March 26, 2018
Naked Pendulum Dance
Some guy in Japan has uploaded two videos that offered up a clever way to combine nudity and pendulums to create something utterly delightful (NSFW). [more inside]
Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls
Time Magazine has an excerpt from Professor Safiya Umoja Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. In looking at Google, Noble finds that, "What we know about Google’s responses to racial stereotyping in its products is that it typically denies responsibility or intent to harm, but then it is able to “tweak” or “fix” these aberrations or “glitches” in its systems." [more inside]
Noughty movies
Brett Easton Ellis is not a big fan of 21st Century cinema, but Peter Bradshaw is. Here's why the 2000s is his favourite film decade. Here's a bonus round from the BBC that you've probably seen before. And one response to that.
What’s Cooking in That Egg Spoon? A Bite-Size Culture War
She Likes Her Eggs Cooked Over a Fire. He Might Not: When the chef Alice Waters used an iron egg spoon on “60 Minutes,” she touched off a tempest that still resounds with charges of elitism and sexism. (SLNYT by Kim Severson)
In this context, it means we are the product being sold.
We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. Zeynep Tufekci analyzes the state of advertising in social media. TL;DR imgur gif.
Trump Slump Gun Dump
Remington Outdoor, manufacturer of the Bushmaster rifle that was used in Sandy Hook, has filed for Chapter 11.[Guardian] This is being blamed on the Trump Slump[NPR], a drop-off in arms purchases when a Republican is President. (Not to be confused with the Trump Slump in the general economy[Economist].) [more inside]
For a handful of chanterelles?
Pour une poignée de girolles is an animated student film from Julien Grande. It's about cooking, family, and hunting for mushrooms. It might brighten your day a bit.
Happiness is actually an unattainable goal
It is impossible to be constantly happy It seems the brain, the way it analyzes the data of what was, what is and what’s to come affects the proteins and in effect, the travel of sodium ions into a neuron will shut down a pathway (which may be towards happiness.)
Darkness in the City of Light
The stabbing and burning death of 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Meirelle Knoll in her Paris apartment adds to growing concerns of a new wave of antisemitism in France.
“There are two contradictory elements here,” Bernard-Henri Lévy, the prominent French writer active in Jewish causes, said in an interview. “One the one hand, it’s true that Republican institutions are exemplary and do everything they can in the face of a rising anti-Semitism. But on the other, I am obligated to say that Jews are again being killed on the streets of Paris by virtue of being Jewish.”
look to windward is the best, don't @ me
A Political History of the Future: Iain M. Banks, Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money [more inside]
the mail's got to get there, so puppy gets it in the face
The Odds is a Canadian pop/rock band. Their most popular album (so far!) is "Good Weird Feeling." It's pretty okay!
Side A:
Truth Untold;
Smokescreen (Come and Get Me);
Radios Of Heaven;
I Would Be Your Man;
Satisfied;
Break The Bed;
Oh Sorrow, Oh Shame. [more inside]
“It comes close to trying to say something, but never actually does...”
Far Cry 5: cults, chaos and all-American silliness [The Guardian] “It’s emotionally confusing to be buffeted constantly between tense sadism and tongue-in-cheek tomfoolery. Far Cry 5 doesn’t succeed in reconciling these two sides of its personality, but then it doesn’t really try. This is a game in which you will be listening to lurid descriptions of cannibalism and torture on one mission, then tearing down a highway in a monster truck with mounted machine guns the next. To enjoy it, you have to inoculate yourself against these sudden changes in mood. Far Cry 5 is most enjoyable when it embraces the chaos that ensues when a player is left on an island full of hostile cultists with enough guns to embarrass John McClane.” [YouTube][Launch Trailer] [more inside]
Some Charm City Germans in the 1930's
Smokey & the Bandit Will Change Your Life
Jalopnik Movie Club is back. This week, we’re reviewing Smokey And The Bandit, a movie about beer and Pontiac. Jalopnik, of course, will talk more about the vehicles than the people, but that's okay because all the vehicles have people in them (except the smashed ones, vehicles, that is, not people). And the comments are good, too.
