July 20, 2023
Farmer, fisherman, aquatic biologist, greatest jump scare of all time
According to his 2002 obituary, Craig Kingsbury was "...a farmer, fisherman, aquatic biologist, ox cart man, butcher, farrier, woodcarver, builder, breeder of exotic poultry, landscaper, longshoreman, able-bodied seaman, teamster, logger, stonemason, husband, father, storyteller and naturalist."
He was also hired as an advisor to actor Robert Shaw - who played Quint - during the filming of Jaws, and ended up contributing to one of that film's most notorious moments (SLYT) in his cameo as fisherman Ben Gardner.
Otter 841
Her name is 841. She is a sea otter. Her attacks on surfboards are escalating. She has so far managed to evade capture. Her popularity is growing.
The Aristocrats, But With A Yellow Sponge
An offhand comment in an interview revealed the existence of a piece of rather adult SpongeBob SquarePants lost media - Behind Closed Doors, a collection of decidedly NC-17 drawings made by and for the animation crew. But the book had never been made available to the public - until now (SLYT, potentially NSFW.) [more inside]
SRO means Single Room Occupancy
The 2017 documentary Caged Men: Tales From Chicago's Last Remaining SRO Hotels [1h23m] profiles the men who live in and work in the last single room occupancy hotels in Chicago. Men on the tenuous line between housed and unhoused, renting a rapidly-disappearing living situation from long ago that still survives to the modern day.
AI hates women and minorities.
But we knew that. An [Asian-American] MIT student asked AI to make her headshot more ‘professional.’ It gave her lighter skin and blue eyes. “In just a few seconds, [Playground AI] produced an image that was nearly identical to her original selfie—except Wang’s appearance had been changed. It made her complexion appear lighter and her eyes blue, ‘features that made me look Caucasian,’ she said.” (Boston Globe, limited free articles.)
Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women. “It penalized resumes that included the word ‘women’s,’ as in ‘women’s chess club captain.’ And it downgraded graduates of two all-women’s colleges, according to people familiar with the matter.” (Reuters)
"How do you tell the story of 50 years of hip-hop?"
Fake News
Google Tests A.I. Tool That Is Able to Write News Articles "The tool, known internally by the working title Genesis, can take in information — details of current events, for example — and generate news content."
What does it mean, Country Music, and why does it all sound the same
In the New Yorker:
Country music's Culture Wars and the remaking of Nashville. All about Music Row vs. what they're now labeling Americana, and more. Is Nashville Music Row anything other than "bro country, slick, hollow songs about trucks and beer, sung by interchangeable white hunks"?
(archive link) [more inside]
(archive link) [more inside]
Zama Zama: Taking a chance on gold
South Africa was long the world's largest producer of gold, but its annual output has been dropping since the 1970s. Now it's not even the largest producer in Africa, having been supplanted by Ghana. As even local gold-mining companies turn to other parts of the world, the mines they have abandoned have often been taken over by zama zamas, "artisanal miners" operating in an illicit, unregulated and often illegal manner. [more inside]
Everything you know about OCD is wrong
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can cause significant distress and suffering, and while the usual treatments (such as SSRIs and cognitive-behavioural therapy) can help, many patients are often left with residual troubling symptoms. Enter Dr. Michael Greenberg, an American psychologist and former OCD sufferer who seems to have had a breakthrough in understanding the psychological underpinnings of OCD: it all boils down to the tension between expressing needs and fear of the consequences of doing so. This then leads to rumination, which is easier to stop than you might think. [more inside]
Inside Britain’s first heat pump village
Inside Britain’s first heat pump village. How did a rural Cambridgeshire village switch en masse to renewable energy? Thanks to one fateful pizza night, 100 huge boreholes and heroic navigation of the planning system, they have trailblazed their own zero-carbon heat network.
33. The Communist Manifesto
Big Ben word game
Big Ben word game [via mefi projects] "A unique puzzle for each second of the day, with lots of nice touches: the background fades between day and night based on London time, there's a satisfying bonnggg sound that shakes the game when you find a long word, fireworks if you clear the grid, etc. It also features a large dictionary and generously makes sure you don't get a Q without a U next to it."
The Central Characters in These Films are Everyday People
In these films, sexuality pervades, not as a troublesome interloper, but as an all-consuming directive; like hunger, it is dangerous only when thwarted. It refuses to be relegated to the shadows. Like buried trauma, sex demands an audience. The perennial discourse of the plot-relevant sex scene—does it or does it not exist, and should it?—can find no footing here: sex is the plot, and it does so much more than titillate. It communicates. There is not just the soft-focus romantic lovemaking we’ve come to expect on-screen; there is also fucking for anger, shame, sorrow, and all the ugliness of which we fear to speak in the light of day. There is transgression and discomfort. There are real taboos hard at work between the sheets. What there aren’t, though, are thrills. These sex tragedies are downbeat, enervating to the last frame. Call this genre the “erotic bummer.” from In the Mouth of Sadness: On the Erotic Bummer [LARB; ungated]
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