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"Music for Airports" generator
Brian Eno created Music for Airports by recording single notes, 3-4 note phrases, and choral harmonies each on their own track of magnetic tape. Then, cutting the tapes to different lengths and splicing them into a loop, he fed them through a tape player at the same time, creating his famous, infinitely-long, never-repeating composition. Reverb Machine isolated each loop, letting you recreate the composition as it was originally designed. At the other extreme, you can watch humans trying to precisely recreate this randomness live in an airport.
Mechanical Watch
In the world of modern portable devices,
it may be hard to believe that merely a few decades ago the most convenient way to keep track of time was a mechanical watch.
Scars and Bars
You probably remember the video of Gary Chambers telling Connie to resign from the school board for shopping instead of talking about racism. Or maybe you saw his recent campaign video about the racism of marijuana prohibition. Well, he just released a new advertisement where he sets fire to a confederate flag.
Why Galesburg Has No Money
There are plenty of towns our size, especially if you look outside the US, that are able to be financially solvent while we struggle.
"This is a story about how we re-developed this town."
Step One: Get the Beat
Dancing With Systems
is an essay listing a dozen+ ways of thinking about, working with and enhancing systems. The author is Donella Meadows, one of the authors of environmental classic, The Limits To Growth.
From the list, e.g. "#7. Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
President Jimmy Carter had an unusual ability to think in feedback terms and to make feedback policies. Unfortunately he had a hard time explaining them to a press and public that didn’t understand feedback.
He suggested, at a time when oil imports were soaring, that there be a tax on gasoline proportional to the fraction of U.S. oil consumption that had to be imported. If imports continued to rise the tax would rise, until it suppressed demand and brought forth substitutes and reduced imports. If imports fell to zero, the tax would fall to zero.
The tax never got passed."
—Christmas is almost down our throats.
Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levis, suede jacket, sneakers and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia.
"You’ve got to get out clean when the mission’s over."
"The lieutenant is not stupid; she is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, so I’ll have to be extra careful about how I rewire this security door panel so she doesn’t notice I’ve inserted something that shouldn’t be there, a tiny chip that someone from outside can activate to open the door without triggering any of the ship’s notification systems." "How to Defeat Gravity and Achieve Escape Velocity" by Miyuki Jane Pinckard (published this year) is a short science fiction story involving a crush, sabotage, abandoned asteroid miners, and a heist or two nested within a scheme.
Music/logic apps?
Fairly early in the smartphone era, I had a phone game that was a logic game or puzzle using simple geometry and also ?harmony?, represented by something like fluid dynamics. It was pleasant to listen to and got difficult pretty quickly. I think it started in black and white and developed colors. The name was vaguely portentous, and maybe started with R. Do you remember such a thing?
So uh, who pays for your eye-related medical care?
The other day I went to urgent care and was given a referral to an ophthalmologist at a hospital, who told me that my sudden weird vision was an ocular migraine. Ok all good! Except my insurance didn't pay for it...and neither will my vision insurance? Who pays for this stuff? (in the US)
All day long, all day long, on the chaise longue
Still looking for a song of the summer? Allow me to recommend Wet Leg's debut single Chaise Longue, which a commenter describes as "like if Anne of Green Gables invented punk." And if you're still looking for fashion inspiration after that, their follow-up suggests... dressing like an Amish lobster? Sexy silly fun stuff all around.
People make Glasgow
The people of Glasgow gathered quickly, and peacefully, in their hundreds today, to save two asylum seekers from detention after a dawn raid on the morning of Eid.
The two men were awakened in their flat in Glasgow's Southside at dawn by the Home Office Immigration Enforcement team and loaded into the waiting van outside. But their removal to a detention centre was blocked by five local residents who gathered in front of the vehicle, one then wedging himself beneath the van. Word quickly spread, and soon hundreds of local people had gathered peacefully in the street outside the men's flat, surrounding the van and calling for their release.
Google v. Oracle
The United States Supreme Court has decided in favor of Google [pdf] in the case of Google v. Oracle, essentially resolving a case begun 11 years ago. The 6-2 majority* avoided deciding whether or not the Java API was copyrightable. Rather, it held that, even if the API is copyrightable, Google's use of the API for Android was fair use. SCOTUSblog has more.
