Omnium Gatherum: 8aug2021

An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for August 8, 2021

Here’s a variety of notable things I’ve recently found that you may also be interested in checking out:

• The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Tom Gauld, due Aug 24, 2021—”In acclaimed graphic novelist Tom Gauld’s first picture book for children, a little wooden robot embarks on a quest to find his missing sister– making for a memorable contemporary bedtime story. For years, the king and queen tried desperately to have a baby. Their wish was twice granted when an engineer and a witch gave them a little wooden robot and an enchanted log princess. There’s just one catch, every night when the log princess sleeps, she transforms back into an ordinary log. She can only be woken with the magic words ‘Awake, little log, awake.’ The two are inseparable until one day when the sleeping log princess is accidentally carted off to parts unknown. Now it’s up to her devoted brother to find her and return her safely to the kingdom. They need to take turns to get each other home, and on the way, they face a host of adventures involving the Queen of Mushrooms, a magic pudding, a baby in a rosebush, and an old lady in a bottle. This is acclaimed graphic novelist Tom Gauld’s first picture book for children, inspired by a bedtime story he made up for his daughters. In his words, ‘I was trying to make a book inspired by three different sets of books: The books that I remember enjoying as a child, the books that I watched my daughters enjoying, and the books I enjoy now as an adult. I wanted the book to have its own quirky feeling but also to function like a classic bedtime story.’”
• From 2020: Department of Mind-Blowing Theories [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Tom Gauld—”A side-splitting skewering of the sober world of STEM. No one is safe when humorist and cartoonist Tom Gauld directs his hilarious gaze to your profession. Just as he did with writers, poets, and literary classics for the Guardian books page, Gauld now does with hapless scientists, nanobots, and puzzling theorems for his weekly New Scientist strip, the international magazine that covers all aspects of science and technology. Gauld’s Department of Mind-Blowing Theories presents one hundred and fifty comic strips topical and funny enough to engage any layperson with a rudimentary recall of their old science classes as well as those who consider themselves boffins of the contemporary physical and natural world. A dog philosopher questions what it means to be a ‘good boy’ while playing fetch! A virtual assistant and a robot-cleaner elope! The undiscovered species and the theoretical particle face existential despair! Facebook commenters debunk Darwin’s posting of On the Origin of Species! Why are there poodles pouring out of this wormhole?! One could hypothesize how Gauld is able to command such quick-witted knowledge of the scientific world however, as these strips prove, Gauld would retaliate with the sharpest of punchlines to that hastily cobbled postulate. Gauld won an Eisner for Best Humor for Baking With Kafka and Department of Mind-Blowing Theories is sure to cement his reputation as the foremost authority on joke generating technology.”
• “Amia Srinivasan: ‘Sex as a subject isn’t weird. It’s very, very serious’“—”With her debut book, The Right to Sex, a 36-year-old Oxford don is dazzling everyone from Vogue to Prospect magazine. She discusses porn, gender dysphoria – and why her students are no snowflakes.” Interview with Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library], due September, 2021—”Thrilling, sharp, and deeply humane, philosopher Amia Srinivasan’s The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century upends the way we discuss—or avoid discussing—the problems and politics of sex. How should we think about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can pull wildly apart. How should we talk about sex? Since #MeToo many have fixed on consent as the key framework for achieving sexual justice. Yet consent is a blunt tool. To grasp sex in all its complexity—its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power—we need to move beyond yes and no, wanted and unwanted. We do not know the future of sex—but perhaps we could imagine it. Amia Srinivasan’s stunning debut helps us do just that. She traces the meaning of sex in our world, animated by the hope of a different world. She reaches back into an older feminist tradition that was unafraid to think of sex as a political phenomenon. She discusses a range of fraught relationships—between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, students and teachers, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation. The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century is a provocation and a promise, transforming many of our most urgent political debates and asking what it might mean to be free.”
