May 24, 2019
Personal space
You got it, dude!
"1566 seems very recent, but the hedgehog was around before then"
"It was around before this Parliament. The hedgehog, and its ancestor, narrowly missed being crushed under the foot of Tyrannosaurus rex. The hedgehog was around long before the human species. It tells us a great deal about British civilisation that my hon. Friend has raised the subject, because the hedgehog is a magical creature. It is a creature that appears on cylinder seals in Sumeria, bent backwards on the prows of Egyptian ships..." [more inside]
this account now belongs to the foxen
“pssst guys GUYS the coolest thing just happened” is how it all began, back on April 18, when author and MetaFilter favorite Chuck Wendig (previously, previouslier) spotted an elusive fox out behind his writing shed. [more inside]
"Everybody feels free here"
Much has happened in the past 30 years to try to give disabled people a life that looks the same as for anyone without special needs. People who would have at one time been institutionalized are living in group homes. Sheltered workshops are closing as people are moving into integrated workplaces that embrace what’s called the “neurodiversity” movement. And social opportunities are growing to include specific dating sites, cruises and proms. But adults with disabilities, like Jones, yearn for more opportunities to socialize. Club 1111 is unique for how often it is held — once a month — and for how many people it draws. Local, state and national advocates are not aware of another event like it anywhere in the country.
folklore cards offer insights
Cards of folklore in the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive "offer insights into some of the hardships and preoccupations of domestic life in Newfoundland over the past half-century or so. But many of the cards, which date back to the mid-1960s, lack the full names of the women who authored them and signed them as their husband’s wife, nothing more. Archivists grew so irked by this that they recently launched a mission to find out the writers’ true names." Household names: Archivists take on task of identifying women who captured Newfoundland folklore [The Globe and Mail] [more inside]
Murray Gell-Mann, 1929-2019
The great theoretical physicist Murray Gell-Mann passed away today at the age of 89, after a lifetime of contributions from fundamental particle physics to complex systems theory. NYT obit; Caltech obit [more inside]
Troubled treasure
Troubled treasure "But as much as Burmese amber is a scientist's dream, it's also an ethical minefield. The fossils come from conflict-ridden Kachin state in Myanmar, where scientists can't inspect the geology for clues to the fossils' age and environment. In Kachin, rival political factions compete for the profit yielded by amber and other natural resources"
O₂ ≠
Oxygen Not Included [YouTube][Trailer] “...developed by highly regarded Canadian team Klei Entertainment, best known for Mark of the Ninja and Don't Starve. It's a sideways-view building and resource management game set inside a giant space rock. I begin the game with three little characters who've been portaled into a small hole inside the rock, armed with nothing more than a box filled with a few days' worth of food and some funky tools for digging. They begin tunneling in order to create more room for themselves, and to yield resources. The inside of this rock is a Battenberg Cake of liquids, solids and gases, as well as organic stuff that is either really useful or absolutely life-threatening.” [via: Polygon] [more inside]
Death (Of A Career), On-Air
Author (and conspiracy theorist) Naomi Wolf went on an interview with BBC Radio as part of promotion of her upcoming book, Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love. She was expecting to have a chance to talk about the thesis of her book, the way sexual expression has been criminalized.
What she was not planning for, however, was for interviewer Matthew Sweet to show, with evidence, that her book was built on Wolf's misunderstanding of the archaic legal term "death recorded". [more inside]
What she was not planning for, however, was for interviewer Matthew Sweet to show, with evidence, that her book was built on Wolf's misunderstanding of the archaic legal term "death recorded". [more inside]
♪♫♬ I gave my love a lizard / that had some bones ♪♫♬
VITAL UPDATE: my road runner porch-buddy used to run away if I wanted a pic but now when he catches a lizard he KNOCKS ON MY DOOR and then parades his catch around and poses, it’s amazing. Who’s a good boy! Mr Meepmeep! 😍
A woman chronicles being courted by an amorous(?) roadrunner. [Twitter thread with pics and video]
A woman chronicles being courted by an amorous(?) roadrunner. [Twitter thread with pics and video]
How we treat women
Worker camps make it possible to build infrastructure in remote locations in Canada. Is it worth the human cost? (cw: sexual assault) [more inside]
Make Way for Ducklings, 2019
On May 23rd, Boston Police issued a traffic advisory: Tremont Street was down to one lane. A brood of Boston ducklings had not one but two friendly officers to clear their path, as well as assistance from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission when one duckling fell into a storm drain and needed rescue. Channel 7 had a helicopter on the scene.
the railway’s revival hasn’t solely been due to the cats
On a bright May morning at Japan’s Idakiso train station, a small cat basked in the sun as her photo was taken by a group of tourists before getting a tummy tickle from a toddler. While the white, tan and black kitten purred and meowed in the arms of a visitor, one of the station workers looked on with a grin, interjecting only to gently reposition the cat’s brimmed conductor hat whenever it threatened to slip over her eyes. “Having her around the station makes everyone happy. I sometimes forget that she is my boss. previously
And you may ask yourself, well / How did I get here?
Samsung researchers have developed a GAN-based method for building "talking heads" or animated figures from one or a handful of still photographs (paper). [more inside]
Classic videogame/anime music interpreted for the xylophone
A YouTube channel where three Japanese women play classic videogame and anime music on a giant xylophone while wearing themed hats. "Corridors of Time" from Chrono Trigger
"Big Chocobo" from Final Fantasy III
"Love Song" from Dragon Warrior II
"He feeds all the cats... They all know him, and they know that buggy!"
On Wednesday, May 22 Floyd Martin delivered mail for the last time after 35 years at the United States Post Office. @Jennifer_Brett accompanied him and took photos of Floyd saying goodbye to the people on his route (SLT Thread).
A New Island in the Carceral Archipelago
"The military-surplus control console had three buttons labeled “Search,” “Track,” and “Destroy”—the last of which was mercifully disabled but often vigorously pushed by young probationers." An inventor of the first ankle bracelet trackers for criminals points out that smart phones will do everything that ankle bracelets will, are actually useful to prisoners re-entering society, and can be loaded with apps that will help prisoners remember court and parole officer dates, detect drug and alcohol use, and reward rehabilitation. [more inside]
A notably memory-inefficent way to generate fractals
Making fractals with recursive nested Powerpoint presentations and slides. How they work. A better way. [more inside]
This is the magic right here
Stephen Colbert plays D&D with Matt Mercer (YouTube) For Comic Relief's Red Nose Day this year Stephen Colbert teamed up with Critical Role's Matt Mercer for a one on one D&D session. Colbert's joy and enthusiasm is infectious, and Mercer offers up a DMing master class in the way he weaves the theme of Red Nose Day into the adventure.
Living My Best Life With My Curvy Wife
2 days with Curvy Wife Guy, the most controversial man in body positivity He’s just released a music video called “Chubby Sexy.” Will it silence his internet haters?
David Milch discusses his Alzheimer's in The New Yorker
David Milch's Third Act. The NYer's Mark Singer gives some background on Milch's writing process on Deadwood and interviews him about his current memory problems. "I've always said that he writes novels set like plays, and shot like movies, that air on television," Milch's daughter says. [more inside]
“It’s as though that was all I needed to see”
A week ago, Transworld Skateboarding released DAEWON, a documentary about the life and 30-year career of legendary skateboarder Daewon Song. It's free to watch on YouTube. [more inside]
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