms, particularly player names). [via Now I Know]
“I was now a Lonely Bird … spreading my wings from field to field”
MeowMet(aFilter)
Time to start buying up North Dakota real estate.
Welcome to the Age of Climate Migration Climate change is going to remap our world, changing not just how we live but where we live. As scientist Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, puts it, "There is a shocking, unreported, fundamental change coming to the habitability of many parts of the planet, including the U.S.A." [more inside]
"A Magazine of Literature, Art and Politics"
For their 160th anniversary, the Atlantic has highlighted some unique articles, stories and essays from their magazine archive and launched a Life Timeline. Enter your birthday and it will tell you how the world has changed in your lifetime. [more inside]
"Now they are the rare discovery of so-called gore-mays,"
Democracy In The Workplace
Uber and Lyft drivers in the US make a median profit of $3.37 per hour before taxes, according to a new report that suggests a majority of ride-share workers make below minimum wage and that many actually lose money. (The Guardian) “The companies are losing money. The businesses are being subsidized by [venture capital] money … And the drivers are essentially subsidizing it by working for very low wages.” Maybe the real question is, why is Uber a for-profit company anyway? (Salon) What is a Worker Directed Enterprise?
Pity they couldn't have waited another two years
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is coming back. I mean really, if anything merited a 42nd anniversary ... [more inside]
Ass is the most complicated word
Quer pasticciaccio brutto...
This Sunday, same old, same old...: Berlusconi's back, Renzi's center-left is down, Five Stars are on the up, the Northern League is Bannon's choice. Tensions are running high, but morale (and likely turnout) is low. Europe and refugees are on the cards. Someone's in it for free flights. Varoufakis to the rescue? (And: is Banksy running, too?)
TL/DR: just watch John Oliver's excellent in-depth primer. [more inside]
Eyes, Brains, Babies, and Marilyn Monroe
"Books bend space and time."
BBC Studios is working on a six-part adaptation of Terry Pratchett's beloved Discworld. Tentatively titled The Watch, it should follow the coming Good Omens adaptation coming in 2019.
The envelope please:
"While no one was looking, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently dumped most of its Oscars footage onto YouTube — hundreds and hundreds of clips from the show, including virtually every opening monologue, a mind-blowing treasure trove you can have a lot of fun picking through.
What follows is a ranking of those opening segments, from worst to best, with a lot of great jokes along the way". 66 Oscar Monologues and Opening Numbers Ranked, From Worst to Best
If you’re surprised, you don’t see enough black people in major roles
People walking around Brixton, south London, on Wednesday night and Thursday morning noticed a very unusual photo campaign on the bus stops. Posters advertising films and tv shows recast with black actors. [more inside]
Sometimes media seems like it's made just for you
Left to Louisiana's Tides, a Village Fights for Time
It might seem counterintuitive to keep building on land that is submerging. But Mr. Kerner did not see it as his job to take a 10,000-foot view. In the years since Hurricane Katrina, he had grown weary of being rebuffed in his quixotic campaign to encircle Lafitte with a tall and impregnable levee. He could rhapsodize all he wanted about preserving his community’s authentic way of life. The cost-benefit calculus — more than $1 billion to protect fewer than 7,000 people — always weighed against him.
So he had set out to change it. His strategy was to secure so much public investment for Jean Lafitte that it would eventually become too valuable to abandon.
Story by Kevin Sack and John Schwartz for The New York Times.
The king, stay the king.
Stormy Blue Dot
From the Himawari 8 Japanese weather satellite: an animation of Earth from Geostationary Orbit covering October 2017.
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