January 21, 2017
To the lighthouse!
Do you need to get away from it all? How about spending six months in Australia's southernmost lighthouse, ten kilometres off the southern coast of Tasmania, the country's southernmost state? Maatsuyker Island is looking for its next caretakers - although the light is automatic and no longer needs an actual lighthouse keeper, a pair of volunteers spends six months at a time on the isolated 0.72sq mi island, rising early for weather observations (it rains 250 days of the year), managing the land, and maintaining the lighthouse buildings and grounds. [more inside]
What is Probability?
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics - "The introduction of probability into the principles of physics was disturbing to past physicists, but the trouble with quantum mechanics is not that it involves probabilities. We can live with that. The trouble is that in quantum mechanics the way that wave functions change with time is governed by an equation, the Schrödinger equation, that does not involve probabilities. It is just as deterministic as Newton's equations of motion and gravitation. That is, given the wave function at any moment, the Schrödinger equation will tell you precisely what the wave function will be at any future time. There is not even the possibility of chaos, the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions that is possible in Newtonian mechanics. So if we regard the whole process of measurement as being governed by the equations of quantum mechanics, and these equations are perfectly deterministic, how do probabilities get into quantum mechanics?" (via) [more inside]
Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future
American Masters explores the work of Finnish/American architect Eero Saarinen (or here), who designed the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport, the main terminal at Dulles Airport, numerous buildings for iconic US corporations, and campus buildings for Yale, MIT, Vassar, and the University of Chicago. Previously: JFK's TWA terminal, Bell Labs, Michigan Modern. [more inside]
Easy as falling off a log
#NotLovinIt
McDonald's in Canada adding nuts back to the menu. The move is a major departure from the company’s long-standing policy of serving nuts in sealed packages, which enabled people with peanut and tree-nut allergies to safely consume many items on the menu. In a statement posted on its website, McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Ltd. said that as of Tuesday, the company is adding nuts that are not individually packaged to the menu across the country.
Little Things: The outsized pleasures of the very small
Lori DeBacker wears "+300 reading glasses and a ring on every finger, enjoys creating minuscule cakes — 'faux gâteaux' — and humorously altered, miniaturized versions of famous paintings. 'I love to spoof the masters,' she smirked, showing me a postage-stamp-size reproduction of The Scream in which the central figure was replaced with an extra-agonized ghost. Making miniatures focuses DeBacker. 'My mother always said this would drive her to drink,' she said, 'but I think it keeps me from it.'" [SL Harper's]
LET THE BASS KICK
Squarepusher - one of the most important figures in braindance/IDM/whatever - is set to release a new album with his live band Shobaleader One which features full band versions of classic Squarepusher tracks. They've been playing these tracks at live shows recently and the results are impressive: [more inside]
30 Years (give or take) of Acid on Wax
2017 marks 30 years since acid was put on (commercial) wax, if* you're crediting Phuture's Acid Tracks as the first Acid (House) song/EP. BBC Radio 1 recently celebrated this history with the first Essential Mix of 2017 by DJ Pierre, one third of Phuture, the Chicago group that recorded an epic 12 minutes of Roland TB-303 knob-twiddling and spread the acid madness via Ron Hardy in The Music Box. For more acid in the mix, B. Traits preceded that set and played a 2 hour set acid, with a 3rd hour by Luke Vibert, who stated (via a track title) "I Love Acid." [more inside]
Pressure!!
Pigeons sing Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. A comic by ProfessorBees.
I reject your approval, in favor of my own self-assessment
Dear Hot Men Who Love My Body As It Is: IDGAF by Amanda Richards
"Many aspects of beauty are tangled in a complicated nest of societal standards, including men's approval, so it's understandable that you might think your input is necessary — after all, as a hot, fit man, you've been groomed to believe that your opinion matters the most."
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