July 19, 2019
Here's what young activists are talking about this year
Teen Girl Activists Take On Skeptical Boys and Annoying Buzzwords -- NPR interviewed ten young activists at the Girl Up 2019 Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., this week. Girl Up (official YouTube videos) is a campaign founded by the U.N. foundation that promotes activism for 13- to 22-year-olds to work for the health, safety and education of girls.
Blissinformation
"Tag cleaners, as they call themselves, drown out gore, harassment, and more by flooding a user’s tagged photos with pleasant images. It’s benevolent spam. The most prolific accounts are usually reposting the same images ad nauseam in quick bursts." [more inside]
Do you get the Sound Mixing Nerd Spirit Orb?
"There is a war raging - right now - with the Magisterium."
His Dark Materials, Extended Trailer. The BBC and HBO released a glimpse of their adaptation of Philip Pullman's fantasy series, apparently due out later this year. The cast includes Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda as the Texan aeronaut. [more inside]
generating an electrifying conversation: do try not to be shocked
We all know about the ability of electric eels to stun their prey with a powerful shock. But how did the eels evolve this power? It didn't start as a weapon: the electric eel's knifefish ancestors, like its modern cousins, used weak electric pulses to talk to one another just as we use weak pulses of pressure to create sounds. (They're not unique, either--six lineages of fish have evolved this ability.) But electric fish like the knifefish aren't the only ones listening under the water: there are plenty of electroceptive predators paying attention, too. In a story that starkly resembles the pressures on acoustic communication, electric fish have to modify their signals to avoid being overheard. [more inside]
It's more involved than you might think
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
When, through the nighttime murk of the Amazon River, an electric eel locates a feeder fish, what happens next is instantaneous: A jolt of electricity surges through the fish’s nerves. Its muscles contract simultaneously, and it is transformed into a living, floating statue. This is roughly the same reaction that women born between Labor Day 1985 and New Year’s Eve 1991, approximately, exhibit when exposed to the opening seconds of the Spice Girls’ debut single “Wannabe.” Pharmacists, statisticians, probation workers, bank tellers, event planners, bartenders, psychologists, paralegals, market research analysts, junior members of Congress, phlebotomists, journalists — in the void between the salutatory “Yooo!” and the song’s first plonked-out musical note, all of these become temporarily incapacitated, frozen between heartbeats with lightning in their blood. Caity Weaver writes for the NY Times Style Section on the Spice Girls Generation
It catches the sunlight and sparkles.
"Let's talk about peeing in space." Lots of fun facts in this Twitter thread by writer Mary Robinette Kowal, debunking the idea — put forth by some readers in response to her essay in the NYT on women astronauts — "that women couldn't go into space because we lacked the technology for them to pee in space" and explaining in detail how "we didn't have the technology for men to pee in space when they started either." (Also: extra fun facts on pooping, and farting, and belching, and periods in space.)
Tituss Burgess and an Ode to 45
Tituss Burgess (of Kimmy Schmidt and Pinot Noir fame) has released a video for his song 45. (Video. Lyrics.) The video features actor Daniel J. Watts, an empty mansion, Tituss in a straight jacket, and some weird eye makeup. [more inside]
The Kiss that Changed Video Games
The story of how The Sims (EA, 2000) ended up facililtating gay relationships - despite an earlier decision by the developers not to allow it. Also how an unscripted same sex kiss between background characters led to The Sims becoming the talk of E3 in 1999. (SLNew Yorker)
I learned to love you lucidly
The Spanish-Basque rock band Hesian's cover of Alaitz & Maider's song "Amets bat" ("A Dream"). The video includes a clip of Alaitz and Maider singing verse four of the song starting about 1:40. (previously) [more inside]
Woe To ‘Tango And Cash’
“I can’t wait to get back to the shop again and blow things up.”
The surprisingly engrossing history of How The Milwaukee Bucks And A Former Wedding DJ Won The T-Shirt Cannon Arms Race.
Harpsichord Drone
Popular Front
"This essay argues that socialists can effectively shape political debate in alliance with social democrats. I will limit my arguments, for the most part, to the rhetorical level, while recognizing there are larger questions about the relationship between socialists and social democrats that are essential to discuss. The battle over rhetorical space within key alliances is nonetheless central to winning political contests, which is why I focus on it here." Shifting Alliances: Socialists, Social Democrats, and the New U.S. Left
Look at the birdie
The award-winners and top 100 entries from the Audubon Society's annual Photography Awards. That is all.