• “A new documentary about Truman Capote’s final novel promises unseen interviews and lots of tea.“—”Answered Prayers—whose title comes from Saint Teresa of Ávila: “Answered prayers cause more tears than those that remain unanswered.”—has long been one of literary history’s most discussed and mythologized unfinished works, and it is now the focus of a new documentary directed by Ebs Burnough. Appropriately, the documentary is full of never-before-seen taped interviews with Capote’s friends and ex-friends, including Lauren Bacall, Norman Mailer, Andre Leon Talley, Slim Keith, and Gore Vidal.” “The Capote Tapes will be released in theaters September 10, and digitally October 26.” Watch “The Capote Tapes” trailer.
• “Sylvia Plath: Will the poet always be defined by her death?. Since Sylvia Plath died in 1963, she’s been turned into a crudely tragic symbol. As she inspires more biographies, will we ever get closer to the ‘real’ Plath, asks Lillian Crawford.”
• Tweet—”Why is Thomas Becket sometimes called Thomas a Becket? Why is St Thomas of Canterbury called Thomas Becket? I get asked these questions a lot, so I decided to find out. I’m hoping to turn this into an article, but I thought I’d start it as a thread.”
• “Decoding the secrets of a 310 million-year old brain. New research explores ancient brains and takes a look inside the extraordinary preservation of a 310-million-year-old nervous system.” Also “Ancient brains: a look inside the extraordinary preservation of a 310-million-year-old nervous system.”
• “Scientists unveil extinct Ice Age lion cubs pulled from Russian permafrost. The scientists believe that the cave lion cubs, dubbed Boris and Sparta, each briefly roamed the steppe of what is now eastern Russia thousands of years ago.”
• “Scientists expected thawing wetlands in Siberia’s permafrost. What they found is ‘much more dangerous.’ More distressing news from the north: A heat wave in northern Siberia during the summer of 2020 increased atmospheric methane, most likely from fossil fuel previously locked up in reservoirs below and within the permafrost, according to researchers.”
• ? “Scientists Have Transformed Pure Water Into a Metal.”—”Pure water is an almost perfect insulator. Yes, water found in nature conducts electricity – but that’s because of the impurities therein, which dissolve into free ions that allow an electric current to flow. Pure water only becomes “metallic” – electronically conductive – at extremely high pressures, beyond our current abilities to produce in a lab. But, as researchers have now demonstrated for the first time, it’s not only high pressures that can induce this metallicity in pure water. By bringing pure water into contact with an electron-sharing alkali metal – in this case an alloy of sodium and potassium – free-moving charged particles can be added, turning water metallic.”
• “NASA Scientist’s Favorite Martian Image: Helicopter Scouts Ridge Area for Perseverance. A member of the Perseverance rover’s science team explains why the aerial image offers science advantages over ground-level images.” Get out your Anaglyph 3D glasses!
• “NASA’s Perseverance Team Assessing First Mars Sampling Attempt“—”Data sent to Earth by NASA’s Perseverance rover after its first attempt to collect a rock sample on Mars and seal it in a sample tube indicate that no rock was collected during the initial sampling activity. The rover carries 43 titanium sample tubes, and is exploring Jezero Crater, where it will be gathering samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for future analysis on Earth.”
• “NASA is Recruiting for Yearlong Simulated Mars Mission.”—”Mars is calling! NASA is seeking applicants for participation as a crew member during the first one-year analog mission in a habitat to simulate life on a distant world, set to begin in Fall 2022. As NASA ventures farther into the cosmos, the astronaut experience will change. In preparation for the real-life challenges of future missions to Mars, NASA will study how highly motivated individuals respond under the rigor of a long-duration, ground-based simulation.” “NASA is looking for healthy, motivated U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are non-smokers, age 30 to 55 years old, and proficient in English for effective communication between crew and mission control. Crew selection will follow standard NASA criteria for astronaut candidate applicants. A master’s degree in a STEM field such as engineering, mathematics, or biological, physical or computer science from an accredited institution with at least two years of professional STEM experience or a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft is required. Candidates who have completed two years of work toward a doctoral program in STEM, or completed a medical degree, or a test pilot program will also be considered. Additionally, with four years of professional experience, applicants who have completed military officer training or a Bachelor of Science in a STEM field may be considered.”
• “Quantum Crystal With ‘Time Reversal’ Could Be a New Dark Matter Sensor“—”Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have linked together, or “entangled,” the mechanical motion and electronic properties of a tiny blue crystal, giving it a quantum edge in measuring electric fields with record sensitivity that may enhance understanding of the universe.”
