July 27, 2018
The power and politics of the black barbershop
Motherhood in the age of fear and judgment
People don’t only think that leaving children alone is dangerous and therefore immoral. They also think it is immoral and therefore dangerous. Kim Brooks writes in the NYT: "We now live in a country where it is seen as abnormal, or even criminal, to allow children to be away from direct adult supervision, even for a second." Unsurprisingly, it's mothers who bear the brunt of criticism for making rational (and legal) parenting decisions.
Fred Rogers was my real-life neighbor
Mr. Rogers was my actual neighbor. He was everything he was on TV and more. (Adam Eisenstat, Vox)
"Color ... betwixe yelow and reed"
Orange, however, seems to be the only basic color word for which no other word exists in English. There is only orange, and the name comes from the fruit. Color or Fruit? On the Unlikely Etymology of “Orange” by David Scott Kastan with Stephen Farthing via LitHub [more inside]
Welcome to the green room. Take off your flip-flops and stay awhile.
U.S. surfer's epic ride of nearly a mile on wave is captured on video. "Perched precariously on his surfboard, the 23-year-old from Hawaii rode a wave off the coast of Namibia, on the western shore of Africa, for 120 straight seconds. He stayed upright for nearly a mile (1.5 kilometers) as he traveled through an unheard-of eight barrels -- the hollow formed by the curve of the wave as it breaks over the rider's head." POV video. Drone video.
Will a title come to me when I'm not thinking about it?
The Sherpa of New York
Atop a dark Himalayan ridge, a short, silhouetted climber gazes at the icy jags of Mount Thamserku. That climber is Serap. One of the world's best climbers now sells climbing gear to people who seldom know who he is.
Getting Power And Keeping It
“Faris is arguing that unless the progressive majority finally learns to emulate the energy and the fighting style of the Republicans, American democracy could disappear altogether within our own lifetimes.” Battle Hymn Of The Democrats: why it’s time for liberals to fight dirty. (The Guardian) “There are some very good ideas in It’s Time to Fight Dirty, but because Faris doesn’t believe that a good policy creates its own constituency, he ends up preferring complicated technocratic solutions like eight Californias, a rotating Supreme Court or fines for non-voters just to get around the problem that he assumes is a permanent feature of American life: that rural states will always be Republican. The recent red state uprisings like the teachers’ strike leave me unconvinced of that argument.” Review of ‘It’s Time To Fight Dirty’ (Midwest Socialist) Faris interviewed about his book and the things Democrats could do once in power on Zero Hour (41:00) Chapo Trap House (1:10:00)
Japan’s Y2K problem
On 30 April 2019, Emperor Akihito of Japan is expected to abdicate the chrysanthemum throne. The Japanese calendar counts up from the coronation of a new emperor, using not the name of the emperor, but the name of the era they herald. But that brings problems. For one, Akihito has been on the throne for almost the entirety of the information age, meaning that many systems have never had to deal with a switchover in era. For another, the official name of Naruhito’s era has yet to be announced, causing concern for diary publishers, calendar printers and international standards bodies. Via
Getting a bit older and getting along with Underworld and Iggy Pop
While overseeing the soundtrack for T2 Trainspotting, Underworld’s Rick Smith arranged a meeting with Iggy Pop in a room at The Savoy Hotel on London’s Strand to discuss working on collaborative music for the film. Their respective tracks "Lust for Life" and "Born Slippy (Nuxx)" had perfectly bookended the first Trainspotting film two decades previously. On arrival, Iggy found a fully working studio set up and eagerness to get cracking. The results are all out now: Teatime Dub Encounters EP ("Bells & Circles" | "Trapped" | "I'll See Big" | "Get Your Shirt")
2012: End Of World Or Just Death of America's Ego, c/o Trump?
Old, violent, dominant ideologies sense that their demise is coming and therefore need to fight this hard in response. What we are seeing is the oppressive identity of America crying out in pain because of the damage that our awareness has done to it.[more inside]
AWOOOOO
It is impossible to cheat at solitaire.
Politaire does not assign scores to you or time you. You know better than we when you have done well. It can count your wins and losses, but you can change the counts. [more inside]
Artemesia in London
Earlier this month, the National Gallery of Art expanded their holdings of women artists by purchasing the Baroque artist Artemesia Gentileschi's Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria. [more inside]
Devendra Banhart - live@quiet, please!
Why don't slow your day down and spend about 10 minutes with folk musician Devendra Banhart, solo and acoustic? (SLYT) [more inside]
Original Sin
Our Bodies or Ourselves - "The collection and storage of people's biometric data fundamentally changes the relationship between citizen and state. Once 'presumed innocent', we are now, in the sinister words of former UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd, 'unconvicted persons.' " (via)
“There’s a type of accomplishment, to grow and build and overcome...”
Meet the real-life farmers who play Farming Simulator [The Guardian] “Imagine that you spend most of your day ploughing fields, sowing seeds, spraying fertilisers or pesticides, harvesting crops, feeding livestock (if you have any), repairing fences, and maintaining a half-dozen different kinds of farm machinery. You do this every day, all year, in all weather. And then, in the evening, you sit down at a computer to do it all again – virtually. Farming Simulator is a long-running video game series played by about a million people. The game’s creator, Giants Software, estimates that as many as a quarter of its players are connected to farming in some way, and around 8-10% are full-time, professional farmers.” [YouTube][Trailer] [more inside]
Monster Munch is fundamentally a low crisp for dogs
What Your Choice of Crisps Says About You - Or: Walkers Sensations have made me lose my mind.
Cannibal AI and pancakes
This spreadsheet is a collaborative list of strange machine-learning behaviour discovered when the systems exploits a bug or a lack of behavioural constraints. It includes indolent cannibals - AI agents which bred offspring as a free energy source - and a pancake making robot that optimised for pancake throwing height. It is simultaneously wonderful and deeply worrying.
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