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Is the world really better than ever? And is that mindset, or the pessimism it is intended to counter, holding us back?
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When a font choice goes really wrong… → Glitter or Hitler?
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These Accurately Titled Novels are hilarious (because they’re true). || While we’re at it, how about 11 Fictional Restaurants We Wish Existed?
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You might remember the delightful paint colors generated by a neural network? Well, now peruse similarly generated British style placenames (who wouldn’t want to live in Colon-in Mead or Galling Compton)? If you like the placenames, you might enjoy the Twitter feed…at the time of this writing the featured name is Lickley Stalhay). || See also: terrible fruit names, not-so-terrible metal band names and mystifying Broadway musical names.
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Speaking of very artificial intelligence, soon RealDolls will want to talk (hopefully about how it feels to live in the Uncanny Valley). → How to Choose a Personality for Your Sex Robot
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I recently had my first real-life experience with someone telling me their preferred pronouns. Using them feels like the right thing to do. But perhaps, like me, others started out with questions… → Your Most Awkward Questions About They/Them Pronouns, Answered
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A fascinating Proportional Pie Chart of the World’s Most Spoken Languages. || And while language cartography is a thing, Is the study of language a science?
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I’m a longtime McSweeney’s reader, as are many Clamorites. Thanks to Reader A. for sharing links to a note about the death of the real Timothy McSweeney and an archive link to the story of the man himself.
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FindSounds is a search engine for sounds.
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Today in 1935, Allen Lane publishes the first 10 Penguin books (including titles by Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway), selling three million(!) books in the first year, initiating the paperback revolution. The iconic, color-coded design was established with the first 10 books, each of which sold for about the same price as a pack of 10 cigarettes. Penguin has continued to embrace high-quality, recognizable designs…so much so they inspired a book of their own.
The Evolution of Trust
The Evolution of Trust is a brilliant little game and explainer about cooperation, trust and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The subject has deep implications for life in the contemporary networked world.
Incubus
Quicksilver Moments (Pat Conroy)
These are the quicksilver moments of my childhood I cannot remember entirely. Irresistible and emblematic, I can recall them only in fragments and shivers of the heart.
—Pat Conroy
—from The Prince of Tides
Wellerism
Wellerism /WEL-ər-izm/. noun. An expression combining an obvious statement—usually a well-known cliche, quotation or proverb—followed by a facetious addition. A canonical example: “I see, said the blind man,” which exists in myriad forms. Named after Sam Weller, a comic character in Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers, prone to making this kind of statement, for example, “There; now we look compact and comfortable, as the father said ven he cut his little boy’s head off, to cure him o’ squintin’.” Unlike the “sarcastic interrogatives”explored here last week, Wellerisms have been clearly documented in other languages, such as in the Dutch, “Alles met mate, zei de kleermaker en hij sloeg zijn vrouw met de el,” which translates into English as, “everything should be done measuredly, said the tailor and he hit his wife with a ruler.”
[Read more…]
Links: July 23, 2017
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This is personal: Please Stop Calling Suicide Victims “Selfish” or “Weak”. || See also: Artificial intelligence can now predict suicide with remarkable accuracy.
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Is the death of reading threatening the soul in a “quiet war?”
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Does (counter-intuitively to me) announcing your plans make you less motivated to accomplish them? Yes and no. || See also, the original study (PDF).
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Whoa! Dan Harmon is bringing Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens Of Titan to TV. In case you don’t know who Dan Harmon is, he created Community and co-created Adult Swim and Rick and Morty. If you don’t know who Kurt Vonnegut is—
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On Swintec’s clear typewriters, the only kind allowed in many prisons, and their role in prison life.
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No one could see the colour blue until modern times? || Embedded within that story, a fascinating Radiolab story: Why Isn’t the Sky Blue? || And within that: Why Red Means Red in Almost Every Language. I dare you not to think of the the dress.
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Take a moment to savor the amazing winners of the BigPicture Photography Competition, a gallery bookended by two of my favorite wildlife pictures ever. [Thanks, Reader B.!]
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Find those elusive songs from TV and movies using Tunefind.
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Following up on a story noted here a few weeks ago: Salvador Dalí’s Remains Exhumed, Revealing A Perfectly Arranged Mustache.
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Today in 1829, William Austin Burt is granted U.S. patent No. 5581X for his “typographer”, called therein, “the first practical typewriting machine.” This wasn’t really true…Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri had invented one nearly 30 years before for his blind lover the Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano, of which some typewritten pages survived.
Time and Space
Time and Space is the third place winner of the Galway Film Fleadh One Minute Film Festival competition. See past winners (and presumably, soon, the rest of this year’s crop) on their site.
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