• “Long-lost fragment of Stonehenge reveals rock grains dating to nearly 2 billion years ago. A rocky core was removed during restoration work in 1958, and then kept as a souvenir.”
• “V404 Cygni: Huge rings around a black hole.”—”On June 5, 2015, Swift discovered a burst of X-rays from V404 Cygni. The burst created the high-energy rings from a phenomenon known as light echoes. Instead of sound waves bouncing off a canyon wall, the light echoes around V404 Cygni were produced when a burst of X-rays from the black hole system bounced off of dust clouds between V404 Cygni and Earth. Cosmic dust is not like household dust but is more like smoke, and consists of tiny, solid particles.”
• “‘World’s oldest’ coin factory discovered in China. If confirmed, the 2,600-year-old mint could rewrite the history of money.”—”Archaeologists excavating the remains of Guanzhuang—an ancient city in China’s eastern Henan Province—have discovered what they believe is the oldest-known coin mint, where miniature, shovel-shaped bronze coins were mass produced some 2,600 years ago.”
• “Machu Picchu is older than previously thought“—”The Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru was occupied from around 1420-1530 AD, several decades earlier than previously thought, according to a new study.”
• “Schliemann’s destruction in Turkey’s Troy repaired after 150 years.”
• Ancient Proto-Math Found in Babylonian Tablet. Ancient Babylonians may have outdone Pythagoras.”—”Tucked away in a seemingly forgotten corner of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Daniel Mansfield found what may solve one of ancient math’s biggest questions. First exhumed in 1894 from what is now Baghdad, the circular tablet — broken at the center with small perpendicular indentations across it — was feared lost to antiquity. But in 2018, a photo of the tablet showed up in Mansfield’s inbox.” “Hidden within this tablet is not only the oldest known display of applied geometry but a new ancient understanding of triangles. It could rewrite what we know about the history of mathematics, Mansfield argues.”
• “For The First Time, Researchers Just Watched How Plants Slurp Up Water“—”Plants thirst for water, just as we animals do, but exactly how they slurp it through their tissues has remained a bit of a mystery as attempting to see it happening impairs the process. By applying a gentle imaging technique in a new way, University of Nottingham physicist Flavius Pascut and the team were able to watch plants’ innards at work as they drank in real time.”
• “A Plant That ‘Cannot Die’ Reveals Its Genetic Secrets. Events in the genome of Welwitschia have given it the ability to survive in an unforgiving desert for thousands of years.”
• “Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse. A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say.” Also “How Worried Should You Be About a Key Atlantic Current Collapsing? The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation could be at risk. But don’t freak out quite yet. (About it, anyways. Climate change is still a nightmare.)”
• “Accepting the Mortality of New Orleans and Other Coastal Cities“—”The city of New Orleans, Louisiana, could seem to “get” climate change better than Boston, say, or New York, or Los Angeles. The New Orleans question is not whether global warming is real, or coming soon. In New Orleans the tipping point is history, and not to be undone. The question is how to cope with the next climate, and the answers can be imaginative and bold.” Podcast interview with Nathaniel Rich author of Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]—”From the author of Losing Earth, a beautifully told exploration of our post-natural world that points the way to a new mode of ecological writing. We live at a time in which scientists race to reanimate extinct beasts, our most essential ecosystems require monumental engineering projects to survive, chicken breasts grow in test tubes, and multinational corporations conspire to poison the blood of every living creature. No rock, leaf, or cubic foot of air on Earth has escaped humanity’s clumsy signature. The old distinctions—between natural and artificial, dystopia and utopia, science fiction and science fact—have blurred, losing all meaning. We inhabit an uncanny landscape of our own creation. In Second Nature, ordinary people make desperate efforts to preserve their humanity in a world that seems increasingly alien. Their stories—obsessive, intimate, and deeply reported—point the way to a new kind of environmental literature, in which dramatic narrative helps us to understand our place in a reality that resembles nothing human beings have known. From Odds Against Tomorrow to Losing Earth to the film Dark Waters (adapted from the first chapter of this book), Nathaniel Rich’s stories have come to define the way we think of contemporary ecological narrative. In Second Nature, he asks what it means to live in an era of terrible responsibility. The question is no longer, How do we return to the world that we’ve lost?It is, What world do we want to create in its place?”
