November 4, 2017
This is why we can’t have nice things
The internet will inevitably steal the soul of every child at some point as he or she grows up, but some are speeding the process along by manipulating YouTube's powerful algorithm. […] Take for example the video embedded below that showed up on both YouTube and the Kids app: You press play and at first your screen fills with recognizable cartoon characters and cheesy music — but things take a drastic turn when Elsa and Spider-Man arm themselves with automatic weapons.
Reasoning the unreasonable.
"You can play this game forever, with any given set of magical powers. Controlling the elements, for instance, seems considerably harder than controlling an animal (unless, perhaps, it is a cat)—but, if you are going to try to control the elements, summoning a breeze seems easier than turning night to day. If you’re going to work magic on your own body, becoming invisible seems more plausible than transmogrifying, perhaps because of the abundance of everyday ways to conceal ourselves. Yet, if transmogrification is going to occur, I’d wager that it is easier to turn oneself into a wolf than one’s enemy into a toad."
An article on the relative plausibility of impossible beings and reasoning about unreasonable things, SLNewYorker
An article on the relative plausibility of impossible beings and reasoning about unreasonable things, SLNewYorker
“We talk in our heads”
Krista and Tatiana Hogan (previously) share a skull, a thalamus, a conciousness, a tiny dog, and, recently, a landmark birthday
(video is canada-locked. workarounds welcome) [more inside]
Congratu-fucking-lations!
The Canadian Down Syndrome Society would like to offer some suggestions on what to say when you hear that a friend's bundle of joy has Down Syndrome. And what not to say. Perhaps you'd prefer to send a card?
On the Face of It: Darwin and the Evolution of Expression
On the Face of It: Darwin and the Evolution of Expression. An experiment on his son 4-month-old Willy Darwin led Charles Darwin to a lifelong study of how we show emotion - and to breakthroughs in child psychology. The experiment turned out to be an often-overlooked landmark in the history of science.
Culinary Historian Michael Twitty on The Souls of Southern Food
Boston University recently hosted culinary historian Michael Twitty as part of its Pépin Lecture Series. Here's what he had to say about his memoir, The Cooking Gene, and the "search for my food roots and family routes during the first 250 odd years of American history." [more inside]
Promethea Unbound
A child genius raised in poverty, she wanted to change the world. Then a horrific act of violence nearly destroyed her. This is a story of how family dynamics and outsider obsession can stifle and derail the most brilliant among us, and poses the question of how much can be lost and has been lost to the world. It's one of the saddest stories I've heard.
Why can't I go faster than light?
Why can't you go faster than the speed of light? Here it is, explained just about as simply as possible. From Fermilab.
Saudi Arabia intercepts ballistic missile over capital.
A new public library in Tianjin, China
A short video clip. Dezeen: "The five-storey-high space is framed by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, which are staggered at different levels to form the shape of an eye socket, while a spherical mirrored auditorium at the centre forms the pupil." Curbed: "Measuring about 363,000 square feet, the Tianjin Binhai Library comprises what is essentially a glass box sheathed in horizontal louvers that correspond to the “continuous” floor-to-ceiling system of bookcases that appears to “cascade” down the interior walls." Inhabitat: (Winy Mass, co-founder of the designers MVRDV) "The bookshelves are great spaces to sit and at the same time allow for access to the upper floors. The angles and curves are meant to stimulate different uses of the space, such as reading, walking, meeting and discussing." [more inside]
Organize The South
“There’s no state too red for us to go into,” Turner said. “We’re not going to leave any state or anybody in any state behind because they’re not ‘electorally viable.’”
“From Texas to Florida, voters are supporting candidates across the broad spectrum of the left: progressive Democrats and committed socialists who want to reduce wealth inequality, return power to workers, and chip away at structures of oppression that have kept people of color, women, LGBTQ folks, and others from wielding economic and political control.” In cities across the South, Socialism is on the ballot. Casey Williams, Scalawag Magazine. [more inside]
“From Texas to Florida, voters are supporting candidates across the broad spectrum of the left: progressive Democrats and committed socialists who want to reduce wealth inequality, return power to workers, and chip away at structures of oppression that have kept people of color, women, LGBTQ folks, and others from wielding economic and political control.” In cities across the South, Socialism is on the ballot. Casey Williams, Scalawag Magazine. [more inside]
Pope Francis and his enemies.
The War Against Pope Francis.
With more than a billion followers, the Catholic church is the largest global organisation the world has ever seen, and many of its followers are divorced, or unmarried parents. To carry out its work all over the world, it depends on voluntary labour. If the ordinary worshippers stop believing in what they are doing, the whole thing collapses. Francis knows this. If he cannot reconcile theory and practice, the church might be emptied out everywhere. His opponents also believe the church faces a crisis, but their prescription is the opposite. For them, the gap between theory and practice is exactly what gives the church worth and meaning. If all the church offers people is something they can manage without, Francis’s opponents believe, then it will surely collapse.Oh, and did you know that Steve Bannon is trying to take over the Church too? (Single link, longread Guardian.)
Real men (still) don't eat quiche
J. Saxena (previously) on gender in food trends and marketing: Women Aren't Ruining Food and Are Men OK? No really, are they OK?
Sea snails, cow urine, mummy flesh and digital preservation
Alongside a few tubes of Mummy Brown are other pigments whose origin stories are practically legend. Tyrian purple, an ancient Phoenician dye that requires 10,000 mollusks to produce a single gram of pigment, is said to have been discovered by Hercules’s dog as he snuffled along the beach. Indian yellow, purportedly made from the urine of cows fed only on mango leaves, was banned by the British government in the early 20th century on the grounds that its production constituted animal cruelty. Ultramarine, a vivid blue made from lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan, was once more precious than gold.[more inside]
What if a drug could give you all the benefits of a workout?
Indeed, one of the most significant challenges facing anyone who wants to develop an exercise pill is that the biological processes unleashed by physical activity are still relatively mysterious. For all the known benefits of a short loop around the park, scientists are, for the most part, incapable of explaining how exercise does what it does. [slNewYorker]
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