Archive for November 2017
Google Maps in space: spinnable maps of our solar system’s planets & moons

Google Maps in space: spinnable maps of our solar system’s planets & moons

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Google Maps Io

Maaaaps! Innnnn! Spaaaaaaaace! Google Maps now features spinnable spherical maps of several planets and moons in our solar system, including Mars, the Moon, Io, Pluto, Enceladus, Titan, and Charon. Super fun. Here’s Google’s blog post about the new maps. (via emily lakdawalla)

Tags: Google   Google Maps   maps   space

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The best books of 2017

The best books of 2017

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Best Books 2017

If you’re anything like me, there were so very many books published this year that looked amazing but you didn’t get around to reading. Well, thanks to all the best-of-the-year lists coming out, we’re getting a second crack at the ol’ onion. (Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.) Without further ado, etc. etc…

Tyler Cowen, who samples (but doesn’t finish) over 1800 books a year, shared his Must Reads of 2017, a list that is mostly nonfiction and dominated by male authors. He recommends Rob Sheffield’s Dreaming the Beatles (“this book teaches you to think of John and Paul as a management team, and was the most enjoyable read I had all year”), Ge Fei’s The Invisibility Cloak, and Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India by Sujatha Gidla.

The NY Times whittled down their long list of 100 Notable Books to just The 10 Best Books of 2017, including The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us by Richard Prum and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (which Roxane Gay declared her favorite book of 2017).

Lee’s stunning novel, her second, chronicles four generations of an ethnic Korean family, first in Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century, then in Japan itself from the years before World War II to the late 1980s. Exploring central concerns of identity, homeland and belonging, the book announces its ambitions right from the opening sentence: “History has failed us, but no matter.”

From the longer list, I noticed The Idiot by Elif Batuman, George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, Masha Gessen’s The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (the National Book Award winner for nonfiction), and Priestdaddy, a memoir by Patricia Lockwood.

Amazon’s editors picked their top 100 books of the year and then narrowed that list down to 10. Their tippy top pick appeared on several other lists as well: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, which I read and very much enjoyed. Also on their list was Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Robin Sloan’s well-reviewed Sourdough, and Ariel Levy’s The Rules Do Not Apply, the rawness of which had me on the floor at one point.

From Bustle comes a list of 17 Books Every Woman Should Read From 2017. Their picks include The Power by Naomi Alderman and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, both of which I’ve seen on several other lists…the latter won the National Book Award for fiction.

More to come as the lists roll in.

Tags: best of   best of 2017   books   lists

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Road signs suck. What if we got rid of them?

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Vox and 99% Invisible take a look at the movement to remove signs and traffic lights from traffic intersections in favor of building “shared spaces”, intersections in which cars, pedestrians, and cyclists are equally free to roam.

In traditional intersections, right-of-way has essentially been outsourced to unthinking objects like stop lights and signs. Shared spaces place the responsibility of determining right-of-way back with the individual motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists. Both approaches have their pros and cons. As the video notes, accessibility is an issue with shared spaces. But in traditional traffic schemes, cars are often given too much power to harm people, in the form of speed and the implied “I have the right-of-way so get out of my way” legal authority of the green light.

While watching traffic interact in the shared spaces in the video, you realize the assumption that makes them work: that as a general rule, people do not want to harm others. Cars, being so much more dangerous than pedestrians or cyclists, could bully their way these spaces but mostly they don’t because they don’t want to menace or injure others. However, as we’ve seen in the American political sphere recently, social norms can erode and force re-evaluation of assumptions. There will always be individual bad actors — asshole drivers or those who deliberately want to harm — but what happens to shared traffic spaces if the general assumption of people not wanting to harm others breaks down? And would traffic lights and signs fix that problem?

P.S. This is off topic (or is it?!), but I was in Amsterdam last week and it was interesting to observe the hierarchy of traffic there compared with other cities. In the absence of signs or traffic lights, who has the assumed right-of-way in these places?

In NYC (especially Manhattan), cars rule the streets, followed by pedestrians and cyclists…you only need to look at the city’s policy of not prosecuting murder-by-car to understand this. In California and esp. San Francisco (at least when I lived there years ago), if a pedestrian steps out into the street, cars will usually stop, even if they’re jaywalking. This also holds for many other places in the US, especially outside of large cities…cars are generally assumed to have the right-of-way but will also stop for pedestrians. But not in Boston…the sheer insanity of the drivers there gives cars a certain authoritative wide berth, not unlike that of a tottering Jenga tower. In Amsterdam though, cyclists seem to take priority in most situations…cars and pedestrians had to be on the lookout for them whether the cyclists had the light or not. Fascinating to observe.

