February 22
CLICK AND DRAG to look around and use WASD to move the camera
noclip.website
A browser-based 3D model viewer that lets you explore reverse-engineered video game maps.
A browser-based 3D model viewer that lets you explore reverse-engineered video game maps.
MetPublications
Peter Sjöstedt-H on Mind, Panpsychism, Philosophy and Psychedelics
The foundation of Western philosophy is probably rooted in psychedelics. "In the 1960s, intellectuals such as Aldous Huxley were fascinated by the effects of LSD, but today most professors are far too worried about respectability and tenure to investigate psychedelics themselves. Which is somewhat ironic, given that the field of Western philosophy has a huge debt to psychedelics, according to Peter Sjöstedt-H, a philosoph[er] who has written a book on the philosophical significance of drugs. In fact, one of Plato’s most-cited theories may have been a direct result of hallucinogenics." [more inside]
An attacker is never one of my students.
I start to think in terms of students and attackers. The training encourages this result. Everything about its vocabulary is designed to dehumanize our aim. The instructors’ military language—“soft targets” and “areas of operation” for schools, “threats” for shooters, “tactical equipment” for guns—rubs off. On the final day, a pep talk analogizes students with lambs. We are the sheepdogs, charged with protecting them from the wolves.
Love, Sex and Female Empowerment
A collection of gorgeous yonic gifs by Ghazaleh Rastgar. They’re technicolor celebrations of self love, resistance and sexuality.
A busy week in space
All kinds of missions are under way. Humans and our machines are working hard.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo touched the edge of space for a second time and with an extra passenger. After circling and dropping landers on an asteroid, JAXA's Hayabusa2 landed upon its surface and shot a probe into it. NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe examined its own asteroid for "multiple, bright, point sources."
Far away from the inner solar system, NASA's New Horizons probe caught and shared even better images of Ultima Thule. [more inside]
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo touched the edge of space for a second time and with an extra passenger. After circling and dropping landers on an asteroid, JAXA's Hayabusa2 landed upon its surface and shot a probe into it. NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe examined its own asteroid for "multiple, bright, point sources."
Far away from the inner solar system, NASA's New Horizons probe caught and shared even better images of Ultima Thule. [more inside]
Lost pets, ham, and creepy messages
The University of Groningen's University Library City Centre has put all of the items left behind by patrons in 2018 on display. This prompted a Twitter user to query to the University of Winnipeg Library about lost and misplaced items, and the library shared a photo, via Twitter, of a "burrito" found in one of its books. Meanwhile, lost pets, ham, and creepy messages are just a few of the things Atlas Obscura readers have said are The Best Things Found Between the Pages of Old Books, and Things Found in Books is a self-explanatory Flickr group devoted to the topic.
The science of Hula-Hooping, as individual hoops or with a TON of hoops
Swiveling Science: Applying Physics to Hula-Hooping Have you ever wondered how Hula-Hoops work or what makes them able to spin around a person's waist or arm—seeming to defy gravity? The answer can be explained by physics, which can help you determine what makes an effective Hula-Hoop. In this activity you'll get to create your own Hula-Hoops and investigate how their weights affect how they spin. Which do you think will spin better, a heavy hoop or a lighter one? Get ready to do some hula-hooping to find out! Got it? Good. Now try it with 300 Hula-Hoops. It's almost impossible (Wired), but not quite, if you're as good as Marawa Ibrahim—aka Marawa the Amazing. [more inside]
She is gonna be something good in a few years, I tell you! Watch out ;)
Long Form Linsanity
Born to Run The Numbers (previously) presents another issue of their multi-year series on a mid-tier starting point guard who is frequently down but never out: Jeremy Lin. Part One (2015); Part Two (2016); Part Three (2017); Part Four (2018). More previously:
Jeremy Lin, Jeremy Lin, Jeremy Lin
Phone Apps quietly ship data to big companies, in this case, facebook
WSJ: "You Give Apps Sensitive Personal Information. Then They Tell Facebook." Many apps, whether iOS or Android (though maybe not KaiOS?), build in libraries from other companies. For small development teams, app analytics tools provide a quick and free way to see how people use your app. Showing advertisements makes a little money. And hey, everybody does it. What could go wrong? The Wall Street Journal identified a couple problem areas: heart rates, periods, househunting
Voltaire never had to deal with online comment sections.
