August 24, 2017
Wake up, Mister Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes.
The Half-Life series is no stranger to delays, enigmatic disappearances, and sudden reappearances. So it's fitting that the (likely) final chapter of the franchise, delayed now for years and involving an enigmatic ship that disappears and reappears without rhyme or reason, should finally be revealed in perhaps the least likely manner imaginable: not via the long-anticipated announcement of a new game, but unceremoniously published as a plot summary on the former head writer's personal blog (spoiler warning for the non-existent Half-Life 2: Episode 3). Pastebin archive, with all names translated into their assumed Half-Life counterparts. [more inside]
I FLIP FOR SCIENCE
The RV FLoating Instrument Platform is a towed research platform that turns 90 degrees upright, to provide a stable environment for research in the manner of a spar buoy. It's designed to work in both configurations.
Siimba Liives Long: golden-era hip-hop sound from Ethiopia/ NYC
Siimba Liives Long is the fire-breathing, lion taming (or at least lion-adjacent chilling) Ethiopia-raised, Brooklyn-residing rapper and songwriter who recently released Zemenay's Gemiinii (YT playlist; alt. YT playlist; Soundcloud), his debut album that starts dark but gets brighter, otherworldly but earthly, aware but not self-righteous.
Just What Is a Red Panda, Anyway?
Last week, as it sometimes does, the topic of red pandas came up in conversation. The person I was speaking to was well aware that red pandas are not very closely related to the more famous giant pandas... but he had no idea what they actually are related to.
“Saying a game is "dead" can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Why You Should stop Focusing On Player Counts So Much [IGN] “As soon as LawBreakers [YouTube][Trailer] released last Tuesday, there were people in comment sections and forums around the internet declaring it a “dead game.” According to them, it was already doomed - a game no one was playing that people rushed to put nostradamus-like expiration dates on. The problem is that most of these people have likely never played the game, but thanks to sites like SteamCharts and the less reliable SteamSpy commenters everywhere can feel empowered to make wide generalizations about the health of any game based on “hard facts.”” [more inside]
Everyman Jay Thomas has passed away.
A genuine nice guy. The actor known for his roles in “Mork & Mindy” and “Cheers,” has died after a battle with cancer. He was 69.
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Policy For The People
Matt Bruenig, creator of The People's Policy Project (a think tank for leftist policy), wrote Common Ownership And The New Antitrust Movement advocating for Market Socialism and common ownership along side stronger anti-trust measures. It stirred debate at Naked Capitalism and Bloomberg, prompting a response: Index Funds Are A Proof Of Concept For Market Socialism. Other PPP posts: The Welfare State Should Be More Than A Safety Net. How the Swedes Addressed Wealth Inequality
Solved? Century-old mystery of why a legendary Civil War submarine sank
Blasting Through the Hunley Mystery The crew hand-cranked the sub more than six kilometers toward its target—the Union blockader USS Housatonic—and surfaced like a leviathan for the charge. By 9:00 p.m., it was over: the Hunley had thrust its spar-mounted torpedo into the Housatonic’s hull and within seconds, 60 kilograms of black powder had caved in the ship.
Just after the brief moment of glory, the Hunley, which had just become the world’s first successful combat submarine, mysteriously sank. [more inside]
Did This Book Buy Its Way Onto The New York Times Bestseller List?
Did this book buy its way onto the New York Times bestseller list? An interesting read on how Phil Stamper and others dug into a book seemingly no one had heard of showing up at the top of the New York Times YA list, without the notorious dagger (†) indicating significant bulk orders (and usually something fishy). [more inside]
Now you're thinking with pullets
Say you're KFC. Training your new hires on how to fry chicken requires a wasteful 25 minutes. What if you could shave that time down to 10 minutes? What if you could do it without wasting any precious inventory? What if you could do it with a virtual reality locked room game full of Rube Goldbergian devices narrated by an actor as a bellowing, wheezing Colonel Sanders? Now you can!
