November 30
Read Palestine Week - Nov 29-Dec 5
Palestinian books shared this week by their publishers. These are free to read at the publisher sites, and cover a diverse array of genres, ideas and languages, with more activities planned and shared from over 400 publishers. As Kazuo Isiguro said: "But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it feel this way to you?"
debate me, coward
Tonight at 9PM Eastern: California Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis face off in an unusual debate moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity. DeSantis, an early star in the Republican primary, has mounted a dysfunctional campaign that is struggling to gain traction against frontrunner Donald Trump, while Newsom has emerged as a top Biden surrogate and possible contender for 2028 (if not 2024). Indulge if you can, since it might be the last national bipartisan debate in a while. Free live streams with minimal commentary: Brian Tyler Cohen - David Pakman
There Once Was An Empire
Remember Her
It's time to go back to the sublime madness of George Miller. The "Furiosa" trailer is here.
Hopes CO2-infused recycled concrete will help builders cut emissions
Hopes CO2-infused recycled concrete will help builders cut emissions. A Western Sydney University professor says her invention is as strong as new concrete, cheaper, and has the potential to help the construction sector become significantly greener.
Alice Denney, Washington’s impresario of the experimental, dies at 101
She invigorated a staid if not stodgy arts scene as one of the city’s first and most prominent champions of the avant-garde With only minimal formal training in the arts, she became an impresario of the experimental in a city where, as a writer for The Washington Post once put it, “a sculpture with a naked derrière is still considered terribly avant.” She looked beyond the classically beautiful and politically bland, challenging curators, collectors, donors and the public to embrace art that was new, daring and at times provocative.
Brids, Sfish and other Amals
Blind people gesture (and why that’s kind of a big deal)
"People who are blind from birth will gesture when they speak. I always like pointing out this fact when I teach classes on gesture, because it gives us an an interesting perspective on how we learn and use gestures. [...] Not only do blind people gesture, but the frequency and types of gestures they use does not appear to differ greatly from how sighted people gesture. If people learn gesture without ever seeing a gesture (and, most likely, never being shown), then there must be something about learning a language that means you get gestures as a bonus." [more inside]
Shane MacGowan: remember him THIS way.
Here he is at his peak, both as a songwriter and a performer. Here's another side to his songwriting. And here's today's Guardian obituary by Alex Petridis, which gets it about right. [more inside]
How Citizen Surveillance Ate San Francisco
"New York and London are known for being blanketed with government-run CCTV coverage, but surveillance here is different: It is as privatized as it is pervasive" (slWired) [more inside]
A study on the banality of evil
Racist, white supremacist, and far-right violence is on the rise. But while far-right actors often try to maintain a public image of normalcy, it is sometimes useful to look into their private spaces in an attempt to understand how their hate festers, evolves, and breeds when no one is looking. HowHateSleeps seeks to peek behind the curtain to look into these private sanctums. All images have been pulled from public court records except where otherwise indicated [CW: evil]
November 29
Bang bang bang on the door, baby (SLYT)
We are immersed in a world of wetness
Oh, Elon...
In his ongoing attempt to to destroy Xitter, Mr Musk suggests former advertisers indulge in auto-copulation. (slyt)
Political humiliation
In the world of sexual fetishes, crossing the political aisle is a kink. Does a forced ‘vote’ for the other side get your pulse racing? There’s a dominatrix for that. (wapo)
Ding, dong,
Move Over and Let Me Dance, 1965
Silence the Crunch
Be free from annoying your friends with eating noises while gaming! The future is now.
Divers uncovering secrets of Australia's megafauna past
Divers uncovering secrets of Australia's megafauna past, concealed deep in underwater caves. Hidden in watery chambers around South Australia's Limestone Coast are fossils telling the story of a prehistoric Australian world. Researchers are determined to find them.
"It's like I won the lottery."
What America can learn from Canada’s new ‘$10 a Day’ child care system [The Hechinger Report] Canada’s launch of a national child care system shows what it takes to improve child care across a country [more inside]
Rudy Rucker's 1986 Cyberpunk Sci-fi Collection Mirrorshades
=== This is a free online edition of
Bruce Sterling's anthology Mirrorshades. ===
via boingboing. [more inside]
Bruce Sterling's anthology Mirrorshades. ===
via boingboing. [more inside]
Do you want to watch depressing videos about cloth fibre production?