• Tweet thread—”Hi! Crop scientist here. This “male trees are a capitalist scam” idea worked its way to TikTok from a hustler named Tim Ogren. Spreading this disinfo around is just doing free advertising for him. Tree Sex Ed, A Thread.” Tweet—”Trees do not respect the human gender binary. you could say the reason we have so much pollen is not landscaping, capitalism, or “botanical sexism,” it’s just that trees are super fuckin queer. and you would be right.”
• “FCC Puts Out Its First Mobile Coverage Maps: Why They Differ From Carrier Maps. This isn’t an on-the-ground measurement; it’s a projection. Still, it’s an independent map developed by someone other than the carriers themselves. That matters a lot.”
• “Why CAPTCHA Pictures Are So Unbearably Depressing. They force you to look at the world the way an AI does.”—”Tweet—”Machines are not being trained to see the world. They are solely witness to humanity’s crushing monotony and detritus. In this cinema for calculators there is no beauty or last vestiges of the natural world being plowed under.”
• Tweet—”This year @hack_a_sat ‘capture the flag’ contestants are trying to break ‘flat sats’ — real #satellite hardware systems on the ground. But, as I report for @README_Security from #DEFCON29 in two years time, the CTF will use a real spacecraft in orbit.” Also “Hacking space on the horizon for 2023. U.S. Space Force is working on a plan for security researchers to attempt to pwn a live satellite orbiting earth in Hack-A-Sat 4.”
• Tweet—”Apple distributed this internal memo this morning, dismissing their critics as “the screeching voices of the minority.” “I will never stop screeching about the importance of privacy, security, or civil liberties. And neither should you.” Also tweet—”Clearly a rubicon moment for privacy and end-to-end encryption. I worry if Apple faces anything other than existential annihilation for proposing continual surveillance of private messages then it won’t be long before other providers feel the pressure to do the same.” Also “Apple Will Scan Every iPhone for Images of Child Sexual Abuse“—”On the surface, the initiative appears to be a morally sound effort to root out sexual abuse and identify perpetrators. But privacy advocates worry that the invasive technology could eventually be expanded to scan phones for other types of content as well — think pirated files, or signs of political dissent in totalitarian countries. It’s a particularly troubling development because Apple has a huge interest in continuing to sell its products in China, a country where the government has put tremendous amounts of pressure on tech companies to give it access to user data. In fact, Apple has already given into China’s demands in the past, agreeing to host user data for Chinese users in Chinese data centers, as Wired points out.” Also “Apple’s New ‘Child Safety’ Initiatives, and the Slippery Slope.”—”In short, if these features work as described and only as described, there’s almost no cause for concern. […] But the ‘if’ in ‘if these features work as described and only as described’ is the rub. That ‘if’ is the whole ballgame. If you discard alarmism from critics of this initiative who clearly do not understand how the features work, you’re still left with completely legitimate concerns from trustworthy experts about how the features could be abused or misused in the future.”
• “How the founder’s toxic culture tore apart Fullbright, the studio behind Gone Home. Co-founder Steve Gaynor has stepped down following complaints from employees.” Tweet—”So let’s coin a new term for #gamedev: BTA. Stands for Brilliant Toxic Asshole. Examples: ‘Who’s the BTA at this studio?’ Or ‘We offer a BTA-Free work environment.’”
• “Google accused again of price-fixing with Facebook in proposed class-action suit. The complaint says Facebook was given “special information” for online advertising auctions.”
• “SpaceX and a Canadian startup plan to launch a satellite that will beam adverts into space. Anyone can buy pixels on the satellite’s screen with dogecoin. A Canadian startup told Insider it’s launching a space-ad satellite into orbit via a Falcon 9 rocket. GEC’s CEO Samuel Reid said anyone can advertise on the satellite by buying a pixel with crypto. The satellite’s selfie-stick will film the screen and the footage will be livestreamed on YouTube.”
