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Laser-sensor technology reveals ancient cities in Amazon rainforest
Laser-sensor technology reveals ancient cities in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. The settlements were occupied around 500 BC and 300 to 600 AD — a period roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire in Europe.
Finding Copernicus's grave
Copernicus's grave was lost for centuries. An unlikely discovery finally solved the mystery. A team of archaeologists discovered the remains of the 16th-century father of modern astronomy, who was the first to demonstrate that the Earth orbits the Sun.
The companies themselves are bullshit
For much of this century, optimism that technology would make the world a better place fueled the perception that Silicon Valley was the moral alternative to an extractive Wall Street—that it was possible to make money, not at the expense of society but in service of it. In other words, many who joined the industry did so precisely because they thought that their work would be useful. Yet what we’re now seeing is a lot of bullshit. from It's All Bullshit [The Baffler; ungated]
Good places to work on a laptop in Berkeley?
I grew up and lived in Oakland and Berkeley but have lived in New York now for many moons. I'll be out there this week and need to do some work while I'm there. Can you recommend cafes (or other places) that are good for working on a laptop? Relatedly, for any Cal students in the house, when I was a student, anyone could waltz into at least some of the libraries. Doe, for instance. Has that all changed? Or would I be able to work there?
"A salient example of how monopoly power can infringe on core freedoms"
Lina Khan, US Federal Trade Commission Chair, sits down for an interview with Adam Conover (podcast version) to talk about anti-trust reform and her high-profile battles against monopoly power in America. They discuss her influential article, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox", the New Brandeis movement, the FTC's new merger guidelines, and how monopolies affect everything from insulin prices to non-compete clauses to anesthesiology to big tech and more.
"A sovereign entity with the power to mobilize all of society"
By the end of the 1990s, capital had triumphed and consolidated a new neoliberal spirit of the laws. But, as Maier makes clear, neoliberalism was not about expanding the reach of the market, the rallying cry of its advocates, per se. Rather, it was about shifting the income distribution from labor to capital. This was to be done by any means necessary. While it sometimes required deregulation and the removal of the state, it just as frequently required the use of state power – especially American power – and the legitimacy conferred by recommendations from Harvard experts. from The Evolution of Modern Political Power [Project Syndicate; ungated]
"So, when do the cops actually enforce gun laws?"
Investigative journalist David Forbes (previously) writes on the US gun control debate: "As a journalist I've investigated police departments for over 20 years. The reality is that they will not enforce gun laws against white supremacists, the far-right or the kind of abusive guy that makes up 95 percent of mass shooters on any scale that matters. They do not do so now and they won't in the future." Her post "A reality check on cops and gun laws", published June 5, 2022, aims to rebut assumptions "often held unconsciously by people who are in good faith trying to find an answer to appalling violence." Content warning: police and gun violence, hate crimes, domestic abuse. Disclaimer: I know David Forbes and she is a friend of mine.
Qanon is lolicon
Anarcha-feminist writer RiotLinguist on Qanon: It is important to understand that QAnoners consume QAnon AS pornography. it is NOT about "protecting children," it's about the consumption of children's bodies as sites of highly sexualized boundary violation, the "violated innocence" fantasy (link to original twitter thread).
They've (under the name narcissus) written about the problems with the book Harmful to Minors, how body autonomy [of children and adolescents] is not synonymous with “sexual availability,” and misogynists and pedophilia apologists in anarchist movements. Content warnings for (non-specific) discussions of child sexual abuse and predatory behavior, additional content warnings in individual essays.
They've (under the name narcissus) written about the problems with the book Harmful to Minors, how body autonomy [of children and adolescents] is not synonymous with “sexual availability,” and misogynists and pedophilia apologists in anarchist movements. Content warnings for (non-specific) discussions of child sexual abuse and predatory behavior, additional content warnings in individual essays.
The Status Quo-alition
In his most recent 'collection' military historian Bret Devereaux describes
the Status Quo Coalition. Summed up in a tweet, he thinks
the current international system is less 'American hegemony' and more a coalition of status quo powers, of which the USA is the 'team captain.'
