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Entries for September 2024
Old photos of basketball games and boxing matches often have a pleasing hazy blue background that modern photos lack. “The blue haze that adds such a wonderful ambience to the arena is caused by cigarette smoke.”
I appreciate this no-nonsense flight safety video from Emirates. All the jokey entertaining ones are corny and have grown tiresome.
In the late 19th century, hotels started building fully outfitted darkrooms for travelling photographers to develop their plates.
Kodak and the Invention of Popular Photography
In 1888, the Eastman Kodak Company rolled out a new camera and a new slogan. “You press the button, we do the rest.” To say this moment revolutionized photography would be an understatement. But this story isn’t just about Kodak. It’s about what happens when a powerful technology, originally only understood by a select few, can suddenly fit in your hand.
And then, fast-forwarding to the 90s and 00s, Kodak gradually, then suddenly, missed a similar shift that further democratized photography: the move to digital.
Fun little word game: Alphaguess. “Guess the word of the day. Each guess reveals where the word sits alphabetically.” (Today’s puzzle took me 16 guesses…is that good?)
The Pudding has collected satellite imagery of all 59,507 outdoor basketball courts in the United States.
The Williamsburg Bridge Riders
Adam DiCarlo takes photos of commuters (mostly bikers) as they exit the Williamsburg Bridge bike path on the Manhattan side and posts them to his Instagram account. (via @BAMstutz)
Dark Matter Could Be Hiding Out as Atom-Sized Black Holes. “Black holes the size of an atom that contain the mass of an asteroid may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade”…and we can theoretically detect them through planetary wobble.
The Return of Ta-Nehisi Coates, a lengthy profile of the writer on the eve of the publication of The Message, his book about “three resonant sites of conflict”, including Palestine.
Frozen food delivery service Schwan’s will shutter in November. Founded in 1952 (and now called Yelloh 🙄), the company cited “economic & market headwinds”. When I was a kid in rural WI, a visit from “the Schwan’s man” was an *event*, let me tell you.
“Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago,” but polling is now the centerpiece of American politics, with “the media obsessing over each statistically insignificant blip”. Why do we pay so much attention to this bullshit?
Listen to a Performance of Some New Mozart Music
Last week, I posted about the discovery of a “new” piece of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A previously unknown piece of music composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was probably in his early teens has been uncovered at a library in Germany.
The piece dates to the mid to late 1760s and consists of seven miniature movements for a string trio lasting about 12 minutes, the Leipzig municipal libraries said in a statement on Thursday.
Via Smithsonian Magazine, here’s the one of the first public performances of the rediscovered work:
Researchers say the music fits stylistically with other works from the 1760s, when Mozart was between the ages of 10 and 13. Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the foundation, tells Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) that the young composer was no longer creating pieces that sounded like this one by the time he was in his late teens.
In his early years, however, Mozart wrote many chamber works like Serenade in C, which his father recorded on a list of his son’s compositions. Many of these works were thought to have been lost to history, as Leisinger says in the statement. Fortunately, this particular piece was saved — thanks to the composer’s sister.
“It looks as if — thanks to a series of favorable circumstances — a complete string trio has survived in Leipzig,” Leisinger adds. “The source was evidently Mozart’s sister, and so it is tempting to think that she preserved the work as a memento of her brother. Perhaps he wrote the trio specially for her.”
(via open culture)
“The state should not give itself the right to kill human beings — especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion.”
American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We’re the Protagonists. “American suburbs are full of ugly, empty, liminal spaces: spaces you are not meant to linger in or enjoy. They’re the creepy hallways of the built environment…”
Ian Scott tracked down the full “What were the skies like when you were young?” sample from The Orb’s Little Fluffy Clouds. You can listen to it on the Internet Archive or on Soundcloud.
Substack Still Sucks
From Casey Newton’s post looking back on Platformer’s fourth year, your periodic reminder that Substack still sucks:
When we learned about the extent of far-right extremism, Hitler worship and Holocaust denial on Substack, you pressed us to investigate. And when we published our findings, you overwhelmingly encouraged us to find a new home on the web.
