September 18

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Political theorists, over the years, have looked for metaphors to describe the effects that Fox—particularly its widely watched opinion shows—has had on American politics and culture. They’ve talked about the network as an “information silo” and “a filter bubble” and an “echo chamber,” as an “alternate reality” constructed of “alternative facts,” as a virus on the body politic, as an organ of the state. The comparisons are all correct. But they don’t quite capture what the elegies for Fox-felled loved ones express so efficiently.

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Well, here we are. The nightmare scenario, going back ten years at least, has been this: It will be a new virus, probably from one of the fast-evolving families (especially those SS-RNA viruses), such as the coronaviruses, that comes from an animal, gets into humans, transmits well human-to-human, spreads by silent or cryptic transmission (meaning that infected people may feel fine for a few days and be walking around, riding the subway, going to work, but are meanwhile shedding the virus), and kills at a relatively high case fatality rate. This outbreak ticks all those boxes. It is the nightmare scenario. If it spreads as widely and infects as many people as a seasonal flu, as it well might, it could kill twenty times as many people.

September 17

When overwhelmed unemployment insurance systems malfunctioned during the pandemic, governments blamed the sixty-year-old programming language COBOL. But what really failed? Mar Hicks discusses the past and future of COBOL for Logic Magazine.



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Just over 110 years ago, on September 9, 1910, the Pere Marquette 18 , a car ferry out of Ludington, MI, sank about 20 miles east of Sheboygan, WI, with 29 people on board; no one really knew why, and no one really knew where-- until now.

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Where the twist isn’t really that these are all women artists – although that is indeed the case, and all stumbled upon through @womensart1 - it’s that these very different artists from lesser known to more established are using all sorts of materials and techniques to create twisty and spirally forms, from big to gigantic to minuscule , from nature-inspired to abstract to something in between . And it’s just that they are all peculiarly and uniquely amazing and all deserve to be known. And, for a proper twist, we even have hair sculptures sculptures , no less!). Come in this virtual gallery for a full list of links to the artists’ own websites, instagram and yes even tiktok

September 16



"When I get to a painting like this (George Floyd), there is so many levels that I am becoming aware of as the painting is unfolding that I somehow have to be able to resonate, through ideas that deal with just the formal apprehension of ideas about repetition or form making or tone or value. Color is meant to sort of jar the viewer. I am making these to get people to stop and look. Painting is so devalued these days and I can’t have that." Employing ‘Outrageous Color,’ Peter Williams Makes Bold Paintings That Confront Racial Oppression and Envision a ‘Black Universe’ (Victoria L. Valentine, Culture Type).



Antique household equipment, furnishings, utensils - housekeeping as part of social history. Domestic life, household management - how people ran their homes and did the daily chores. Yesterday's everyday objects are today's antiques or museum pieces, making us curious about past ways of life. Old & Interesting takes a look at how these everyday things were used, how people managed their home life - and more.

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Top Dog: An Oral History of Wishbone. To commemorate the show’s twenty-fifth anniversary, Texas Monthly spoke with the writers, producers, cast, and crew of the original series for an oral history recounting how our state’s favorite literature-loving terrier got his own story.



Another great science video out today by Veritasium: The Nuclear Fallout They Kept Secret . This one covers the deliberate choice by the US government in the 40s through 60s to hide the impact of atomic bomb testing, something not officially addressed until 1998 . As one YT comment put it - Why do people not trust the US government? See history.



The Quarantine Public Library provides "free one-page artist’s books to print and collect at home" in support of digital divide non-profit EveryoneOn



Before Fortnite and PUBG, there was Minecraft Survival Games (Eurogamer). Emma Kent: "While it's hard to say exactly how much MSG influenced current-day battle royales, perhaps we should just focus on celebrating MSG in its own right. The mode garnered a huge amount of interest within the Minecraft community, entertained millions on YouTube, and even helped launch entire companies."



"I exchanged the safety of those hundreds of Emilys for one image — an image that had been taken from my platform and produced as another man’s valuable and important art." Model Emily Ratajkowski writes for New York magazine: Buying Myself Back (cw: assault, revenge porn)

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Nanoracks has created a new airlock that will allow cargo storage on the International Space Station. This would increase the number of missions that could be done on the space station as it presently only has three airlocks. Web page also contains interesting video demonstration.

September 15



But where, oh where, in this modern world, can we find the gems of his golden era? The obvious place. more inside]

In The Great Buster Peter Bogdanovich (and, really, every critic) identifies Buster Keaton’s greatest created period as the decade between 1920 and 1930. Before that time, he made a few two-reel films in supporting roles with Roscoe Arbuckle . After it, he made lesser movies with little creative control, dropped off the map, and eventually came back for a moderate late-in-life ressurrection.But where, oh where, in this modern world, can we find the gems of his golden era? The obvious place.



They were young and had little money, and they came from working class families. So to them the cottage was a luxury, although it wasn't any bigger than the boat garages on Lake Geneva, where the rich people played. ~~~ Then he got lucky in his work. He made more money than he ever dreamed they'd have. They remembered how good those weekends had been and they went looking at lakes in Wisconsin to see if they could afford something on the water. ~~~ They hadn't known summers could be that good. In the mornings, he'd go fishing before it was light. She'd sleep until the birds woke her. The he'd make breakfast and they'd eat omelets on the wooden deck in the shade of the trees.



Gen Zers Say Silicon Valley Is Elitist and Exclusive. Can They Build a New System? "In the coming months, the group's members plan to form a syndicate or angel fund to invest in community members’ projects. (Mr. Sridharan said the group hoped to raise money from tech investors and TikTok stars.) They view the server as an incubator for ideas and hope to see companies formed as a result of those discussions."



Take a few minutes to watch this guy living his best life in an abandoned school in Japan (SLYT).



Pincremental is a free online idle game that starts as a janky pinball sim and turns into a janky pinball automation sim.



Terence Eden's collection of imaginary software on floppy disks, including Holly, Bandersnatch, Janet, Mother, and WOPR.

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"The Man Who Refused to Spy" is an article by Laura Secor in the New Yorker. The F.B.I. tried to recruit Iranian materials scientist named Sirous Asgari as an informant. When he balked, the payback was brutal.



Western media cannot write western failure. The real story is that ‘developing’ nations have done remarkably better at fighting COVID-19 than the rich and white. The real story starts precisely where the western map ends. Here be dragons. We be dragons.

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