"WARNING: this thread gets very very silly."
University of Bonn research assistant Erik Wade informs us of a hitherto little-known clade:
Thread: everyone knows that medieval art is filled with snails fighting knights, but there's actually a whole medieval snail ecology and society, from snail-birds to snail-monks. And, ofc, snail-cats.Twitter | Threadreader
A bad workday's lessons on building Stack Overflow’s community
The monster in this case is not one person, it was created when lots of people, even with great intentions, publicly disagreed with you at the same time. Even kind feedback can come off as caustic and mean when there is a mob of people behind it. No matter how nicely they say it, when a large group of people you really respect publicly challenge something you’ve done it can feel like a personal attack. 1600 words from Sara Chipps at Stack Overflow.
RIP BEEFTANK
Former college and professional football quarterback Jared Lorenzen has passed away at the age of 38. Known as "The Pillsbury Throwboy" and "The Battleship Lorenzen" for his size as a quarterback, his most notable contribution to pop culture was serving as the inspiration for CLARENCE BEEFTANK in Jon Bois' Breaking Madden series. Unsurprisingly, Bois has written a touching eulogy for Lorenzen and the feats he was capable of on the field.
Put that lad on the next courier, and we'll show it in London
The story of the invention of the black box flight recorder with subterfuge and ridicule. And stubbornness and humour.
I mean, who wouldn't want a gang of meerkats on their head?
There are fascinators, and then there are fascinators. Maor Zabar makes hats that really stand out, from sea creatures to bugs to fast food. He also has a shop on Etsy - but the prices are high.
Pansexual’s Labyrinth
Otamere Guobadia writes for Dazed about sexual fluidity, in his own life and in our expectations of celebrities who come out (or don't). "Man” and “woman” as described in our sexual orientations are not only necessarily imperfect characterisations, but they are flexible and porous categories; in our lifetimes and indeed in our everyday, our desires weave many times in and out of them. I have desired bodies that both uphold these categories, and bodies that fail them entirely, and everybody in between. I have had men wolf whistle at my skinny jean-clad legs as I walked down the stairs of a double decker bus, only for their leering to turn to agitation and anger when the rest of my torso came into view. Desire is a silly and changeable thing. [more inside]
Hollis B. Worth Opens Up About Bulleit, Diageo Split
Hollis B.Worth, (née Anne Hollister Bulleit) is known to thousands in the spirits industry as the “First Lady of Bourbon” and as the face of the Bulleit brand that is named after her family. [more inside]
Because tech meccas don’t always conform to stereotype
In the 1980s, One of the World's Cellphone Hot Spots Was ... Zaire Now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC
50 Years of Stupid Moon Songs
An ambulance can only go so fast: Neil Young's On the Beach at 45
An Ode to ‘On the Beach,’ Neil Young’s Most Beautiful (and Most Depressing) Album Forty-five years after its release, Young's melancholic search for meaning in a chaotic world feels more relatable than ever. [more inside]
Photographs From Above by JP and Mike Andrews
UK based-brothers JP and Mike Andrews began taking aerial photographs of the Earth after a year-long trip experiencing the incredible landscapes found in the Australian Outback. Using a drone, the pair have continued to capture natural and manmade scenes across the world, stumbling upon unique patterns that can only be discerned from above. (Instagram feed)
The Mortgaging of Sierra Online
The Digital Antiquarian on the overreach of the company behind King’s Quest, Quest for Glory, and Outpost. From the execrable “love theme” song Girl in the Tower that debuted with King’s Quest VI to misadventures on the Sega Genesis CD, Sierra’s fall was years in the making…
“The eider is an unsung hero, far braver than any bird of prey”
In Ísafjörður, the capital of Iceland’s remote Westfjords region, a Lutheran pastor compared eiderdown to cocaine. “I sometimes think that we are like the coca farmers in Colombia,” he said. “We [the down harvesters] get a fraction of the price when the product hits the streets of Tokyo. This is the finest down in the world and we are exporting it in black garbage bags.”–The Weird Magic of Eiderdown by Edward Posnett, adapted from his book Strange Harvest. Bonus video: Motherless Eider ducklings playing with human children.
She's a good dog
Sod Pepsi's navy
"Let's talk about the point after WW2 where the Knights Hospitaller, of medieval crusading fame, 'accidentally' became a major European air power." A twitter thread by John Bull.
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