David Bowie Live | 1983 | Sydney | Serious Moonlight Tour | Pro shot | Complete Concert [1h50m] "On the 20th November 1983, David Bowie performed his final Australian concert of the Serious Moonlight tour. This Betamax recording was taken from a sight screen feed made at that time. The first couple of numbers, plus the end have some artefacts but, as it hasn't been viewed in nearly 40 years, the quality overall has held up well. The audio was in mono and has been remastered to bring it out more." [more inside]

Healthy at age 74, she decided there was nothing on earth still keeping her here, not even us. It is September 28, 2022, the day before my mother is scheduled to inject herself with 15 grams of Nembutal — enough to sedate three and a half elephants, the doctor says. She would not need to worry about waking up or being cremated alive. This was a relief to her, Mom says with a smile. cw: suicide

Osaka trains derailed by giant cats [more inside]

Dear Tim Cook: Be a Decent Human Being and Delete this Revolting Apple Ad [more inside]

This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. The first time you get our message, you only will only find one thread. Short fiction by Caroline M Yoachim.

“the conclusions of this paper were disseminated to over 5 million people and less than 0.02% of them actually read the full text or the retraction notice. The result is roughly 5 million misinformed people”. What is ‘evidence-based’? [more inside]

"Tims is always going to be able to lean on the ordinary Canadians thing in their advertising. It is a habit.” [more inside]

How did Creed, the most hated band of the 1990s, become so beloved—and even cool? [Luke Winkie] sailed the seas with thousands of fellow lunatics to find out. [more inside]

Set to the music of recent Hawaiian artists, The Edge of Paradise (SLYT) is a quiet, contemplative documentary on Taylor Camp, a treehouse community of war veterans and hippies that thrived on a jungle-backed beach on Kaua'i in the 1960s and 1970s (cw: black and white archival stills of unclothed community members, oral recollections of police actions against the community).

So please, remember: there are a very wide variety of ways to care about making sure that advanced AIs don’t kill everyone. Fundamentalist Christians can care about this; deep ecologists can care about this; solipsists can care about this; people who have no interest in philosophy at all can care about this. Indeed, in many respects, these essays aren’t centrally about AI risk in the sense of “let’s make sure that the AIs don’t kill everyone” (i.e., “AInotkilleveryoneism”) – rather, they’re about a set of broader questions about otherness and control that arise in the context of trying to ensure that the future goes well more generally. from Otherness and control in the age of AGI by Joe Carlsmith [more inside]

How King’s College Added 438 Solar Panels to a 500-Year-Old Chapel. The project sparked debate over how to decrease carbon emissions while preserving the historic structure’s architectural beauty.

I believe this is from 2007. The Seinfeld Roundtable [1h] has the core cast plus Larry David sitting around talking about the show. Michael Richards doesn't speak much. I enjoyed it enough to share.

f-off, Cartoonist K.C. Green's cathartic single-panel gag comics.

Steve Albini, lengendary producer (engineer) and musician has died of a heart attack at age 61. He worked with everyone from Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to Nirvana, Pixies and The Breeders.

Eccentric conspiracist and Presidential candidate RFK, Jr. had brainworms. NYT: R.F.K. Jr. Says Doctors Found a Dead Worm in His Brain. "The presidential candidate has faced previously undisclosed health issues, including a parasite that he said ate part of his brain." [more inside]

A rare archaeological object – thought to be the only one of its type in the former Roman Empire – has been discovered in Carlisle, England. The remnants of the Roman bathhouse at the Carlisle Cricket Club have revealed an extremely rare chunk of Tyrian purple dye, the first of its kind ever discovered in northern Europe and possibly the entire Roman Empire. [...] Known as “imperial purple,” tyrian purple was an extremely valuable dye in ancient Rome because of its rich, vivid color, which denoted imperial authority, wealth, and status. It took a lot of resources and labor-intensive procedures to produce even small amounts, as it was made from thousands of crushed sea snails (Bolinus brandaris) from the Mediterranean. This rarity and exclusivity meant that it was more valuable than gold, sometimes up to three times as much by weight.

Fun fact: If a buyer wanted to know if there was something fishy about their exquisite dye, they could always see if it passed the smell test -- read the straight poop inside. [more inside]

A solution that is only a solution for the people who can afford to be a part of the solution is not a solution A hour long video about cooking, food, race, gender, class and capitalism.

