August 8, 2015
California With The Death Penalty
The nicer a place Singapore becomes, the more it is flooded with outside capital and migration. That raises the cost of land and thus rents and home prices. Imagine if I didn’t own a home and suddenly Fairfax, VA became like Beverly Hills or Palo Alto. I would have to pay more, but wouldn’t benefit much from the proximity of the movie stars or the tech titans.
The political reaction is to make Singapore an even nicer place to live, which is what you would expect from a competent government. That’s great, but in some ways it makes the underlying problem worse by attracting additional foreign capital and labor. The city becomes more Westernized and more corporate and land values rise all the more.A simple theory of Singaporean complaints.
The most beautiful airplane that never flew
The Bugatti 100p (Yes, *that* Bugatti) was a remarkable airplane and an innovative design. A single-seat air racer, it was supposed to have been the fastest thing in the skies with a projected top speed of almost 500MPH. [more inside]
A 'constant chorus of skepticism' about the"establishment."
"They Don’t Give a Damn about Governing... Once allied with but now increasingly hostile to the Republican hierarchy, conservative media is shaping the party’s agenda in ways that are impeding Republicans’ ability to govern and to win presidential elections."
Got a few few hours this Sunday?
We can never keep, never predict our fortunes for the coming year (mlyt)
August 8 is the birthday of Faye Wong (a/k/a Wang Fei a/k/a 王菲 ).
Mefi's own Zompist had this to say about her her. [more inside]
One Way or Another
"In a patent dispute between two pharmaceutical giants arguing over who owns the royalty rights to a lucrative wound-dressing solution, their lordships sat in judgment over an issue that would have tested the mettle of the finest mathematical logicians; and in the process coined a new legal definition of “one”." [more inside]
BadBadNotGood: the kids are alright (and jazz isn't dead)
Back in December 2011, three kids (none over 21) who were studying jazz bonded over their love of hip-hop, performed a live cover of Gucci Mane's "Lemonade". It was noisy and jammy, but jazzy, and the crowd loved it. The trio followed up with a live video titled The Odd Future Sessions Part 1, which got love and support from Tyler, The Creator. BadBadNotGood (BBNG) took off from there, and are still going .... [more inside]
Reinventing Science
Science "explains things" in various ways. You can start with initial conditions, and apply laws of motion (classical kinematics). Or you can predict things via evolving probabilities (quantum mechanics). Or you can find emergent laws (thermodynamics). Or ... - There are many different modes of explanation. Recently, David Deutsch invented a new one: Constructor Theory. [more inside]
Nom Nom Noma
Rene Redzepi, of Noma restaurant, has a beautiful instagram feed. Here are photos of a "Danish", crispy cabbage, segments of citrus, gooseberries, the "ellen-selfie" for chefs, fiddlehead, porcini, a giant conch, honeycomb. How do they get all these ingredients? (Previously).
Spoiler: There’s a lot of Mo’ Wax
Writing for FACT, Laurent Fintoni and John Twells have compiled a list of the fifty best trip-hop albums. (Before you freak out, realize that particularly big artists all only get one entry, and the list is confined to the 1990s.) The list is reproduced inside, with links to entry pages, artist info, and (when available) Youtube streams. [more inside]
No matter what, Edward will always be special.
"He Who Controls the Spice Controls the Universe"
Use of K2/Spice continues to rise, despite public health officials in many parts of America declaring it a national health crisis. But let's take a look back. Like many in the American military where its use remains twice as popular as marijuana, some early users may have thought that K2/Spice (or "synthetic marijuana") was a safer, more responsible alternative to weed for managing their substance abuse problems and for self-medicating anxiety disorders. After all, until recently, it was still sold legally throughout the country, and convenience stores everywhere sold the stuff. [more inside]
China’s most controversial,most honored, most censored author
Vandals
“We had to block the road, we had to call out the bomb squad, we had to call up supervisors to come down, we had to close everywhere off because your vehicle was parked in a higher security hotspot in London with that written on the sides. That’s the justification, it doesn’t say ‘Spain is Great’, ‘Italy is Great’, whatever.” Counter-terrorism police were called this week to investigate a family van parked in central London, with ‘Iran is Great’ emblazoned on its sides [more inside]
“This is the literature of Louisiana.”
Patter and Patois by Walter Mosley [New York Times] Walter Mosley writes about his relationship to the literature of Louisiana.
“Louisiana flowed in that blood and across those tongues. Louisiana — a state made famous by Walt Whitman and Tennessee Williams, Ernest Gaines and Arna Bontemps, Kate Chopin and Anne Rice. These writers, from many eras, races and genres, took the voices of the people and distilled them into the passionate, almost desperate, stories that opened readers to a new kind of suffering and exultation.”
xkcd explained
You know those days when you read the latest xkcd comic, and you sit there, scratching your head, clueless as to the meaning, scared that someone will reference it and your response will immediately expose you as the idiot that you are? Relax, the explain xkcd wiki answers all your questions. You too can smile at the in jokes, understand the math, and get the obscure references.
or you could just memail Randall
Small Science
Not all science is about going to Pluto, curing cancer, or ripping apart the fabric of the universe. Chris Buddle gives an object lesson in curiosity, passion and science for its own sake. [more inside]
The Many Origins of the English Language
KROQ Freddy Snakeskin On Air, circa 1983
Former DJ Freddy Snakeskin has posted in-studio footage from the glory days of LA's legendary "Rock of the 80s" KROQ FM. [more inside]
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