February 28, 2017
Combining pop, hip-hop, funk, spoken word and musical theater
New Orleans group Tank and the Bangas is the winner of the 2017 Tiny Desk Contest! The band conveys its freewheeling spirit through a sound that combines pop, hip-hop, funk, spoken word and musical theater. The band’s entry video — set in an art classroom — won over our judges with its undeniable, joyful energy. Lead vocalist Tarriona “Tank” Ball has a playful way with words, thanks in part to her roots in New Orleans’ slam poetry scene. The band has played festivals all over the country, and has opened for artists like Big Freedia and Lianne La Havas.
Leave me alone. I ain't going home.
As Carnival, Mardi Gras, Paczki Day and related Lenten celebrations wind down, let us bask in Calypso Rose's song, "Leave Me Alone," which is being hailed in Trinidad & Tobago as a feminist anthem for protesting men's aggressive sexual harassment of women Carnival-goers.
“Then my imagination just left me.”
Japan Yesterday and Today: A Tourism Promo
Someone once told me that culture was meat wrapped in dough
"Impossible Foods has created something extraordinary : a vegan burger catered to the most voracious of carnivores. It is the next chapter in America’s proud and disgraceful history with the burger, our most important cultural export. It promises to do a lot of good — but is it any good?" [more inside]
Cake or Dea^wbiscuit?
There is no record of the 20th Century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, ever tasting a Jaffa Cake, though there is evidence that he was partial towards a bun. But his ideas are relevant to the Jaffa Cake puzzle.David Edmonds uses the eternal question of whether a Jaffa Cake is actually a biscuit (it calls itself a cake for tax purposes) to look into the problems with insisting on a strict binary gender identity.
A Millennial Reviews: ‘Seinfeld'
Jerry’s dating life consists of a revolving door of physically perfect women whom he beds before casting aside over various superficial imperfections. Perhaps people have man hands because we’ve worked a day in our life. Rosie the Riveter had man hands. Jerry cares not. Jerry surrounds himself with failsons like George Costanza and opportunists like Elaine Benes yet holds women to an impossible standard of not being a “low talker” or a phone sex worker, or someone who laughs like Elmer Fudd or has jimmy legs. Women in Seinfeld are treated as disposable and renewable sex objects for our upper-class protagonists. Costanza burns down a woman’s cabin. Even Elaine finds herself complicit in a plot to discover whether a woman’s breasts are real and thus of higher value.
Can the drones deliver my packets?
It's not just you: Massive internet outage is sweeping the East Coast
Amazon S3 in US-EAST-1 is experiencing "High Error Rates" affecting services from Time, inc. to Netflix to Proquest.
Now you can quantify your sense of inadequacy
The Good Houskeeping Institute Ultimate Cleaning Checklist. Our cleaning experts are always being asked exactly how often we should clean things – from beds and curtains to hobs and toilets. Frankly, housework can feel like a neverending task, and nobody wants to overdo it! So here, by popular demand, is the GHI’s guide to what to clean when...
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I, Robot. You, Weakling.
Handle is the latest research robot from Alphabet, Inc. It's capabilities are stunning (SLYT).
OMG Kitties
Naomi Kritzer's Hugo Award winning short story of AI and cats, "Cat Pictures Please", is to become a YA novel.
Orphans across the colour line
Children were packed like sardines into the miserable dormitories: The Indianapolis Asylum for Friendless Colored Children
70 minutes of heaven
America Last
If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes
Cloudbeats is the latest music video from musician Shana Falana. The first-person, day in the life film can be seen as a quiet contrast to much of the history of first-person music videos, which more often than not take their inspiration from FPS video games. Example A: The Weeknd's latest False Alarm (if the style seems familiar, it's because the video was directed by Ilya Naishuller, who made the similarly ultra violent Biting Elbows - 'Bad Motherfucker', and later the first person feature film Hardcore Henry.) Other examples include Cinnamon Chasers's Luv Deluxe which adds multiple timelines, while Logic's Under Pressure is more of the same. The granddaddy of the f'd up FPS music video turns 20 this year: The Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up.
Female engineer sues Tesla, cites 'culture of pervasive harassment'
A female engineer at Tesla has accused Elon Musk’s car company of ignoring her complaints of “pervasive harassment”, paying her a lower salary than men doing the same work, promoting less qualified men over her and retaliating against her for raising concerns. [...] Vandermeyden, 33, shared her story with the Guardian at a time when Silicon Valley is reeling from the explosive allegations of former Uber engineer Susan Fowler.
State of a divided union
Does Trump know he’s president? Tonight, President Trump will address Congress; "GOP lawmakers want guidance on how to handle Obamacare and tax reform." Trump's guests for his address: Scalia's widow, a private-school success story, three people who lost someone to an illegal immigrant. This morning, an interview with the president aired on Fox & Friends, where Trump discussed the leaks coming out of the White House, slain Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, who died in the Yemen raid, and the protests around the country that he believes President Obama is behind. [more inside]
World's Simplest Electric Train
Turning back time to Cher's Era
If there were rules for how to be a serious actress, she would rewrite them | During her brief ’80s reign as one of film’s biggest stars, Cher didn’t disappear into roles—she brought her indelible presence to bear on women thought to be invisible and cast them into the light. [more inside]
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