"The Culture War Thread aimed to be a place where people with all sorts of different views could come together to talk to and learn from one another. I think this mostly succeeded. [...] you may have already guessed things went south. What happened? The short version is: a bunch of people harassed and threatened me for my role in hosting it, I had a nervous breakdown, and I asked the moderators to get rid of it." Slate Star Codex's Scott Alexander on the birth and death of a megathread, and how even an actively-managed discussion can go terribly, destructively awry. [more inside]
“I need to sleep, I can't get no sleep”
Insomnia, by Faithless (alternative link, original and long), was first released in 1995, became a minor hit, then was re-released, sold a lot more, and is still performed (2009) and remixed. Insomnia can also be successfully played on a toy octopus. Lyrics and previously on spoons. Faithless consist of Maxi Jazz, Sister Bliss and Rollo Armstrong. Other Faithless songs include Salva Mea, We Come 1, God is a DJ, and One Step Too Far (featuring Dido, sister of Rollo).
18 individual threads and 145 steps
In 2015 and 2016 the TV show Archer put together insanely complex scavenger hunts for fans. Walkthroughs (2015, 2016) and behind the scenes (2015, 2016).
FANNY
Big Data and Big Oil
“Last year, Google quietly started an oil, gas, and energy division. It hired Darryl Willis, a 25-year veteran of BP, to head up what the Wall Street Journal described as “part of a new group Google has created to court the oil and gas industry.” As the VP of Google Cloud Oil, Gas, and Energy, Willis spent the year pitching energy companies on partnerships and lucrative deals. “If it has to do with heating, lighting or mobility for human beings on this planet, we’re interested in it,” Mr. Willis told the Journal. “Our plan is to be the partner of choice for the energy industry.” How Google, Amazon, Microsoft, And Big Tech Are Automating The Climate Crisis. (Gizmodo)
It is O.K., finally, to freak out. Even reasonable
David Wallace-Wells (previously) wants you to know that fear might be the only thing that saves humanity. As yesteryear's worst-case ceiling of two degrees becomes today's best-case scenario where we face 150 million excess deaths from air pollution alone in this century, his latest piece in the New York Times argues that the time for caution is long gone. [more inside]
Making history visible
The Black History Trail Across Massachusetts: People often think of Boston as either “where fugitive slaves came and were ‘rescued’ by the abolitionists, or as the place where people were throwing bricks at black children” during busing protests in the 1970s. The goal of the African American Trail Project is to “complicate the narrative,” to fill in gaps, show African-American people in all their dimensions and place present-day struggles for racial justice in a continuum.
Economics for Inclusive Prosperity
Economics After Neoliberalism - "Contemporary economics is finally breaking free from its market fetishism, offering plenty of tools we can use to make society more inclusive." [more inside]
53 days of Chaos
On January 1st 2019 Brazil´s democratically elected fascist assumed power.
Jair Bolsonaro’s First 53 Days As President Of Brazil Have Been A Resounding, Scandalous Failure.
So much has happened over the last 7 1/2 weeks that it’s impossible to take stock of it all. But by looking through the wreckage, perhaps you can get a sense of Brazil’s political life as of late.
Jair Bolsonaro’s First 53 Days As President Of Brazil Have Been A Resounding, Scandalous Failure.
So much has happened over the last 7 1/2 weeks that it’s impossible to take stock of it all. But by looking through the wreckage, perhaps you can get a sense of Brazil’s political life as of late.
te reo Māori rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody
Incredible live version of Bohemian Rhapsody in te reo Māori by choir and the music video, (by the same group) which is good fun. [more inside]
"Did you know she never once criticized my appearance?"
My favorite strip was "Peanuts," which, if I’d been paying attention, contained some lessons for me about the world that lay ahead. "Peanuts" was just one broken heart after another.–What "Peanuts" Taught Me About Queer Identity by Jennifer Finney Boylan.
High risk: anti-vaxxers in the delivery ward.
“Tell me more,” I say, because I sense that the mother is holding something back.
She looks down into the baby’s face as she replies, so softly I almost don’t catch it. “I don’t believe it is right to pierce his holy body with a needle,” she says.
At that, my heart softens, because this is the kind of objection I feel for. It is not based on risks that science has proven are imaginary, or on false notions of “toxins”, or fear of chemicals that occur naturally in foods and the soil and are added to medicines. This mother’s child is holy, and his body is perfect and we ought to leave it be. [more inside]
food=love
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner is a supercut of food scenes in animated movies by The Royal Ocean Film Society, a.k.a. Andy M. Saladino.
