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Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017
| Time | Event |
| 12:03a | The Oatmeal looks into our reality tunnels, the "backfire effect," and the nature of belief
Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal is at it again with a smart, funny, and very relevant look at how we construct our beliefs, build our reality tunnels, and why we react so forcefully when the core assumptions of that belief system are threatened. Read the rest of it. Nice touch that there are two version, one with colorful language and one clean, "classroom-friendly version." David McRaney's You Are Not So Smart did a wonderful 3-part series on the backfire effect. You can access the first episode here. |
| 11:28a | |
| 1:34p | Cough drop-flavored Kit Kats
Just when you think they can't make foods any weirder, out comes an unusual crossbreed: a cough reliever/candy bar. Called Kit Kat Nodo Ame Aji, which translates to Kit Kat Cough Drop Flavour, this new chocolate actually delivers a dose of 2.1 percent throat lozenge powder in every serving... If you want to get one, better hurry. The cough drop-flavored Kit Kat is only available until September 5th, and only in Japan. image via PRTimes |
| 1:34p | Learn dirty words in sign language 
I learn something new every day. Today I learned some valuable dirty words and phrases in sign language from the deaf folks in this video. Thanks to each and every one of you. ("Bullshit" signed is especially satisfying, imo.) (TO) |
| 1:35p | Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah played on the mbira 
Mbira musician Patti Broussard treats her fans to a lovely rendition of Hallelujah on an Array mbira. (more…) |
| 1:54p | "Human, you can do the thing" in doglish, but subtitled in pom talk
Found this on the Internet and decided that Pom was correct; am therefore now turning the Internet off. Here's a chaser, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCAORZph |
| 2:35p | Uncanny Japan podcast
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| 2:41p | Researchers can take over domestic and industrial robots to spy and maim  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSSTUvqM This week at Singapore's Hack in the Box conference, researchers Lucas Apa and Cesar Cerrudo from the Argentinian security research company IOActive will present their findings on the defects in humanoid domestic robots from UBTech and Softbank and industrial robot arms from Universal Robots; they're building on research published in March in which they released incomplete findings in order to give vendors a chance to patch the vulnerabilities they discovered. (more…) |
| 2:50p | A (flawed) troll-detection tool maps America's most and least toxic places
The Perspective API (previously) is a tool from Google spinoff Jigsaw (previously) that automatically rates comments for their "toxicity" -- a fraught business that catches a lot of dolphins in its tuna net. (more…) |
| 2:53p | Ali Alamedy's startlingly detailed dioramas 
Enjoy this video of an Iraqi artist's intricate and realistic dioramas, depicting city scenes from around the world, crafted in exile: "When I tried to make a tiny bellows for the old camera, it had to be very very small. Each fold less than a millimeter thick, and I needed about 124 folds." It's presented by Veena Rao at The New York Times. Mr. Alamedy was born in Karbala, Iraq, in 1982, during the Iraq-Iran war. At the time, his father was imprisoned under Saddam Hussein for political reasons, and Mr. Alamedy wasnt able to meet him until he was 9 years old. His mother taught him to read at a young age and reading quickly became his favorite hobby, as well as a way to escape to calmer and more secure places. Mr. Alamedy credits the novels he read as a primary reason he started building miniatures, to recreate some of those scenes just as I had imagined them to be in my childhood. |
| 3:06p | Calgary airport regrets converting disabled parking spaces into "Lexus only" parking spaces
The Calgary airport authority has apologised for a botched marketing campaign in which it sold Lexus on the idea of designating some of its parking places as "Lexus only" and then, unbeknownst to the car company, used disabled parking spots for the purpose (presumably, they were luxuriously spacious). (more…) |
| 3:19p | The far right has its own web, but what use is a site no-one will serve?
After Charlottesville and the murder of Heather Heyer, hitherto Nazi-friendly internet companies have found their boots and their banhammers. The angry right has for some time anticipated this eventuality, and colonized or established replicas of key services and platforms. 8chan, Voat and Gab are the most well-known examples, respectively resembling 4chan, Reddit and Twitter. Adi Robertson writes that the internet's plumbing, the world of domain name registrars and load mitigation, will be harder to replicate. Why the alt-right cant build an alt-internet.
