October 20, 2020
Intergalactic Ghostbusters
Beastie Boys - Intergalactic But It's Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. From William Maranci, just in time for Halloween [more inside]
It should be easy for smart people to talk to other smart people.
I’ve been an engineer and a recruiter. Hiring is broken. Here’s why… and what it should be like instead. "Or, another way to put it … if I’m a good engineer, it should be easy for me to talk to a hiring manager at a company I might be interested in, at a time of my choosing. But that’s simply not possible today. Despite the refrain that we’re in a candidate’s market and that there’s a shortage of good candidates, which should mean that candidates should have the power to call the shots, today’s hiring process couldn’t be further removed from this ideal. And it’s not just broken for a specific type of candidate. It’s broken for everyone."
L is for Ledger, F is for Fake
Ledger Art (previously) is art drawn by Native Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Someone has been selling ledger art on EBay that has unknown provenance and bears a very close resemblance to known pieces.
1969: Year of Telnet and Tip Of the Iceberg!
Merriam-Webster has a couple of timesinks for ya: The Time Traveler, in which you get to travel to a year and see which words entered the (English) lexicon; and the Time Traveler Quiz: Which Word Came First?, in which you have to guess which word of a pair entered the lexicon first. More word games? Sure.
spit take
Surprise! There's a Secret Organ in Your Head (Popular Mechanics, Oct. 20, 2020, from New York Times reporting; partial NYT excerpt via Yahoo News) "A team of researchers in the Netherlands has discovered what may be a set of previously unidentified organs: a pair of large salivary glands, lurking in the nook where the nasal cavity meets the throat." The tubarial salivary glands: A potential new organ at risk for radiotherapy [Open access, Radiotherapy & Oncology; also at Science Direct] [more inside]
“you got two options. Wallow in guilt like a hero, or do something.”
Two short speculative stories featuring computers with consciousness. "Batteries For Your Doombot5000 Are Not Included" by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (published this year) is a light sf/f story about an ex-supervillain who gets a second chance at talking with a woman she had a crush on. "Applied Cenotaphics in the Long, Long Longitudes" by Vajra Chandrasekera (audio) is "an RFC 9481-compatible full personalytic profile recorded in Binara-Unduvap 2561 (Sep-Dec 2018 in the Christian calendar) at R. Satka's home and studio in the New City in the Autonomous Territory of Vilacem. The interview interprets itself in real time as each interviewer asks their questions...Since Satka's death, this interview is her primary being-in-the-world, and retains executive authority over her estate."
Single-serving media
A Republican and a Democrat are running for governor of Utah...
When the Good is the Enemy of the Sufficient
By all accounts, Biden’s second climate plan is better than his first. But how much “better” will it take to save the world?
I can stop a war with my crystals
Tom Lehrer Goes Public (Domain)
The complete lyrics and (most of the) music of Tom Lehrer is now available for official, public domain download... at least until December 31, 2024.
Try it yourself!
@GrippingFood is a single purpose Twitter account (and Instagram, and TikTok, and Facebook page, and (adjacent?) Subreddit) featuring before-shots of held food and after-shots of that same food after it has been forcefully gripped.
Carly Tennes in Cracked: “‘Gripping Food With Force’ Is the Social Media Trend We Deserve in 2020” (September 15, 2020)
Bettina Makalintal in Vice: “The Grotesque Satisfaction of ‘Gripping Food With Force’” (September 14, 2020)
Carly Tennes in Cracked: “‘Gripping Food With Force’ Is the Social Media Trend We Deserve in 2020” (September 15, 2020)
Bettina Makalintal in Vice: “The Grotesque Satisfaction of ‘Gripping Food With Force’” (September 14, 2020)
maybe soon
Virtual Forest Walk Throughs
a matter of limited hearts
"Consider that misinformation is information that merely happens to be false, whereas disinformation is false information purposely spread. Similarly, mispronunciation is people trying too feebly and in vain to say our names — and dispronunciation is people saying our names incorrectly on purpose, as if to remind us whose country this really is. Mispronunciation is a matter of limited tongues. Dispronunciation is a matter of limited hearts. For as long as I can remember, I have had to navigate around the shortcomings of both organs." Anand Giridharadas in his newsletter on the meaning of Sen. Perdue's misnaming of Kamala Harris and #MyNameIs on Twitter.
Why the Alt-Right’s Most Famous Woman Disappeared
Lauren Southern could spew racist propaganda like no other. But the men around her were better at one thing: trafficking in ugly misogyny. (CONTENT NOTE: Full article describes incidents of Islamophobia, sexual harassment, racism, white supremacy, and rape threats.) Hutcheson looked uneasy as his girlfriend [Lauren Southern] continued to talk about her career ambitions. “All of us Europeans have the responsibility to reproduce,” he interjected. “Motherhood is to women as war is to men.” Southern’s eyes glazed over as Hutcheson kept talking. Finally, the waitress arrived with the bill. Hutcheson gestured for Southern to grab it. “Okay, cool. I’ll make it a business expense,” she whispered. Earlier, she’d told me that her boyfriend leaned on her financially.
i am going to chew my way through the bathroom tile
Voting ContraPoints engages in a 20-minute dialogue with herself about why even communist revolutionary Twitter should get out and vote for Biden. [more inside]
A Whole New Level of Parasocial
Virtual influencers have always courted controversy (NYT), but League of Legend’s fictional Seraphine went a step further this month by talking about her mental health struggles – and in doing so, exploited people’s sense of empathy to market a product to them, argues Natalie Flores (Fanbyte). Previously.
A Moustache Harry Didn't Quite Understand
Smashiell, one of those who put animation to the Botnik-generated Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looks Like a Large Pile of Ash and his own sequels Ron Magic, The Nice Bit of Battenberg Trim, The Dream of October and Ron's interview on a late-night arts show, has, while working on his animated film, returned to the concept via a weekly audiobook that starts with Botnik but soon begins using the GPT-2 neural network: the Lynchian pulpy noir novel Harry Potter and No One in Particular (the parts so far: 1, 2 and 3). (previously) [more inside]
A Rosebud By Any Other Name
Gore Vidal has a few words to say about Orson Welles. [NB: Right now there is free access to all the NYRB archives. This will probably end November 5.] [more inside]
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