During this time, I talked to several high-profile writers who collectively make millions of dollars writing on Substack. Their readers were also asking them to leave, too. In the end, almost none of them did. They bet that they could simply put their heads down and wait for the controversy to pass. And it worked!
Substack’s Nazi problem continues, but the news cycle has moved on. I suspect it will swing back around eventually. But in the meantime, I’m proud that when Platformer was asked to actually live its values — to stand up for the idea that basic content moderation is good and necessary — we did.
Having principles can be annoying and expensive. (And make you insufferable to talk to at parties.) But it beats the alternative.
Huge respect to Newton and the Platformer team for making the move from Substack even though it was inconvenient and painful.
Ross Anderson on The Secret Code of Pickup Basketball. “It allows a small group of perfect strangers with little in common besides basketball to experience a flow state — a brief, but intense, form of group transcendence.” Super interesting sociology.
Tipping Point is a three-part podcast on The Limits to Growth, a 1970s book that predicted the collapse of civilization by ~2050 (based on early systems dynamics modeling done at MIT) and how it was ignored & discredited.
Foliage season is ramping up here in New England — here’s this year’s foliage prediction map for the US.
Radio Shack Catalog Archive (1939-2011)
Look, I’m not even going to explain this. Either 1) you’re the type of person who reads the words “Radio Shack Catalog Archive (1939-2011)”, completely flips their shit, clicks away immediately, and therefore isn’t even reading this, or 2) you don’t care. Have a good one!
Don’t ever hand your phone to the cops. “Handing your phone to a police officer grants law enforcement a lot of power over some of your most intimate personal data.”
“Google is serving AI-generated images of mushrooms when users search for some species, a risky and potentially fatal error for foragers who are trying to figure out what mushrooms are safe to eat.” JFC.
Out today: Sally Rooney’s new novel Intermezzo. I’m actually gonna grab this from the local bookstore today while I’m out and about.
Astronomy Photographer of the Year for 2024
Royal Museums Greenwich has announced the winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 competition. You can also check out some of the shortlist entries and runners-up in each category (Moon, Sun, etc.)
Photos above by (from top to bottom): Tom Williams, Peter Ward, Ryan Imperio, and Tom Rae.
The International Space Station is scheduled to reach the end of its functional life by 2030 — and will then be destroyed. “After 30 years of dutiful service, our home among the stars will be ripped apart by the atmosphere.”
How to Decarbonize Your Life. “Trying to zero out your personal carbon footprint…is a fool’s errand. What you can do, however, is maximize the degree to which you’re building a new, post-fossil-fuel world.”
Wes Anderson Is Museum Bound
London’s Design Museum is hosting a big retrospective of Wes Anderson’s work beginning in late 2025.
This exhibition will be the first time museum visitors have the opportunity to delve into the art of his complete filmography, examining his inspirations, homages, and the meticulous craftsmanship that define his work.
Through a curated collection of original props, costumes, and behind-the-scenes insights, including from his personal collection, this exhibition offers an unprecedented look into the world of Wes Anderson, celebrating his enduring influence on contemporary cinema.
Might have to make my way to London for this. (via daniel benneworth–gray)
Reader survey: “Upon discovering that an item they want to buy is in a locked case, less than one in three shoppers (32%) get a store employee to unlock the case.” There is a 0% chance of me shopping at a store with these locked product cages.
Departure Mono
I am such a sucker for a pixel fonts and Departure Mono is no exception.
Departure Mono is a monospaced pixel font inspired by the constraints of early command-line and graphical user interfaces, the tiny pixel fonts of the late 90s/early 00s, and sci-fi concepts from film and television.
Oh and there’s a playable Breakout game at the bottom of the page if you scroll all the way down.
Exactly Why Are Friendship Breakups So Brutal? “So much about friendship goes unspoken. It’s what makes the good ones, frankly, kind of magical: There’s no formal agreement tying you two together except the fact that you like each other.”
