November 12, 2013
Get dole. Buy dope. Sell dope. Gamble. Lose. Borrow money. Buy dope
"There are six bookmakers, one more is on its way, and five loan shops. Even if you are on JSA you can borrow money from Speedy Cash. It's the main business around here.Take dole, turn it into weed, sell them, take your profits and put them into the machines. If you win, you are quids in. If you lose, you get cash from the money shops to cover your losses. Back to dole and buying drugs. There's nothing else around here to do." -- How betting machines help small time drug dealers launder their profits and how this is about the only economic activity keeping the poorest local economies in Britain going. [more inside]
Metafilter: Everything has a point
The Point! (1971) is the animated TV adaptation of singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson's fable about a boy named Oblio, the only round-headed person in the Pointed Village, where by law everyone and everything had to have a point. Despite his round head, Oblio has many friends. But an evil count, jealous that Oblio is more popular than his own son, says that without a pointed head, Oblio is an outlaw. Along with his faithful dog Arrow, Oblio is exiled to the Pointless Forest. There, he has many fantastic experiences (including encounters with a 3-headed man, giant bees, a tree in the leaf-selling business, and a good-humored old rock). From his adventures, Oblio learns that it is not at all necessary to be pointed to have a point in life. Directed by Fred Wolf and narrated by Ringo Starr, the film features all the original songs from Nilsson's album of the same name. [more inside]
Some close races in the history of sports.
Requiem for Sir John Tavener, 1944-2013
Composer Sir John Tavener has died. Most recently and popularly known for "Song for Athene," performed at the conclusion of Princess Diana's funeral, and for Funeral Canticle which was featured in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. His life and work was devoted to music as a search for deeply spiritual expression, having converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1977. In his last interview he discussed how he had begun to turn again to some of the Western music he'd previously shunned, and turned his spiritual thoughts to other traditions as well. (What he called the "supreme achievement" of his life, the eight hour long all-night vigil The Veil of the Temple contains Sufi, Buddhist and Hindu texts as well as Orthodox Christian.) [more inside]
Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Cobb County Braves
The Atlanta Braves have announced plan to move out of Atlanta to nearby Cobb County by 2017. The Marietta Daily Journal reports that a new $672 million stadium will be built just to the northwest of Atlanta. The announcement has left everyone "kind of stunned." [more inside]
They were getting destroyed, many of them literally
Calamari a la Mode
On the Lovecraftian Mode - Gord Sellar on why he writes lovecraftian fiction. Elizabeth Bear on the same question. I. N. J. Culbard on adapting Lovecraft.
Even When It Hurts Alot
Allie Brosh, author of the widely-adored Hyperbole And A Half web comic, was interviewed by the inimitable Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air about her work, her new book, and her well-documented struggles with depression. (previously 1 2 3 4 5 6 8)
I don't have to pretend to be anybody else.
Transition Game: America’s first publicly out transgender high school coach is opening minds in the conservative rural town of Glocester, R.I.
Periodic Table of Storytelling
Like many, you might find TVTropes a little overwhelming. Understandable -- who has the time for 20,000+ pages of tropes? Fortunately the major tropes have now been organized into the Periodic Table of Storytelling.
"I am not a prop. I am part of the new generation of suffragettes."
Madison Kimrey is a rather exceptional 12-year-old girl whose speech protesting North Carolina's removal of a voting preregistration program for 16-and-17-year-olds has been making the rounds lately, thanks to Kimrey's intelligence and astonishing eloquence. Her blog, Functional Human Being, is similarly an engaging read, whether she's writing about Miley Cyrus, Daisy Coleman, or supporting the saner elements of the Republican party.
Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives U.S. Writers to Self-Censor
“I have dropped stories in the past and avoided research on the company telephone
due to concerns over wiretapping or eavesdropping.”
“I have made a conscious, deliberate choice to avoid certain conversation topics in electronic emails out of concern that those communications may be surveilled.” [PDF]
A survey by the literary organization PEN America shows the chilling effects NSA surveillance has had on writers in the United States.
“I have made a conscious, deliberate choice to avoid certain conversation topics in electronic emails out of concern that those communications may be surveilled.” [PDF]
A survey by the literary organization PEN America shows the chilling effects NSA surveillance has had on writers in the United States.
You look like you like rock'n'roll, how 'bout them Rolling Stones?
"Basically, a guy who runs one of the stands called me over because I "looked like I would like rock 'n' roll"—and he was right. I don't know what was lost in translation, however. He obviously didn't know what he had. To tell the truth, I didn't either. I obviously knew it was the Stones, but it took about a week of looking them over to realize that this was really a very unique circumstance. After extensive research, I came to find that these are unpublished, never-before-seen photos of one of the most legendary bands in rock 'n' roll history. Not only that, they are beautifully composed, candid, raw and perfect in every way. They really convey a band innocent to their destiny." Lauren White, on her discovery and showing of 26 candid photos of the Rolling Stones, circa 1965.
Dear 公公
Spoiler: It's largely cultural
Why Japanese Web Design Is So… Different... If you've ever visited a Japanese website, it's a little like time traveling back to 1998. Randomwire explains some of the reasons why.