Radical Software
Radical Software
Is “print about tape - a magazine by “underground” video people designed to spread ideas and applications for new television technology.” - Raindance Corporation, 1971
A Thoroughly Modern Form
But very short fictions need not be concessions to workshop practicalities, the Internet, or shallow attention spans. They can also be—as my extracts show us—serious explorations of the formal possibilities of extreme compression. from The Art of Compression by Richard Hughes Gibson
Sci-fi, hold the fantasy
I need book recommendations! One of my favorite genres is science fiction, but only hard sci-fi and speculative fiction, NO FANTASY. Trying to find a regular source of book recs is tricky because they all seem to include fantasy. Any recommendations?
A Freedman Writes His Former Master
Jourdon Anderson, a formerly enslaved person, responds to a request from his former master to return to work for him.
An Idea That Any Child Could Express in a Single Simple Sentence
It amazes me that a group of people could make a movie about being afraid of a hole, being attracted to a hole, feeling excited and curious about going into a hole, feeling concerned that, while on the one hand it might not be such a good idea to go into the hole, on the other hand maybe all the best things in life will become possible only after you have gone into the hole, and so on. It’s not the feelings that amaze me; I feel them all myself. It’s the idea that $20 million and a crew of more than a hundred crew members should have been devoted to dramatizing, over ninety minutes, an idea that any healthy child could express in a single simple sentence. from It’s Nineteen Seventy-Nine, Okay [The Paris Review; ungated]
The cursed universes of Dana Sibera
The #1 adjective others seem to put under her creations routinely and casually shared on Mastodon is cursed. Sibera seems to think likewise. “They are terrible for the most part, but better out of my head than in,” she wrote when I asked. Marcin Wichary writes 2400 words with lots of pictures for the newsletter Shift Happens. [via lobste.rs]
No Database is Neutral
Over time, the mere existence of such databases becomes a continued justification for their use, so entrenched are they in everyday governance, in policy and decision-making. They aren’t merely representative of everything that the state already knows about an individual, but what’s possible for the state to know, if and when it becomes ostensibly necessary. from Database States by Sanjana Varghese
Hoping to expand my meal-prep repertoire!
Ongoing food sensitivity issues have forced me to learn to cook, and I have now mastered two 'meal prep' menus. Looking to expand my repertoire!
The heroic age of the tech giants is over
In his recently rebooted newsletter The Amazon Chronicles, Tim Carmody (previously) is exploring how Amazon and the other tech giants have moved from a "heroic" phase focused on growth and championing the liberatory value of their products to maintaining profitability above all else: The ideal for a tech company in 2023 is either docile humans ready to consume what they've been given, or better still, no humans at all.
21 old films from 1895 to 1902 colorized and upscaled in 60 fps, w/sound
Lumiere films from the very early days of film, subjected to various ML refinements and coupled with foley sounds, and you've got some amazingly modern looking movies from 125 years ago! 21 old films from 1895 to 1902 colorized and upscaled in 60 fps, with sound runs 22 minutes, with the first 4m33s describing the upscaling process.
Some dispute over T-shirt sales
That time Ministry trolled their record company and it paid off.
What rocks you these days? 🤘
Please recommend good current (Δ<=5y) heavy metal / hard rock.
Sounds clear, let's have a fish fry!
Outdoor Sound Propagation in the U.S. Civil War.
"In each of these seven battles listed above, the inability of commanders to hear and interpret the sounds of battle was directly responsible for the outcome. One might even go so far as to say the acoustical shadows determined the course of the entire war."
How Can People Be Expected to Live on These Salaries?
In most literary novels, there is little indication of how the protagonist earns a living and is able to afford their lifestyle, or if there are attempts at these indicators, it’s clear that the numbers don’t add up. from If They Want to Be Published, Literary Writers Can’t Be Honest About Money by Naomi Kanakia
a civilized and graceful concession
I post this to let y'all know that da share z0ne (previously) has now posted perhaps the graphic most? or least? suited for reference in MetaFilter discussion: "Thank's for the infomation / I changed my mind / I was wrong / It won't be the last time / bitch" of course accompanied by a leather-clad skeleton arcing colored energy between their hands.