Whatever is taken from them may also be taken from you. |
| 3:28p | |
| 3:38p | Watch ants shoot acid at a person's hand 
Here's an amazing video of ants covering someone's hand, spraying acid up towards the other hand that is hovering over them. The amount of acid shooting up is incredible, coming from such tiny creatures. They are probably defending themselves from what they perceive as a threat. According to a 2014 article in Daily Mail, "The formic acid is not harmful to humans and has the same odour as vinegar. However, it is enough to scare off larger predators such as woodpeckers and jay birds, who could wreak havoc on an ant nest." |
| 4:05p | The Trump family's holidays and business trips have used up the entire Secret Service budget
By the end of the year, Trump and his family will have spent more of the Secret Service's budget than the Obama administration spent in eight years -- enough to exhaust the Secret Service's entire budget for the year and drive 500 Secret Security agents to quit their jobs in disgust. (more…) |
| 4:11p | Whats wrong with startup culture: A video 
Dan Lyons, a former tech journalist who wrote a funny blog years ago called "Fake Steve Jobs" and wrote one of the best episodes of HBO's Silicon Valley ("White Hat/Black Hat") gave a funny 20-minute talk about his horrible experience in a start-up. From YouTube description:
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| 4:30p | |
| 4:31p | Candidate Trump's racism strategy is failing President Trump
When Trump was on the campaign trail, he had a surefire racism strategy: he'd say something horribly racist ("Mexicans are rapists") then refuse to back down (giving comfort to overt racists), then finally back down a little (giving comfort to closet racists), then complain that the press wouldn't accept his apology (reinforcing his point that the media was unfair to him and pleasing his whole base). - |
| 5:23p | |
| 6:57p | Please clap: it's how Medium writers are going to be paid
Medium should introduce a negative counterpart to "clap" called "slap." |
| 7:29p | Own a jar of eclipse soil, "darkened by the moon", for only $1,029
This is a Jar of soil from the area of greatest duration of the eclipse in Carbondale Illinois. This dirt seen total darkness as the moon traveled in front of the sun (2 minutes and 40 seconds). Plant your special seeds in this dirt and let the magic begin. Ok seriously, it's just dirt, but it is everything I said it is. Hey, if nothing else help a guy out I need new tires for my wife's car ;-) Seriously, I mean it!!! |
| 7:57p | 5,000 orange ecstasy tablets shaped like Trump's head seized by German police
Make America MDMA again. |
| 10:15p | Trump enraged that McConnell won't 'protect' him from Russia investigations: NYT
Buried in the New York Times' extraordinary piece on how Mitch McConnell, Senate GOP leader, privately doubts whether President Donald Trump can salvage his administration? This amazing detail that sure doesn't make Trump look innocent on Russia and corruption. |
| 10:17p | Gook is a movie that explores LA's Korean and black communities in the Rodney King era
Director Justin Chons new award-winning Sundance film Gook is hit theaters nationwide on August 18th. The film takes place during the time of the Rodney King riots in LA and tells the story of how people within the black and Korean communities were affected. Mp>Korean brothers Eli (played by Chon himself) and Daniel struggle to keep their family-owned shoe-store open in an area of town that is unwelcoming to them. An 11 year old black girl named Kamilla forms a friendship with Eli and Daniel who treat her like family despite her older brothers warnings to stay away from them. Kamillas role in the film represents a bridge between the two struggling communities. The relationships between Eli, Daniel, and Kamilla mirror the chaos of South Central Los Angeles as riots break out and tensions rise between black and Korean communities. While the premise of the film may seem daunting, humor and exceptional acting balance the seriousness of the movie and create a very authentic experience. In a Q and A with Ava DuVernay that followed the screening we attended, Chon explained that his personal life and upbringing directly influenced the plot. Chon felt driven to share this largely untold story because of his personal connection to this devastating time in history. The 25th anniversary of the riots just took place, yet racism and police brutality are still a major problem within our society, which makes the film even more powerful. Chon said it was now or never when asked about why he made the film. When asked about his choice of the title - Gook - which means country in Korean, but is predominantly used as a racial slur against Asian immigrants, Chon responded by saying that history cannot be erased. While viewers may be uncomfortable asking for this ticket at the box office, the point in using such a shocking title is to remind people why it is important to fight against discrimination and racism. The black and white film was edited using Adobe Creative Cloud. Besides the amazing acting and writing, the cinematography was outstanding; everyone who had a part in making this film is someone to look out for. We were truly blown away by this film and highly recommend it. |
| 11:19p | Trump Afghanistan plan? More air strikes likely, and training Afghan air force
President Donald Trump's speech on military policy in Afghanistan didn't provide much in the way of specifics about troop numbers or other measures of force commitment or our long-term goals. All that vagueness led to tea-leaf-reading today. Reuters spoke with the top general of the U.S. Air Force, and learned the USAF may intensify air strikes in Afghanistan and expand training of the Afghan air force. |
| 11:38p | Justice Department to downsize scope of warrant for DreamHost's user data on anti-Trump site Disrupt
The Justice Department will scale back a very broad request for data connected to an anti-Trump website, after accusations the demand violated the free speech rights of politically engaged citizens.
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