Tags: traffic   video

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Scrabble pros recount their best and worst plays

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The New Yorker interviewed a bunch of top Scrabble players about favorite moves they’ve played…their best, worst, and most humbling. I dislike playing Scrabble1 but love watching expert practitioners talk about about their areas of expertise.

  1. When I’m playing and an opponent lays down “qi” or some shit, I want to take the board and throw it across the room. I love Boggle though. It’s basically pattern matching at speed, something my brain seems to be particularly good at.↩

Tags: games   language   Scrabble   video

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Reaction GIFs and digital blackface

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In the latest installment of the newish video series Internetting with Amanda Hess, Hess discusses The White Internet’s Love Affair with Digital Blackface. From Teen Vogue, an explanation of digital blackface by Lauren Michelle Jackson:

Adore or despise them, GIFs are integral to the social experience of the Internet. Thanks to a range of buttons, apps, and keyboards, saying “it me” without words is easier than ever. But even a casual observer of GIFing would notice that, as with much of online culture, black people appear at the center of it all. Or images of black people, at least. The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Oprah, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, NBA players, Tiffany Pollard, Kid Fury, and many, many other known and anonymous black likenesses dominate day-to-day feeds, even outside online black communities. Similar to the idea that “Black Vine is simply Vine,” as Jeff Ihaza determined in The Awl, black reaction GIFs have become so widespread that they’ve practically become synonymous with just reaction GIFs.

If you’ve never heard of the term before, “digital blackface” is used to describe various types of minstrel performance that become available in cyberspace. Blackface minstrelsy is a theatrical tradition dating back to the early 19th century, in which performers “blacken” themselves up with costume and behaviors to act as black caricatures. The performances put society’s most racist sensibilities on display and in turn fed them back to audiences to intensify these feelings and disperse them across culture. Many of our most beloved entertainment genres owe at least part of themselves to the minstrel stage, including vaudeville, film, and cartoons. While often associated with Jim Crow-era racism, the tenets of minstrel performance remain alive today in television, movies, music and, in its most advanced iteration, on the Internet.

Tags: Amanda Hess   language   Lauren Michelle Jackson   racism   video

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“Therapy” rhymes with “Jay-Z”

“Therapy” rhymes with “Jay-Z”

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Dean Baquet, executive editor of the NY Times, recently interviewed Jay-Z about his latest album (which I like a lot), OJ Simpson, his marriage & infidelity, race, and Kanye. Jay-Z also talked about his experience with therapy:

BAQUET This album [“4:44.”] sounds to me like a therapy session.

JAY-Z Yeah, yeah.

BAQUET Have you been in therapy?

JAY-Z Yeah, yeah.

BAQUET First off, how does Jay-Z find a therapist? Not in the Phone book, right?

JAY-Z No, through great friends of mine. You know. Friends of mine who’ve been through a lot and, you know, come out on the other side as, like, whole individuals.

BAQUET What was that like, being in therapy? What did you talk about that you had never acknowledged to yourself or talked about?

JAY-Z I grew so much from the experience. But I think the most important thing I got is that everything is connected. Every emotion is connected and it comes from somewhere. And just being aware of it. Being aware of it in everyday life puts you at such a … you’re at such an advantage. You know, you realize that if someone’s racist toward you, it ain’t about you. It’s about their upbringing and what happened to them, and how that led them to this point. You know, most bullies bully. It just happen. Oh, you got bullied as a kid so you trying to bully me. I understand.

And once I understand that, instead of reacting to that with anger, I can provide a softer landing and maybe, “Aw, man, is you O.K.?” I was just saying there was a lot of fights in our neighborhood that started with “What you looking at? Why you looking at me? You looking at me?” And then you realize: “Oh, you think I see you. You’re in this space where you’re hurting, and you think I see you, so you don’t want me to look at you. And you don’t want me to see you.”

Tags: Dean Baquet   interviews   Jay-Z

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Mark Zuckerberg invents revolutionary new foundation called “government”

Mark Zuckerberg invents revolutionary new foundation called “government”

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I don’t know when this ran, but I liked this brief article published in Private Eye magazine called Zuckerberg Announces Revolutionary New Foundation to Eliminate Disease.

The genius founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced an inspiring new foundation to which he and his wife will donate huge amounts of their fortune in a bid to defeat all disease over the next century.