February 21
SO COOL, they're hot!
Thought y'all might enjoy some cookstove theory from the Aprovecho Research Center. (pdfs)
"The bubble sort would be the wrong way to go"
“COME, LINK…. LET US AWAKEN…TOGETHER!!”
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s [re:]Awakening [YouTube][Switch Trailer] [Original Gameboy Gameplay] “Nintendo is bringing the 1993 Game Boy classic adventure The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening to Nintendo Switch later this year. The re-release is more than just a Virtual Console-style release, it’s a complete 3D “reimagining” of the classic Zelda adventure. As Link, players will once again return to the island of Koholint for new adventures. While the new Link’s Awakening will retain the top-down — and occasionally side-scrolling — view of the Game Boy original, the Switch remake will use 3D models and employ a stylish, toy-like aesthetic.” [via: Polygon] [more inside]
"goat-palated people" is the best thing I've heard all day
Sam Sanders, host of NPR's It's Been A Minute, addressed his Twitter followers
Tell me your Weirdest eating/drinking habit you had as a kid!
I’ll go first: When I was like 8 years old, I used to carry a little bottle of apple cider vinegar around wherever I went, taking a swig every now and then like a lush w/his flask.
As a child, my brother would eat sticks of butter out of the fridge, under cover of night. We were strange.
Scientists solve mystery of ‘art acne’ on Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings
O’Keeffe’s “Pedernal, 1941”—a sweeping vista of pinks, greens, and yellows creeping up the canvas to the mountain’s darkened summit—is experiencing a peculiar kind of decay. The artist noticed it herself, remarking on granulations, discoloration, and small spots where the paint disappeared altogether in letters to conservator Caroline Keck in 1947. Known as surface protrusions, or “art acne”, this pimpling afflicts oil paintings from every time and place. But the reasons for O’Keeffe’s deformations, which only grew worse over the decades, remained a mystery. [PopSci] [more inside]
"My left shoe won't even reboot."
"It was a gift for me when I realized: I’m done."
At the beginning I never thought of becoming a candidate myself.
Immigrant, math Ph.D., farmer, and judge Dalip Singh Saund wasn't just the first Asian American elected to the US Congress. He was also a cofounder of the India Association of America and an activist whose work helped lead to the 1946 passage of the Luce-Celler act, which allowed immigrants from India and from the Philippines to be naturalized as US citizens. Ten years later, he won Burbank, California's seat in the House. "In the winter of 1957 I was able finally to keep the promise I had made in the campaign that if elected to Congress I would go to India and the Far East and present myself as a living example of American democracy in practice." [more inside]
This like a post on a private Instagram account called "brown eyed Earl"
True Facts: The Lemur. A fascinating and informative new short documentary on lemurs by natural historian Ze Frank.
San Francisco Diggers
reroute my energy to a more interesting source of shame
I’ve never liked cucumbers, mostly because they taste bad. My cuke avoidance is what’s known as a food aversion, and although aversions are widespread in the United States, hating a food that others love is socially coded as fussy or unsophisticated. People with many or severe aversions often experience isolating anxiety or social opprobrium. For people like me, it’s more commonly just a nuisance that might inspire an occasional eye roll...the good news, according to researchers, is that most people can reset their neural pathways to one day enjoy—or at least tolerate—a nice gazpacho. (SL The Atlantic)
Grief is Like a Ball in a Box
You've heard about "Comfort in, Dump Out". But maybe you're well past the acute stage of grief and finding yourself suddenly off balance and having trouble communicating what's happening. Grief is like a ball in a box.
Scary times in Portland's queer and leftist scene
On February 14th, local Portland, OR newspaper the Willamette Week reported that Lieutenant Jeff Niiya of the Portland Police Department had a friendly rapport with Joey Gibson, the leader of extremist right wing group and Proud Boys allies "Patriot Prayer", who are based out of Vancouver, WA, but are a constant presence in Portland due to the group's constant rallies, which have become a hive of violence between Patriot Prayer/Proud Boys and antifascist counter-protesters. [more inside]
Megachile pluto is Rotu ofu, (once and still) Queen of the bees
In the 1850s, Alfred Russel Wallace (Wikipedia), a tall, skinny, reserved young explorer, went traipsing through tropical forests in the Malay Archipelago (Wiki), collecting specimens to be sold back in England. One of them was a specimen a local brought to him, “a large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a stag-beetle,” (The Malay Archipelago, 1890 edition via Archive.org), and it was the largest bee known in the world. Megachile pluto (Wiki) was presumed extinct into the early 1980s, when it was re-discovered (abstract), only to disappear from sight again. Clay Bolt, Natural History and Conservation Photographer, wrote about rediscovering Wallace’s Giant Bee for Global Wildlife.org, and he shared a video of a specimen in action with Wired. [more inside]
Peter Tork has died at 77
The Washington Post has an obituary. He was my first celebrity crush and The Monkees was the first album I bought with my babysitting money. I am sadder than I should be about this.