Guardian: World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target. “Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed. Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.” [Daily sea surface temperature]

Zoey Alexandria, voice actor, singer, and instructor for transgender voices, has passed away at the age of 29. She spent much of her adult life dedicated to helping other trans people navigate their way through finding new voices and addressing vocal dysphoria. Her YouTube channel is a valuable resource for others during and after transition. [more inside]

Perhaps you have heard of or watched the popular Netflix series You Are What You Eat: A Twin Study that launched earlier this year. The docuseries follows some participants in the Stanford Twin Nutrition Study (TwiNS): Vegan VS. Omnivore run by Dr. Christopher Gardner in which 22 pairs of twins ate an omnivorous or vegan diet for eight weeks. The results indicated improved metabolic health and received wide media coverage. [more inside]

North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs. A local authority has announced it will ban apostrophes on street signs to avoid problems with computer systems. North Yorkshire Council is to ditch the problematic punctuation point as it says it can affect geographical databases. The council said all new street signs would be produced without one, regardless of previous use.

360 Video: NASA Simulation Plunges into a Black Hole answers the question of what it would look like to fall into a black hole. If you’d rather not, NASA also released 360 Video: NASA Simulation Shows a Flight Around a Black Hole. They also released videos explaining what is going on in the visualizations for the dive into the black hole as well as the flight around it. The press release has more information.

Europeans have more time, and Americans more money. It is a cop-out to say which you prefer is a matter of taste. There are three fairly objective measures of a good society: how long people live, how happy they are and whether they can afford the things they need. A society must also be sustainable, as measured by its carbon emissions, collective debt and level of innovation. So which side does it better? [Financial Times; ungated]

Hamas accepted ceasefire Arms pause [more inside]

The Chair is a 24-minute NSFW short horror film with a strong sense of the uncanny which begins when a man picks up a chair from the street. [more inside]

NYT: Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity California draws more electricity from the sun than any other state. It also has a timing problem: Solar power is plentiful during the day but disappears by evening, just as people get home from work and electricity demand spikes. To fill the gap, power companies typically burn more fossil fuels like natural gas. That’s now changing. Since 2020, California has installed more giant batteries than anywhere in the world apart from China. They can soak up excess solar power during the day and store it for use when it gets dark. [more inside]

Dashing around the course on a single wheel at speeds that seem very unwise, taking hairpin turns while trying to maintain position, driver camera footage as well as drone footage... I have never seen anything quite like Monocycle Mayhem: Epic Battles Unleashed | 12 Thrilling Laps on Spanish Asphalt | Electric Unicycles [10m] It feels a bit chaotic at the start but by the midpoint I found it much easier to follow the narrative of the race. It's quite a thing to witness!

Koala briefly runs through a triathlon. [more inside]

A friend shared this on Facebook. I am so blown away: Whales saving Whales

How cool is this? indeed

Originally published in 1979, 'The Akhenaten Temple Project and Karnak Excavations' is a nice shapshot of the projects overview. "Akhenaten built the Gem-pa-Aten in the third year of his reign to celebrate his jubilee festival (the heb-sed). By year six of his reign, however, Akhenaten had moved the court and royal palace to a new city in Middle Egypt, modern Tell el-Amarna. The extent to which the Gem-pa-Aten and the other structures dedicated to the Aten at Thebes functioned during the king’s hiatus is unknown." from Digital Karnak, A nice index for the history and archeology in Karnak. (Digital Karnak previously)

a video review by Patrick Boyle Well, what it says on the tin...

I used resume spammers to apply for 120 jobs. Chaos ensued. (ungated, archive)

BARABAR, THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF THE FUTURE [2h] "2,300 years ago, in India, 5 chambers were carved inside enormous granite rocks. According to rudimentary inscriptions engraved at their entrances, they were purportedly offered by a king to serve as monsoon shelters against rain for a sect. WELCOME TO THE HEART OF ANCIENT INDIA, IN A FORGOTTEN CHAPTER OF ITS PAST... THAT COULD VERY WELL CHANGE HISTORY." [more inside]

At an incredible 461 feet (140.53 meters), the baguette baked on Sunday, May 5 has officially exceeded the previous record held by Italy. The municipality of Suresnes now holds the Guinness World Record. (SLNYT)

Wherever the blame lies, at the heart of the story are humans operating, ruptured, in an institutional machine. Many of the 42 are still ‘deeply injured’ by the incident, said Simon, who acts as their unofficial spokesperson. As the whole affair unravelled, the diocese was already under immense strain. The COVID lockdowns set clergy against their bishops, with many priests livid at having to close their churches. Others were angered by moves to invest millions in a new wave of informal congregations meeting in pubs, coffee shops and cinemas. And throughout it all there was division and tension over the church-wide culture war about gay blessings. ‘There’s so little trust at the moment,’ Roger reflected. ‘And in London, all the anger and the issues have a face: that face is Martin Sargeant.’ from In the Shadow of St Paul’s [The Fence; ungated] [CW: suicide, misogyny, homophobia.]

