November 13, 2017
There's only one rule that I know of, babies
The Washington Post asked readers to submit stories of a time a stranger performed an act so unexpectedly kind that it stayed with them. Here are some of the most poignant ones, in honor of World Kindness Day.
(yesterday at this point, but every day is immeasurably improved by kindness)
A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked
The incredibly detailed miniatures of Blade Runner 2049. Blade Runner 2049 concept art by George Hull. Designing the technology of ‘Blade Runner 2049’.
Endless protective coats of olive oil mixed with methylated spirits
“It’s lovely to drive by on a motor boat and it has a very nice crew and very capable, but the acoustics are hideous,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “For a catholicity of reasons, it’s not the wisest place to put on anything…with the possible exception of maybe a circus.” -- Sydney's beautiful but impossible Opera House.
two out of three ain't bad
What The Hell Explains Its Appeal? Of life’s great mysteries, surely among the most impenetrable is how Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf’s adolescent wet dream of an album that was released forty years ago today [October 21, 1977], came to be one of the best-selling albums in the history of the record industry, cracking the top five in some rankings, and out-selling nearly all the pillars of the rock canon. - Matt Fogelson [more inside]
Church of England supports trans students
"In a directive called “Valuing All God’s Children,” the Church [of England] said elementary school students 'should be at liberty to explore the possibilities of who they might be without judgment or derision'...'All bullying, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying causes profound damage, leading to higher levels of mental health disorders, self-harm, depression and suicide,' Archbishop Welby wrote, 'This guidance helps schools to offer the Christian message of love, joy and celebration of our humanity without exception or exclusion.'." SLNYT
Beauty in Blackwater
"A High School Musical for Adults"
Kristen Bell Will Reunite High School Musical Cast Members for New TV Series "ABC is teaming up with Frozen and The Good Place star Kristen Bell on a new TV series titled Encore, which will reunite former high school class mates to perform their high school musical one more time.
Executive produced by Bell, the series is currently seeking out cast members from high school musicals in the [1990s and early 2000s]." [more inside]
The Boys in the Picture
In July, 1990, photographer Peter Widing snapped a perfect shot of three young football (soccer) players. In 2006, his friend and colleague Christian Daun first saw and became obsessed with the photograph, half-joking with Widing about tracking the three unnamed boys down. In May, 2016, Widing took his own life, shattering Daun's understanding of things and sending him down the journey they'd never taken. By July, 2017, he'd found the boys, now grown men, and learned about where their own lives had led.
performing what could fairly be called unsuccessful music
That time that Brian Eno was a member of the worst orchestra in the world. (You may know them from that one Youtube video).
"Kickoffs are stupid and bad."
In the newest installment of Chart Party, SB Nation writer and national treasure Jon Bois discusses why the kickoff sucks and should be abolished. (SLYT) [more inside]
THIS IS YOUR SECOND NOTICE
The Union of Concerned Scientists is on the phone again. You going to get it this time? In 1992 the UCS issued the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity. Now, 25 years later, many things have changed.
They've gotten worse.
Against Productivity
When I look back on not only the wasted time in Puerto Rico, but the couple of unproductive years around it I see it differently now. When I wasn’t beating myself up for not being productive enough, I was thinking about and interacting with the world. I was laying the first stones of a new foundation, a new way of thinking about networked culture, and even about our place on this planet. Instead of getting things done I was learning, smiling at people I didn’t share a language with, and cross-connecting the notions of my brain and the experiences of my life. via
Controlled chaos
215 gunshot victims, arriving four to a car, in one night, in one ER. A Nevada emergency doc tells how he managed the ER on the night of the worst mass shooting in US history. (Warning: contains descriptions of injured people and trauma medicine).
We're putting human brain bits in mice and they're growing in there
"These micro quasi-brains are revolutionizing research on human brain development and diseases from Alzheimer’s to Zika, but the headlong rush to grow the most realistic, most highly developed brain organoids has thrown researchers into uncharted ethical waters....In the previously unreported experiments implanting human brain organoids into lab rodents, most of the transplants survived....More notably, the human organoids implanted into mice connected to the rodent’s circulatory system, making this the first reported vascularization. And mature neurons from the human brain organoid sent axons, the wires that carry electrical signals from one neuron to another, into “multiple regions of the host mouse brain,” according to a team led by Fred “Rusty” Gage of the Salk Institute".
“They just made it harder for us smaller publishers,”
Why your favorite indie game may not get a boxed edition [Engadget] “Before September, it was possible to launch a boxed version of an existing, digital-only game without paying for an additional ESRB rating. This policy allowed Limited Run to be a lean operation, avoiding ESRB fees and still releasing physical versions of weird digital games (all of which are already rated by the ESRB). In September, the board announced a new tier for rating digital-to-physical games, allowing any title with a development budget of $1 million or less to be rated as a boxed product for $3,000, rather than the standard submission price of more than $10,000. With this change, all three console manufacturers made it a requirement for every game to pay this fee and carry an ESRB rating -- even physical launches of digital titles.” [more inside]
Bruce Yeany - Home Made Science
Bruce Yeany's Youtube channel has some great build-your-own classroom and home demos for physics, such as physics marble tracks, and sand pendulums and Lissajous patterns.
Canada’s Most Memorable (English) TV Thing: Round of 64
"we are a talented bunch. We are also diverse"
Edward Enninful is the new Editor-in-chief of British Vogue. His first cover girl, Adwoa Aboah is also a founder of Gurls Talk. [more inside]
Episode 57: Return of the 'Fox
The browser that Mozilla built jumps into a new chapter on November 14th. They're saying this is pretty big jump as they're giving Firefox release 57 the moniker "Quantum". [more inside]
50 Years of Generative Music in your browser
How Generative Music Works: A Perspective by Tero Parviainen (Put on headphones, uses mouse/keyboard/touch)
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