You should read this for 7/13/2019:
Art and Film
Where are all the Bob Ross Paintings? Video
Books, Writing, and Language
How to Talk to People, According to Terry Gross
It’s fair to say Terry Gross knows some things about talking to people. The host and co-executive producer of NPR’s “Fresh Air” has interviewed thousands of personalities over the course of her four-decade career.
Sarah Parcak Thinks We Need to Learn From the Fall of Egypt’s Old Kingdom “In a new book, the archaeologist makes the case that ancient history illuminates solutions to modern problems.”
Food and Drink
Breaking Down the Differences Between Gin and Genever “If you’re not familiar with genever, you’re certainly not alone. But an influx of genevers to the U.S.—as well as domestic gin bottlings inspired by the spirit—means that now is a great time to get to know Holland’s native distillate.”
Decades ago, he stole a tree branch. Now he is the Durian King
Breakfast recipes generously shared by Biltmore chefs Orange cranberry scones, and cinnamon buns, included.
History and Archaeology
James Monroe Enslaved Hundreds. Their Descendants Still Live Next Door “A small African-American community has existed less than 10 miles from the president’s former plantation for generations. Only recently has the full extent of their relationship been revealed.”
Peleliu’s Battle
Peleliu, along with the rest of the Palauan archipelago, was settled at least 3,000 years ago by migrants from islands in Southeast Asia. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Palau was colonized by Spain, then Germany, and, in 1914, by Japan. In preparation for war, two of Peleliu’s five traditional villages were razed to make way for an airfield constructed by the Japanese in the late 1930s. The Japanese used forced Palauan labor to dig many of the caves in which they would hide during the battle, but evacuated the island’s natives before the Americans invaded. Peleliu’s remaining three villages were destroyed in the battle, along with the island’s previously abundant vegetation. “When people returned [in 1946], they found their island devoid of anything green,” says Sunny Ngirmang, director of Palau’s Bureau of Cultural and Historical Preservation. “It was all white limestone, and you could see from one side of the island to the other—that’s how bare it was.”
Viking bones and DNA will decay quickly as Greenland thaws
Viking settlers abandoned Greenland some 600 years ago. But the frozen ground has preserved centuries of the seafarers’ hardy existence on the western shores of the remote landmass, including bones and DNA.
The Vikings, though, didn’t first step foot on Greenland. The Saqqaq people arrived there first, around 3,800 years before the Vikings, as did other nomadic peoples. Yet now, all of their culturally invaluable organic remains are under threat from amplified Arctic warming — the fastest changing region on Earth.
Science and Nature
The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices are grim
Ancient life awakens amid thawing ice caps and permafrost
This bright purple ribbon—named STEVE—is an entirely new celestial phenomenon
Society
“The Columbia Journalism Review has appointed public editors for a group of four news organizations because they won’t do it themselves.”
H/T Sylvia: Promise of training with luxury hotel group entraps visa workers
Every fortnight, Arindam Biswas watched as his boss deposited $1626 into his bank account. Then like clockwork, more than half his fortnightly wages disappeared – reclaimed by his employer as rent for a shared bedroom.
Russian spy sub crew prevented nuclear accident at cost of their lives
Technology
Apple is silently removing Zoom’s web server software from Macs
After all of the drama over Zoom’s use of a hidden web server on Macs, Apple itself has decided to step in, TechCrunch reports. It is issuing a silent update — meaning your Mac will get it without any interaction on your part — to remove the web server, which was designed to save Safari users an extra click, from any Mac that has Zoom’s software installed.
Although Zoom itself issued an emergency patch yesterday to remove that web server, apparently Apple is concerned that enough users won’t update or are unaware of the controversy in the first place that it’s issuing its own patch. It makes perfect sense not only because many users may not open Zoom for some time, but also because many of them had uninstalled the app. Before Zoom’s emergency update, uninstalling the app left the web server on your computer — so Zoom wouldn’t have a way to uninstall it with an updated app. That means the only reasonable and easy way for those people to get this patch would be for Apple to provide it.
Website drive-by attacks on routers are alive and well. Here’s what to do
Besides watching out for spoofed sites, people can protect themselves by keeping router firmware updated or, when updates are no longer available, replacing the router. Also key is ensuring that administrative passwords are strong. Periodically checking a router’s DNS settings is a good idea as well. It should either be blank or, better yet, use the freely available 1.1.1.1 server offered by content delivery network Cloudflare. Avast has more information on DNS hijacking here.
Women’s Work
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the 2020 Presidential Race and Trump’s Crisis at the Border
I think what we need to be doing right now is coming home as a party. I don’t think we should be afraid of being the party of F.D.R. I don’t think we should be afraid of being the party of working people. And it feels to me that at some point we did start becoming afraid of those things.
The best female masturbation positions that aren’t like the ones you see in porn
World Cup heroes Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan go to the White House after all (sorta)
H/T ElaineA: Vicky Ward, the former Vanity Fair reporter assigned in 2002 to write a profile on Epstein. See this Twitter thread:
In 2002, I was assigned to write a profile of Jeffrey Epstein for Vanity Fair. This was that piece. But what was published was far from the whole story.
