June 22, 2020
A Dream of Shoe Lacings
What is the best way to lace your shoes? Let Mathologer (Burkard Polster professor of maths at Monash University in Melbourne Australia) tell you about his proof by dream.
How an Agoraphobic Traveler Wanders the Earth
You can just parachute anywhere. You can be on one side of the world and then two seconds later be on the other side, and never have to worry about flying, borders, any of that. –
Jacque Kelly has been traveling the world for the past 4 years using Google Street View. [previously]
Apple Silicon
Apple’s WWDC 2020 conference began today with announcements on iOS 14’s new home screen, Apple CarKey, App Clips (similar to Android’s Instant Apps), improved handwriting recognition on iPadOS, 3D audio on AirPods Pro, handwashing and sleep tracking on WatchOS, macOS 11 “Big Sur”, and of course, Apple’s transition away from Intel and to its own in-house ARM processors for its computers.
A full moon American fever dream
CNN reports the coronavirus pandemic does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon in the United States, according Michael Osterholm, head of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and 23 states are reporting a rise in new cases compared to the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. NBC News reports more than 120,000 people have now died from coronavirus in the US, and over 2.2 million people have been infected across the country, while CNBC reports hospitalizations due to Covid-19 were growing in 14 states as of Sunday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that Trump, who hosted a racist campaign-style rally in Oklahoma over the weekend, refuses to wear a mask in public, regularly contradicts health officials, and mischaracterizes the scientific landscape. [more inside]
Patrice Lumumba: May Africa breathe the air of freedom
‘We have long suffered and today we want to breathe the air of freedom. The Creator has given us this share of the earth that goes by the name of the African continent; it belongs to us and we are its only masters. It is our right to make this continent a continent of justice, law, and peace. All of Africa is irrevocably engaged in a merciless struggle against colonialism and imperialism. We wish to bid farewell to the rule of slavery and bastardization that has so severely wronged us. Any people that oppresses another people is neither civilized nor Christian. The West must free Africa as soon as possible.’‘Westerners must understand that friendship is not possible when the relationship between us is one of subjugation and subordination.’ [more inside]
Is There a Religious Left?
Is There a Religious Left? (The New Yorker metered paywall): “In the name of Jesus, this flag has to come down.” So begins one of the most consequential sermons of the twenty-first century. Bree Newsome, a thirty-year-old artist from North Carolina, was a few dozen feet above the ground, scaling a flagpole in front of the South Carolina State House. Police officers were hollering up at her, demanding that she come down, but she kept climbing, and kept preaching: “You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today.” A review of American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country
Joel Schumacher dies at 80; directed many good movies and two Batmans
Algonuts
Certain artists are highly productive and constrain themselves to a particular style and format for their entire careers. Charles Shulz, the creator and artist of the Peanuts comic strip, produced thousands of comics over 50 years. As a result, he is one of the few artists who have enough ‘content’ to train a styleGAN2 model. By extracting each frame from nearly 18,000 comic strips I was able to harvest 63,800 distinct images featuring Charlie, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty and the rest of the gang – plenty of food for the network to chew on. Several hundred hours of computational time later, a network containing the ‘visual DNA’ of Peanuts emerged.
My Adidas on the east coast, Converse to the west, Nike everywhere
Partnerships, or collabs, between rappers and sneaker and athletic companies are now common (Sole Collector, top 10), but it all started in the mid 1980s. Run-D.M.C.'s 'My Adidas' and the Birth of Hip Hop Sneaker Culture (Business of Fashion), and Sneakers That Defined 1980s Hip Hop (Sneaker Freaker). Taking it further, Grailed has An Abridged History of Hip-Hop’s Relationship with Sneaker Culture. [more inside]
It seems Artemis Fowl isn't very good
125 million bucks may seem like a lot, but sometimes that's what it takes to inspire a properly apocalyptic bad review: The 9 Most Baffling Problems With ‘Artemis Fowl’
... a movie seemingly written at gunpoint by an insane robot. If you taught an alligator English and shouted “do a Harry Potter” at it until it finished typing, you’d get a more coherent story than whatever I just spent 90 minutes watching. So rather than going through every single thing wrong with the movie, I’ve narrowed down the most egregious, stand-out moments of terribality.
... a movie seemingly written at gunpoint by an insane robot. If you taught an alligator English and shouted “do a Harry Potter” at it until it finished typing, you’d get a more coherent story than whatever I just spent 90 minutes watching. So rather than going through every single thing wrong with the movie, I’ve narrowed down the most egregious, stand-out moments of terribality.
30 Years after: Uncle Tupelo's "No Depression"
Can’t Look Away: Musicians, Writers, and More Reflect on 30 Years of Uncle Tupelo’s ‘No Depression’. Thirty years (and one day) after Belleville, IL's Uncle Tupelo released their seminal alt-country album "No Depression", several current artists and writers talk about discovering the album, what it meant to them, and how it influenced them. Features Lilly Hiatt, Patterson Hood (of the Drive-By Truckers), Rhett Miller (of the Old 97s), Ben Nichols (of Lucero), Eric Earley (of Blitzen Trapper) and many more. [more inside]
Cronk
In 1883, a drink called "Cronk" started advertising in the Calgary Herald. See if you can spot their ads. (Twitter thread)
Let's just pretend the PS2-era games never happened.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time [Game Trailer] “After a more than 20-year wait, a true sequel to 1998’s Crash Bandicoot: Warped is coming to PS4 and Xbox One on October 2nd. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time picks up decades after the events of Warped, back when you defeated antagonists Neo Cortex, Dr. N. Tropy, and Uka Uka and left them stranded on a distant planet. The sequel picks up with the trio escaping, resulting in a rip in the fabric of space and time. Taking inspiration from the original PlayStation trilogy, the game will be a platformer; the trailer shows that we’ll still be spinning and jumping our way through enemies and over bottomless pits while also collecting Wumpa fruits. But it will also add new gameplay mechanics to refresh the classic formula, such as wall running, rope swinging, rail grinding, and Quantum Masks, which appear to allow the fuzzy marsupials to run on the ceiling or slow down time.” [via: The Verge] [more inside]
Voter Suppression Still Crushing Democracy
Delays and long lines at polling places during recent presidential primary elections represent the latest version of decades-long policies that have sought to reduce the political power of African Americans in the U.S. On Friday, a federal judge denied an effort to expand the number of polling places in Kentucky. The state, which holds a primary election tomorrow (June 23) to determine the Democratic candidate to face off against Mitch McConnell, will have fewer than 200 polling places. That is a fraction of the 3,700 polling places in the state during a typical election year, according to Mother Jones. [more inside]
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one—until now.
It’s quarantine day 637 or something like that and a new sport is born...the American Hedgehog Bowling Association...Pepper and Tuck go head to head in 5 frames of nail biting hedgehog bowling with only one turn per frame so every pin counts....who can knock down the most pins? Don’t worry, it’s totally safe and not what you may be thinking....Check it out and comment if you’re Team Pepper or Team Tuck!
Gotta promise not to let me down and hurt you.
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