Favorites from dis_integration
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The Panmnemonicon - History and Memory in the Age of the Search Engine
History and memory are two different things, but their interpenetration makes it hard to talk about the one without talking about the other. We ordinarily suppose that, on a stroll of the mind backwards into the past, memory leaves off, and history begins, where the self itself leaves off: you can’t remember stuff from before you were born, obviously, and so once you hit that absolute boundary, you have no choice but to rely on third-person documentary sources, and that’s what we call history. 3500 words from Justin E. H. Smith at Substack on search engines and memory and history and nostalgia. Via 3quarksdaily.
“Is a whale a fish?” Illegal drugs in Japan in 2020
Japan likes to present itself as the only developed nation with effective drug prohibition, with lifetime cannabis use at 1.8%, compared to over 40% for the US and Canada. However, 2020 was an unusually tumultuous year for Japanese drug warriors. The most fascinating event has been a highly exceptional and irregular trial (still ongoing, link courtesy of archive.org as the site seems to be down) of one 青井硝子 (AOI Garasu, "Blue Glass", a pseudonym), that hinges on whether a "tea" (a simple water extraction of plant material that is not itself illegal, but contains a prohibited substance, DMT) can be considered an illegal "drug". Things took a turn for the strange when the defendant stood up in court and asked, "Is a whale a fish?".
“I really like parties, because parties are supposed to be fun”
Pretend It’s a City (Netflix) is a seven-part documentary directed by Martin Scorsese featuring New York author and humorist Fran Lebowitz. Naomi Fry: “The show’s only through line is Lebowitz herself, whose slapdash history of New York City is mostly just an occasion to riff. Scorsese’s role is largely limited to explosions of laughter, often heard off camera, and fretful interjections,” (The New Yorker); Carrie Wittmer on the twelve best bits in the show (Vulture).
The Wages of Sedition: Speaker Pelosi will impeach Trump a second time
The storming of the U.S. Capitol has resulted in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi setting a hard deadline for moving forward with a 2nd impeachment of Donald Trump. Meanwhile, many of the insurrectionists caught on film are now under arrest. And the GOP has shifted from attacking the election to asking for everyone to move on and embrace unity.
U.S. Election Day
It's Election Day in United States. Some 95 million people have voted early. For people voting today or helping voters: the Election Protection Hotline is run by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and partner organizations and has staff available to help in several languages. If someone has a problem voting, call 866-OUR-VOTE.
Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus
Yes indeed, Trump tests positive for the Coronavirus
The “October surprise” is here
Trump and first lady Melania test positive for coronavirus
The president’s infection means he will need to cancel in-person events in the coming weeks
El presidente Donald Trump y la primera dama dan positivo por covid-19 y se ponen en cuarentena
Jetzt kommt es auf Trumps Immunsystem an
The “October surprise” is here
Trump and first lady Melania test positive for coronavirus
The president’s infection means he will need to cancel in-person events in the coming weeks
El presidente Donald Trump y la primera dama dan positivo por covid-19 y se ponen en cuarentena
Jetzt kommt es auf Trumps Immunsystem an
Failing State
The Election That Could Break America:
"There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path." Longread article from the coming issue of The Atlantic spins out the signs and scenarios, including the potential for state legislatures to end-run the Electoral College.
:PogChamp
Today was a big day for cyberpunk corpo-warfare! First, Epic Games (creators of Fortnite) pushed an update with a new option for buying the in-game currency: $9.99 through the App Store, or $7.99 through Epic, bypassing Apple's in-app payment system and 30% cut. Apple responded by kicking Fortnite out of the App Store. Epic immediately responded with a 65-page lawsuit complaint and a parody of Apple's famous 1984 Macintosh ad.
DOOM speaks for itself
I now know that you don't necessarily need to play DOOM to have played DOOM. You don't need to have played any DOOM at all to have played all of DOOM. Yet, I only know this because I've studied DOOM's individual level designs so intently that I can retroactively see the flags DOOM planted on the mountain tops of future game genres. DOOM is not a videogame; DOOM is the vortex nexus nucleus at the center of the idea of videogames themselves.Tim Rogers reviews DOOM.
