You should read this for 9/5/2021:
Art, Music, and Film
A2: One night only Wednesday August 19 Stream Green Knight
Tickets have a 4-hour viewing window starting Wednesday, August 18 at 9:00pm EDT.
Available in US only. Exclusive Q&A with the cast and crew after the film.
Twelfth Night review – impeccable staging of Shakespeare’s merriest romp
Grammy-winning folk artist Nanci Griffith dies at 68
Biden Begins
Biden faces mounting criticism as Taliban advances across Afghanistan – US politics live
Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language
Fairy Tales Could Be Older Than You Ever Imagined
It turns out that it’s pretty hard to figure out how old fairy tales are using simple historical data. Since the tales were passed down orally, they can be almost impossible to unwind using a historian or anthropologist’s traditional toolbox. So the team borrowed from biology, instead, using a technique called phylogenetic analysis. Usually, phylogenetic analysis is used to show how organisms evolved. In this case, researchers used strategies created by evolutionary biologists to trace the roots of 275 fairy tales through complex trees of language, population and culture.
How Extortion Scams and Review Bombing Trolls Turned Goodreads Into Many Authors’ Worst Nightmare
Scammers and cyberstalkers are increasingly using the Goodreads platform to extort authors with threats of “review bombing” their work–and they are frequently targeting authors from marginalized communities who have spoken out on topics ranging from controversies within the industry to larger social issues on social media.
Analysis unlocks secret of the Vinland Map — it’s a fake
The Vinland Map, once hailed as the earliest depiction of the New World, is awash in 20th-century ink. A team of conservators and conservation scientists at Yale has found compelling new evidence for this conclusion through the most thorough analysis yet performed on the infamous parchment map.
Climate Change | Climate Repair
H/T Bruce D. Click to drop a raindrop anywhere in the contiguous United States and watch where it ends up
Coronavirus | COVID-19
Clamoring for ivermectin, some turn to a pro-Trump telemedicine website
History and Archaeology
Part of Hadrian’s Wall discovered in Newcastle city centre
The newly discovered stretch of wall was constructed using large blocks of stone, allowing historians to date it back to the earliest days of the build, as later stages used smaller pieces.
The first sections of the wall are believed to have been built in around AD122, when the emperor Hadrian visited Britain and constructed what became the Roman empire’s north-west frontier for the next 300 years.
‘It’s exactly like a puzzle’: experts on piecing together Roman fresco find
On the right bank of the Rhône in the Provençal town of Arles, the Roman-built House of the Harpist is being hailed as a remarkable record of ancient architecture and interior decoration.
Now, experts have opened their workshop to reveal their painstaking attempts to piece together the vast jigsaw of magnificent and never before seen frescoes discovered in the property thought to date back more than two millennia.
Politics and Society
Map: See Which States Have Restricted Voter Access, And Which States Have Expanded It
Science and Nature
H/T Sunyi DeanGEEKS ON TOUR: THE NORTH COAS
The North Coast 500 is a 516-mile route that winds through the Scottish Highlands, and is sometimes called Scotland’s version of Route 66. How you travel the route is up to you–campervan, luxury tour, motorbike enclave, cycling tour, or even walking. Different travelers also tend to focus on different aspects of Scotland; some are coming for the wilderness, others for the history, many for the usual tourist spots.
Referral link: Curiosity Stream delivers shows across the full spectrum of the non-fiction genre to demystify science, nature, history, technology, society, lifestyle and more. $19.99/year for thousands of films (or $2.99/month).
Technology
SetApp: A Suite of macOS Apps for a Single Price Affiliate link for a great collection of ver 200 apps for macOS and iOS for a flat subscription fee.
Women’s Work
Belarus Tokyo Olympics athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya defected after being told not to return by grandmother
The dark side of the pill, as revealed by new research
Stuff I Wrote
Something Wonderful
H/T Mr. Persimmon: This is the best ABBA cover played on plumbing supplies that you’ll see all day.
New McDonalds Has a Cool Design Element: an Ancient Roman Road
When ancient archaeological remnants are uncovered at a building site, it usually means a big red light for the construction project. But why not incorporate newly uncovered cultural treasures into the building, instead? That’s what McDonalds did when it found an ancient Roman road beneath an Italian construction projec
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