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Genealogist helps lay WWI veteran to rest
The last chapter in an effort to finally lay the veteran to rest
A Redditor and genealogist found an urn containing the ashes of a WWI veteran. Over the course of a month, she figured out who he was and eventually got a military funeral for him. Here are the posts describing her research.
On Sept. 15, PVT Lewis Hamilton was laid to rest at Indiantown Gap national Cemetery, half a century after his death.
The Overwhelming Racism of COVID Coverage
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.
Math heists, time travel, aliens, and creepy predictions
The Society of Actuaries has held a regular speculative fiction contest since 1995. Actuaries write science fiction about actuarial work, insurance, advances in prediction, and more. In the 13th contest (2019), the winner of the "Most novel prediction forming the basis for the narrative" prize focused on on insurance companies' role in fighting climate change: "We All Have a Green Heart" by Anna Bearrood. (The following links include a lot of PDFs, at least one ZIP file, and scores of of mostly math-heavy science fiction stories, written by amateur authors, often focusing on death, murder, surveillance, creepy conspiracies, implants, and behavior modification.)
The gentrification of sharecropping
The NYT publishes a romantic story about a couple escaping to the countryside to start a farm. (alternative link) The excellent Dr. Sarah Taber explains how, by treating it as a design & style story instead of a farming one, they inadvertedly exposed the whole thing as just hipster sharecropping – as shitty and exploitative as it was in the Jim Crow era – and how this is a recurring problem in the "sustainability" movement. As another mefite remarked: Everything “disruptive” is just “how do we undo a century of progress on labor rights.”
metafolklore, or folklore about folklore...
"The story of “Our Goodman” leaves us with as many questions as answers. It certainly seems as if the wife is having an affair; yet the husband IS very drunk, or tired, or sometimes blind…is it possible he’s imagining the whole thing? His reactions, too, can be taken in two ways: does “mustache on a cabbage head I’ve never seen before” mean he’s really fooled, or does it mean he understands what’s going on and is making sardonic comments?" A very deep well-researched dive into the backstory and breadth of versions of the widespread folk song Our Goodman. From the American Folklife Center, at the Library of Congress' blog Folklife Today.
(I don't think they're getting pizza)
There is screaming and babbling and someone is leaning really close and singing into their microphone and someone else keeps saying, "Who wants to see a diamond? Who wants to see a diamond? Who wants to see a diamond? Who wants to see a diamond?"#ZoomOftheFlies [twitter thread; threadreader]
You can’t just live on the land you own
Traveller families in Nottinghamshire who have been living on land they bought for the last three years are taking their fight to stay on their land to the High Court after being denied planning permission by their local council. The council has admitted that it doesn't have any alternative traveller sites for the six families to relocate to if they are kicked off their own land.
We didn't start the fire
They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen? Amid the worst wildfire season in history, ProPublica reports on the science supporting prescribed burns; the military mindset and perverse financial incentives standing in the way; and attempts to change attitudes so government officials can follow the science.
Adhesive wall hook, scrap of silicone vs. $90,000 myoelectric hand
Adaptive engineering: one woman's tools for daily living.
"Cindy woke up in a room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts in September 2009 in a radically altered body... Over time she found that the standard tools provided to her, even at a top-flight rehab hospital, didn’t facilitate some of the most important things she wanted to recover—how to write a thank you note, feed herself, put on makeup and jewelry, turn the pages in a picture book as she reads to her grandchildren. So Cindy started to design and build what she needed. From small hacks on her hand cream jar to repurposing cable ties for pulling out drawers and salad tongs for holding a sandwich, Cindy has embraced an everyday engineering ethic that she never thought possible."
The bradykinin hypothesis
"Earlier this summer, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee set about crunching data on more than 40,000 genes from 17,000 genetic samples in an effort to better understand Covid-19... When Summit was done, researchers analyzed the results. It was, in the words of Dr. Daniel Jacobson, lead researcher and chief scientist for computational systems biology at Oak Ridge, a “eureka moment.” The computer had revealed a new theory about how Covid-19 impacts the body: the bradykinin hypothesis. The hypothesis provides a model that explains many aspects of Covid-19, including some of its most bizarre symptoms."
"I wish people would be able to see these borders as ficticious things."
The country-counting community--people who try to visit every country in the world--are a small, tight-knit bunch. They are also overwhelmingly White. Jessica Nabongo talks about becoming the first Black woman to visit every country in the world, a trip she detailed on her blog (and Instagram).
Update: Turns out it was in fact not every day
"OMG my brother in law, the gift that never stops giving, was tired of being sent to get rice every day so he decided buy in bulk, talked to the shop about it, wires got crossed, now there is a literal TRUCK FILLED WITH RICE outside the house and my sister is losing her shit lmfao"
Hugo-nominated author Shiv Ramdas livetweets the process of getting a large truck to go away. (Threadreader)
Hugo-nominated author Shiv Ramdas livetweets the process of getting a large truck to go away. (Threadreader)
The continual accumulation of such acts can change (almost) everything.
