June 20, 2017
So THAT'S what it's like for two languages to be mutually comprehensible
From the Moonrise Kingdom library
Did you once love a kids' book that no one else remembers? Are you looking for something unique to read at bedtime? Readers of Atlas Obscura share their favorite obscure childhood treasures.
Ooh, shiny
All Hail Rockass and Stargoon!
What happens when the Portland Guinea Pig Rescue asks Janelle Shane (previously 1, 2) the question, "Have you ever trained a neural network to generate guinea pig names?” (Bonus: What guinea pig sounds mean)
In the Bering Sea, the orcas are winning
"No one is going to assume the big football player is gay."
Former tackle for the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs Ryan O'Callaghan, who grew up believing there was absolutely no way he could live as an openly gay man, came out today in a feature article by OutSports. (tw: in-depth discussion of suicide) [more inside]
Georgia on My Mind: All Bets are Ossoff
Tonight, the much anticipated results of the GA-06 Special Election will be known. Recent polling has shown Ossoff and Handel to be in a virtual statistical tie. Pro-Ossoff dinosaurs have been seen campaigning around the district and have made campaign signs into glitter bombs (Joan Walsh, The Nation! Here are 6 key things to watch for (Caitlin MacNeal, Talking Points Memo) as the results come in. Here are some resources (courtesy of Chrysostom) for following the results. [more inside]
Trouble afoot
The toe has gone missing before, after being swallowed by a patron, prompting the hotel to ask donors to step up (previously). But this time, Dawson City, Yukon's Downtown Hotel has reported that the key ingredient in its sourtoe cocktail (also previously) has been stolen.
According to the Times Colonist: "Hotel manager Geri Colbourne says a couple came in late that night and requested the unique drink but the waitress was called away after pouring two shots. The toe was gone when she returned."
Branch line
The Forgotten Trains of India, photo essay.
It embarrassed me. I wanted to be a normal kid.
'Cause ain't no such thing as halfway crooks.
Rapper Prodigy of Mobb Deep was reported dead today at the age of 42 from complications of sickle-cell anemia.
No more "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"
Public domain ebooks with modern typography, full proofing, complete metadata, and version control. Ebook projects like Project Gutenberg transcribe ebooks and make them available for the widest number of reading devices. Standard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style guide, lightly modernizes them, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to take advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology.
“The situations that cause outrage never go away for us.”
Smaller, and Smaller, and Smaller. by Marlon James [Facebook Post] A Brief History of Seven Killings author Marlon James writes an essay on Facebook about being big, close, and black in the United States of America.
Amazon's New Customer
Ben Thompson at Stratechery argues that Amazon's recent acquisition of Whole Foods (previously) is all about buying a new "first and best" customer for its logistics ambitions: "Unlike Whole Foods, Amazon has no desire to be a grocer, and contrary to conventional wisdom the company is not even a retailer. At its core Amazon is a services provider enabled — and protected — by scale." In a few years we'll probably be calling this article prescient.
Science indicates domestic cats are still pretty wild, unlike dogs
University of Leuven geneticist Claudio Ottoni worked with an international team of almost 30 researchers to analyze the mitochondrial DNA of more than 200 ancient and modern cats, going back 9,000 years, to document the palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world (full study on Nature) and the result is what many cat lovers have said for quite a while: cats are still close to their wild relatives. As reported on Ars Technica by Annalee Newitz, cats are an extreme outlier among domestic animals, noting that "humans have been intermittently guiding cat breeding for less than 1,000 years," unlike other domestic animals, like dogs and goats. [more inside]
Our cranky future
NOPE NOPE NOPE
CURVE: Clinging to a smooth, curved surface high above a sentient abyss, a girl tries to cover the few feet back to safety without losing purchase and falling to her death.
T̳̻̜he̱̘̮̗ ̰͓̘͙͎̱ri̹̞v̗̬͈̜e̻͈̘̰̫r̯͓̮̜be̦d̫ wi̹̱̪̼͔͉l̮̘̦̱̳͚l̩ ͖r̠͙̟̟͇uṋ̜͈ ̞̻̝r̲e̖̣̭̟͉̲̘d̳̙̤͙̠̱ ͓̺ͅw͍̲͎i̮͇͙̜͓̘ͅt̳̹̯̳̹h̰̻ͅ ͙̞͎̺͈t͎̮͔̬h̘e̲͔̭̲ ̞͎̭̦̭b͔̘̠̭̻̗ḻ̭̼̱̻o̮̥̥̜̺̮̣o̲͚͚d ̝̺͎͎o̟͉f̞̰̭̳ t̟h̲e̜̼̘ ͎̥͔̼s̗͎̼̗a̩ͅi̯n̲̠͈̪͍͎t̮͎̫͙͚ͅs
Zeal & Ardor (previously) has released a live-in-the-studio video of "Blood In The River" [THIS IS LOUD]. Good mood music. Loudwire has more about Z&A.
I got a pocket full of dreams
The New York Public Library is creating a "digital time-travel service for New York City with historical maps, collections rich in geospatial data, and the public's help."
Meet the NYC Space/Time Directory, a searchable atlas of New York City's past, which includes an interactive, digitized collection of maps and photographs dating back to the mid-19th century. Space/Time comes from NYPL Labs' ongoing Remix project, previously highlighted on MeFi in Room 641-A's post, "We're gonna need a bigger hard drive." [more inside]
The solstice, the librarian, and the size of the Earth
The Guardian: "Eratosthenes of Cyrene was the chief librarian at the great library of Alexandria in the third century BC. So the story goes, he read in one of the library’s many manuscripts an account of the sun being directly overhead on the summer solstice as seen from Syene (now Aswan, Egypt). This was known because the shadows disappeared at noon, when the sun was directly overhead. This sparked his curiosity and he set out to make the same observation in Alexandria. On the next solstice, he watched as the shadows grew small – but did not disappear, even at noon..."
TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE STAMPS WILL REVEAL HIDDEN MOON IMAGE
This summer’s highly anticipated total solar eclipse, on August 21, is still more than two months away. But on Tuesday—one day before the summer solstice, or the first official day of summer—the U.S. Postal Service will release a tiny tribute of its own to the rare celestial event. Its new stamps celebrating the eclipse are the first ever to use thermochromic ink that changes the image on the stamp at the touch of a warm finger. [SLNewsweek]
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