“It’s called the government,” said Mr. Zuckerberg. “For such a long time I’ve been pondering how I can make a real difference with the enormous fortune I’ve amassed by concocting clever tax structures that minimise any tax liability from my firm.

“Imagine my shock when it turned out that this ‘government’ is devoted to ending disease. Not only that, it also has side projects dedicated to running schools, hospitals, a road system, parks, a national infrastructure, and lots of other worthy projects which make this planet a decent place to live.

I’m proud to announce that I’ll be giving lots of money to the ‘government’, as I’ve decided to call it, and I fully expect to get a lot of really fantastic publicity out of it.”

This reminded me of a pair of similar essays: I am an American conservative shitheel and I am an American liberal shitheel. (via @paulpod)

Tags: business   Mark Zuckerberg   politics

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How do we solve a problem like Joe Biden?

How do we solve a problem like Joe Biden?

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Recently at Glamour’s Women of the Year Summit, Rachel Miller asked Joe Biden a question about Anita Hill. Miller didn’t think much of Biden’s answer.

So I got the mic and I stood up and said to Joe Biden, “My name’s Rachel Miller and my question is for the former vice president. In the context of changing the culture and women being brave enough to come forward [which he’d also said], I’m wondering if there’s anything that you would do differently with regards to Anita Hill if given the opportunity.”

And he said, “No.”

No.

And then he said, “Let’s get something straight here.”

Which — sure, is a thing an old white man can say to a black woman asking him a question at a women’s event about the shameful treatment of a black woman on a national stage. He is certainly allowed to say that, if he wants to.

………..

Biden then went on to say a lot more words, but what he was really saying was, “I’m a good guy, I’m a good guy, I’m a good guy.”

There’s speculation that Biden might run for President in 2020. But Miller is right: in word and deed, Joe Biden does not respect women, especially if you’ve heard even a little of what the whisper network is saying. Enough. No more Presidents who do not respect women!

Tags: Anita Hill   Joe Biden   politics   Rachel Miller

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“Whumph”: the sound of settling Antarctic snow

“Whumph”: the sound of settling Antarctic snow

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Polar adventurer Ben Saunders is currently about three weeks into a planned 1000-mile solo journey across Antarctica, blogging about it all the while. In his latest post, he describes the noise that snow makes when it settles under certain conditions, which he calls “whumphing”.

The only redeeming factor of all this fresh snow is what I’ll refer to as ‘whumphing’. I’ve no idea if there’s an actual term for the phenomenon, but I had the best whumph of my life when I first stepped out of the tent today. I assume it’s something to do with the weight of the snow settling, but the sensation is of the area of snow you’re standing on suddenly dropping by an inch or two, accompanied by a sound like a muffled thunderclap. If you’re lucky — as I was this morning — this sets off a chain reaction whumph, with a shockwave rolling out towards the horizon in every direction. It’s petrifying the first time you experience a whumph (in Greenland for me) but once you realise they’re harmless, it’s extraordinarily satisfying, like being a snowfield chiropractor, clicking tons of snow back into the right place.

Curious to see if whumphing was documented elsewhere, I did a little poking around. In a 1920 mountaineering book called Mountain Craft, Geoffrey Young talks about sudden settling due to sub-surface snow that’s less dense than the snow above. On a slope that can lead to an avalanche but on a flat Antarctic surface, you just get the muffled thunderclap.

I was also delighted to find that the legendary Roald Amundsen, who led the first expedition to reach the South Pole in 1911, noted the very same effect in his book detailing the journey: The South Pole. In a false start to the expedition in September 1911, facing poor visibility and a temperature of -69 °F, he and his men decide to stop and build igloos for warmth. After settling in, they heard a noise.

That night we heard a strange noise round us. I looked under my bag to see whether we had far to drop, but there was no sign of a disturbance anywhere. In the other hut they had heard nothing. We afterwards discovered that the sound was only due to snow “settling.” By this expression I mean the movement that takes place when a large extent of the snow surface breaks and sinks (settles down). This movement gives one the idea that the ground is sinking under one, and it is not a pleasant feeling. It is followed by a dull roar, which often makes the dogs jump into the air — and their drivers too for that matter. Once we heard this booming on the plateau so loud that it seemed like the thunder of cannon. We soon grew accustomed to it.

Amundsen seemed rather less charmed than Saunders with whumphing, but it’s wonderful to witness the experience of it shared between these two explorers across more than 100 years.