Not to be confused with Dipsy's Hat, which contains untold powers.
Ong's Hat: The Early Internet Conspiracy Game That Got Too Real "On a sunny morning in early 2000, Joseph Matheny woke up to find conspiracy theorists camped out on his lawn again. He was making coffee when he noticed a face peering in a ground-floor window of the small, three-story building he rented in Santa Cruz. Past the peeper, there were three other men in their early 20s loitering awkwardly. Matheny sighed and stepped outside. He already knew what they wanted. They wanted to know the truth about Ong’s Hat. They wanted the secret to interdimensional travel." (Ong's Hat previously.)
asking the important questions
Matt Levine, Money Stuff, Bloomberg: Should index funds be illegal?
I have been writing about it since 2015, and I’ve enjoyed phrasing the question maximally as “should index funds be illegal?” That is a little bit of a joke, but not really, because if you take this stuff seriously enough then it does seem like large diversified shareholders—index funds but also other mutual funds—would pose a problem under the antitrust laws, and you’d have to do something about them. One thing I should say about this theory is that, as far as I can tell, almost no one who works in the capital markets or corporate America takes it seriously.[more inside]
"He's a wolf."
“She never looks back”: Inside Elizabeth Holmes's Chilling Final Months at Theranos - At the end, Theranos was overrun by a dog defecating in the boardroom, nearly a dozen law firms on retainer, and a C.E.O. grinning through her teeth about an implausible turnaround. (prev, prev, prev, prev)
Strong as hell
Road Trip For The Heart
One must imagine Sisyphus clicking.
There is the potential for elements (and children) being stressed
Illegal Lego builds. A brief, informative, wryly funny explanation of what you are and aren't allowed to do with Lego and Technic sets (if you're creating official builds for market).
MetaClean: “How often should you...”
The Guardian: "Experts on 10 modern domestic dilemmas" give their - varied - opinions on bath towels (ongoing MetaTalk), sheets, wearing shoes indoors, jean washing, toilet brushes (“...a fetid liquid bacteria soup...”), cleaning cloths, dusting, vacuuming, deep-cleaning bathrooms, and showering. The World Wide Web is full of opinions, hygiene shaming, disguised cleaning product ads and more opinions on toilet brushes, the frequency of vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, toilet cleaning, (CW) cleaning after intimacy (“Toss the sex towel in the hamper”, “Dick in the sink”) showering frequency, and various cleaning in general. There is also science around cleaning agents and sprays, cotton towel bacteria, decontaminating kitchen cloths, hand hygiene, and toilet flushing.
February 20
Bringing back the Web of 1990
To celebrate the Web's 30th birthday, a reimplementation of WorldWideWeb, the first web browser. [more inside]
ActivisionBlizzard $ATVI Dividend increasing 9% Headcount reducing 8%
Activision Blizzard Reports Record Revenue as They Fuck Over 800 Employees [Waypoint] “Activision Blizzard, a company of more than 9,000 employees who’ve built some of the world’s most popular games, is a few things. They are a company who bragged about having a “record year,” on an earnings call this afternoon, a quarter where only raking in $2.4 billion in revenue was considered a disappointment. They are a company who granted a $15 million signing bonus and a $900,000 salary to a high-ranking executive who joined last month. And they are a company who just laid off around 800 employees, or 8% (!!!) of its total workers. 800 people will be without jobs at the end of the day. 800 people head into an uncertain future, wondering how long their severance and health insurance will get them before the next job. That list of 800 will not include Bobby Kotick. He will, of course, sleep well tonight.” [more inside]
Animals croon with Auto-Tune
Elton is a Bengal cat. His owner autotuned his "love me now" voice, and then did a Yass version. Maggie is a Saluki cross who has also been autotuned: a capella | a tempo. And here's a cat fight. To clear your palate, here's the late Mishka the Husky (previously) singing better than Bieber. [more inside]