May 14, 2018
MEGAFAUNIZE AMERICAN GRASSLANDS AGAIN
15,000 and more years ago, North America had lions, cheetahs, camels, mammoths, giant sloths[previously], short-faced bears, giant beavers and sabretooth salmon. Barring enormous advances in cloning technology, none[previously] of those magnificent beasts will walk the earth again.
But we can replicate the effects they had on the ecosystem, with Pleistocene Rewilding! [more inside]
But we can replicate the effects they had on the ecosystem, with Pleistocene Rewilding! [more inside]
HAL's voice sounds unsettling because it's Canadian
HAL 9000, the seemingly omniscient computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, was the film’s most expressive and emotional figure, and made a lasting impression on our collective imagination. This is the story of the creation of HAL’s performance — the result of a last-minute collaboration between the idiosyncratic director Stanley Kubrick and the veteran Canadian actor Douglas Rain. (NYT)
the most wary, the most secretive, the least conspicuous
Nadia Drake on jaguarness:
"In an instant, I registered that, yes, the bathroom trail we had cut through the Peruvian jungle was indeed occupied by a member of the largest cat species in the Americas. She was so close that if she launched herself at one of us, it would be game over in seconds... Powerful predators that kill by puncturing skulls with their tremendous bite, jaguars reign over both ecosystems and mythologies. Everyone hopes to see one of the spotted cats when they visit this part of Peru, and on several earlier occasions, I’d been lucky enough to glimpse the cats along the riverbank. But this was the first time I’d been jaguar’d out of the damn bathroom."
LuL haHAA CmonBruh
A guide to understanding Twitch emotes [Polygon] “To understand every moment of Twitch — every pitfall, every win, every ridiculous play — is to understand the emotes, those instantaneous reactions in the right sidebar. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of emotes being sent over Twitch chat every second, and to someone who’s just ventured in to check out a stream, it can be a little daunting. [...] To get you up to speed, we’ve compiled a list of popular emotes below, with the intention of adding more if any rise in popularity, and updating the explanations if the emotes change in meaning.” [more inside]
"The Steve Jobs 'hero/sh*thead' roller coaster was real"
John Carmack shares his memories of Steve Jobs. John Carmack co-founded id Software and was the lead programmer of several video games you've probably played even if you're not a gamer (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and more). Shortly after Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1996, he invited Carmack for conversations about supporting games on the Mac. And thus a roller coaster relationship was born. [more inside]
Once it's recorded, then it's over.
R.I.P. Glenn Branca. Avant garde composer, guitar player, No Wave godfather, designer of experimental instruments, dead at the age of 69. [more inside]
The Singing Unicorn
King of Mask Singer (미스터리 음악쇼 복면가왕) is a South Korean singing competition tv show that began in 2015. Contestants are given elaborate masks (made by designer Hwang Jae-geun) to wear that conceal their identities and personal aspects, like their ages, which could lead to prejudiced voting. Last night, a special guest dressed in a sparkly unicorn mask and matching cape sang "Tomorrow" from Annie. [more inside]
You've got me ... who's got you?
Margot Kidder has died at age 69. Best known for portraying Lois Lane in the original Superman movies, she was also known for her breakdown in 1996 and struggle with bipolar. NYT obit. Celebrities react to her death. Pics through the years. Variety obit.
Put your money where your Malthus
Wizards, following Borlaug’s model, unveil technological fixes [to global population increase]; Prophets, looking to Vogt, decry the consequences of our heedlessness.Charles Mann with a long read on whether Earth can support 10 billion people.
"They asked me to be a guinea pig, and I’ve been donating ever since"
On Friday, Harrison made his final trip to the blood donation center. At age 81, he had already passed the age limit allowed for donors, and the blood service had decided Harrison should stop donating to protect his health, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. For six decades, ‘the man with the golden arm’ donated blood — and saved 2.4 million babies. (non-paywalled link here)
The U.S. Deep Poverty Problem/Why the Great Society Worked
Problem:
...The Oxford economist Robert Allen recently estimated needs-based absolute poverty lines for rich countries that are designed to match more accurately the $1.90 line for poor countries, and $4 a day is around the middle of his estimates. When we compare absolute poverty in the United States with absolute poverty in India, or other poor countries, we should be using $4 in the United States and $1.90 in India. Once we do this, there are 5.3 million Americans who are absolutely poor by global standards. This is a small number compared with the one for India, for example, but it is more than in Sierra Leone (3.2 million) or Nepal (2.5 million), about the same as in Senegal (5.3 million) and only one-third less than in Angola (7.4 million). Pakistan (12.7 million) has twice as many poor people as the United States, and Ethiopia about four times as many.The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From Its Deep Poverty Problem [more inside]
You always knew you'd be the one
Not a sequel to Ocean's Eleven
Ocean's Monopoly: How Nations Use Science to Conquer the Sea—“A look into the complex world of ocean bed ownership and how nations are vying for their own piece of the puzzle.” A 48m documentary in English from Al Jazeera and Werwiewas Media Productions. [more inside]
Tragic Kingdom
Bats Day in the Fun Park aka Bats Day aka Goth Day has, for two decades, been an annual gathering of goths at Disneyland. Sadly it seems the event will not carry on in its current form (blame Trump), but hopefully some sort of similar, if curtailed, event will continue lurch on in undeath.
Keyless ignition and CO poisoning
Unlike a physical car key, a wireless/keyless fob lets you walk away from a vehicle while the engine is running. If you do this in enclosed spaces you could die from carbon monoxide poisoning.
“I want to create my own little world”|“I like living here, I love it.”
Two Op-Docs by Lance Oppenheim for The New York Times:
- Meet the Happiest Guy in the World follows the life of “Super” Mario Salcedo, who lives full time as a cruise ship passenger.
- Long-Term Parking captures a slice of life in an airport parking lot populated by airline industry workers in motor homes.
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