SuperDole (RIP?)
An ode to Pandemic UI
(thread) - "The extra unemployment insurance benefits that were handed out by the U.S. government in the early months of the pandemic to people rendered jobless by Covid-19 represent one of the most extraordinary and successful programs in the nation's history. The $600-a-week in assistance, often referred to as 'pandemic UI', was so generous that it caused an unprecedented spike in Americans' disposable income."[1,2,3]
Watch out, Brian David Gilbert, someone's coming for you
Kirby Sucks: A Mathematical & Ethical Proof (yt) by Michal Miexriir. Also see the earlier The Lie Man: A Garfield Conspiracy Exposé (yt)
Trump, on Feb. 7: You just breathe the air and that's how it's passed.
Investigative journalist, author, and an associate editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward spoke with President Trump 18 times over the course of December 2019 to July 2020. Woodward recorded these interviews, and WaPo reports "Woodward book: Trump says he knew coronavirus was ‘deadly’ and worse than the flu while intentionally misleading Americans.".
The World Design of Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight takes place in the sprawling kingdom of Hallownest: an underground ant's nest of forests, mines, basins, and waterways. In this episode of Boss Keys [SLYT], I look at the shape, structure, and sequence of exploring this masterpiece game.
The first science fiction story
A True Story (Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, Verae Historiae) is a novel written in the second century AD by Lucian of Samosata, a Greek-speaking author of Assyrian descent. The novel is a satire of outlandish tales which had been reported in ancient sources, particularly those which presented fantastic or mythical events as if they were true. It is Lucian's best-known work.
It is the earliest known work of fiction to include travel to outer space, alien lifeforms, and interplanetary warfare. As such, A True Story has been described as "the first known text that could be called science fiction".
Oz…Ozzie's in a pickle!!!
25 years ago today, Chrono Trigger was released for the SNES in North America. An almost permanent fixture in the top of any Best SNES Games list, Chrono Trigger featured character designs of manga artist Akira Toriyama, an incredible (and interesting) score by Yasunori Mitsuda, and a sprawling adventure covering the dawn of civilization to the end of it and many points in between.
There's Some Whores in This House
"I’m an active participant. I’m not just a vessel. The reason you’re having such a good time, sir, is because I am squeezing your dick."
CW: Wet and gushy. While men have been musically aggrandizing their genitalia for, well, ever, Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion have conservative knickers in a (damp) twist over WAP, a paean to Wet Ass Pussy.
Dickens, Copyright and the US Civil War
Charles Dickens the Copyright Confederate:
If you talk about slavery and Charles Dickens, the first things people usually mention are American Notes for General circulation and Martin Chuzzlewit. In these books, he establishes himself as abolition-minded, a reputation that sticks today. Less well known is the way that his a frustration with American approach to copyright law eventually turned his sympathy and support towards the Confederacy during the war.
Step 11: Open a Heineken
“I had gotten into cooking. I just loved food and hated going out to restaurants all the time, so I taught myself how to cook by reading books and practicing, just like you do on an instrument. I could cook most of the great French dishes—because I really liked French cooking—and all the black American dishes. But my favorite was a chili dish I called Miles's South Side Chicago Chili Mack. I served it with spaghetti, grated cheese, and oyster crackers."--Miles Davis, on his famous chili recipe
Jerry Falwell Jr. to take 'indefinite leave of absence'
Jerry Falwell, Jr. posted a picture of himself on his yacht. It got him fired. He's been making trouble for himself, for a while.
If a revolution killed the rich at COVID rates, how much $ would we get?
Brazil is approaching the 100K deaths milestone and it got me thinking: If a revolution killed the rich at the same rate, starting from the top, how much money would be expropriated? I got some data inside, can you help me come up with a spreadsheet formula?
