June 14, 2019
Batteries, included
The lab of famous battery scientist John Goodenough is working on Lithium batteries that use powdered glass as an electrolyte . One of the great advantages to this construction is reducing the well known risk of lithium battery explosions, which is leading to increasing fires in the scrap industry, and increasing the challenge of recycling. [more inside]
I realize this analysis may shock many of you
What I demand is your respect for my humanity.
Justin Kirkland interviews Billy Porter for Esquire: Three decades after Billy Porter’s career began, the people who once brushed him off for auditions are doing double takes. He’s caught the attention of fashion gurus with bold and stylish moments on the red carpet. And now that people are listening, he has a few things he’d like to share: memories of breaking free from abuse and his own doubt. Words about respect and acceptance. But most of all, what he's sharing makes one thing clear—Billy Porter didn’t evolve into this phenomenon. It took thirty years for the world to catch up.
We sell our pizzas for $16.50. Here's how the costs break down.
Jessica Cantarelli's husband's family owns an independent pizzeria in Chicago. She explains the costs that go into a basic 15-inch cheese pizza, including the $0.30 for the box.
The TV Run State
“Millions of other people watch all this as well. It’s true that the broader Fox project was always to make those viewers—Trump, your septuagenarian relatives, and everyone else feeling as though the elite liberal cultural complex has quietly been robbing them blind through much of their adult lives—receptive to conservative politics. But the actual election to the presidency of a Fox News addict whose understanding of politics is shaped wholly by the television he watches and his own legacy grievances and biases presents a different suite of challenges. Trump’s towering incuriosity and impatience with other people have ensured that, despite having a massive intelligence-and-policy apparatus at his command, he continues to get most of his information from his television.” The Man Who Was Upset (New Republic)
A leisurely 40 minute downhill ride
Megavalanche 2018 SLYT that is all
You Had It Coming, Meatbags
GQ and How Not to Talk About Men’s Bodies
GQ and How Not to Talk About Men’s Bodies "It’s no secret that the media reinforces our beliefs about our own bodies and other people’s bodies, and that it’s much worse for women and nonbinary people than men; our sister site Jezebel has been grappling with this for at least a decade, and is still grappling with it. As Atlantic writer Amanda Mull pointed out yesterday, however, men’s media is so far behind (with a few exceptions) that it doesn’t even know it has a problem."
Paul Blest [more inside]
by design shadowy and vague and open to interpretation
"There's a modern (or at least louder in modern era) tendency in both fiction and the interpretation of fiction that every narrative be some sort of very specific kind of hyper-literal puzzle box that can be 'solved' by wikis and lore and clues" is near the start of a 2017 Twitter thread by Scott Benson. "After we released our game I was really blown away by how large the hunger for really concrete literal explanations were for things that were by design shadowy and vague and open to interpretation. But like, not in the sense of 'hey I'm curious', but 'hey, you left this out, when are you going to finish it or write the backstory lore etc'" [more inside]
"My obsession with old Kool-Aid packets takes me to strange places."
When you’re in the mood for Kool-Aid, you can walk into a grocery store and chose from about 20 different flavor packets all priced at about a quarter a piece. However, if you’re in the market for some quintessentially classic, high-grade, “Oh Yeah!”-era Kool-Aid (YouTube), you’ll have to enter the fruit-flavored underbelly of one the most intriguing subsets in the world of pop culture food enthusiasts: the black market of vintage Kool-Aid packet collectors. Will Hodge writes for The Takeout, interviewing Matt of Dinosaur Dracula (previously), who is a fan of old and rare Kool-Aid flavors, going so far as to mix and drink really old Kool-Aid.
Oh no!
When fakes are common, liars have cover
Deepfakes are troubling. But disinformation doesn’t have to be high tech to be damaging. The deepfake is becoming more common. But the recent fake video of a "drunken" Pelosi was more of a cheapfake- and it was just as damaging. Numerous news organizations quickly debunked the video, but the damage to public trust was already done. Many will never know the video was a fake, but the advantages it gave to pundits will echo into the future. It’s a recent example of what legal theorists Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron call the liar’s dividend. Those wishing to deny the truth can create disinformation to support their lie, while those caught behaving badly can write off the evidence of bad behavior as disinformation. [more inside]
What Will the Farms of the Future Look Like?
Every person on earth needs food every day. Every day, food is tended, harvested, transported, stored, and served up on our tables. In a very real sense, food cannot be separated from life itself. And so it has been said that changing the way we grow and eat food is one of the most powerful tools we have for changing our economies and society as a whole.
So when we ask: what will the farms of the future look like? We should really be asking — what do we want the future to look like? And then answers may begin to emerge. [more inside]
Thank you, Hello Games
P!nk the border collie goes fast
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