Kristine Vike, PhD in Environmental Analytical Chemistry, has got you covered. Get started with The Surprisingly Dangerous Story of Viscose, Hidden Chemicals in your Clothes, or Why So-Called Textile Recycling Is An Absolute Disgrace. (On a lighter note: Making Batwings For My Cat Didn’t Quite Go As Planned.) You can also read her academic papers or visit her website, where she describes herself as a "history, sewing, and sustainability enthusiast."
A soothing look at the long process of hand-making safflower rouge
A relaxing and interesting video showing a method of making powder blush with safflower. Facebook algorithm showed this to me (stolen & reposted without context natch) but this is the original. The account is the work of "a cameraman record[ing] his nephew producing handicrafts with traditional methods in the countryside." [more inside]
A Whole New Way to Love McDonald's
McDonald's New Terms and Conditions Have People Deleting the App (Mashed, Daily Meal, Daily Dot, Parade) The latest terms and conditions for using the McDonald's app contain many customer-affecting changes: updates to McDonald's liability in cases of injury, third-party errors, and app malfunction; waivers for a customer's right to a jury trial or class action lawsuit; and an agreement to solve disputes through a strict arbitration process.
Self selective assortative voting (with your feet)
The Red State Brain Drain Isn't Coming. It's Happening Right Now. [archive] - "As conservative states wage total culture war, college-educated workers—physicians, teachers, professors, and more—are packing their bags." [more inside]
Sex! Gender! Queerness!
Meg-John Barker has moved on from being an academic psychologist and practicing psychotherapist after publishing books and papers on bisexuality, consensual non-monogamy, sadomasochism, non-binary gender, and Buddhist mindfulness. Now they make graphic guides and zines to reach a much wider audience. Wondering what a queer relationship looks like? Or how you actually talk about consent in a relationship? Or maybe how to stay grounded when you are full of scary feelings? They also just published an anti-self-help guide to love, sex and relationships called Rewriting the Rules. [more inside]
Subdivisions
High-quality video of Rush's Neil Peart practicing the drums for half an hour. Nothing more, nothing less.
“What’s that thing with the fire?”
A perfectly executed Bananas Foster takes about three to four minutes to prepare. But a restaurant flambé requires additional time to allow the person who orders it to overshare about the one other time they ordered a flambé at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the south of France. Someone at the table will also invariably ask, “Have you ever burned anyone before?” (Thankfully, I have not — but I’ve definitely sent errant chunks of flaming banana out of the pan a couple of times like rogue fruit meteors, causing momentary bouts of panic and a few singed linens.) Every time a pan spiked with sugar and alcohol combusts, flambé sales go viral. One order and the entire restaurant goes up in flames. from Confessions of a Tableside Flambéur
November 28
"official helmets and t-shirts were issued"
New spider discovered: a nocturnal, fast-moving toad hunter
Is John Likeglass Still Around?
The Mystery of VelmaDinkley.com [25m] is an internet mystery posted earlier this year. YouTuber CHUPPL has lost countless hours of sleep trying to answer the questions surrounding this subject. Ruh-Roh! Does a community of Scooby Doo fans have something to hide? The ensuing investigation is entirely human and the end is entirely satisfactory.
A Very Ask A Manager Thanksgiving
An Ask a Manager themed dinner complete with bribery cupcakes Try Bob's Guacamole. Duck Club Sandwiches and Cheap Ass rolls.
I don't know whether I have any more of these in me
The industry side of the game is called the Company, but I came very, very close to calling it Capitalism because the tobacco industry isn't exceptional. The way it pursued profits at the expense of human lives wasn't some kind of mustache-twirling villainy. It is the consequence of capitalism and its incentives. And even if I ultimately decided to swerve from the name, I did want to reflect those incentives – the unsustainable and amoral pursuit of maximum profits, of infinite growth. from Doubt Is Our Product, or A Game About Tobacco Disinformation by Amabel Holland
If you sit by the riverside, you see a culmination
This year's U.S. 5th National Climate Assessment Report opens with a poem by Ada Limón, features an Art + Climate Gallery and an Atlas with 15 national maps that show changes in extreme heat & precipitation. [more inside]
I've Made a Huge Mistake
Chris Lewicki recounts a story about how he almost killed a half-billion-dollar Mars rover. Turns out cables are hard.
Ceasefire now
NYT: Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace - Even a conservative assessment of the reported Gaza casualty figures shows that the rate of death during Israel’s assault has few precedents in this century, experts say.[ungated] [more inside]
Ge-brew-tlichkeit
The beer garden’s family-friendliness helped to promote beer as a temperance beverage and a “healthy” alternative to spirits. Over the course of the 19th century, the temperance movement had come a long way from promoting moderation to calling for total abstinence of all alcoholic beverages. To German Americans, temperance was more than a mere political issue; it symbolized cultural conflict that threatened their lifestyle and value system. For the brewers, their ethnic interest was greatly reinforced by their economic interest. from A Lager Beer Revolution: The History of Beer and German American Immigration
“Memories are meant to fade… They’re designed that way for a reason.”
