Favorites from migurski
Subscribe:
Displaying post 201 to 250 of 741
“The state watched with interest.”
The Stasi Play Along by Denis Gießler [Zeit Online]
“At the time, the Commodore model was the world's best-selling home computer. But had it been up to the West, the computers would never have found their way into East Germany. In 1988, microelectronics were still on the list of embargoed products maintained by the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom). Western states had agreed they wouldn't supply any technology goods to the communist countries of the Eastern bloc. But the C64s had made their way into East Germany nonetheless, and GDR customs officials allowed them to pass. They didn't have a problem with the import of Western hardware. But software, and especially video games, were another matter. Their content was of great concern to East German officials.”
The Old Way Of Politics Is Dead
“I’m telling you this story because I imagine there are others, like me, who want to see a better, kinder world, but they’re not sure how to go about achieving it. When I was 24 I thought it was through proper, respectable channels: NGOs and civil political gamesmanship and gradual pressure for reform. I now know that those proper and respectable channels are an illusion, anesthetizing you to the fact that the world is a vicious brawl for resources, with capitalists leading every major offensive.” Why Do Nonprofits Exist? (Popula)
You have to bring your own pageant
At XOXO, Natalie Wynn (ContraPoints on youtube) talks about talking about fascists online [yt]. Features internet culture (the bad parts), personas, what hurts and what doesn't, and transitioning in public.
Flight from bondage and the subsequent reconstruction of civil society
The Masterless People: Pirates, Maroons, and the Struggle to Live Free
- "In the 'bizarre and horrifying world' of the early modern Caribbean, maroons and pirates both prized their freedom above all else. And sometimes they worked together to safeguard it."
Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science
In the summer of 1996, during an international anthropology conference in southeastern Brazil, Bruno Latour, France’s most famous and misunderstood philosopher, was approached by an anxious-looking developmental psychologist. The psychologist had a delicate question, and for this reason he requested that Latour meet him in a secluded spot — beside a lake at the Swiss-style resort where they were staying. Removing from his pocket a piece of paper on which he’d scribbled some notes, the psychologist hesitated before asking, “Do you believe in reality?”
Making Spies Disappear
For years, Jonna Mendez was undercover as a part of the CIA's Office of Technical Service. She later became the Chief of Disguise for the CIA. Here's a YouTube video of her talking about how spies use disguise.
Two taps to the head
What the hell happened to Darius Miles?
I know dudes like me aren’t supposed to talk about depression, but I’ll talk about it. If a real motherfucker like me can struggle with it, then anybody can struggle with it.
Borderline.
Borderline.
"Navigating the invisible boundary and physical barriers that define the U.S.-Mexico border."
A scrollable flyover of the entire border between the United States and Mexico.
A scrollable flyover of the entire border between the United States and Mexico.
those grey-white gas meter boxes on the outsides of terraced housing
"So playing this, every single time I see something undeniably British, which is approximately every 1.6 seconds in Horizon 4, I double-double-take." John Walker over at Rock Paper Shotgun writes about the strange un-uncanny valley roadtrip that is being a British person, raised on a diet of American driving games, confronting a driving game that is actually casually understatedly British.
"Monsters, if they are interesting, are unpredictable."
“Polysemy (from Greek: πολυ-, poly-, "many" and σῆμα, sêma, "sign"), the capacity for a sign, such as a word, phrase, or symbol, to have multiple meanings, usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field.” – definition adapted from WikipediaTrue Grit: From Weird Mascot to Eldritch Revolutionary
“If you cannot convince a fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.” – Gritty (probably)
Jesse Jackson ’88 tees are hot in Asia. Here’s why.
Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign logo trending in Asian fashion
"The Jesse Jackson ’88 “content” is the least important aspect of the shirt. In today’s globalized world, items can jump between cultures, but they mostly succeed in other places because they take on completely new meanings upon arrival."
Your Worst Nightmares
Imagine someone sneaked into your bedroom when you were asleep, peeled back your eyelids and scooped out your very worst nightmares then turned them all into sculptures. Well, that’s kinda like what Mexican artist Emil Melmoth [NSFW] has achieved with his gruesome, morbid, yet strangely compelling sculptures of deformed creatures and unnamed things that dwell in the night—he has made the terrors of darkness visible. [NSFW]
Conspiracy Theories Replace Systemic Understanding Of Oppresion
“Illuminati theory helps oppressed people to explain our experiences in the hood. Society throws horrible stuff in our faces: our family members get locked up for bullshit. Our friends kill each other over beefs, money or turf. Our future is full of dead-end jobs that don’t pay shit. We struggle to pay bills while others live in luxury. On TV, we see people all over the world dying in poverty, even though we live in the most materially abundant society in history. Most people act like none of these terrible things are happening. Why does this occur? We start looking for answers, and Illuminati theory provides one.
We believe Illuminati theory is wrong, and we wrote this pamphlet to offer a different answer. “ How to Overthrow the Illuminati: How conspiracy theories thrived in the aftermath of the Black Power movements and how to combat them.
We believe Illuminati theory is wrong, and we wrote this pamphlet to offer a different answer. “ How to Overthrow the Illuminati: How conspiracy theories thrived in the aftermath of the Black Power movements and how to combat them.
