some links
Nov. 4th, 2018 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_nepveuSome things I've been meaning to link to (or did elsewhere), in roughly reverse chronological order.
The Daily Beast, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Is an Insult to Freddie Mercury: "The film plays fast and loose with facts in a way that suggests the entire project was born out of resentment from the surviving members of Queen that, all these years after Mercury’s death, the band’s legacy is still so married to their late frontman’s outsize voice, personality, and celebrity. Bohemian Rhapsody smells like cinematic retribution, in which Mercury is posthumously punished. That he’s depicted in such broad strokes is even crueler, with his sexuality reduced to a partying vice and the so-called nitty-gritty of his life fully ignored..."
The AV Club, Whatever twist you’re expecting from this Spies In Disguise trailer, you’re wrong: this headline is 100% accurate.
Ryan North, I am a computer scientist and I am here to tell you to never trust a computer. Especially with voting. There's a step in here that I didn't quite understand, and has elsewhere been explained to me in slightly different terms, one that sounds like magic (and is more what I thought North was saying) and one that doesn't, but the upshot is that it's well-understood by computer scientists that if you can't examine a program down to its binary code--and you can't--then you can't trust it.
The Guardian, Can’t sleep? Perhaps you’re overtired. I have no, I say again no, idea what this is talking about... (Though when I force myself to open up the Calm app and put on one of the "sleep stories", this is why they work, I bet.)
NY Times, Let Our Algorithm Choose Your Halloween Costume. This is a really clear explanation of machine-learning algorithms and also fun silliness. (Definitely follow aiweirdness on tumblr!)
The Players' Tribune, What the Hell Happened to Darius Miles? I read this without knowing who he was, so I wasn't prepared for the turn, but it's great first-person storytelling. (He's ok. Content notes: depression, threatened violence to children, deaths of family members.)
The Atlantic, Seven Square Miles. "[T]he following images are snapshots from Google Earth, all rectangles of the same size and scale, approximately three and a half miles (5.6 kilometers) wide by two miles (3.2 kilometers) tall—showing seven square miles (18.1 square kilometers, or 4,480 acres) of the surface of our planet in each view."
Atlas Obscura, Spiedies. Yes, but we eat them on Italian bread, laid short-wise across and folded up around like a hot dog roll.
Fast Company, The untold story of the vegetable peeler that changed the world. "Over the years, abridged versions of the [OXO Good Grips] peeler’s origin story have been shared in design museums and even business schools. But talking to Smart’s founder, Davin Stowell, I had no clue how rich the history was, including cameos from Monsanto, samurai sword makers, and retail magicians from another era. What follows is his lightly edited story–an insider’s account of the world’s most famous vegetable peeler."
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, Book Review: The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman. Content note: "this review contains discussion about the kidnapping and sexual assault of an eleven-year-old girl, as well as a broader examination of how our culture treats rape victims."
Blair Braverman, #bravermountainadventcalendar. A bunch of favorite Twitter threads about sled dogs. @BlairBraverman is one of the best Twitter follows I've made.
There's more, there's always more, but I (also always) have other things I ought to be doing now.
The Daily Beast, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Is an Insult to Freddie Mercury: "The film plays fast and loose with facts in a way that suggests the entire project was born out of resentment from the surviving members of Queen that, all these years after Mercury’s death, the band’s legacy is still so married to their late frontman’s outsize voice, personality, and celebrity. Bohemian Rhapsody smells like cinematic retribution, in which Mercury is posthumously punished. That he’s depicted in such broad strokes is even crueler, with his sexuality reduced to a partying vice and the so-called nitty-gritty of his life fully ignored..."
The AV Club, Whatever twist you’re expecting from this Spies In Disguise trailer, you’re wrong: this headline is 100% accurate.
Ryan North, I am a computer scientist and I am here to tell you to never trust a computer. Especially with voting. There's a step in here that I didn't quite understand, and has elsewhere been explained to me in slightly different terms, one that sounds like magic (and is more what I thought North was saying) and one that doesn't, but the upshot is that it's well-understood by computer scientists that if you can't examine a program down to its binary code--and you can't--then you can't trust it.
The Guardian, Can’t sleep? Perhaps you’re overtired. I have no, I say again no, idea what this is talking about... (Though when I force myself to open up the Calm app and put on one of the "sleep stories", this is why they work, I bet.)
NY Times, Let Our Algorithm Choose Your Halloween Costume. This is a really clear explanation of machine-learning algorithms and also fun silliness. (Definitely follow aiweirdness on tumblr!)
The Players' Tribune, What the Hell Happened to Darius Miles? I read this without knowing who he was, so I wasn't prepared for the turn, but it's great first-person storytelling. (He's ok. Content notes: depression, threatened violence to children, deaths of family members.)
The Atlantic, Seven Square Miles. "[T]he following images are snapshots from Google Earth, all rectangles of the same size and scale, approximately three and a half miles (5.6 kilometers) wide by two miles (3.2 kilometers) tall—showing seven square miles (18.1 square kilometers, or 4,480 acres) of the surface of our planet in each view."
Atlas Obscura, Spiedies. Yes, but we eat them on Italian bread, laid short-wise across and folded up around like a hot dog roll.
Fast Company, The untold story of the vegetable peeler that changed the world. "Over the years, abridged versions of the [OXO Good Grips] peeler’s origin story have been shared in design museums and even business schools. But talking to Smart’s founder, Davin Stowell, I had no clue how rich the history was, including cameos from Monsanto, samurai sword makers, and retail magicians from another era. What follows is his lightly edited story–an insider’s account of the world’s most famous vegetable peeler."
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, Book Review: The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman. Content note: "this review contains discussion about the kidnapping and sexual assault of an eleven-year-old girl, as well as a broader examination of how our culture treats rape victims."
Blair Braverman, #bravermountainadventcalendar. A bunch of favorite Twitter threads about sled dogs. @BlairBraverman is one of the best Twitter follows I've made.
There's more, there's always more, but I (also always) have other things I ought to be doing now.