Tags: Ben Saunders   Geoffrey Young   Roald Amundsen   The South Pole   audio   books

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How a neural network algorithm sees Times Square

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AI scientist Clayton Blythe fed a video of someone walking around Times Square into an AI program that’s been trained to detect objects (aka “a state of the art object detection framework called NASNet from Google Research”) and made a video showing what the algorithm sees in realtime — cars, traffic lights, people, bicycles, trucks, etc. — along with its confidence in what it sees. Love the cheeky soundtrack…a remix of Daft Punk’s Something About Us.

See also a neural network tries to identify objects in Star Trek:TNG intro. (via prosthetic knowledge)

Tags: artificial intelligence   Clayton Blythe   NYC   video

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My recent media diet, special Amsterdam edition

My recent media diet, special Amsterdam edition

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Quick reviews of some things I’ve read, seen, heard, and experienced in the past three weeks or so. I was in Amsterdam recently to speak at a conference. I had some free time and as it was my first time there, I took in some obvious sights. No books this time…Scale is currently on hold (and perhaps abandoned permanently) while I read Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism is True and listen to Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci on audiobook.

Thor: Ragnarok. Henceforth, all superhero movies should be as fun as this. (B+)

Mindhunter. This one had a slow burn to it and got better as the season went on. Also, now that I know what to look for, the David Fincher camera thing was impossible to ignore. (B+)

Requiem for a Dream. The last 30 minutes of this movie is relentless. (A)

The Book of Life. I tried to steer the kids away from this one to no avail. (C)

On the Margins with Kevin Kelly. The bits about how much of the world used to be pre-industrial until fairly recently and how most people only took 20-30 photos per year in the 70s were especially interesting. (B+)

The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel (season two). Not quite as good as the first season, but my kids are still riveted. (B+)

Doctor Who. I’ve been slowly introducing the kids to Doctor Who, which I watched as a kid with my dad. So far, we’ve seen Jon Pertwee’s final episode and a handful of early Tom Baker episodes…probably the show’s sweet spot. I didn’t want to throw them into the deep end with William Hartnell right off the bat. (B+)

The Dark Knight Rises. A parable for our times: a white, female Bernie supporter (Selina Kyle) votes for Trump because she believes the system needs a reset but comes to appreciate what a terrible fucking idea that was. (A-)

Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum. Kevin Kelly recommended this impressive little magazine shop to me…they must have carried over 1000 different titles. (B+)

Whisky Café L & B. They stock more than 2300 whiskies (!!)…but the space is so small that I don’t know where they keep it all. (B+)

Van Gogh Museum. Maybe the best small museum I’ve ever been to? Utterly fascinating to see how his entire life and career unfolded. (A)

Rijksmuseum. I missed a lot of this one, but what I did see was great. Gaping at the impossibly exquisite lighting in Vermeer’s The Milkmaid for 15 minutes was itself worth the price of admission. (A-)

Amsterdam’s Red Light District. Really conflicting feelings on this. On the one hand, there were hordes of drunken men walking the streets literally shopping for women’s bodies…anyone unclear on what the male gaze means only need spend a few minutes in De Wallen on a weekend night to fully grasp the concept. On the other hand, it can be empowering, economically and otherwise, for women to engage in sex work. Is the RLD sex-positive? I… (-)

Schipol. Much faster wifi than at my house. Really lovely airport…it would get an “A” if it weren’t actually an airport. (B)

Amsterdam (generally). Visit if you’re a process and infrastructure nerd. Van Gogh Museum and a boat ride in the canals are musts. Didn’t have enough time to sample as much food as I wanted, but I will definitely be back. (A-)

Michael Clayton. I liked this a little less than I remember, even though its star has been on the rise lately. (B+)

Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. I knew next to nothing about Didion before watching this — aside from her hiring Harrison Ford when he was a carpenter. It’s probably better if you’re already a fan? (B)

Heavyweight: Jesse. One man in a car hits another man on a bike and both are changed forever. And for the better? (B+)

Arrival. Maybe my fourth time watching this? A friend commented on the economy of the storytelling…not a second is wasted. (A)

iPhone X. Most of my early impressions still hold. Still don’t like the notch, it is ridiculous. (A-)

Transparent (season four). The recent allegations against Tambour took the shine off of this season for me, but this is still one of the best TV shows in recent years. (A-)

Coco. I didn’t love this as much as everyone else did, and I don’t know why. (B+)

The 21-minute Frozen “short” that played before Coco. Total unimaginative and cynical garbage. This is what happens when marketing has too much pull. (F)

Stranger Things 2 soundtrack. The music is the best part of the show IMO. (A)

Past installments of my media diets can be found here.