David Graeber (dozens of previouslies), anthropologist of anarchism, chronicler of debt, interpreter of bullshit jobs, is dead, age 59.
"Death leaves you in a dreamy shock."
Pa’s Smile
The first and only time I bought dry ice, the grocery store clerk asked if I was going camping. “No,” I muttered, then managed to stop myself from saying it was for a body. The ice really was to lay my father’s corpse on. An air force colonel who was skeptical of organized religion, my father, who we call Pa, wasn’t sure the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of leaving the dead undisturbed for three days was necessary. But, as he said after being diagnosed with late stage lung cancer, “I’ve gotten so much from Buddhism for good living, I’m not going to pass up their tips for good dying.”Jamail Yogis reflects on his father's last wishes and final days.
Oh my God, Masks!
Kelly is back!
and has moved on from shoes to the new hot topic of this day and age... Masks!
(Previously)
Lovecraft Country: Holy Ghost
Leti hopes to mend her relationship with her sister, Ruby, by turning a ramshackle Victorian on Chicago's North Side into a boarding house--an endeavor that stokes neighborhood racism and awakens dormant spirits stuck in the house.
Badass Anarchists Save Lives
The Street artist Banksy has funded a refugee rescue boat operating in Mediterranean that has already rescued 89 people.
The Pink former french fast customs vessel is named after the extraordinary anarchist and communard Louise Michel (previously) and is Captained by the equally radical and dedicated Pia Klemp. “Banksy won’t pretend that he knows better than us how to run a ship, and we won’t pretend to be artists.” An ex Sea Shepard captain Pia Klemp is no stranger to migrant rescue and the consequences and last year she turned down a Paris Medal calling the city hypocritical.
The Pink former french fast customs vessel is named after the extraordinary anarchist and communard Louise Michel (previously) and is Captained by the equally radical and dedicated Pia Klemp. “Banksy won’t pretend that he knows better than us how to run a ship, and we won’t pretend to be artists.” An ex Sea Shepard captain Pia Klemp is no stranger to migrant rescue and the consequences and last year she turned down a Paris Medal calling the city hypocritical.
Our focus today cannot be on basketball
In response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, and the Kenosha Police Department giving armed white supremacists free rein in the city, the Milwaukee Bucks as a team refused to take the floor for game 5 of their first round playoff series against the Orlando Magic. The Magic, left the floor, too, refusing to accept a win by forfeit. The NBA quickly announced all three games scheduled would be postponed.
One Iconic Look
Tom and Lorenzo discuss -
A black dress with pearls. A yellow plaid suit. A blue checked pinafore. What makes these outfits so striking, so Halloween-costumable, so iconic?
Rutherford Falls: meet the sitcom creators decolonizing Hollywood
Navajo writer and showrunner Sierra Teller Ornelas has teamed up with her former Brooklyn Nine-Nine colleague Mike Schur and actor Ed Helms to create Rutherford Falls, an NBC Peacock sitcom set in a small town that borders a reserve. Helms plays a "local legend and town namesake" who fights plans to move a statue of the town's founder. The cast will include Toronto-based Plains Cree actor Michael Greyeyes, Lakota Sioux writer and actor Jana Schmieding, and Schitt's Creek alumnus Dustin Milligan. Five of the twelve writers are Native American, making it one of the highest proportions of Indigenous writers on an American sitcom. CBC's Rosanna Deerchild interviews the Indigneous writers decolonizing the Hollywood sitcom.
The Grass is no longer greener on the other side of the fence.
Banning Lawns.
"Lawns occupy approximately three times more space than corn and
twice as much as cotton, and consume up to sixty percent of potable
municipal water supplies in Western cities and up to thirty percent in
Eastern cities." It's time to give up the great American Institution of the
Front Lawn.
The Intersection is Under Construction
In Solarpunk, “there’s something missing. The intersection with communities of faith is roped off,” argues Rob Cameron in The New Modality.
Guide me through nature!
I want to learn more about my natural surroundings! Looking for some sort of book, app, curriculum, whatever (either analog or digital) that will guide me.
More fun
After a long day of playing in the forest while their juvenile counterparts were at Orangutan Jungle School, an active congress of orphaned baby orangutans at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Indonesia adorably piled themselves into wheelbarrows in order to catch a ride back to the nursery where they’d be safe and well-fed
Lovecraft Country: Sundown
Atticus Freeman meets up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. (HBO)
The Wubi Effect
How do you fit 70,000 Chinese characters on a keyboard? Radiolab delves into the history of writing Chinese characters on computer, from Wang Yongmin’s pioneering Wubi method that breaks down Chinese characters into components mapping onto standard Latin keyboards, to the cloud-based predictive typing system used across China on PCs and smartphones today.
"Two studs wide and angled at 45°"
George Cave looked at 52 examples of the LEGO "2×2 decorated slope", the type of brick typically used for minifig instrument panels. Many of them illustrated design philosophies underlying real-world interface design. Some of them did not.