• Tweet—”But seriously, can we discuss how it’s possible for anyone who supports crypto to be against income disconnected from work, when income disconnected from work is ‘living the dream?’ Why is it okay to earn passive income as a staker, but not as a holder of the US citizen token?”
• So, we just skipped over Gamma right to Lambda already? “Vaccine-resistant lambda variant is in the US.”
• “How A Gay Community Helped The CDC Spot A COVID Outbreak — And Learn More About Delta.”
• Tweet—”On Thursday, the Texas Education Agency released new guidance for schools on how to handle positive COVID-19 cases.” About “Back to School: Here’s what to know about vaccination requirements. The COVID vaccine is not required for your kid, but other vaccines are.” Tweet—”But, at the same time, any school nurse who becomes aware that your child has lice ‘shall provide notice to the parent of the child as soon as possible’!” Tweet—”Reminder: Public schools in ALL 50 STATES have longstanding mandatory vaccination requirements. Many follow the CDC guidelines (pic), specifics vary by state.” Tweet—”Just sitting awake in bed, thinking how my 8 y.o. will soon be back at school, where state leaders are working hard to ensure that he is safe from critical theories and at risk from life-threatening contagion.”
• “House lawmaker suing Pelosi over mask rule says he has COVID. One of the three congressional Republicans suing Speaker Nancy Pelosi over fines for not wearing masks during a U.S. House vote has contracted a breakthrough case of COVID-19.”
• “Anti-Vax Radio Host Who Called Fauci a ‘Power Tripping Lying Freak’ Dies of COVID. On his deathbed, Dick Farrel changed his tune, telling his friends to get vaccinated.”
• “Trump: ‘Can You Imagine If I Were President Right Now And We Had This Massive Attack From Coronavirus?’” Tweet—”Who’s gonna tell him?”
• “‘Nevertheless,’ said Goethe, ‘I am against any departure from the strict law for inoculation, since these trifling exceptions are nothing in comparison with the great benefits which it confers.’”—Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, February 19, 1831 (tr. John Oxenford) quoted at An Oddly Modern-Sounding Discussion.
• Ugh, not now “very sneaky volcano”! “3 erupting Alaska volcanoes spitting lava or ash clouds.”—”Pavlov is a ‘very sneaky volcano,’ Waythomas said. ‘It can get going without much warning.’ He described the peak as an open system volcano, meaning its ‘magmatic plumbing system is open and magmas can move to the surface really fast and it can start erupting almost with no warning.’” Also, I’ve had days like that too, little volcano.
• “Homeland Security warns of ‘increasing but modest’ threat of violence from Trump conspiracy. DHS said it has no specific evidence of an imminent plot.”—”Some conspiracy theories associated with reinstating former President Trump have included calls for violence if desired outcomes are not realized,” according to a DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis bulletin obtained by ABC News on Friday.”
• “Secret Donors to Nonprofit Pushing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Election Conspiracy Revealed. Tax documents reveal the would-be anonymous donors to a nonprofit linked to a major funder of efforts to nullify the 2020 election.”—”‘It might seem improbable that a low-profile family foundation in Wisconsin has assumed a central role in current struggles over American democracy […] But the modern conservative movement has depended on leveraging the fortunes of wealthy reactionaries.”
• Tweet—”Here’s the draft letter Jeffrey Clark wanted acting AG Rosen and Richard Donoghue to sign off on to send to officials in Georgia urging them to halt certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Rosen and Donoghue refused.” About “DOJ officials rejected colleague’s request to intervene in Georgia’s election certification: Emails. The DOJ officials rejected the request from another department official.” Also “How a Trump environmental lawyer tried to weaponize the Justice Department to help the President.” “The full picture of Trump’s attempted coup is only starting to emerge.” Also tweet—”It was a failed coup.”
• Tweet—”BREAKING: 4 police officers forcibly removed journalist Grant Stern for asking Kevin McCarthy a question—why he opposed the bipartisan Jan 6th Commission. This is outrageous and shouldn’t happen in America. This is what fascists do. Let’s make this viral.”
