October 3, 2018
The little lost computer that could
A man finds a Commodore 64C left outside for a decade. Will it still work? I was given a Commodore 64C that had been left outside for a decade or more in rural Oregon. It dealt with everything mother nature could throw at it while it sat outside; rust, water damage, even an ant colony. Could this machine possibly still work?
The Weird of Wendy Pini
A biographical sketch of Wendy Pini The life and work of Wendy Pini, co-creator and illustrator of ElfQuest and occasional Red Sonja Actress(!) - from the pre-elf days to the recent completion of the quest. content warning: some references to abuse and death
Are you ready for some fat bears?!?
"On Wednesday, October 3rd, Katmai National Park and Preserve kicks-off Fat Bear Week 2018 to determine which gluttonous giant sits atop the brown bear oligarchy of obesity. The annual march madness-style competition, now in its fourth year, pits commonly seen bears on the Bear Cam against one another to decide which bear indeed, looks the fattest. The public is encouraged to vote on Katmai National Park and Preserve’s Facebook page in head-to-head matches each day beginning October 3rd. The bear whose photo receives the most likes will advance to the next round, until one bear is crowned “Fattest Bear” on Fat Bear Tuesday, October 9th." [more inside]
Morbidly beautiful medical illustrations
Dr. Frank Netter was a surgeon during the great depression, though as a child growing up in Manhattan, he aspired to be an artist. As it turns out, Netter became both a great artist as well as a doctor [NSFW] […] His use of color is in line with schemes used in classic pulp novel illustration, and he used real patients for his subjects when depicting various medical issues, such as a man suffering the after-effects of a brain injury[…], or what goes on inside the human body during a fit of unbridled rage. [NSFW] Netter’s paintings and illustrations are as remarkable as they are often strange and off-putting at times. [more inside]
Tomorrow Never Knows
Geoff Emerick, Beatles engineer, passes away at 72. Many comments on @thebeatles, Paul pays tribute to Geoff. Without a doubt, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the adventure.
a Zulu groove bomb
Blinded in the age of 5 due to illness, Steve Kekana was one of the most successful south african musicians of the eighties, and actually one of the first to take his band to perform overseas. In 1980 he probably had a big continental-european hit called "Raising my family", that tooped the charts in Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria etc. "Bushman" was another hit from this era (reminds me Sting & The Police), and so "Africa". Most of his work is collected in an english-album compilation "The English Album". [more inside]
The Elevator-Phobes of a Vertical City
It’s hard to live in any urban area if you are anxious about elevators. Somehow, these New Yorkers make it work. [more inside]
He makes Patrick Bateman look like Mr. Rogers
The official trailer for Vice, the Dick Cheney biopic starring Christian Bale and directed by Adam McKay (The Big Short), has dropped.
(w/ Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush, and Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld.)
(w/ Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush, and Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld.)
at some point they backtracked on scrotality
Natural selection has sculpted the mammalian forelimb into horses’ front legs, dolphins’ fins, bats’ wings, and my soccer ball-catching hands. Why, on the path from the primordial soup to us curious hairless apes, did evolution house the essential male reproductive organs in an exposed sac? It's like a bank deciding against a vault and keeping its money in a tent on the sidewalk.Why are testicles kept in a vulnerable dangling sac? It’s not why you think.
Understanding Reality: What Hallucinations Reveal
Hallucinations Are Everywhere: Experiences like hearing voices are leading psychologists to question how all people perceive reality.
A Good Wolfenoot to You!
This November 23rd you can celebrate the first Wolfenoot. Jax Goss's 7-year old son invented a holiday called Wolfenoot, and the internet got very excited to join him in celebrating. #Wolfenoot has lots of pictures of doggos and plans to donate to wolf sanctuaries and animal shelters. [more inside]
Afrobeats Worldwide: Nigerian Musicians making the new global pop
Kelefa Sanneh wrote for the The New York and recently profiled ten Nigerian musicians and groups who are changing the sound of global pop, including brief bios of each and a description of how they fit (or don't fit) into the Afrobeats sound. "But isn't Afrobeat old?" Yes, but this is Afrobeats plural. For more context, last year Fareeda Abdulkareem wrote for The Culture Trip and provided An Introduction to Afrobeats, Nigeria's Beloved Music Genre, but wait, there's more! If you have the time, start with an hour long audio-history of Nigerian music from Afropop Worldwide. Even more music and links below the break. [more inside]
The Philanthro-Capitalist Class
“First, for years, they allowed problems to fester—real problems like declining social mobility, what trade was doing to America, issues around cities and gentrification. Every time you say Lean In is going to fix gender equality, or one charter school in Bed-Stuy is going to solve education, or you’re going to have some kind of tote bag that saves the environment—every time we were promulgating phony change, that is not doing real change. It is crowding out real change and redefining change so we cannot do more ambitious change.” Why Real Change Won’t Come From Billionaire Philanthropists - “Just as the firm dodged the collapse of those toxic securities, it dodged the public’s thirst for justice. The e-mail’s recipients—and the very affluent in general—would capture most of the gains from the long recovery. A Times analysis of Federal Reserve data last year found that, while the average American household was still thirty-per-cent poorer, in net worth, than in 2007, the top ten per cent of households were twenty-seven per cent wealthier than before the crisis“ After the Financial Crisis, Wall Street Turned to Charity—and Avoided Justice - Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All, on the win–win business- and plutocrat-friendly philanthropy of today’s rich (Jacbonin Radio)
Fingertip Universe
Nikon Small World in Motion Annual Winners 2018-2011 — beautiful microscopic movies and digital time-lapse photomicrography. (See also Nikon International Small World Photomicrography Competition Annual Winners 2017-1975).
The Tenacious Spirit of Servitude
For NYC sommelier Yannick Benjamin, integrating disability and hospitality was the only way forward.
SPOIDS
Spiderween: An Arachnophobe-Safe Guide To Spiders. "I think everyone deserves a chance to learn about such an amazing corner of the animal kingdom, and so for an entire thirty-one entries in a row, we're about to go over some of the most interesting spider species, spider habits and spider superpowers without a single realistic spider in view. Instead, we're substituting the real animals with anthropomorphs I believe I've designed to capture as much of a spider's 'character' or 'personality' as a four-limbed, two-eyed, endoskeletoned biped ever reasonably could." [more inside]
"No, I can assure you it sucks in many other ways"
Scott Galloway, 2018 Code Commerce
NYU professor Scott Galloway speaks at the 2018 Code Conference and calls again for the breakup of big tech (Amazon, Facebook, Google) with lots of data and insight. Galloway predicted the Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods weeks before it happened.
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