September 23, 2019
PLAN A
This four-minute audio-visual piece is based on independent assessments of current U.S. and Russian force postures, nuclear war plans, and nuclear weapons targets. It uses extensive data sets of the nuclear weapons currently deployed, weapon yields, and possible targets for particular weapons, as well as the order of battle estimating which weapons go to which targets in which order in which phase of the war to show the evolution of the nuclear conflict from tactical, to strategic to city-targeting phases. [more inside]
OFFICIAL TRAINING VIDEO
Veterinary Technician Training: Handling a Fractious Cat
Could have made a great section in Fantasia
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor -- African Suite: Danse nègre [6m24s] was composed in 1898, recorded here by Paul Freeman with the Chicago Symphony in 2000. While not African-American (he was English), Coleridge-Taylor toured the US multiple times and is perhaps the "father" of Black American Classical Music. This delightful little diversion serves as a good step into exploring classical music composed by African-Americans. [more inside]
Will You Still Love Pete, tomorrow…
Blame mosquitoes, not sonic weapons
Canadian researchers have hypothesised that the mysterious "sonic attacks" at the US embassy in Cuba (previously) were actually symptoms of repeated, low-dose exposure to neurotoxins found in insecticides. The reason for this exposure? Increased fumigation to stop the spread of the Zika virus. The full research report.
"Crazy Russian Bluegrass"
Olga Egorova is a mandolin/octave mandolin player from Moscow, and a member of Duo Ro, a guitar and mandolin duet (with Roman Palmov). Some of her tunes: "Mad Mood," ABBA's "Money" (performed on octave mandolin and a scooter), Isaac Albéniz's "Asturia," a "Russian - Ukrainian Medley," "Tarantella," David Grisman's "E.M.D." and some "Crazy Russian Bluegrass." More on her YouTube channel and Duo Ro's channel.
“I’m aware of sex”
"I truly didn’t expect the “sapiosexual” discourse to flare up again five years after OkCupid added the term to its list of categories — thus inflicting it upon the mainstream dating world — and two years after the New York Times finally got around to their trend piece." You're Not A Sapiosexual, You're Just Annoying: Miles Klee on knowing when you really need a label (and when yours is embarrassing).
Did a genetically modified-mosquito experiment go wrong?
From 2013 to 2015, an English biotech company released millions of genetically modified mosquitoes into neighborhoods in Jacobina, Brazil, in an effort to reduce the number of native disease-carrying mosquitoes. Its strategy: Deploy (nonbiting) male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes bearing a gene that should doom most of their offspring before adulthood. The method has successfully reduced native mosquito populations by at least 85%. Unexpectedly (Live Science), some of the gene-edited mosquitoes passed on their genes to the native insects, fueling concerns that they created a more robust hybrid species (Scientific Reports). The study is now being criticized for making that claim (Science).
"Here upon I begin the new life which I have chose to live."
Richard Hofmeier made one of the finest videogames of the 21st Century, the outsider art masterpiece Cart Life. Then he disappeared. Now he's back with a new game. [more inside]
The Environmental Movement Needs to Reckon with Its Racist History
Because racism in environmentalism hasn’t gone away, and it’s holding the movement back. [more inside]
I'll put the next one in jail!
Unix at 50: How the OS that powered smartphones sprouted from failure
Unix, the operating system that in one derivative or another powers nearly all smartphones sold worldwide, was born 50 years ago from the failure of an ambitious project that involved titans like Bell Labs, GE, and MIT. Largely the brainchild of a few programmers at Bell Labs, the unlikely story of Unix begins with a meeting on the top floor of an otherwise unremarkable annex at the sprawling Bell Labs complex in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Unix at 50, Richard Jensen (Ars Technica) recaps the era from Multics (MIT; Multicians) to GNU and Linus Torvalds, pulling heavily from science historian Michael S. Mahoney's interviews (Princeton).
It's a joke
If we find ourselves moving dizzily from outrage to outrage from week to week, we should consider that being outrageous has never cost so little or earned professional contrarians and provocateurs so much. When they’re not weeping into plates of hors d’oeuvres about Twitter, they may well be writing for the Times or The Atlantic, finishing up a forthcoming best-seller, or taking up a standing invitation to join Bill Maher on national television. Such is life under cancel culture. It is mostly good.--Osita Nwanevu: The “Cancel Culture” Con [cw: descriptions of jokes about sexual assault, bigoted speech and violence against marginalized people]
gourmet ero guro by kazuo ishiguro
The Gourmet is a 1987 television drama and a neglected early work by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro - rarely repeated and never released on video, it is now available* on YouTube. Directed by Michael Whyte from Ishiguro's screenplay, The Gourmet is an absurdist gothic satire about a world of competitive international gourmets, who search for new tastes to excite their jaded palettes. But when human flesh (dried or fresh) becomes hum-drum, how is our hero to banish his boredom? [more inside]
WHERE IS METROID PRIME!??!?!
The 50 best video games of the 21st century. [The Guardian] “Want to build worlds, become a crime kingpin, get lost in space, or enter the afterlife? Then our countdown of the 50 best games of the era has something for you.”
Equinoctial, Old Hundredth, Roog and Chun the Unavoidable
Equinoctial PDF by John Varley
Old Hundredth by Brian Aldiss
Roog by Philip K. Dick
Liane the Wayfarer by Jack Vance [more inside]
Old Hundredth by Brian Aldiss
Roog by Philip K. Dick
Liane the Wayfarer by Jack Vance [more inside]
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