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Mirror Mirror On The Ball
The process of making a mirror ball. The last remaining mirror ball manufacturing factory in Japan. [14m30s] Depicts making a mirror ball. Actually pretty interesting.
The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas and so many more
Motown Junkies is a blog where Steve Devereux is reviewing the entire Motown singles discography in sequential order from the beginning. You can also browse tracks by songwriter, label and artist. He’s currently up to 1966, though he’s been on hiatus for a few years. He also used to present Discovering Motown on Radio Cardiff, and the archive is on Mixcloud.
Tom Driveimpossiblyquicklyer
Tom Walker tries desperately, with halting success, to complete some very basic missions in Grand Theft Auto 4 while all the cars on the map lose their fucking minds. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Come for the comedy car deaths, stay for the slow evolution of a "this is a horror stealth game" playstyle that makes it at all possible to make progress.
administrators aim to create a more politically quietist university
Who Has the Right to “Disrupt” the University? Perhaps the most egregious example of the administrator-as-disruptor is Gordon Gee, currently the president of West Virginia University (WVU), whose administration pushed through extraordinarily deep cuts to the institution’s academic offerings last fall. During a meeting of the faculty senate, Gee said “I want to be very clear that the university is not dismantling higher education. We are disrupting it . . . And many of you know I am a firm believer in disruption.” [more inside]
That inequality lies at the heart of what we call “data colonialism”
"The term might be unsettling, but we believe it is appropriate. Pick up any business textbook and you will never see the history of the past thirty years described this way. A title like Thomas Davenport’s Big Data at Work spends more than two hundred pages celebrating the continuous extraction of data from every aspect of the contemporary workplace, without once mentioning the implications for those workers. EdTech platforms and the tech giants like Microsoft that service them talk endlessly about the personalisation of the educational experience, without ever noting the huge informational power that accrues to them in the process." (Today’s colonial “data grab” is deepening global inequalities, LSE) [more inside]
Rare oceanic phenomenon brought on by heavy rainfall
Rare oceanic phenomenon brought on by heavy rainfall. When Terry Dixon took his usual walk around the Tathra headland on the New South Wales far south coast, he encountered a rare phenomenon brought on by heavy rainfall.
Ancient Polished Granite Chambers In India With No Explanation
BARABAR, THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF THE FUTURE [2h] "2,300 years ago, in India, 5 chambers were carved inside enormous granite rocks. According to rudimentary inscriptions engraved at their entrances, they were purportedly offered by a king to serve as monsoon shelters against rain for a sect. WELCOME TO THE HEART OF ANCIENT INDIA, IN A FORGOTTEN CHAPTER OF ITS PAST... THAT COULD VERY WELL CHANGE HISTORY." [more inside]
Good Shepherd
"Greatest stuntwoman who ever lived" Jeannie Epper passes at 83
Variety obituary. Part of a stunt-work family, Epper started stunt work herself at age 9. She was Lynda Carter's stunt double for the Wonder Woman television show in the 1970s, and did stunt work in many iconic films.
Yoink
A little activity from a Common Kestrel nest near Windsbach, Germany.
A fateful exit interview
Wherever the blame lies, at the heart of the story are humans operating, ruptured, in an institutional machine. Many of the 42 are still ‘deeply injured’ by the incident, said Simon, who acts as their unofficial spokesperson. As the whole affair unravelled, the diocese was already under immense strain. The COVID lockdowns set clergy against their bishops, with many priests livid at having to close their churches. Others were angered by moves to invest millions in a new wave of informal congregations meeting in pubs, coffee shops and cinemas. And throughout it all there was division and tension over the church-wide culture war about gay blessings. ‘There’s so little trust at the moment,’ Roger reflected. ‘And in London, all the anger and the issues have a face: that face is Martin Sargeant.’ from In the Shadow of St Paul’s [The Fence; ungated] [CW: suicide, misogyny, homophobia.]