Who's telling me this? How do they know it? What are they trying to sell
Science Education in an Age of Misinformation, a 51 page report (pdf).
Co-author Carl Bergstrom summarizes in a Twitter thread: [Science] textbooks largely traffic in certainties—the settled "facts" of last year's science. This can be terribly disorienting when science-in-the-making is suddenly thrust into public view by ongoing events... Students need to know about how scientists manage uncertainty.
It still doesn't suck: BBEdit turns 30
First announced on USENET in 1992, BBEdit has always offered powerful text-editing to Mac users. This week it turns thirty, and is still going strong!
Try pinky, but hole
Tiny Elden Ring: Elden Ring, but zoomed out and tilt-shifted and everything moving in a low-framerate Harryhausen stutter.
Better Call Saul: Official Season 6 Trailer
The trailer for Better Call Saul season 6 is out, and after a long hiatus, the series starts April 18!
The Black Falconer
Rodney Stotts was looking to get a short-term "on the books" job so he'd have the paystubs he needed to convince landlords to rent him his own apartment, where he could more comfortably expand his real line of work--as a mid-level drug dealer in Southeast DC. The first employer who called him back was Earth Conservation Corps, an environmetal group focused on cleaning up the Anacostia River. There began Stotts' journey from drug dealing and prison to environmentalist and master falconer--perhaps unique among "escape from life on the streets" accounts.
Fraud is no fun without friends
The work-from-home phenomenon has triggered a fresh frustration for U.S. corporations: Americans are blowing the whistle on their employers like never before. Matt Levine [Bloomberg Opinions] contextualizes the findings: grooming new people to engage in fraud takes time, social flattery, and bonding, and COVID isolation makes that a lot harder and makes it a lot easier for new people to complain to compliance officers. More data on the phenomenon from the SEC at Bloomberg.
i have no idea what you're talking about
In 2019's Dismissive Incomprehension: A Use of Purported Ignorance to Undermine Others, Matthew J Cull explores the common rhetorical tactic of pretending that someone has not made sense but has uttered "gibberish," in order to discredit their argument. How does the tactic work...and what can be done to counteract it?
What does "bodies" mean to social-justice academics?
Social-justice-oriented academics often use the word "bodies" in a certain way - e.g., when speaking of "Black bodies" or "queer bodies". What is the origin and meaning of this usage?
Lil Nas X is the boundary-smashing pop revolutionary of 2021
Lil Nas X is the boundary-smashing pop revolutionary of 2021 [NPR medium read] "Nas' creative output is fully on trend with today's renaissance in Black LGBT+ pop culture that includes everything from ball culture TV series Pose, risqué HBO teen melodrama Euphoria and the irreverent, sexually-frank, Black gay Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop."
The World Needs Slides
Smart Business
and Challenge of Change are just two examples of a nearly-forgotten media format collected by the AV Archaeology channel: computer-synchronized multi-projector slide shows (via).
More on the economics of the US Supply Chain and a possible improvement
Clogging up the ports is a $150 billion business, but a bipartisan bill to re-regulate the sector is moving through Congress. Why is Congress about to do the right thing?
From BIG, Matt Stoller's newsletter about the politics of monopoly. Discusses the "trucker shortage" and the economics behind container shipping.
Looking for new hard SF book recommendations
My favourite books are:
Blindsight by Peter Watts
The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch,
The Last Policeman by Ben H Winters,
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Anything new out there like these? Amazon and Good Reads have failed me.
What happened to Katherine Langridge's Narnia essays?
Unless my memory is playing tricks with me, Katherine Langridge used to have a whole series of excellent essays about the Narnia books on her Seven Miles of Steel Thistles blog.
But they've gone missing. Does anyone know why, or whether they are still accessible somewhere?