"these debates seem plagued by conceptual brittleness"
These, then, are three distinct questions that the current debate over “free speech” runs together in a sloppy fashion: is the state engaging in acts of censorship? Are social sanctions against speech or beliefs too harsh? Is our media ecosystem sufficiently open? Failure to disentangle these questions has resulted in the current abysmal state of the conversation.Adam Gurri tries to unravel some of the free speech/'cancel culture' debate.
A model for reparations programs around the country
Asheville, North Carolina, approves reparations for Black residents
- "In a historic move, the city of Asheville, North Carolina, voted unanimously this past week to approve a reparations resolution for Black residents and formally apologized for the role it played in slavery and implementing racist policies." (via)
Anarchy (the good kind) in Seattle
Last night, protestors captured several blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle after police abandoned the East Precinct, which had been the epicenter of the worst police-vs-protestor clashes over the past week. Mutualists, voluntaryists, and other anarchists are now supplanting police and other city services in the "Free Capitol Hill" autonomous zone.
do not talk to cops
Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop [Content Warning: Discussion of violence, abuse, killing].
I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, [...] understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.Via.
Minneapolis Police Force Faces Change
From the StarTribune: In their boldest statement since George Floyd’s killing, nine Minneapolis City Council members told a crowd Sunday that they will “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.”
“We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” they said, reading off a prepared statement. “We’re committed to engaging with every willing community member in the City of Minneapolis over the next year to identify what safety looks like for you.”
Their words — delivered one day after Mayor Jacob Frey told a crowd of protesters he does not support the full abolishment of the MPD — set off what is likely to be a long, complicated debate about the future of the state’s largest police force.
Centroid Towns - A photo documentary about the moving center of the US
Centroid Towns is an anthology documentary project using photography, oral history interviews, and local archive research to study the twenty-five cities that have been the mean center of population of the United States. This symbolic center is calculated every ten years to accompany the U.S. Census, first located in 1790 near Chestertown, Maryland, and moving steadily westward, currently residing near Plato, Missouri. The project puts a face to statistical data, chronicling these towns and their inhabitants to illuminate the ongoing social and political transformation of America.
We both agreed, fuck Doordash.
“If someone could pay Doordash $16 a pizza, and Doordash would pay his restaurant $24 a pizza, then he should clearly just order pizzas himself via Doordash, all day long.”
A restaurateur and his friend discover that the Doordash delivery app is willing to lose venture capitalists’ money if they can expand their middleman business. Doordash previously and previously.
Fabulous Secret Powers
Move over Leeroy, May 2020 is the 15 years anniversary of a much more important and gayer cultural anthem. Previously, (even more previously).
Very, very mild: Covid-19 symptoms and illness classification
What does 'mild' mean in the context of Covid-19?
Geographer Felicity Callard details the multifarious meanings of mildness in this pandemic; how the term is used by different actors and what it comes to mean to those experiencing 'mild' cases. The mild, Callard argues,
will likely continue to be used for multiple Covid-19 purposes – whether adjudicating clinical symptoms, assessing the virus’s impact on the body, determining the need for formal healthcare services, or judging the likely time of return to functional normality, whether inside and outside the labour market. I therefore predict on-going epistemological, ontological and political contestation over the scope and definition of the mild.
Get Fat, Don't Die
[many links may be NSFW]
In his inaugural food column, Beowulf Thorne included recipes for gingerbread pudding, Thai chicken curry, and vanilla poached pears, plus a photo of a naked blond man spread-eagled in a pan of paella. Eat your cereal with whipping cream, he advised readers, and ladle extra gravy onto your dinner plate. “Not only does being undernourished reduce your chances of getting lucky at that next orgy, it can make you much more susceptible to illness, and we’ll have none of that,” Wulf wrote. “Get Fat, Don’t Die,” the first cooking column for people with AIDS, ran in every issue of Diseased Pariah News, the AIDS humor zine that Wulf started and edited from 1990 to 1999.Beowulf Thorne’s cooking column for people with AIDS claimed the right to pleasure, but in each recipe was embedded an urgent appeal, Jonathan Kauffman
the built environment: seize the means of recreation
How cities are reshaping streets to prepare for life after lockdown
- "Milan is beginning to transform 22 miles of local streets, adding temporary bike lanes and wider sidewalks, and lowering the speed limit. In Berlin, some parking spots have also become pop-up bike lanes. Paris is fast-tracking long-distance bike lanes that connect suburbs to the city center. And in Brussels, on May 4, the city center will become a priority zone for people on bikes and on foot." (previously)
"that's what Handel would've done, but not Bach"
J.S. Bach’s “Twisted Hacker Mind”
is a lecture by violinist Kathleen Kajioka about the strangeness of Bach's music. She plays two of his pieces and explains what is so odd about them.
Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple’s fifth record is unbound
, a wildstyle symphony of the everyday, an unyielding masterpiece. No music has ever sounded quite like it. Available now (only on digital platforms until the shutdown ends). Pitchfork have awarded the album their first 10/10 rating since Kanye West's 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' back in 2010.
“Blast the music! Bang it! Bite it! Bruise it!”
“The Four”
Four Of The World's Best Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Players Create Epic Gameplay Montage [YouTube][Cinematic Combat Montage]
“RinHara5aki, Kleric, CHC Yu-Da, and Peco are, on their own, some of the most technically impressive The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild players on the planet — their videos showcasing advanced and obscure combat methods have accrued millions of views on YouTube. The four of them getting together for a single video is almost too much to handle. “The Four” is a combat montage that is the result of four months of work, and it is meant as a last hurrah for Breath of the Wild. With a sequel on the way, group leader RinHara5aki thought it would be a good idea to make a love letter to the game before saying goodbye.” [via: Polygon]
Curb Your Enthusiasm - "The Virus"
"Look, everyone is processing Corona anxiety in their own way.
I dealt with it by writing an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm about it.
Enjoy."
Curb Your Enthusiasm - "The Virus" by Dan Ozzi.
I dealt with it by writing an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm about it.
Enjoy."
Curb Your Enthusiasm - "The Virus" by Dan Ozzi.
Project MUSE free access / Women's History Month sources
Several university presses are offering content on Project MUSE for free until the end of May or June: Johns Hopkins University Press; The University of North Carolina Press; University of Nebraska Press; Temple University Press; University Press of Colorado; Utah State University Press; The Ohio State University Press; Vanderbilt University Press; and University of Georgia Press.
Incidentally, it's Women's History Month, and Project MUSE hosts many recent publications of relevance.
The Wing Is a Women's Utopia. Unless You Work There.
An exposé from the New York Times interviews current and former employees of The Wing, an exclusive women's club and co-working space that presents itself as radically feminist.
“A Scrappy Chicago Organization”
“ Last week, The Daily Beast published a report on “Protech Local 33”—a supposed union that claims to represent workers in California’s growing cannabis industry. According to The Daily Beast’s reporting, signs point toward Protech acting as a “company” or (in labor slang) “yellow” union: something banned under both international and national labor laws. .... But our investigation, conducted through extensive research through Department of Labor records, court records, IRS records, the Chicago Tribune newspaper archive, and interviews with Chicago labor activists shows that Protech is much more than a company union—and connects back to a long, troubling history of corruption in some segments of organized labor...” ‘I heard you grow marijuana’: Inside the organization behind Protech Local 33 (Strike Wave)
Friends, Mefies, countrypeople, lend me your TFLOPS
I come to bury COVID-19, not to praise it.Folding@Home has started releasing work units to help fight COVID-19.
The evil that viruses do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with its victim's bones;
ADDing in NevADa
After the Republican Party canceled their Nevada Caucuses to prevent any challenge to President Donald Trump, today's 2020 Democratic Presidential Caucus is the only contest.
Private Riches, Public Squalor
Study: A year is too short for a U.S. worker to earn middle-class life
- "The widening gulf... between what American life costs and what American jobs pay is a central fact of American political economy that the public appears to have understood long before economists." [The New Midlife Crisis]