"The Singing Selfie"
Each month, Islington Folk Club here in North London
eases the boredom of lockdown by holding a competition called Trad2Mad, inviting its members and friends to post YouTube performances of themselves singing, unaccompanied, a traditional folk song, a modern pop song you might never have expected to hear in that style, or any other damn thing they feel like contributing. A shortlist is them produced, votes gathered and a winner selected. There were a few entries I really liked this month, which you'll find direct links to below.
Rhiannon Giddens named artistic director of Silkroad
Rhiannon Giddens has been named artistic director of Silkroad. Silkroad was founded by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, and conceived on the question "What happens when strangers meet?". What happened when Rhiannon and Yo-Yo met: They created a piece of music that gives texture to these times.
This Was Not Me. It Would Never Be Me. I Am Not Ashamed.
Many expected my rise in the adult world, including many in the adult world itself, to be a flash in the pan. It was a stunt. I wasn’t serious. No one from mainstream ever is—like mainstream is a place you go and can never look back. But that’s what makes this story different: my genuine love for adult performance and for colorful cinema. My story is a journey rather than a cautionary tale. And I was ready to prove the naysayers wrong. How Porn Saved Me From Hollywood by Maitland Ward [Article is SFW, but it's about the porn industry]
A New Vision of Urban Living: The 15-Minute City
How the '15-Minute City' Could Help Post-Pandemic Recovery
- "A new C40 Cities report touts Paris's model for putting essentials within close walking or biking distance as an economic boost for coronavirus-ravaged municipal budgets."
I have SO NOT BEEN HACKED
Author Susan Orlean is living her best quarantine life right life now by being very publicly drunk on Twitter.
This delightul event is being memorialized by The AV Club (to which Orlean has linked), meaww.com, and nj.com
This delightul event is being memorialized by The AV Club (to which Orlean has linked), meaww.com, and nj.com
Why we the people must "dominate the streets."
I've Seen a Future Without Cars, and It's Amazing
- "Why do American cities waste so much space on cars?" (previously: 1, 2)
The Baby-Sitters Club: Mary Anne Saves the Day
After dealing with a major dad dilemma, Mary Anne makes a dynamic new friend. Later, a medical emergency puts her caretaking skills to the test.
The X-Files: Arcadia
Mulder and Scully go undercover as a married couple in a planned community in San Diego County, California, where people who don't follow the extensive and exacting homeowner regulations mysteriously disappear.
DON'T DRAW PEGGY TOO SHAPELY
Humor/pop culture website Cracked has gotten their hands on the animation guidelines for King of the Hill, which are mix of practical advice, character observations, and snark. (SLCracked)
New Stuff, by Gary Larson
Gary Larson has some new stuff. Supposedly inspired by a clogged pen, Larson, creator of the comic strip The Far Side, has released three new cartoons drawn with a digital tablet, featuring a modern look but very classic style and humor.
Democracy Wins In The Cereal Aisle
In these uncertain times, it is reassuring to hear that a proven case of voter fraud has been corrected. I am referring, of course, to Kellogg's releasing Green Onion Flavor Chex in South Korea.
If you like watching other people work hard
Ruth Goodman (of Victorian-Farm-and-many-other-historical-series fame, previously and previously), Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold have traveled across the Channel to help build a French castle using 13th century tools.
"We want to meet this moment."
Following fellow country music act Lady A (pka Lady Antebellum), the Dixie Chicks have changed their name to The Chicks. The Dixie Chicks' last single was 'Gaslighter' released in March. This month, The Chicks' first single is 'March March.'
"...Have a good life."
The A.V. Club with a fascinating look at the Sam & Diane storyline on Cheers.
The FDA just approved the first prescription video game for ADHD
After seven years of clinical trials, the United States FDA has approved the EndeavorRX mobile video game as a prescription-only neurofeedback alternative therapeutic treatment for children (ages 8-12) diagnosed with ADHD. But is neurofeedback therapy a reliable alternative method for treating ADHD?
I Want To Beelieve
Steve Byrne investigates the curious case of the too-good-to-be-true beekeeper heart honeycomb image. "[This is] what we call Internet Folklore, where stories spread and change quicker than ever, and involve communities of people experiencing a simple yet heartwarming tale ... On the internet, search behind what you see. Don't take things at face value. Don't let your "aww" gene get in the way of thinking, hmm, is this for real? Because there are people out there who seek to use such kindly human instincts in unkind ways."
We only serve MEATLOAF and STRAWBERRY MILK
Driving into Athens from Nelsonville, it’s impossible to miss the massive billboard sitting on the right side of Route 33. The sign is loud, yellow and black, its text practically shouting at motorists, “WE ONLY SERVE MEATLOAF AND STRAWBERRY MILK.” This is the now-famous sign for Margie’s Meatloaf Mecca, a restaurant that doesn’t, and will never, exist.