Lil' Globes
Little Big City
takes a map location and turns it into an adorable 3D globe: NYC, Hong Kong, Versailles, Chicago, Angkor Wat. Created by programmer Yi Shen
Dark gray t-shirt and blue jeans
The California Review of Images and Mark Zuckerberg is out with its 2nd edition documenting the perpetually apologetic mogul's visual culture.
The Daddy Dialectic
“The stench of this scene is age-old,” wrote the German philosopher Ernst Bloch in 1935.
For Bloch, the appearance of fascism in Europe was not the irruption of an unprecedented evil, but the expression of a deep-rooted structure in contemporary form; it unearths “a piece of fossilized moon,” shining down “a path which one strangely recalls.” Against the characterization of fascism as a unique horror, Bloch saw its orgies of cruelty as an uncanny return. “Old grotesque faces eerily arise […] the Nazi dances all night.”
“Both hell and heaven,” Bloch moaned, “have been surrendered without a fight.”
All you need is "to have an infinite amount of intelligence".
I am going to give what I will call an elementary demonstration. But elementary does not mean easy to understand. Elementary means that very little is required to know ahead of time in order to understand it, except to have an infinite amount of intelligence. There may be a large number of steps that hard to follow, but to each does not require already knowing the calculus or Fourier transforms. -- Richard P. FeynmanThis video recounts a lecture by Richard Feynman giving an elementary demonstration of why planets orbit in ellipses. See the excellent book by Judith and David Goodstein, "Feynman's lost lecture”, for the full story behind this lecture, and a deeper dive into its content. minutephysics takes some time off and lets 3Blue1Brown tell the story of Feynman's Lost Lecture. Orbital mechanics the Elementary way...
"To see oursels as others see us"
In those files, as I found from my own Polish dossier, it’s not only a younger half-forgotten self that you meet. It is also an unrecognisable stranger – yourself, as others have seen you. For nearly thirty years, hundreds of thousands of people have been reading their secret police files, the records of surveillance, denunciation and manipulation compiled by the spooks of communist Europe.
Movie: Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr. From her childhood in Vienna, brief cinematic career in Czechoslovakia, to her life and times in the United States, the film features extended audio interview recordings with Hedy, and recent interviews with her children and a grandchild, as well as some of Hedy's friends and colleagues. [Trailer]
Redefining the Hero
Tom and Lorenzo present a three-part essay series on costume design for heroic female characters.
Book: Exit West
In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through...
Heroes & Villains
We habitually conflate the concepts of “protagonist” and “hero” (and “antagonist” and “villain”).
Getting over the shoulder of the S curve
Invisible Asymptotes
is an essay from Eugene Wei about finding and overcoming the limits to a system's growth, using Amazon and popular social networks as examples.
A brief look at the Earth from above
This is a short video by Páraic McGloughlin composed of thousands of Google Earth images.
A brief look at the earth from above, based on the shapes we make, the game of life, our playing ground - Arena. [Photosensitivity warning: flashing imagery.]
RIDE! ALL! THE! BUSES!
In 1980, two recent graduates of U.C. Berkeley managed to ride every one of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's bus lines in a single day. Today, two San Francisco Chronicle reporters managed to repeat the stunt in 18 hours: #TotalMuni2018
Done right, casting is an invisible act
Nina Gold's
role is an invisible one, and yet her taste has shaped much of what we watch, from The Crown to Game of Thrones. A Guardian long-read which touches on class, diversity and #metoo.
It's a regional expression
Maybe you were aware of the steamed hams scene from the Simpsons season 7, episode 21. Maybe it was brought to your attention.
But did you know that it's been reinterpreted as an anime, as a GTA: San Andreas mission, as Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return, Arrested Development and Blade Runner?
Overwatch and DBT: Why it's time to teach boys coping skills
On Tuesday, March 20, a user on Reddit posted to the subforum of a popular video game: "My wife is a therapist. After I kept complaining about Overwatch losses, she made me fill out this worksheet." Even though this was posted as a “humor” item, the comments section abounded with a (perhaps surprising) amount of gamers earnestly embracing the worksheet as a tool for reflection. Commenters identified with the checklist of cognitive distortions. Some said that they would try to use this approach in other parts of their life that cause frustration.
How do I learn how to delegate, against all my instincts?
I'm terrible at delegating work, but I need to start doing it more. How can I overcome my hesitation and fears and learn to delegate in a professional and effective way? I'm looking for helpful books or maybe a class I could take in NYC.
photo roulette
Guess the year of a Library of Congress image in Photo Roulette!
The dinosaur’s undersea burial preserved its armor in exquisite detail.
The more I look at it, the more mind-boggling it becomes.
Fossilized remnants of skin still cover the bumpy armor plates dotting the animal’s skull. Its right forefoot lies by its side, its five digits splayed upward. I can count the scales on its sole. Caleb Brown, a postdoctoral researcher at the museum, grins at my astonishment. “We don’t just have a skeleton,” he tells me later. “We have a dinosaur as it would have been.”
“That letter destroyed my life. And it was worth it.”
Talia Jane (previously) reflects on the backlash & aftermath of the open letter she wrote two years ago about the low wages she was paid as a customer service employee at Yelp.
Blue Marble Data
planet.parts
is a set of links to "Near-realtime Earth observation resources"
"Burning Man is the very model of the Puritan ideal."
Logic Magazine interviews Fred Turner
about Silicon Valley and techno-utopianism. (Turner previously on metafilter)