France reclaims the title for World's Longest Baguette
At an incredible 461 feet (140.53 meters), the baguette baked on Sunday, May 5 has officially exceeded the previous record held by Italy. The municipality of Suresnes now holds the Guinness World Record. (SLNYT)
Best printer 2024 for printing printers who love to print in 2024
It’s weird because the correct answer to the query “what is the best printer” has not changed, but an entire ecosystem of content farms seems motivated to constantly update articles about printers in response to the incentive structure created by that robot’s obvious preferences. Pointing out that incentive structure and the culture that’s developed around it seems to make a lot of people mad, which is also interesting! Anyway, here’s the best printer for 2024: a Brother laser printer. You can just pick any one you like; I have one with a sheet feeder and one without a sheet feeder. Both of them have reliably printed return labels and random forms and pictures for my kid to color for years now, and I have never purchased replacement toner for either one. Neither has fallen off the WiFi or insisted I sign up for an ink-related hostage situation or required me to consider the ongoing schemes of HP executives who seem determined to make people hate a legendary brand with straightforward cash grabs and weird DRM ideas.Best printer 2024, best printer for home use, office use, printing labels, printer for school, homework printer you are a printer we are all printers / After a full year of not thinking about printers, the best printer is still whatever random Brother laser printer that’s on sale. [Previously]
Your 80s childhood sucked
Chris Biggs' shorts on 80s classics - oh the memory of cigarettes and Strawberry Shortcake!
Renters get to join in on the solar boom
On a patch of earth big as a Bunnings car park, renters get to join in on the solar boom. A five-hour drive from Sydney, a community garden of sorts has sprouted. But instead of sharing tomatoes or lettuce, "gardeners" harvest solar energy. And it's already a hit with people otherwise excluded from the rooftop solar boom.
Home of the Free (Thread)
I was playing TimeGuessr the other day (a game where you try to ID a random photo in time and space -- thanks, Klipspringer!). Often you can tell the city from context, but not necessarily where in the city, so I try to drop a pin right in the middle to up my odds. But this made me wonder -- how does *Google Maps* pinpoint where a city is, exactly? They have to put the label somewhere. You'd think it would be the exact center, or maybe city hall, but it seems to vary -- in New York it's City Hall, but in London it's Charing Cross. Rome is the Piazza Venezia, Cairo is Tahrir Square, and Tokyo is Tokyo Station. My own hometown isn't city hall, or even the football stadium (roll tide), but literally the main entrance to an Embassy Suites, which is nice-looking but not exactly the crossroads of the city. So if you're comfortable sharing the city you're from (or in, or would like to be), where does Google think it really is? Does that place seem like a good, representative choice, or would you pick elsewhere? If you closed your eyes and wished yourself to the "heart" of your favorite city, where would you end up and why? Discuss these geographical quandaries and more in your weekly Free Thread! [more inside]
The rise of the job-search bots
The most significant hip hop feud in decades
Kendrick Lamar and Drake (aka Aubrey Graham), two of the biggest active hip hop artists and former collaborators, are seriously beefing in a major way that hasn't been seen since Tupac vs Biggie. Last October, Drake dropped a track, First Person Shooter, where his collaborator J Cole named the two of them and Kendrick as "the big three". Kendrick, who has a competitive streak, took umbrage at being put on the same level as the other two and replied in Like That "it's just big me". What might've started as a somewhat professional competition has rapidly gone nuclear since Kendrick took shots at Drake's Blackness, fitness as a parent, and masculinity in his track titled "euphoria" and Drake responded with allegations of domestic abuse, infidelity, and cuckoldry in Family Matters. As of the latest, Kendrick has accused Drake of hiding a 2nd child and being a sexual predator of underaged girls. [more inside]
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls (but in this case.......)
What happens if a US presidential candidate dies? Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the two oldest candidates in US history. If either needs to be replaced, what next? from the Guardian [more inside]
YOU ARE YOUNGER THAN ADRIEN BRODY! BUT OLDER THAN BUFFY
Because of that decision made in Mountain View, we now have a huge accidental archive of our collective past. Awkward flirtations, drunken rants, earnest pleas; friendships fraying or rekindled, personae tried on and discarded, good jokes and bad decisions; every dumb or brilliant or anguished thing we wrote below the subject line — we have an instantly searchable record of it all. To mark the anniversary of this revolution, the editors of New York asked some of our favorite writers to excavate their individual archives and tell us — with dismay or pride or chagrin — what they saw. from How Gmail Became Our Diary [Intelligencer; ungated]