October 9, 2018
The last full measure of devotion
As life ends for one person, it is just beginning for someone else. That is the bittersweet reality of organ donation, and the staff and care givers at St. Luke’s Meridian have found a way to honor that process with something they call the “walk of respect.”
dun dun dun da-dun DUNNNN dunnnn
the faint sound of a grown ass man SCREAMING in pain
The Specialized Field of Fetal Surgery
Dr. Timothy Crombleholme has dedicated his career to fetal surgery. Article from D Magazine. [Post title is from Longreads on the article.]
"pRoVen INnoCeNt"
Despite everything, Justice Kavanaugh was sworn in to the SCOTUS on the evening of Saturday, Oct 6, by Chief Justice John Roberts. The NY Times has reported evidence of tax fraud from the '70s and '80s; Donald Trump and his family evaded a tax bill that could have been as high as half a billion dollars. Trump is currently the President of the United States. Nikki Haley, ambassador to the U.N., has announced her resignation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced a new report warning of warming by as much as 1.5°C as early as 2040. More shady shit around Trump's 2016 campaign is coming out. [more inside]
What We Owe to Each Other
"If 'Seinfeld' was a show about nothing, 'The Good Place' is a show about everything — including, and especially, growing and learning. By all rights, it should probably be awful — preachy, awkward, tedious, wooden, labored and out of touch. Instead, it is excellent: a work of popular art that hits on many levels at once. It has been not only critically acclaimed but also widely watched, especially on streaming services, where its twists and intricate jokes lend themselves to bingeing and rebingeing." [more inside]
“a slight ready salted flavour with a hint of pine”
“Some of us appreciate the seasonal tastes of the season, like your pumpkin beers and cinnamon-steeped fruit bakes. But as the end-of-year holidays approach, the ambition of these seasonally-specific snacks increases significantly. Case in point: The British-based Iceland grocery chain has just released these holiday-themed crisps (which we know as potato chips): “Luxury Christmas Tree Flavour Salted Hand-Cooked Crisps.” [via: The Takeout]
Hear the Otherworldly Sounds of Skating on Thin Ice
This small lake outside Stockholm, Sweden, emits otherworldly sounds as Mårten Ajne skates over its precariously thin, black ice. “Wild ice skating,” or “Nordic skating,” is both an art and a science. A skater seeks out the thinnest, most pristine black ice possible—both for its smoothness, and for its high-pitched, laser-like sounds.
YouTube video link.
"I’m an English person who has not been to Mexico" (NOT ACCURATE)
As research for a new play, Daniel Radcliffe visited the fact-checking department at The New Yorker. He even got to fact-check an article, saying, "I’m more nervous about this than I am about going onstage tonight." This is not Radcliffe's first office gig. It's good to see young actors with backup career plans.
The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth
"The promise, the deal, was almost unheard of: “work hard, work smart, create value for society, and you’ll become wealthy, your own master for all eternity.” The slave works for his owner. The indentured servant for his master. The communist for everyone. The American for himself. It’s a powerful idea, a powerful motivator, and a powerful system. [...] And they make perfect competitors.
For those who have forgotten their first Economics lecture:
Perfect Competition: 'In a perfect market the sellers operate at zero economic surplus…This equilibrium will be a Pareto optimum, meaning that nobody can be made better off by exchange without making someone else worse off.'
Oh. Right. That sounds fun.
In the Kingdom of the Bears
The human-bear bond is ancient, but across the northern hemisphere, only a few societies remember the art of neighboring bears. [more inside]
cities out of wood
The Case for Making Cities Out of Wood. Alphabet's (nee Google) Sidewalk Labs proposal for Toronto's Quayside development may be The world's largest timber project. Heavy timber construction is becoming popular, with project in France
, Vancouver, Amherst, and planned for more, like Tokyo. The Race for the Wood Skyscraper Starts Here. Mass Timber 101. Can building codes keep up? [more inside]
What Happened to the Houston Astros' Hacker?
None of the other inmates knew about Correa's background—or that he was the camp's most prominent resident—until Jan. 30, 2017. That was when baseball commissioner Rob Manfred levied a $2 million fine on the Cardinals for Correa's actions, ordered the club to surrender two draft picks to the Astros and banned Correa from the game for life. Inmates in Cumberland are not allowed to access the Internet, but it was on the news. "Was that you?" people asked him. "Yeah, that was me," he said. [more inside]
as it turns out, Pieter has cats and isn’t afraid of going on solo dates
A woman's attempt to make the anti feminist hashtag #HimToo happen--by tweeting a photo of her Navy vet son--backfires amusingly. [more inside]
Ending Bail On Paper But Not In Practice
“...Recent events in Atlanta show that while more and more progressive officials are embracing bail reform, the optics may be better than the actual results. After legislation passes, the problems presented both by implementation and backlash are where the rubber meets the road, and substantive changes either happen––or don’t.” What will it take to truly end wealth-based detention? (Scalawag)
Little Green Receptionists
Dr. Claire Simeone, marine mammal veterinarian, received several mysterious calls from the seal hospital. But who was on the other line? [more inside]
SISTERH>>D
On this Ada Lovelace Day, Girls Who Code Debuts International Day of the Girl “Sisterh>>d” Visual Album : Sisterh>>d is a digital visual album celebrating young women driving our most transformative movements — and calling on girls around the world to join them. [more inside]
Lady Voldemort flies again
Supporting Fast Payments for All – and Economic Freedom
Democratising online payments – and the digital economy - "When Berners-Lee and his team were building the world wide web and designing HTTP and HTMP standards, they included error codes such as '500: internal server error', or '404: page not found'. In the early 90s, they were trying to realise Licklider's vision and setting out the rules for how we were all going to interact over this information network. One long-standing error code is '402: payment required'. The original intention – the reason 402 is reserved for future use – was that this code would be used to transact digital cash or micropayments. It has never been implemented – and the Collisons argue this is the reason tech is turning from an equal access opportunity to an oligopoly controlled by five companies now worth more than $3 trillion." [more inside]
Ghost notes
When Classical Musicians Go Digital - How the switching from physical printed scores on paper to digital ones on tablets is changing the performance of classical music.
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