• From the Václav Havel Memorial Committee: tweet—”Yesterday, @TuckerCarlson aired a video from the Hungarian-Serbian border, investigating ‘how #Hungary solved its border crisis’. Some of the footage caught my eye, so I thought I would offer a quick fact check. A thread.” Also Tweet—”Dreher is either ignorant of what fascism is, or gaslighting us. I note in my book that it’s not tanks, bad architecture, feldgrau uniforms, giant ‘Triumph of the will’ rallies, or silly moustaches. It’s a type of right wing populist movement characterized by: 1/n.”
• More on this: tweet—”Missouri governor’s use of his pardon power”.
• Tweet—”Philly cops have been towing cars from legal spaces to illegal spaces, impounded the cars from the illegal spaces, and then trying to sell the cars at auction.” About “Shattered windows, threatened auctions and $1,000 fines: Welcome to the confusing world of Philadelphia’s courtesy tows. Drivers who get sucked into the bureaucratic vortex describe it as city-sanctioned auto theft, sometimes followed by punishing fines from the Philadelphia Parking Authority.”
• “Deep in the Northern Thing: The Saga of the Volsungs, translated by Jesse L. Byock“—”This is one of the great collections of European myth and, perforce, one of the great ur-texts of fantasy.” About The Saga of the Volsungs [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] translated by Jesse L Byock, part of the Legends of the North series—”One of the great books of world literature–an unforgettable tale of jealousy, unrequited love, greed, and vengeance. Based on Viking Age poems and composed in thirteenth-century Iceland, The Saga of the Volsungs combines mythology, legend, and sheer human drama in telling of the heroic deeds of Sigurd the dragon slayer, who acquires runic knowledge from one of Odin’s Valkyries. Yet the saga is set in a very human world, incorporating oral memories of the fourth and fifth centuries, when Attila the Hun and other warriors fought on the northern frontiers of the Roman empire. In his illuminating Introduction Jesse L. Byock links the historical Huns, Burgundians, and Goths with the extraordinary events of this Icelandic saga. With its ill-fated Rhinegold, the sword reforged, and the magic ring of power, the saga resembles the Nibelungenlied and has been a primary source for such fantasy writers as J. R. R. Tolkien and for Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle.”
• A few from Hyperallergic: “Move Over, Pollock: Research Confirms Neanderthals Made Splatter Paintings.” “A Poet-Artist Looks to the Stars. Monica Ong is a 21st-century visual poet who extends the reader’s sense of what is possible.” “Imagining Our Climate Future. Speculations about climate change by an array of artists feel eerily probable, if not already real.” And “Humankind’s History of Betraying Animals. Thalia Field’s poems collage scientific, historical, and philosophical sources to explore speciesism.” That last, about Personhood [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Thalia Field—”A remarkable and moving cross-genre work about animal rights by one of America’s foremost experimental writers. Whether investigating refugee parrots, indentured elephants, the pathetic fallacy, or the revolving absurdity of the human role in the “invasive species crisis,” Personhood reveals how the unmistakable problem between humans and our nonhuman relatives is too often the derangement of our narratives and the resulting lack of situational awareness. Building on her previous collection, Bird Lovers, Backyard, Thalia Field’s essayistic investigations invite us on a humorous, heartbroken journey into how people attempt to control the fragile complexities of a shared planet. The lived experiences of animals, and other historical actors, provide unique literary-ecological responses to the exigencies of injustice and to our delusions of special status.”
• “‘Reservation Dogs’ sheds new, ‘three-dimensional’ light on Native communities.”—”The FX series, premiering Monday on Hulu from creators Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo, follows four teenagers on their Oklahoma reservation as they go about their daily lives — much of which involves petty crime to fund their big dreams of moving to California.” About Reservation Dogs on FX/Hulu—”A half-hour comedy that follows four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma as they steal, rob and save to get to the exotic, mysterious and faraway land of California.”
• “A Black realtor was showing a home to a Black father and son. They were handcuffed by Michigan police.“—”But if you see people — Black people, any minority — don’t report people doing normal things”
• “Deep reporting on a failed KKK murder plot reveals white supremacists working in Florida prison. Years in the making, this richly rendered story of an undercover investigation into klansmen corrections officers hooked readers and made an impact.” Watch “Only on AP: Inside a KKK plot to kill a Black man.”—”Using secret recordings, public records and interviews, The Associated Press has reconstructed the story of the failed 2015 murder plot by three Ku Klux Klan members to murder a Black man who had been released from a state prison. (July 27)”
• “Belarus exiles fear the long arm of the vengeful dictator in Minsk. The attempt to ‘kidnap’ an Olympic sprinter and the suspicious death of an activist are signs of growing oppression.”
