June 29, 2018
Instead of ‘finding your passion,’ try developing it
A masterpiece of silent cinema
Security footage of a couple attempting to escape arrest at a Canadian convenience store, which deserves some sort of award for editing. Watch to the end. [more inside]
Singing Against the Grain
Playing Beethoven in the #BlackLivesMatter era — Johann Baptist Vanhal’s Concerto in D Major is a standard of the string repertoire. A Czech composer and musician who performed with Joseph Haydn, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vanhal most likely wrote the bright and shimmery concerto for double bass in the 1760s, around the same time that he was saving money to purchase his freedom from a Bohemian count. [CW: this is America] [more inside]
Beyond Brutalism
"Some of the people here might be described as punk rockers"
"Now I'm told the band playing was Social Distortion from LA, it is a hard rock, punk rock type band, and some of the people here might be described as punk rockers, is that fair or not fair?"
Milwaukee local news covers the "Odd Rock Riot" of October 4, 1988, when police broke up an overcrowded Social Distortion show before the band could start their set.
Thirty years later, Social D returns to Milwaukee to play tonight at Summerfest.
The Letter Carrier
A Push for Gender 'X'
For more than a century Massachusetts has required drivers to have state-issued licenses before getting behind the wheel, and for much of that time it has asked recipients to declare their gender as either male or female, M or F. Now, at the urging of a teenager from the MetroWest region, the state is considering giving motorists a third option: X. [more inside]
“I came in like a...”
Overwatch's Latest Hero Is Wrecking Ball, A Hamster In A Mech [Twitter] “It looks like Overwatch’s newest hero might be who—but not what—we thought. Fans speculated that the first-person shooter’s 28th hero could be Hammond, a monkey companion to the genetically-engineered gorilla Winston. So it came as a surprise that Overwatch just released Hammond the hamster, who goes by “Wrecking Ball,” onto the game’s public test realm this afternoon. Hammond is a mischief-making tank hero who fires machine guns out of his mech, which can roll into a “wrecking ball.”” [via: Kotaku] [Origin Story] [Developer Update]
26,461 Attempts Later
Choco Mountain: The History of Mario Kart 64's Most Infamous Track - A Nintendo 64 speedrun record almost 20 years in the making. [30 minute video, no Mario Kart knowledge is necessary.]
gentrification complaints
They Played Dominoes Outside Their Apartment For Decades. Then The White People Moved In And Police Started Showing Up. [more inside]
A family, not a pregnant man
She’ll grow up in a very diverse home. We surround her with people who are different. Three years after meeting David and Tanner while documenting queer communities, photographer Jackie Malloy saw Tanner's Facebook post that he was unexpectedly pregnant with their child and was proud to be the father to their child. She reached out and they welcomed her into their lives for another year and a half to document Tanner's pregnancy and the evolution of their family through their daughter's first birthday.
Going, going, gone
“It’s an unsettled identity, and you can fall out of it, you can barely get into it, you certainly can’t rise above it very easily. Guy Standing coined the term precariat in 2011 to describe the proletariat, which is a Marxist way of understanding the working class, crossed with precariousness. And people get that. Every time they ride an Uber or they have a gig economy Task Rabbit person come to their house they’re like, OK, that’s the precariat. But I was seeing the same thing among paralegals or those who have law degrees but were still doing temporary work.” Reimagining the Middle Class, a talk with Alissa Quart about her new book, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America.
One Man's Mission to Bring Better Ramen to the Incarcerated
People in U.S. prisons often supplement their meager meals with ramen -- it's cheap, doesn't spoil quickly, and is easy to prepare. However, the average packet of Nissin or Maruchan ramen has more than half of the recommended daily allowance of sodium, leading to heart disease and other preventable illness across the prison system. That's why Ron Freeman developed low-sodium ramen and is specifically aiming sales at prison commissaries.
Read This Article!!!
“Once exclamation points were scary and loud; they made you jump,” Heidi Julavits wrote in her 2015 memoir The Folded Clock. “You were in trouble when the exclamation points came out. They were the nunchucks of punctuation. They were a bark, a scold, a gallows sentence. Not any longer. The exclamation point is lighthearted, even whimsical."
Exposing the Secret Office 365 Forensics Tool
An ethical crisis in the digital forensics industry came to a head last week with the release of new details on Microsoft’s undocumented “Activities” API. A previously unknown trove of access and activity logs held by Microsoft allows investigators to track Office 365 mailbox activity in minute detail.
Chronic pain patients driven to despair
Unintended consequences: Inside the fallout of America’s crackdown on opioids.
Chronic pain patients, such as Stewart, are driving extraordinary distances to find or continue seeing doctors. They are flying across the country to fill prescriptions. Some have turned to unregulated alternatives such as kratom, which the Drug Enforcement Administration warns could cause dependence and psychotic symptoms. And yet others are threatening suicide on social media, and have even followed through, as doctors taper pain medication in a massive undertaking that Stefan Kertesz, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who studies addiction and opioids, described as “having no precedent in the history of medicine.”[more inside]
Extreme heat can be dangerous for people taking psychiatric medication
Here's a surprising extreme heat risk for 1 in 6 Americans
Psychiatric medications can interfere with the body's ability to regulate temperature, and most patients don't know, experts say. [more inside]
Scorchio! British summer of 2018 edition
As hosepipe bans and water supply issues occur, moist and instagramed Brits bare skin while shopping, slip into thongs, and turn to radishes and licking Earl Grey tea ice lollies. As moors catch fire and roads and buildings "melt" the heatwave stretches onwards. Tube travel is now in "sweaty stranger armpit" mode, while usually delightfully enjoyable British train journeys are delayed and commuters stare at screens. With temperatures topping 30C in all four nations and old people reminiscing about the summer of 1976, the heat is also affecting nearby countries. The usual advice - shade, work breaks, sunscreen, hydration, avoid jumping into quarry lakes and look after your pets and don't leave them in vehicles - prevails. The forecast: more of the same for days ahead. Post title.
Film reference blue
A Report Of Connected Events (slvimeo)
The director of Netflix's Ibiza has never even been to Ibiza
Aptly named Ibiza, the film follows three American girls (who struggle to pronounce Ibiza correctly the entire film) as they travel to everyone's favourite clubbing paradise and if luke-warm rom-coms are your thing, then you're in luck. The lead character falls in love with an EDM DJ and absolute hilarity ensues (it doesn't).
We spoke to the director Alex Richanbach about how he made the film, his influences and his take on glamourising drugs. This is perhaps the most awkward interview we've ever done.
What would you do with a 45-metre tower and a pool full of cornstarch?
The boys at the Gravity Discovery Centre of Gingin, Western Australia have some fun with oobleck and a bowling ball (also vs a pool table), an anvil (also flaming, vs deodorant cans, and a giant dart (also vs a stack of paper). They've also got a trampoline (or they had one). [more inside]
Craving the intention of a blazed-out drummer
Well-behaved women make history too
The 2018 European carbon dioxide supply crisis
Beer and Cider rationed! Pig Welfare at Risk! Frozen Food Supplies Hit! Coca-Cola Production Affected! And now, in a shocking escalation of the crisis: Crumpet Plants Shut! The 2018 European CO₂ shortage has been described as the “worst supply situation to hit the European carbon dioxide business in decades”: Why it really matters for the UK's food and drink supply
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