The Richest, Emptiest City
“Today, 247,977 units — more than 11% of all rental apartments in New York City — sit either empty or scarcely occupied, even as many New Yorkers struggle to find an apartment they can afford.“ The Vacant City. “Submitting false documents to the city’s Department of Buildings for construction permits is a misdemeanor, which can carry fines of up to $25,000,” the AP notes. “But real estate experts say it is often flouted with little to no consequences. Landlords who do so get off with no more than a demand from the city, sometimes a year or more later, to file an ‘amended’ form with the correct numbers.” Jared Kushner lied to NYC because he could get away with it - very few consequences for landlords breaking the law. Mayor de Blasio’s plan doesn’t go far enough to help says Coalition For The Homeless, others.
No Fair League
According to the [New Orleans] Saints’ handbook for cheerleaders, as well as internal emails and text messages reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with Davis, the Saints have an anti-fraternization policy that requires cheerleaders to avoid contact with players, in person or online, even though players are not penalized for pursuing such engagement with cheerleaders. The cheerleaders must block players from following them on social media and cannot post photos of themselves in Saints gear, denying them the chance to market themselves. The players are not required to do any of these things.How an Instagram Post Led to an N.F.L. Cheerleader’s Discrimination Case [Ken Belson, The New York Times]
Cheerleaders are told not to dine in the same restaurant as players, or speak to them in any detail. If a Saints cheerleader enters a restaurant and a player is already there, she must leave. If a cheerleader is in a restaurant and a player arrives afterward, she must leave.
Haddish loves goals like Pelé loves goals.
"Some people are better at being themselves than others are. They're the ones at home instantly in any untried environment, the way a cloud looks just right no matter where it is in the sky. They seem to keep slightly better rhythm with the beat of the universe than other people—noticing things faster, making connections more quickly. They're people like Tiffany Haddish, who has been on this whale-watching expedition for ten minutes and is already its undisputed captain—a turn of events no doubt surprising to the disputed captain, i.e., the man commanding the vessel and ostensibly hired to lead the tour. Gleeful in mutiny, Haddish's fellow passengers beseech her to hijack microphone duties from Captain Nick. Only one or two of them recognize her as a professional comedian and newly minted movie star; to the majority of middle-aged white people on this boat, she is simply a confident woman with three free hours to search for whales off the coast of Los Angeles. A woman whose commentary they enjoy." There's Something Funny About Tiffany Haddish
The Workplace is Killing Us and Nobody Cares
You make clear that yoga classes and nap rooms won’t fix this. There’s data on this — there shouldn’t need to be, but there is — that suggests that when people come to work sick, they’re not as productive. Companies have problems with presenteeism — people physically on the job but not really paying attention to what they are doing — with lost workdays from psychological stress and illness, with high health care costs. Seven percent of people in one survey were hospitalized — hospitalized! — because of workplace stress; 50% had missed time at work because of stress. People are quitting their jobs because of stress. The business costs are enormous. [more inside]
It's still tough to come out in 2018
Love, Simon has been getting a lot of attention for being the first wide release queer romcom aimed at a teen audience.
Love, Simon is a groundbreaking gay movie. But do today's teens actually need it? [more inside]
ViperCard, The HyperCard of Today
Remember early game-and-utility-making program HyperCard (previously)? It's back. In in-browser form. Welcome to the return of anyone being able to make games and other stuff regardless of programming ability: ViperCard!
Why Do So Many Scientists Want to be Filmmakers?
The problem with C.P. Snow’s famous two-cultures hypothesis (Kevin Berger, Nautilus).
Singapore would become the “Antioch of Asia”
Lou Engle: An American Threatens a Christian-Muslim Divide in Singapore Benjamin Lim investigates the inroads political American evangelicalism have made in his country as he attended the sixth annual Kingdom Invasion. [more inside]
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