“Is a whale a fish?” Illegal drugs in Japan in 2020
Japan likes to present itself as the only developed nation with effective drug prohibition, with lifetime cannabis use at 1.8%, compared to over 40% for the US and Canada. However, 2020 was an unusually tumultuous year for Japanese drug warriors. The most fascinating event has been a highly exceptional and irregular trial (still ongoing, link courtesy of archive.org as the site seems to be down) of one 青井硝子 (AOI Garasu, "Blue Glass", a pseudonym), that hinges on whether a "tea" (a simple water extraction of plant material that is not itself illegal, but contains a prohibited substance, DMT) can be considered an illegal "drug". Things took a turn for the strange when the defendant stood up in court and asked, "Is a whale a fish?".
"Two studs wide and angled at 45°"
George Cave looked at 52 examples of the LEGO "2×2 decorated slope", the type of brick typically used for minifig instrument panels. Many of them illustrated design philosophies underlying real-world interface design. Some of them did not.
AWD and Flat Tires
I have read that if an all-wheel drive vehicle has a flat front tire, then a rear tire must be swapped to the front before then replacing the rear tire with the spare. Is this true of all all-wheel drive vehicles?
A blind and opaque reputelligent nosedive
Data isn't just being collected from your phone. It's being used to score you.
- "Operating in the shadows of the online marketplace, specialized tech companies you've likely never heard of are tapping vast troves of our personal data to generate secret 'surveillance scores' — digital mug shots of millions of Americans — that supposedly predict our future behavior. The firms sell their scoring services to major businesses across the U.S. economy. People with low scores can suffer harsh consequences."[1]
“It’s an idiotic story: young people go to fight bugs”
How “Starship Troopers” Aligns with Our Moment of American Defeat (single link new yorker)
Verhoeven told Empire, in 2014, that he couldn’t finish reading it. With the possible exception of Mary Harron’s “American Psycho,” it’s hard to think of a film adaptation that’s more invested in refuting and satirizing its source. The anti-Fascism of “Starship Troopers” is mordant and merciless, but Verhoeven advances his argument by making its every frame lavishly, overbearingly Fascist.
Local currencies' time to shine
Complementary currencies for municipal finance
- "It is an act of criminal malfeasance that the United States' federal government has not eased the tremendous fiscal pressure on states and municipalities, enabling them to prioritize public health and long-term economic wealth over immediate maintenance of tax revenue. Misgovernance of the United States presently rises to the level of war crime (and that is not just Donald Trump). A recent article by Rohan Grey, aptly titled Monetary Resilience, highlights one way this national misgovernance might be circumvented. Municipalities could issue complementary currencies..." (via)
Unrest continues for a seventh day in former British colony
Unrest and protests continued for a seventh straight day in the former British colony of the United States as the government vowed to use its military to end the demonstrations, US media reported on Tuesday.The Thai Enquirer reports on the ongoing unrest in the country that the natives call America.
four Good Emperors, some forgotten guy, and one more Good Emperor, then:
Obama Aurelius: on undead imperialism, Laurie Charles
Birds who put all their stat points into Has No Chill and Has Yes Volume
The adventures at Lazy E Farm (belated multiple link Tumblr): Today Goofus the Peacock killed a mouse | Their first great flirtation | It’s not that the peacocks are smarter, but for some reason they care about things that don’t matter. | And they're jumpy about things they don't understand
Rejoice Greatly indeed
Trinidadian soprano Jeanine DeBique performs 'Rejoice greatly' from Messiah (SLYT)
People are gagging over her ability to accurately and gorgeously render the challenging coloratura of this piece at near breakneck speed, with such warmth and expression. Her slow sections are equally beautiful. At the 2:25 mark, her use of straight tone is devastating. DeBique is in a class by herself.
A triumphant plutocracy has enslaved the vast body of our people"
The Menace of Enormous Fortunes
Income inequality, 1906.
Greatest Story Ever Told, Greatest Trick Ever Pulled
Authority
- "We construct authority. How we construct it is among the most important social, ethical, and technological problems we face."
a specter is haunting the employment market ...
Why Democrats Should Embrace a Federal Jobs Guarantee
To explore the possibility of Democrats’ running on a guaranteed-job plan, we asked the respected data analytics firm Civis Analytics to not only poll guaranteed jobs, but poll it in the way that would be most likely to gain opposition from voters. They asked respondents: “Democrats in congress are proposing a bill which would guarantee a job to every American adult, with the government providing jobs for people who can’t find employment in the private sector. This would be paid for by a 5 percent income tax increase on those making over $200,000 per year. Would you be for or against this policy?”"52 percent in support, 29 percent opposed, and the rest don’t know."
