March 6, 2015
Darkness Lit From Within: On A.B. Yehoshua
"The soul-destroying weariness in A.B. Yehoshua’s stories seems as old as time itself—and unique to contemporary Israel."
A short analysis of the cultural specificity of a Russian meme
It's often suggested that Russia and the West have fundamentally different worldviews. In this article, author Jim Kovpak attempts to illustrate why that is by analysing the vatnik internet meme.
Even More Tiny Beautiful Things
Good news for fans of the now-defunct Dear Sugar advice column (previously on Metafilter): Sugar is back! [more inside]
Love Your Subjects
Albert Maysles, acclaimed documentary filmmaker and pioneer of “direct cinema,” has died at 88.
Best known for the films Grey Gardens (previously) and Gimme Shelter (in which he captured the murder of 18 year-old Meredith Hunter by a Hell’s Angel at the Stones’ legendary 1969 Altamont Free Concert), Maysles (along with his brother David) created an astounding array of diverse documentary films including the Beatles first trip to the US and films about Christo, Orson Welles, Jessye Norman, and on and on.
His most recent film, about NYC style maven Iris Apfel will be released on April 29th. A film community reflects. [more inside]
"We are largely doomed"
"Thanks to Cornell University researchers, the world can now predict how fast a zombie outbreak would spread from a single undead person.
Using data from the 2010 U.S. census and the SIR model, an epidemiological tool that can project the progress of actual infectious diseases, the scientists created "large-scale exact stochastic dynamical simulation" of a such an outbreak. Their findings were to be presented Thursday to the august American Physical Society. [more inside]
“We give our pain meaning, and that meaning alters our experience.”
Wounded Women by Jessa Crispin [Boston Review] The assumption of female vulnerability threatens to invigorate the sexist evils it aims to combat.
Save a loved-one's voicemail greeting
VMSave is a service by Pete Keen (zrail here on mefi). "When a loved-one passes away, sometimes the only recording you have of them is locked away on an answering machine or a voicemail box. Eventually the recording will disappear, either due to someone recording over it or service getting canceled. Before it disappears, use VMSave to save it, completely free." [via mefi projects]
Selfie-link
Florence Henderson takes a selfie at a Queen Latifah Show. How much fun can you have after 80? Apparently a lot... Here’s the story… of a lovely lady… who at 80 is getting busy with… [more inside]
Canada announces new thalidomide compensation
Canada, long considered a "global outlier" on compensation for thalidomide survivors, has announced new lump sum compensation payments. [more inside]
People Who Could Really Break the Internet
Regarding Norm Macdonald and the moth joke
"The infamous moth joke is an example of how particular and particularly misunderstood Macdonald’s sensibility can be. I do not believe Macdonald is a meta- or anti-comic. Like his delivery, the structure of the moth joke violates several deeply held principles of performed comedy, but it does so in pursuit of a genuine laugh." [more inside]
Like Disney decided to make a snuff version of "Swiss Family Robinson."
"Roar" is a 1981 film, nearing a theatrical re-release, that was written and directed by Noel Marshall and co-written and co-directed by a pride of lions. It is perhaps the most dangerous movie production ever. [more inside]
"Rainbow Dash underestimates how far Twilight will go."
"One fine day whilst visiting my cousin, we decided to color. If not for her enjoyment of this hobby, this past time would have never been born. We sat down to begin and I casually flipped through a rather large coloring book. Perhaps it was fated that this particular coloring book was full of slightly deranged looking animals. I could not help but imagine them plotting and feuding with one another. Inspired, I began to turn a seemingly innocent children’s coloring book into something both awful and hilarious (at least to me)." This is Coloring Book Corruptions. (NSFW)
Black Friday
Today, March 6, is Blackout Day, "a day where black people post, share, reblog, like, and distribute other photos of black people on social media. This includes Tumblr, Instagram, the petri dish known as Facebook, Vine, Twitter, and any other site that allows you to share photos." (FAQ, official master post)
IT'S DEFINITELY BEEN JUMPED ON, THAT EGG
Thomas and Friends
Some cybergoths meet for a rave under a bridge. If only they knew they could have more fun with their choice of music.
Blank Page
"Blank Page" Taylor Swift meets "Game of Thrones."
It's Never OK
Today, the Ontario Government released a video called #WhoWillYouHelp (TW; potentially triggering scenes in video relating to sexual assault) as part of the $41-million It's Never OK action plan to end sexual assault and harassment within the province. [more inside]
Fostering Profits
“You feel the pressure. You have to make those targets,” said a former worker whose name, due to a signed nondisclosure with Mentor, could not be used. “I went there because I care about services for kids. I eventually became a machine that cared about profits. I didn’t care about kids.” (SL Buzzfeed News Investigation. trigger warning: descriptions of sexual abuse and assault against children)
B4-XVI
beforesixteen - Highlighting an invisible conversation between hip hop and art before the 16th century. (SLTumblr)
Who better to host a nature show about animals than a Dogg?