• “Homeless artist swept at Laurelhurst Park demands $10,000 after attorney tracked her painting to a waste removal facility. Her attorney said the tort claim will be the first of many following the sweep of the encampment at Laurelhurst Park last week.”
• More on this: “Disney vs. Scarlett Johansson: Why “a Ton of Lawsuits” May Be Next. As the Bob Chapek-led regime goes to war with a Marvel star, Hollywood stars and creatives fear the end of massive backend deals.”
• “I Loved Seeing Loki Avoid the Trope of Portraying Romantically Inexperienced Characters as Lacking.”—”When an adult character in media has no relationship experience, they’re usually portrayed as someone who is totally naive, emotionally stunted, and awkward in pretty much every way. Basically, they’re often the butt of the joke, and rarely if ever considered “desirable” by others, especially if they are female. But Sylvie’s characterization in Loki provides a fresh take on the matter; she’s the complete opposite of naive, and it is actually her world-weariness that’s standing between her and a healthy relationship with another person. And even though she may be awkward when it comes to talking about her feelings, she is completely confident and capable when it comes to survival skills, and can certainly hold her own in a sword fight.”
• “Superman? Batman? Actually, It Makes Total Sense That Harley Quinn Is the Center of the DCEU.”
• “Disney’s ‘Star Wars’: Galactic Starcruiser Hotel Stays Could Cost Families $6,000 — Here’s What You’ll Get. Here’s what it’ll cost to stay at Disney’s new Star Wars hotel.”
• “Why having a ‘work family’ is actually hustle culture at its worst. Continuing to push the idea everyone is one big happy family hurts all your employees.”
• “Why you love setting goals more than pursuing them, according to science. A variable that often gets overlooked is how our brains are wired to both welcome and resist change.”
• “Authoritarianism and negative affectivity emerge as personality factors behind problematic behavior during the pandemic.”
• Tweet—”HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME AUCTION. Do you see this TV? do you realize why it’s special?”
• “A colorful, chaotic, ‘mind bending’ experience is coming to Denver.”—”Imagine this: Four worlds collide following a cosmic event 25 years ago. All inhabitants lose their memories, leading to the disappearances of four women. What sounds like the premise of a sci-fi novel is actually the foundation of art collective Meow Wolf’s third permanent immersive experience in Denver, “Convergence Station.” But it will offer an otherworldly escape. When the exhibition opens September 17, visitors will become part of the story, exploring the four worlds — kaleidoscopic cathedrals, Corinthian catacombs, lush alien habitats and dazzling but gritty cityscapes — to investigate what happened.”
• “Toy advertised as ‘kid-friendly’ in Taiwan sings Polish rap about cocaine. It can be spotted at Carrefour and on shopping platforms including Shopee, Rakuten.” Also “English translation of raunchy Polish rap played by Taiwanese dancing cactus revealed. Dancing cactus teaches Taiwanese toddlers about pitfalls of cocaine addiction in Polish.” Watch “Cypis – Gdzie jest biały węgorz ? (Zejście)”
• Watch “Lůn – Chamanes.”—”Premiering the title track from Lůn’s debut EP, “Chamanes”. Lůn music is related to nature, elements, vital energy and mysticism. Through an invented language and by merging neoclassical music, world & neofolk music, Lůn brings to the exploration of new worlds and dimensions.”
• Watch “Ace of Spades – Torenfestival Weert“—”Guitarist Jitse Zonneveld and keys player Frank Steijns recorded in the centre of the city of Weert in the south of the Netherlands. July 17th 2021.” Motörhead’s song performed with church bells.
• Watch “DEVO’s Gerald V. Casale ‘I’m Gonna Pay U Back’.” This animation style makes me think about Max Headroom. Can it be done in realtime? Asking for a friend.