Online street maps and satellite views of China don’t align because the Chinese government mandates the use of a “confidentiality algorithm” that adds random offsets ranging from 50-500 meters to latitudes & longitudes.
Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake. “The rise of sports gambling has caused a wave of financial and familial misery, one that falls disproportionately on the most economically precarious households.”
The Joyful Utility of Yeeting Pufflings Off Cliffs
In coastal cities in Iceland, including on the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, it’s common to see people out at night, hunting for baby puffins (called pufflings). Once they’re caught, they’re chucked off of cliffs the next day and fly out to sea:
Many residents of Vestmannaeyjar spend a few weeks in August and September collecting wayward pufflings that have crashed into town after mistaking human lights for the moon. Releasing the fledglings at the cliffs the following day sets them on the correct path.
This human tradition has become vital to the survival of puffins, Rodrigo A. Martínez Catalán of Náttúrustofa Suðurlands [South Iceland Nature Research Center] told NPR. A pair of puffins – which mate for life – only incubate one egg per season and don’t lay eggs every year.
“If you have one failed generation after another after another after another,” Catalán said, “the population is through, pretty much.”
Jessica Bishopp’s meditative short film follows a pair of teen girls and their friends as they drive around in the middle of the night collecting pufflings.
Interspersed with the puffling search are brief moments of the quotidian: we see Selma talking to her friends about acrylic nails and also braiding her younger sister’s hair. These scenes illustrate how the teens’ environmental action is only a part of a larger routine of caretaking, revealing a world in which environmental protection is both normal and necessary. “I think it’s important that we tell alternative stories of girlhood, and it’s not led by trauma or romance,” Bishopp said. The girls show themselves to be responsible stewards. They are also in the midst of their own coming of age, and they’re aware of the parallel between their own experiences and those of the birds, who are separating from their parents.
It’s my unfortunate duty to inform you that, once again, It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.
The FDA has approved a nasal flu vaccine that people can administer to themselves at home. (Prescription required, order it online, ages 2-49, available next year.)
Did Shohei Ohtani just play the single greatest baseball game ever? “He went 6-for-6, slugged three home runs, drove in 10 runs and swiped two bases — in a game that clinched a postseason berth.”
What impacted the Earth 66 million years ago at Chicxulub and caused the extinction of 75% of all species of life? A new analysis suggests it was an asteroid from the outer reaches of the solar system.
Which Came First? A quiz from Google Arts & Culture in which you guess which historical event took place first.
London’s clean air zone was meant to reduce car pollution but also had another effect: more active kids. “Instead of being chauffeured to school by their parents, the students started walking, biking, scootering, or taking public transit.”
The Toll of America’s Anti-Trans War. “Anti-transgender legislation and rhetoric is reshaping all of our lives, from bodily autonomy to education, privacy and the access and use of public spaces. Are we paying attention?”
“A previously unknown piece of music composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was probably in his early teens has been uncovered at a library in Germany.” 12 minutes of new Mozart in the 21st century, what a time to be alive.
The newest season of The Great British Bake Off premieres on Netflix next week (Sept 27). Look at all those fresh faces — I love them already.
The Breakthrough That Could Unlock Ocean Carbon Removal. “How Equatic solved seawater’s toxic gas problem and delivered a two-for-one solution: removing carbon while producing green hydrogen.”
Visualizing Ship Movements with AIS Data. “Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year — tracked from America’s busiest ports to the open ocean via AIS marine tracking data.”
A famous lecture given in 1982 by computer science pioneer Grace Hopper, “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People”, has long been publicly unavailable but is now on YouTube.
Horndog, a rotating hot dog robot that scrolls photos of bread on “Instagrain”. It’s art!
Double Trio
I love these covers designed by Rodrigo Corral for Nathaniel Mackey’s poetry collection Double Trio. You will likely recognize some of the other covers designed by Corral over the years.
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