Giant Nerd Husband
In 2017, Malaysian artist Fishball began a thrice-weekly autobiographical webcomic about her and her (much taller) boyfriend: My Giant Nerd Boyfriend. Seven years, 2.3 million subscribers, 786 million views, and 912 strips later, this month they officially tied the knot.
November 27
A Land of Contrasts ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Sinicisation
How China is tearing down Islam [ungated; viz. cf.] - "Thousands of mosques have been altered or destroyed as Beijing's suppression of Islamic culture spreads."[1,2] [more inside]
atsʼáhoníyééʼ nił hólǫ́ǫ doo.
Using goats to reduce fire risk
Using goats to reduce fire risk by removing weeds. A herd of goats has removed weeds posing a fire risk in inaccessible terrain in a third of the time they were given to get the job done. Now the landowners have bigger ideas.
Thread for practicing pronouns: Pet photo show and tell, etc.
This is pronouns.page. This is a thread for everyone who feels like they need a place to expand their pronoun usage. Y'all can come here and maybe even feel a little awkward while pretending it's perfectly normal. And then it will BE perfectly normal because you have helped build the future. Need a place to start? Try using new pronouns to talk about your pets: they/them or ki/kin. [more inside]
A.I. discussion with Brian Greene
A World Science Festival youtube vid with Brian Greene, Sébastien Bubeck,
Tristan Harris, and Yann LeCun. It's worth watching to hear the protestations, especially from Yann LeCun about how A.I. is the answer to problems. He...seems to not really be hearing the concerns expressed. Video does contain some AI generated content, as an example.
Hardest Rug Of My Life!
There are a zillion videos like this on the internet. And even this same YouTuber has a bunch of videos labeled some variation of The Hardest Rug Ever. But this 43m epic $1 vs $100,000 Black Carpet! | The Hardest Rug of My Life! is one of those things where you wonder, is it ever going to come clean? What will it finally look like? Completely satisfying at the end, and a testament to how a truly well-made carpet can withstand nearly anything.
Coming soon to the box office.
Good (non-Hollywood-ish) movies coming down the pipe. Vulture magazine lists over a dozen top movies from the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals.
Effective obfuscation
Web 3 is Going Just Great creator Molly White writes in her Citation Needed newsletter on effective altruism and effective accelerationism: As Sam Bankman-Fried rose and fell, people outside of Silicon Valley began to hear about “effective altruism” (EA) for the first time. Then rifts emerged within OpenAI with the ouster and then reinstatement of CEO Sam Altman, and the newer phrase “effective accelerationism” (often abbreviated to “e/acc” on Twitter) began to enter the mainstream. Both ideologies ostensibly center on improving the fate of humanity, offering anyone who adopts the label an easy way to brand themselves as a deep-thinking do-gooder. [more inside]
Rethinking the Green Revolution
It is often taken for granted that the Green Revolution, which introduced new high yield monoculture crops together with chemical fertilisers, was a huge boost to global food production from which there is no going back. This article in the National Academies of Science ISSUES in Science and Technology by environmental scientists Marci Baranski and Mary Ollenburger discusses and critiques that assumption, in particular discussing both how the increased yields were overstated and fragile, and how the narrative and accompanying policies served and continue to serve USA and multinational corporate dominance and centralisation.
Enjoy some humorous existential dread
The Amazing Digital Circus (Youtube, 26 minutes) is a computer-animated Youtube cartoon about a group of whimsical characters stuck in a whimsical VR world. They're all hugely dismayed by this fact and want to leave it please. In that way it feels a bit like social media. In a month it has gotten 147 million views. Meet the characters (1 minute). It was made by the talented Gooseworx, who also made Little Runmo (16 minutes, previously), a cartoon about a video game character who learns a little too much about the world they live in. CW: general disquietingness. [more inside]
Together, we can get paid in full
"May the Lord Watch is the definitive story (1:40:06) of Little Brother, the North Carolina rap group composed of rappers Phonte, Big Pooh, and (formerly) producer 9th Wonder, the underground legends that bridged the gap between The Roots and Kendrick, Tribe and Cole, De La and Drake. The film follows the rise, breakup, and reunion of the preeminent 2000s rap group"