Inside, the radio's prayer. Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
All We Want To Do Is Eat Your Brains
A Bloomberg report on how offal is re-entering mainstream US cuisine
RIP Village Voice print edition, 1955-2017
The Village Voice, a storied progressive alt-weekly that has watchdogged New York's political and business classes for more than half a century, is ending its print edition. The announcement is a symbolic blow for alternative weeklies across the United States, which have endured successive cuts and closures in recent years as print advertising revenue has dried up. The Village Voice, founded in 1955, is regarded as one of the first alt-weeklies and counts among its alumni crusading journalists and literary authors such as Wayne Barrett and Norman Mailer. As also reported by the New York Times and
NPR. [more inside]
Give me two fingers of your best sipping liquor
Old West Recipes: Snakehead Trade Whiskey - Mefi's own Max Sparber recreates the adulterated whiskey of the wild west. It has bits in. [via mefi projects]
Rural English pastimes that are not The Hunting of the Earl of Rone
While the upper classes have tea pursuit and riding crop rumpus, we can choose from toe wrestling or hen racing in Derbyshire, wormcharming in Devon, gurning in Cumbria, pancake racing in Buckinghamshire (women only), egg throwing in Lincolnshire, black pudding hurling in Ramsbottom, bottle kicking in Leicestershire, pooh sticks (previously) in Witney, and bun throwing nearby. Sadly, ancient sports such as shin kicking are dying out. But there's also a variety of pub games such as Aunt Sally and Dwile Flonking or stinging nettle eating (vomiting is forbidden), or nurdling in Rutland. And not forgetting tin bath racing, or tar barrel racing (video) and, of course, the Haxley Hood (explained in 1967) in Lincolnshire and the Cornish national sport of hurling the silver ball. [post title]
Not Blinding Everyone And Setting The World Aflame With Death Rays
Phil Broughton is a health physicist and laser safety specialist at UC Berkeley (and maker of fine turbocoffees). After being introduced to the Kickstarter for Cubiio: The Most Compact Laser Engraver, he has Many Thoughts to share on laser safety and laser device regulation.
Secret Studio
Living literary con job
Come for The Stranger's investigation into the past of a writer who seemingly has a glancing relationship with the facts, stay for the the use of Ian Somerhalder's face as a talent agent.
The Mindset List has always existed for them
20th in the series, here is the Beloit College Mindset List for the class of 2021, an examination of the culture they grew up in.
Pianist Josh Cohen
Josh Cohen is an Australian pianist whose YouTube channel features him performing (among other things) covers of Radiohead songs. Really, really, really beautiful covers. [more inside]
Cover version masterclass, anyone?
The English jazz/swing/pop/crossover artist has so far released seven studio albums, sold 10 million copies of them, had Grammy, Brit and Golden Globe nominations, and also has his own show on BBC Radio 2. But Jamie Cullum also has a nice sideline in producing jazz covers of some of pop's greatest hits. [more inside]
All dogs go to heaven
The Cult of Guinefort: An Unusual Saint
In the provinces...the method for making someone a saint was more flexible with room for local input and influence. In this environment, someone could be “sainted” without really meeting the necessary qualifications of the central church. One illustration of such a case is that of the thirteenth-century Saint Guinefort who, as it happens, was a greyhound.[more inside]
Natural History
Why Ecology Needs Natural History "The two fields' intertwined histories show that most theoretical breakthroughs are preceded by the kind of deep observational work that has fallen out of vogue in the past half century."
The Neon God They Made
Three videos about making neon signs.
Put on a bunnyhug and get off the chesterfield!
The Canadian Language Survey results are in! And “Even in other places that have no obvious reason to talk differently, Canadians have developed strong regionalisms.” Toque, Pencil crayons, garburator, oh my!
Under cover of anonymity, economics gets more dismal
For her undergraduate thesis at Berkeley, Alice H. Wu looked at the gender breakdown of anonymous postings on Economics Job Market Rumors (a.k.a. EJMR). What she found will be obvious to anyone who's been on the Internet since ever: "the discourse tends to become significantly less academic or professional oriented, and more about personal information and physical appearance when women are mentioned." [more inside]
Stone sky
“Show me your luggage and I’ll tell you who you are”
The lost art of hotel luggage labels: a blog post featuring a selection of vintage luggage labels from graphic designer Tom Schifanella's extensive on-line collection 'Art of the Luggage Label' (flickr). [more inside]
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