How can I get better at solving NYT crossword puzzles?
I've been trying to improve my crossword game for a few months now, and I feel like I've hit a rut. I can usually solve the Wednesday puzzles, but beyond that, I have a lot of trouble getting through them. Are there any strategies for improving my crossword skills? I solve them either on the NYT website of their crossword app, if that makes any difference. Thanks!
the most important part of learning is actually forgetting
New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning
- "A new idea called the 'information bottleneck' is helping to explain the puzzling success of today's artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn."
We are here to keep watch, not to keep.
When Things Go Missing
is a wonderful essay on the habit and art of losing things. But it's more than just about a misplaced set of keys or a lost wallet (or even a truck). In this New Yorker piece, Kathryn Schulz lures us in with a lighthearted take on the everyday annoyance of misplaced objects (and practical tips to find them!), then invites us to ponder the cognitive process behind the lost-and-the-found. But then she surprises us by stepping candidly from there into more personal and touching territory. At the end, when losses threaten to erase all hope, she ends the essay with two powerful paragraphs that gives meaning to it all.
Apply yourself to supply your wealth
The Universal Right to Capital Income
- "If a universal basic income is to be legitimate, it cannot be financed by taxing Jill to pay Jack. That is why it should be funded not from taxation, but from returns on capital." (via)
Don't Be Afraid Of The Art Of Noise
The new orchestra will achieve the most complex and novel aural emotions not by incorporating a succession of life-imitating noises but by manipulating fantastic juxtapositions of these varied tones and rhythms. Therefore an instrument will have to offer the possibility of tone changes and varying degrees of amplification.In 1984, inspired by concepts outlined in The Art Of Noises, a 1913 Futurist manifesto by Luigi Russolo [HTML version, PDF pamphlet version] and new music technology , a musician, a audio engineer, a programmer, a producer, and a music journalist came together to form one of the most influential music collectives of all time. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for you, a definitive look at the Art Of Noise.
ID this book: Napoleonic Wars, tame goat
Can you identify this 1800s (?) Eastern/Central European novel based on the half-remembered description of an unintentionally hilarious sex scene?
Your Call: A young black man's education
Mychal Denzel Smith, author of Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, discusses his new book: "We have to be willing to let go of the things that we think that we like about ourselves because if they are things that deny others access to respect and dignity and humanity, then they're not things worth having. So we have to be willing to let go." (MDS: previously)
The AIDS Activist and the Banker
Peter Staley was a 24 year-old banker at J.P. Morgan when he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985. His brother, Jes, worked there as well. In a Q&A with Fortune, they discuss how their paths diverged,
How to buy a car in the U.S.S.R.
It was a bit harder than you might think....
Ronald Reagan told the joke:
a guy in a Soviet country is told he has a 10 year wait for a car.
This man laid down the money, and the fellow in charge said to him:
Come back in 10 years and get your car.
The man answered: Morning or afternoon?
And the fellow behind the counter said: Ten years from now, what difference does it make?
And he said: Well, the plumber is coming in the morning.
Ronald Reagan told the joke:
a guy in a Soviet country is told he has a 10 year wait for a car.
This man laid down the money, and the fellow in charge said to him:
Come back in 10 years and get your car.
The man answered: Morning or afternoon?
And the fellow behind the counter said: Ten years from now, what difference does it make?
And he said: Well, the plumber is coming in the morning.
It's not secular stagnation; it's financialization.
Elizabeth Warren has a great idea for making Tax Day less painful
- "She's taking on TurboTax and other predatory companies."
What's changed and changing about (American) politics?
The three party system
- "There are three major political forces in contemporary politics in developed countries: tribalism, neoliberalism and leftism (defined in more detail below). Until recently, the party system involved competition between different versions of neoliberalism. Since the Global Financial Crisis, neoliberals have remained in power almost everywhere, but can no longer command the electoral support needed to marginalise both tribalists and leftists at the same time. So, we are seeing the emergence of a three-party system, which is inherently unstable because of the Condorcet problem and for other reasons."
“I just need to be me now, because I’ve had enough.”
What is actually going on with men, right now?