"The term might be unsettling, but we believe it is appropriate. Pick up any business textbook and you will never see the history of the past thirty years described this way. A title like Thomas Davenport’s Big Data at Work spends more than two hundred pages celebrating the continuous extraction of data from every aspect of the contemporary workplace, without once mentioning the implications for those workers. EdTech platforms and the tech giants like Microsoft that service them talk endlessly about the personalisation of the educational experience, without ever noting the huge informational power that accrues to them in the process." (Today’s colonial “data grab” is deepening global inequalities, LSE) [more inside]

A little activity from a Common Kestrel nest near Windsbach, Germany.

Rare oceanic phenomenon brought on by heavy rainfall. When Terry Dixon took his usual walk around the Tathra headland on the New South Wales far south coast, he encountered a rare phenomenon brought on by heavy rainfall.

The process of making a mirror ball. The last remaining mirror ball manufacturing factory in Japan. [14m30s] Depicts making a mirror ball. Actually pretty interesting.

Who Has the Right to “Disrupt” the University? Perhaps the most egregious example of the administrator-as-disruptor is Gordon Gee, currently the president of West Virginia University (WVU), whose administration pushed through extraordinarily deep cuts to the institution’s academic offerings last fall. During a meeting of the faculty senate, Gee said “I want to be very clear that the university is not dismantling higher education. We are disrupting it . . . And many of you know I am a firm believer in disruption.” [more inside]

Variety obituary. Part of a stunt-work family, Epper started stunt work herself at age 9. She was Lynda Carter's stunt double for the Wonder Woman television show in the 1970s, and did stunt work in many iconic films.

Tom Walker tries desperately, with halting success, to complete some very basic missions in Grand Theft Auto 4 while all the cars on the map lose their fucking minds. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Come for the comedy car deaths, stay for the slow evolution of a "this is a horror stealth game" playstyle that makes it at all possible to make progress.

Motown Junkies is a blog where Steve Devereux is reviewing the entire Motown singles discography in sequential order from the beginning. You can also browse tracks by songwriter, label and artist. He’s currently up to 1966, though he’s been on hiatus for a few years. He also used to present Discovering Motown on Radio Cardiff, and the archive is on Mixcloud.

Chris Biggs' shorts on 80s classics - oh the memory of cigarettes and Strawberry Shortcake!

It's strangely entrancing and quite fascinating, but here's time-lapse photography of mealworms eating various things -- apple, cherry, reddish sprouts, cheeseburger, even a Carolina Reaper pepper. CAROLINA REAPER VS MEALWORMS [8m] I didn't expect this would be so interesting, but it really is. [more inside]

I was playing TimeGuessr the other day (a game where you try to ID a random photo in time and space -- thanks, Klipspringer!). Often you can tell the city from context, but not necessarily where in the city, so I try to drop a pin right in the middle to up my odds. But this made me wonder -- how does *Google Maps* pinpoint where a city is, exactly? They have to put the label somewhere. You'd think it would be the exact center, or maybe city hall, but it seems to vary -- in New York it's City Hall, but in London it's Charing Cross. Rome is the Piazza Venezia, Cairo is Tahrir Square, and Tokyo is Tokyo Station. My own hometown isn't city hall, or even the football stadium (roll tide), but literally the main entrance to an Embassy Suites, which is nice-looking but not exactly the crossroads of the city. So if you're comfortable sharing the city you're from (or in, or would like to be), where does Google think it really is? Does that place seem like a good, representative choice, or would you pick elsewhere? If you closed your eyes and wished yourself to the "heart" of your favorite city, where would you end up and why? Discuss these geographical quandaries and more in your weekly Free Thread! [more inside]

From a certain angle, the review feels less like a piece of music criticism and more like a Dada-ist joke on what music criticism even is. Or at the very least like a shitpost that was prophetic in its use of the visual, flippant language people would soon be employing en masse to post about art online. Squint, and it’s a masterpiece … of some kind. But it goes down in the stats sheet as an actual review—and in that sense, it wasn’t really fair to Jet. from The Ballad of Ray Suzuki: The Secret Life of Early Pitchfork and the Most Notorious Review Ever “Written” [The Ringer]

On a patch of earth big as a Bunnings car park, renters get to join in on the solar boom. A five-hour drive from Sydney, a community garden of sorts has sprouted. But instead of sharing tomatoes or lettuce, "gardeners" harvest solar energy. And it's already a hit with people otherwise excluded from the rooftop solar boom.

'Lost Sheep'. A paper stop motion film by Lukas Rooney. (slyt. 7:16)

What happens if a US presidential candidate dies? Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the two oldest candidates in US history. If either needs to be replaced, what next? from the Guardian [more inside]