Last year Jimmy Kimmel teamed up with Snoop Dogg to produce the nature series, Plizzanet Earth. In the latest episode, Snoop Dogg tackles Otters vs. Crocs. (Mostly bleeped but probably NSFW for a few people.) [more inside]
Another tale of an idiosyncratic lawman
Swery65 is a game designer known for the cult class Deadly Premonition. Deadly Premonition was distinguished by its quirky Twin Peaks inspired storyline, lovingly rendered American small town gameworld, memorable characters, and unique gameplay. Swery's new series is an atmospheric mystery game, D4 (Dark Dreams Don't Die). D4 notably ditches the somewhat tacked on combat of Deadly Prem. in favor of a series of investigation mini-games more in line with old-school point and click adventures. Noted Let's Player SuperGreatFriend has been working his way through the game as it's released, and you can follow along to get a taste of Swery's latest unique creation.
The Discipline of Blending In vs. Independence and Self-Confidence
Why Don’t Americans Know What Really Happened in Vietnam?
For a little perspective on the 50th anniversary, consider this: we’re now as distant from the 1960s as the young Bob Dylan was from Teddy Roosevelt. For today’s typical college students, the Age of Aquarius is ancient history. Most of their parents weren’t even alive in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson launched a massive escalation of the Vietnam War, initiating the daily bombing of the entire country, North and South, and an enormous buildup of more than half a million troops.
Fathers have given their daughters to monsters before.
The Beauty and the Beast. The Children's Stories Made Horrific series at The Toast has always been nightmare fuel, drawing out the horror inherent in many children's stories, but the latest installment might be the most trenchant yet.
Mercury, the sweetest of the transition metals!
Mercury is such a dense liquid that cannonballs float in it. Humans float on it too (you'll have to scroll down a bit for the picture), but it's probably not a good idea. If you just can't resist hopping in the mercury vat, elemental mercury is less likely to kill you than mercury compounds. It used to be sold as a laxative (officially branded Dr. Rush's Bilious Pills but colloquially known as "thunder clappers"); Lewis and Clark's campsites can sometimes be identified by the mercury they deposited along the way.
"...the odds in all our games favor the lottery."
"It was the first step to uncovering what he says is a $134 million scam by the Oregon Lottery." Once upon a time, Oregon resident Justin Curzi was playing video poker on a Jacks or Better machine. He was playing draw poker, which allows you to discard cards. However, the game's "auto-hold" feature recommended that he discard a different card than he was considering--which he thought was terrible advice and would cut his chances of winning. [more inside]
How should we describe the sexuality of historical figures?
It's a discussion that flared up recently at the house of Jane Addams. "Let’s start with an art history mystery. In 2006, a lifetime after Jane Addams passed away, Lisa Yun Lee took up the position of Director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. One day she came across a fetching painting of a brunette in the museum's back offices. But, Lee says, “As soon as I started asking ‘Who is that person in the painting,’ there were hushed tones and confusion. And people said, ‘Well, some people say that it’s Jane Addams’ partner.’ Other people say it’s her biggest business supporter. Other people said, ‘Well, of course. It’s her lesbian lover.’” "
"I wanted to make like a mini-movie."
Adam Ant - Stand & Deliver: The Documentary 2006. [SLYT]
Keep mining!
"I thought of it as an enterprise software problem I could solve."
Your new kidney is in the cloud. When former software developer David Jacobs was fortunate enough to get a kidney transplant eleven years ago, it occurred to him that there had to be a better way to match recipients with potential donors... so he bankrolled a company, and designed the cloud-based software needed to do it. As a result, thanks to paired kidney exchanges, a single kidney donation in San Francisco is saving six lives over the next few days... and will soon be saving a total of twelve lives, while removing people from the kidney waiting list, reducing the organ wait time for patients who don't have the time to spare.
Cooking by supercomputer
The robot cookbook: can a supercomputer write recipes? Watson, IBM’s supercomputer, has (with help from the Institute of Culinary Education) written what IBM's Florian Pinel calls "the first specimen of a new generation of smarter cookbooks". Do the unusual ingredient combinations work, or is plum pancetta cider really as disgusting as it sounds? IBM sent a food truck to SXSW to (ahem) road-test the recipes. Reports are, the Bengali butternut BBQ sauce is delicious. Of course, there's a TED talk.
Ready Rock
How did we get from the glorious battles of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastation of the crack plague? From the police crackdown on the marchers on the Selma bridge to the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner? From the nonviolence movement of courageous civil rights activists to the gang violence that has made homicide the number one cause of death for young black men? And finally from the impassioned eloquence of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” to the drug kingpin’s “I have a life sentence?” The War on Drugs.Marc Levin writes about Freeway Rick Ross’s connection to Selma and a generation of prisoners.
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