July 15, 2023
Sea lion cam
Cameras are fitted to endangered Australian sea lions in a bid to document their foraging habitats, but the results have revealed so much more to excited researchers, including a snappy encounter with a shark.
Drivin' that train...
Youtuber RailCowGirl is currently streaming The Best Of Norway's Railway Cab Views. "I've gathered the best of Norway's Railway Cab views from all seasons on my channel in this Stream running 24/7." Tunnels, horns, mountains galore. From her channel, it's only a few stops until you reach a similar site in Holland where you can also see what the rest of an engineer's job is like via the engineer's cap-mounted GoPro. Next, over to Switzerland, before heading back to Norway. [Bonus Hyperlapse Channel!] [Ready to drive your own train, now? Here's a previously-on-MeFi 8-bit simulator, so you can drive forever, or until you fall asleep.]
The addition of black makes the white whiter.
Have you read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison? I recommend it, and am grateful to the professor who assigned in in an American Lit. class.
The protagonist works at a paint factory. "To achieve Liberty Paints' Optic White color, the narrator must add drops of a dark black mixture to an original dull gray substance. When the paint batch is mixed properly, the results are a glowing, bright white color. The symbolism in Liberty Paints' signature color represents the importance black individuals play in America's past, present and future. It's only when black is added to the paint mix that the purest, most ideal, paint color emerges."
Someone has invented an extremely white paint and I hope they read Invisible Man. [more inside]
Honest as the data is wrong
Professor Francesca Gino, "who focuses on why people make the decisions they do at work" is on administrative leave from Harvard Business School and had some papers retracted because it looks like data were faked. Guardian. Or with more detail: Vox. Irony alert: the seemingly dishonest research was about how honest are regular people. [more inside]
"For me, being an artist means being in community with others."
An Interview with Raw Material Mixtape Podcaster-in-Residence Alice Wong.
Art opened up the world and made me feel free. That is the power of art and I truly believe art is for everyone whether they consider themselves an artist or not. You don’t need a degree in art history or to go to fancy museums to appreciate art. Street art, gardens, memes, found objects — art exists everywhere and knowing that I had access to it and could create it was significant for me as a disabled person who was made to feel powerless for much of my life.[more inside]
"And you smile when you play!"
"André Watts, a pianist whose mighty technique and magnetic charm awed audiences and made him one of the first Black superstars in classical music, died on Wednesday at his home in Bloomington, Ind. He was 77." [NYT, Archive link] [more inside]
How to fight fatigue
The Guardian's Hattie Garlick offers tips on fighting fatigue. Our circadian rhythms are important, says Ramlakhan. “But built into those is a shorter rhythm – the ultradian rhythm – a cycle of about 90 minutes.” She is, therefore, a passionate proponent of regular, short rests, ideally every 90 minutes and for three to five minutes, with occasional longer breaks. “If we were to live in rhythm with our cycles, we’d allow ourselves the intermittent, intentional replenishment of energy. We’d oscillate, rather than drive on relentlessly and into the ground.” Resting does not, however, involve social media scrolling. “We get our energy from physical, mental, emotional and spiritual practices,” Ramlakham adds. Her prescription might involve: “eating something healthy, hugging someone, playing with the dog, or going outside to look at the sky.”
We don't want to get all worked up over a tomato stalk again, do we?
I only knew Phil Jupitus from his appearances on QI and other British panel shows. Then, YouTube decided to serve me up his 2000 standup show Quadrophobia. It's 90 (!) minutes of adventurous time alone on a stage. I'd give a minor content warning for the final 30 minutes which are entirely about catching a spider in your house, because spiders... but I think he embodies all the things involved and everyone will feel seen and so none is needed.
the cold cold sky
"We have identified the coldest star ever found to produce radio waves – a brown dwarf too small to be a regular star and too massive to be a planet." Kovi Rose and Tara Murphy in The Conversation, on their discovery of a star "barely hotter than a pizza oven." From the NYT: "Break Out the S’mores: This Star Is Cooler Than a Campfire" (archive link).
The Power of Play
Want to see a whole bunch of elders and people with movement disabilities having a great time? Good! Who says that PT and movement have to be boring? Goofing off is healing for the body and mind. I wanna know which of these games you are excited to play. Make sure to keep scrolling through the profile, because there’s a lot of fun and joy waiting for you.
“And thats when I realized that the only way of winning was by cheating”
I built an Exoskeleton to challenge Pro Arm Wrestlers [YouTube] YouTuber Allen Pan “armed” himself with an arm-wrestling exoskeleton and challenged a bunch of people at muscle beach.
We have nothing further on this
The Smithsonian has abruptly cancelled its Asian American literary festival, with no real explaination. "In a move that stunned the institution’s event partners and writers who value its sense of community, the program was canceled just weeks before it was to take place in August." Tens of thousands of dollars had already been spent by some attendees, flights had been made and visas had been acquired. [more inside]
The Empty Bigness
The producer is at bottom an allegorical figure. “Jack Antonoff” refers as much to a set of historical processes as it does to a bespectacled guy making beats in his Brooklyn apartment. Call it Antonoffication: the process of the dispersion of the aesthetics of indie rock out from a distinct subcultural enclave and into a general ether that suffuses and unites the major genres of today’s Top 40 pop music. Which is to say, the complex process of cultural mediation through which all pop music today has become a little bit indie rock. from Dream of Antonoffication by Mitch Therieau [The Drift; ungated] [more inside]
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