What are they afraid of and unwilling to talk about? How do the inner lives of men affect women, other men, our culture? We see men struggling to define themselves at a time when gender definitions are expanding. We see men dealing, sometimes gracefully and sometimes not, with the weight of their power. And we learn that what it means to be a modern man is just like everything else: complex, messy, and always changing. Medium presents: The Men Issue
Boolosian logic
The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever goes like this:
Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for “yes” and “no” are “da” and “ja,” in some order. You do not know which word means which.
Patent Data Visualization
PatentsView is a new patent data visualization platform from the US Patent and Trademark Office. The PatentsView beta search tool allows members of the public to interact with nearly 40 years of data on patenting activity in the United States. Users can explore technological, regional, and individual-level patent trends via search filters with multiple viewing options. The database links inventors, their organizations, locations, and overall patenting activity using enhanced 1976-2014 data from public USPTO bulk data files.
"It was necessary also to fish for one's dress"
Chiara Vigo is the last master of weaving the sea-silk cloth bysso [byssus]and showcases her art at Museo del Bisso in Sant'Antioco, Sardinia.
bookfilter
Books that have really worked for me in recent memory: Vladimir Nabokov's stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. All of these were totally obsessive experiences for me, and I'm not sure why. What should I read next to be similarly engrossed?
2015 Nebula Award Winners
The 2015 Nebula Award Winners have been announced.
Dealing with the transition to the information age
BIG and BOT Policy Proposals
(transcript) - "Many of our current economic policies originated during times of scarcity. But now, says investor Albert Wenger, we live in an era of 'digital abundance', when creating new products costs virtually nothing. To adapt to the resulting economic upheavals, we won't need just more tech, says Wenger, but some strong policies. Here he explores two: basic income guarantee and the right to be represented by a bot."
Future so bright
Yes, yes—We live in the Gibsonian tomorrow, the grim meathook future, the ever-weirder cyberpunk dystopia. But it won't be that way forever. Well, it might get weirder. But good-weird. To that end, the latest anthology from The Sockdolager, You Gotta Wear Shades, contains an astonishing seven tales of brighter futures. Because we happen to think things are in fact gonna get better.
20 Best New Beers of 2014
"Here’s an understatement for you: 2014 was a great year for beer.
Seriously, it’s hard to put into words just how awesome American craft beer was this year. IPAs got sessionable, then they got fresh-hopped, breweries collaborated like hip hop moguls, older (let’s call them classic?) breweries reinvented themselves with ambitious experiments while young breweries helped push the envelope of style and taste…there were hundreds, probably thousands of new beers hitting the shelves and taps all year long, challenging our palates and expectations day after day. It’s an exciting time to be alive."
Examples of amazing but still accessible writing?
I'm not a smart man. But I do enjoy well written things. But well written books, poems, articles or whatever sometimes seem to be to hard to get into.
Anyhow I would love to have examples of what people find to be amazing, creative and perhaps unique in the form of the written word. I don't care if it is famous or not. The best of the best of accessible yet amazingly written works. Thanks!
"distinctly queer and contemporary, as if retrofitting a classic car"
"Longings and Desires", a Slate.com book review by Amanda Katz:
[Sarah] Waters, who was born in Wales in 1966, has carved out an unusual spot in fiction. Her six novels, beginning with Tipping the Velvet in 1998, could be called historical fiction, but that doesn’t begin to capture their appeal. It is closer to say that she is creating pitch-perfect popular fiction of an earlier time, but swapping out its original moral engine for a sensibility that is distinctly queer and contemporary, as if retrofitting a classic car.
Her books offer something like an alternate reality—a literary one, if not a historical one. There may have been lesbian male impersonators working the London music halls in the 1890s, as in Tipping the Velvet, but there were certainly not mainstream novels devoted to their inner lives and sexual exploits. Waters gives such characters their say in books that imitate earlier crowd-pleasers in their structure, slang, and atmosphere, but that are powered by queer longing, defiant identity politics, and lusty, occasionally downright kinky sex. (An exception is her last novel, The Little Stranger.) The most masterful of these books so far is Fingersmith, a Wilkie Collins-esque tale full of genuinely shocking twists (thieves, double-crossing, asylums, mistaken identity, just go read it). The saddest is The Night Watch, a tale told in reverse of a group of entwined characters during and after World War II. But among many readers she is still most beloved for Tipping the Velvet, a deliriously paced coming-of-age story that is impossible to read in public without blushing.
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