Busby 3D
"Explore your relationship with art as you guide bubsy through a realistic recreation of the James Turrell Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After you have played Bubsy3d and understand art a little better, Arcane Kids encourages you to go visit an art museum in your area and quit video games." (Unity3D game) (flashing screen near the end) [more inside]
"Forget your balls and grow a pair of tits"
After several years out of the mainstream music scene Lily Allen returned last week covering Keane's "Somewhere only we know" in this year's John Lewis Christmas TV ad. However, today Lily released her latest video which is ... somewhat different in tone and nature. [more inside]
The girls who went away, and the house they left behind
Before the days of Roe v. Wade (and sometimes after) girls who got pregnant were sent away. Now one of the places that housed them is closing. [more inside]
The question was whether the mast was now just a broadcast antenna
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ruled today that its Height Committee has determined that One World Trade Center’s height
to its architectural top is 1,776 feet (541.3 meters), which will eclipse Chicago's Sears "Willis Tower" as the tallest building in the western hemisphere. [more inside]
Places Are Made Of A Thousand Stories
"I want to see the world. Follow a map to its edges, and keep going. Forgo the plans. Trust my instincts. Let curiosity be my guide.
I want to change hemispheres and sleep with unfamiliar stars and let the journey unfold before me."
Maptia is on a mission to gather first-person stories from travelers, "to create the most inspirational map in the world." [more inside]
I want to change hemispheres and sleep with unfamiliar stars and let the journey unfold before me."
Maptia is on a mission to gather first-person stories from travelers, "to create the most inspirational map in the world." [more inside]
BioRxiv
A weird, sexy, completely untrue version of a video game career
"There’s a dearth of rigorous coverage of the industry. The video game press, such as it is, remains mired in a culture of payola and ad revenue addiction, outside of a few outlets like Gamasutra. The one television station devoted to industry news, G4 (which has moved away from covering only video games), seemed committed to proving every gamer stereotype true, with an endless parade of uncritical corporate press releases punctuated only by sophomoric oral sex jokes. [...] All of which is a shame, because something in the industry is wrong. Here, as in few other places, we see the kind of exploitation normally associated with the industrial sector in creative work."
Not everyone can afford to be blasé
What I think we forget–or worse, never even realized—is the extreme privilege often inherent in “digital literacy.”
Yes, much of the Internet is free. But it takes time and energy to develop the skills and habits necessary to successfully derive value from today’s media. Knowing how to tell a troll from a serious thinker, spotting linkbait, understanding a meme, cross checking articles against each other, even posting a comment to disagree with something–these are skills. They might not feel like it, but they are. And they’re easier to acquire the higher your tax bracket. - The New Digital Divide: Privilege, Misinformation and Outright B.S. in Modern Media
The Strange Case Of Vahid Brown
"You can move, but you'll still be you when you get there."
"one key difference between kids who excel at math and those who don't"
Goodman, Goodman, Goodman... and some other guys.
The Howling Fat Men of the Coen Brothers (slyt & nsfw)
How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock
"A generation ago, refusing these kinds of offers was a way for bands to telegraph where they stood, the sort of thing that showed their allegiance to the underground and their community... If someone in the independent-rock world thinks that this is bullshit, they should take a look at themselves. They’re doing the same thing; they’re writing albums that people stream 30 seconds of on fucking Pitchfork and then people are like, ‘Oh, I like your album.’”
Privacy is not an end in itself
"In 1967, The Public Interest, then a leading venue for highbrow policy debate, published a provocative essay by Paul Baran, one of the fathers of the data transmission method known as packet switching [and agent of RAND]. Titled “The Future Computer Utility," the essay speculated that someday a few big, centralized computers would provide 'information processing … the same way one now buys electricity. Highly sensitive personal and important business information will be stored in many of the contemplated systems … At present, nothing more than trust—or, at best, a lack of technical sophistication—stands in the way of a would-be eavesdropper.' To read Baran’s essay (just one of the many on utility computing published at the time) is to realize that our contemporary privacy problem is not contemporary. It’s not just a consequence of Mark Zuckerberg’s selling his soul and our profiles to the NSA. The problem was recognized early on, and little was done about it... It’s not enough for a website to prompt us to decide who should see our data. Instead it should reawaken our own imaginations. Designed right, sites would not nudge citizens to either guard or share their private information but would reveal the hidden political dimensions to various acts of information sharing." -- MIT Technology Review on The Real Privacy Problem
The problem with fuel ethanol from corn
"The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push" The AP spent a year researching fuel ethanol from corn, and concludes that it's a bad idea: bad for the environment, bad for poor people, bad for everyone else. Not surprisingly, lobbyists for Big Corn have called it a hit piece and denounced it.
Right Behind Burundi
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About The Gender (Wage) Gap Some good and bad news from Time.
Railway Mania
"Railway Mania was an economic bubble in the United Kingdom in the 1840s that involved a railroad development frenzy and a speculative bubble in the shares of railroad companies. ... [T]he British Railway Mania was the result of overexuberance toward the business prospects of a disruptive innovation; though railroads are now a part of everyday life, they were once every bit as revolutionary as the internet was when it was first introduced."
Meet the Somalis
Meet the Somalis is a series of short comics depicting the various experiences of fourteen Somali immigrants in cities across northern Europe.
Stuffed Animals
Having the characteristics of iron
Craig Cobb is a white supremacist notorious for his plan to create a Whites-only enclave in Leith, North Dakota. Cobb's DNA was analysed for his appearance on The Trisha Goddard Show, with hilarious results. The episode will air on November 18th, but you can read more about it at the Daily Mail.
Soap bubbles and ghost ninjas and creepy woods, oh my!
Fun video ("The story of two very illusive creatures almost interacting in the midst of the Swedish wilderness") for the song "You Make Me Real" by Rebekka Karijord from Oskar Wrangö. [Rebekka Karijord: personal site (w/autoplay music); Wiki page; on Grooveshark. Oskar Wrangö: site] [more inside]
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