You should read this for 9/21/2019:
Art and Film
New Zealand insect named after hobbit Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings “The newly classified species Psylla Frodobaggins is found on the South Island, where the Tolkein movies were filmed”
‘Exquisite’ 800-year-old Christ figure displayed in its spiritual home
When the monasteries were dissolved in the 16th century by Henry VIII, someone evidently managed to hide the figure.
It was rediscovered in 1826, just before the Yorkshire Philosophical Society acquired the land – on the site of the old abbey – to build the Yorkshire Museum. What happened afterwards is hazy. The figure seems to have disappeared for 100 years before making its way into a private German collection in the 1920s.
Martin Scorsese Makes a List of 85 Films Every Aspiring Filmmaker Needs to See
Books, Writing, and Language
The Library That’s Also an Art Gallery
When I asked La Rosee what the public has to say now that the library has been up and running for two years, she said they report back that all these spaces in the new library contribute to the sense that this is a “hub of Winston-Salem in touch with the people” (her emphasis).
Nearly every other library I have visited in the past six years welcomes homeless people who spend their days there. Winston-Salem has addressed its homeless patrons in a creative way. The library was awarded a $150,000 multiyear grant from the state, provided by funds from the Library Services and Technology Act, for staff to learn how to help the homeless with job-readiness strategies and skills, and it hired a permanent peer-support specialist to work with homeless individuals to help them navigate through their often complex set of challenges, from housing and financial assistance to medical services and mental-health counseling.
Education
Phil Christman’s review of Why They Can’t Write by John WarnerSo You Want to Be a Writer?
Food and Drink
A Guide to Fall’s Most Underutilized Fruit: The Almighty Fig
How To Make Potato Leek Soup
Potato Leek Soup is a classic! Nothing’s better than a bowl of hearty potato soup on a chilly day. And it’s easy, too! No cream needed, just purée the soup to make it thick and creamy.
History and Archaeology
A Moment in (Local) History: Stoddard’s Unknown Soldier, by Alan F. Rumrill
Great Irish Famine – what the starving were eating
“The Great Irish Famine was one of the worst subsistence crises in history but it was foremost a social disaster induced by the lack of access to food and not the lack of food availability.”
Science and Nature
Total recall: A brilliant memory helps chickadees survive
NASA’s Juno orbiter has captured an eclipse on Jupiter “On Sept. 12, Juno sent back a scene from a close orbit of 8,000 kilometers. Data processed into a color image shows Jupiter’s moon Io casting a shadow over the planet.” Do check the stunning image.
Insecticides May Be Giving Songbirds Anorexia and Delaying Their Migrations
The Real Danger of Booze-Making Gut Bacteria
The man’s troubles began in 2004, when, having moved from China to attend college in Australia, he got really drunk. That would hardly have been a noteworthy event, except the man hadn’t consumed any alcohol—only fruit juice.
The Quiet Disappearance of Birds in North America
A new study, which analyzed decades of data on North American birds, estimates that the continent’s bird populations have fallen by 29 percent since 1970. That’s almost 3 billion fewer individuals than there used to be, five decades ago.
Society
Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
WeWork and the Great Unicorn Delusion
LA is going to get cheap nighttime power from a massive solar and battery array in the Mojave
LA’s next source of energy: a massive solar panel and lithium battery array in the Mojave, operated by 8minute Solar Energy, and capable of supplying 6-7% of the city’s energy budget, with four hours of nighttime use. It will cost an eye-poppingly low $0.03.3/kWh, cheaper than natural gas.
The otherwise unambiguously good news has one sore-spot: it was opposed by LA Water and Power workers’ unions, who are upset that the natural gas plants where their members work are being decommissioned by the city.
It’s a perfect example of why the Green New Deal is so right to put the emphasis on working with energy sector workers to ensure that they have good jobs through the green transition.
Technology
Via Michael Tsai: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free
Via NPR: People Are Looking At Your LinkedIn Profile. They Might Be Chinese Spies
Innovation and National Security: Keeping Our Edge ““Security is like oxygen, if have it you don’t pay attention to it.’ We’ve stopped paying attention to it.”
We also have a cultural problem that we need to recognize. While there always has been a gap between the policy and technology communities, political disputes over immigration, climate change, and other issues have widened the distance. Silicon Valley and Washington increasingly view each other with distrust. And that slow the progress of both advancing technology as well as hinders national security.
Mike Bombich: An analysis of APFS enumeration performance on rotational hard drives
• If Apple doesn’t make some concessions in the APFS filesystem to accommodate the slower seek performance of HDD devices, then a rotational device will never be able to provide acceptable performance as a production macOS startup disk.
Women’s Work
‘The Personification Of Human Decency’: Nina Totenberg Remembers Cokie Roberts I remember listing to
💩🔥💰 Trumpery 💩🔥💰
Will 💩🔥💰 concede if he loses in 2020?
Pay It Forward and Make It Better
Woman befriends a teeny hummingbird
Video: Human chain rescues stranded dolphins “The 14-person strong wall encouraged the dolphins to sea after being stranded in a canal in St. Petersburg in Florida for days.”
How to redecorate homes for people with dementia