Tags: Amsterdam   books   food   lists   media diet   movies   museums   music   podcasts   TV

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Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a documentary film about Mr. Rogers

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a documentary film about Mr. Rogers

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Mr Rogers Trolley

I’m hyperventilating over here…Morgan Neville is making a documentary film about Fred Rogers called Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Fred Rogers led a singular life. He was a puppeteer. A minister. A musician. An educator. A father, a husband, and a neighbor. Fred Rogers spent 50 years on children’s television beseeching us to love and to allow ourselves to be loved. With television as his pulpit, he helped transform the very concept of childhood. He used puppets and play to explore the most complicated issues of the day — race, disability, equality and tragedy. He spoke directly to children and they responded by forging a lifelong bond with him-by the millions. And yet today his impact is unclear. WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? explores the question of whether or not we have lived up to Fred’s ideal. Are we all good neighbors?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? will be out in theaters in June 2018.

Tags: Fred Rogers   Morgan Neville   movies   Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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Graphene-drinking spiders spin webbing as strong as Kevlar

Graphene-drinking spiders spin webbing as strong as Kevlar

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A team of scientists in Italy fed some spiders a solution of graphene and carbon nanotubes, which the spiders duly incorporated into their webs. The result is webbing that’s five times stronger than regular webbing, on par with the strength of bulletproof Kevlar. And why stop with spiders:

If you think that creating super-spiders might be going to far, this research is only the beginning. Pugno and her team are preparing to see what other animals and plants might be enhanced if they are fed graphene. Might it get incorporated into animals’ skin, exoskeletons, or bones?

“This process of the natural integration of reinforcements in biological structural materials could also be applied to other animals and plants, leading to a new class of ‘bionicomposites’ for innovative applications,” Pugno added.

The future is gonna be weird, y’all!

Tags: science

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Trailers for Black Mirror season four

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Netflix has released two trailers ahead of the release of season four: one for an episode called Arkangel and the other for one called Crocodile. Arkangel, directed by Jodie Foster, seems particularly Black Mirror-ish…helicopter parenting x100 in a society where people live for hundreds of years.

Tags: Black Mirror   trailers   TV   video

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How to build a $600 million company without venture capital

How to build a $600 million company without venture capital

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I loved this short profile of RXBAR founder Peter Rahal. He and his partner recently sold the company to Kellogg’s for $600 million. Some highlights:

- Each partner invested $5000 in the business…and they took no other outside investment. Yep, 0 to $600 million in about five years with no VC.

- Early on, when asking about getting investors, Rahal’s dad told him “You need to shut up and sell 1,000 bars.” Is that the best and most succinct business advice ever?

- They designed the packaging for their first bar in PowerPoint…and Rahal put his cell phone number on it. Whatever it takes.

(via @jasonfried)

Tags: business   Peter Rahal

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AfroArt: fantastic portraits of African American kids with “unique natural hairstyles”

AfroArt: fantastic portraits of African American kids with “unique natural hairstyles”

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Afroart

Afroart

Afroart

Afroart

Afroart

Husband and wife photographers Regis & Kahran Bethencourt have been working on a project called AfroArt “to showcase the beauty and versatility of afro hair”. It features African American kids and young adults photographed in different settings (futuristic, Baroque, etc.) with natural hairstyles.

We feel that it is so important for kids of color to be able to see positive images that look like them in the media. Unfortunately the lack of diversity often plays into the stereotypes that they are not “good enough” and often forces kids to have low self-esteem. We try to combat these stereotypes in our photography by showing diverse imagery of kids who love the skin they’re in, their own natural curls and their culture. Stories like this are important to show so that we can shatter the current standards of beauty.

It was really tough to pick just three four five of these portraits…go check out the lot. Oh, and prints are available in their online store.

Tags: Kahran Bethencourt   photography   Regis Bethencourt

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How to Design a Comic Book Page

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Using a single page from Art Spiegelman’s Maus (considered by many as one of the finest graphic novels ever written), Evan Puschak considers how Spiegelman used the page (and not the individual panel) as the atomic unit of the narrative of his father surviving the Holocaust. Designing the page is the thing. In making this point, he quotes the cartoonist Seth (Gregory Gallant):

The ‘words & pictures’ that make up the comics language are often described as prose and illustration combined. A bad metaphor: poetry and graphic design seems more apt. Poetry for the rhythm and condensing; graphic design because cartooning is more about moving shapes around — designing — then it is about drawing.

Tags: Art Spiegelman   books   comics   Evan Puschak   Gregory Gallant   Holocaust   Maus   video

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