Opinion | Your Brain Has Tricked You Into Thinking Everything Is Worse

Anastasiia Sapon for The New York Times Perhaps no political promise is more potent or universal than the vow to restore a golden age.

Create context and provide examples to lower AI adoption barriers

cameraImage Credits: asbe (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Every company needs to be thinking about how to make artificial intelligence (AI) a seamless extension of its team. How often has an employee said, “I wish there were more hours in the day to get all my work done,” or “This is too much work for just one person.”

Photosynthesis is nearly 100% efficient. A quantum experiment shows why

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'Workplace AI revolution isn't happening yet,' survey shows

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Picasso’s Forgotten Fascination with Romanesque Art

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, in the southern Spanish region called Andalusia.

How Toyota’s 745-Mile Battery Could Launch It Back to EV Relevancy

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Good communicators don't use jargon or pompous words

Good communicators don't use jargon or pompous words https://bigthink.com/smart-skills/good-communicators-doctors-jargon/, https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/pompous.jpg?resize=1200,630, Excerpted from Writing with Style by Lane Greene. Published by The Economist Books. © Lane Greene

Neuroscience shows that speed reading is bullshit

Forty years ago, Donald Homa, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University specializing in memory and the visual perception of linguistic stimuli, was contacted by officials at the American Speed Reading Academy with an extraordinary tale.

Wild Astronomical Discovery Confirms Einstein Was Right About Time Itself

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Americans Tried to Save Elephants in Zambia. Were They the Good Guys?

Bernard Mutondo once made a living hunting elephants in North Luangwa National Park in Zambia, until Delia and Mark Owens arrived. Bernard Mutondo once made a living hunting elephants in North Luangwa National Park in Zambia, until Delia and Mark Owens arrived.

You can't post ass, Threads is doomed

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Reality is your brain’s best guess

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New AI translates 5,000-year-old cuneiform tablets instantly

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Bisexuality has nearly quadrupled in the U.S.

A new study published in the Journal of Sex Research shows that bisexuality — being attracted to or engaging in sexual behavior with people of both sexes — has tripled in the U.S. over the past three decades.

Why the super-rich may take more risks than the rest of us

Why the super-rich may take more risks than the rest of us https://phys.org/news/2023-06-super-rich-rest.html, https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2023/why-the-super-rich-may.jpg, An artist’s impression of the Titan submersible. Credit: Amnat Phomuang/Shutterstock

Secretive hardware startup Humane's first product is the Ai Pin

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OpenAI and Microsoft Sued for $3 Billion Over Alleged ChatGPT 'Privacy Violations'

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The First ‘Flying Car’ Was Just Approved by the FAA

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Shattering the myth of men as hunters and women as gatherers

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Fear of being exploited is stagnating our progress in science, say researchers

Researchers in Laboratory. Credit: Rhoda Baer / National Cancer Institute

Boom’s New Supersonic Jet Just Got Closer to Hitting the Air

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Streetwear Brand or Eighteenth-Century Skin Condition?

McSweeney’s is an independent nonprofit publishing company based in San Francisco. As well as operating a daily humor website, we also publish Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Illustoria and an ever-growing selection of books under various imprints.

Scientists Find the 'Extinct' Victorian Earless Dragon, Not Seen Since 1969

An illustration of the Victorian grassland earless dragon, which, until February, had not been seen in the wild since 1969. Public domain via Museums Victoria

AI Could Help Free Human Creativity

Let’s face it. We’re more distracted than ever. Why remember anything when I can just Google it? Why summon the attention to read a book when I can just scroll through Twitter? Some philosophers believe that ChatGPT and its siblings will further diminish our ability to do the kind of “deep work” needed to spark creativity and breed big ideas. What good are the tools if we begin to rely on them so much that we no longer have the capacity to think bigger? This argument is tempting because it’s romantic. If creativity is essentially human, there is something inherently limiting about the prospect of man replaced by machine. But the evidence tells a different story. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] While seemingly “superhuman” technology can be intimidating, it generally enables us to become more creative — not less. In 1997, when the computer program Deep Blue beat the invincible grandmaster Gary Kasparov in chess, many feared that humans would begin to abandon the pursuit of chess mastery because they’d “never be as good as a computer.” In fact, the opposite happened. The widespread adoption of computer simulations made human chess players better. A recent study conducted by Henning Peinzuka of INSEAD found that in those countries where humans had access to computer chess simulations, their performance in chess improved. The players still found it useful to play against humans, but the presence of the non-human made the human a better, more creative player. Now let us imagine the future of creativity in a world of generative AI that enables us to map choices as never before—to explore exponentially more combinations of choices, compare and contrast infinite approaches at a glance, and constantly test new ideas. As the brilliant French mathematician Henri Poincaré once said: Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless contraptions and in constructing the useful combinations which are in infinite minority. To invent is to discern, to choose. AI will not necessarily come up with our best ideas for us. But it will greatly reduce the cost—in time, money, and effort—of generating new ideas by instantaneously revealing untold options. It will enable us to efficiently discard the “useless contraptions” that cloud our vision and identify useful combinations previously unseen. It will empower us to broadly and efficiently canvas an incredibly vast range of domains to pull relevant knowledge from unexpected places. If used properly, AI will ultimately help us seed far greater innovation throughout our society. Read More: How the World Must Respond to the AI Revolution So how do we do it? How can we use large language models like ChatGPT to make us more creative? It starts with mapping our choices. I often direct my students to perform a simple exercise that demonstrates the power of choice generation. I ask them to take two minutes to come up with as many answers as possible to a simple prompt like “Ways to use a toothpick.” After they share their ideas, I ask them to repeat the exercise; they almost always come up with more ideas during the second go-round than the first. Their creative juices have begun to flow. I ask them to do it again, and again. Inevitably, their rate of creation slows and the flow of ideas becomes a trickle. Their creative energy has become exhausted. Now let us introduce ChatGPT. When I type “List the ways in which one could use a toothpick.” It instantaneously spits back 50 options. Here is but a brief selection: Testing cake doneness: Inserting a toothpick into a cake to check if it’s fully baked. Appetizer holder: Skewering small food items like olives, cheese, or fruit for easy serving. Nail art: Applying small dots or lines of nail polish for intricate designs. Cleaning small crevices: Reaching into tiny spaces to remove dirt or debris, such as in a keyboard or around jewelry. Glue applicator: Spreading small amounts of glue for crafts or DIY projects. Paint mixer: Stirring small amounts of paint for model-building or artwork. Plant support: Providing extra support to small or fragile plants as they grow. Type in “list more uses,” and the model spits back another 50 potential options. Some of the ideas are good, some not so good. The point is that the Chatbot can instantly find, collate, and list seemingly infinite possibilities that have already been created by humans across space, time, and context. Now students can apply their creativity toward assembling old ideas in new ways. As Mark Twain wrote to Helen Keller, “substantially all ideas are second hand, consciously or unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources.” Innovators are most often strategic copiers who learn from examples of success, extract the parts that work well, and imagine new ways of using those pieces to create something new and meaningful. In the toothpick example, with ChatGPT the students no longer have to waste their time coming up with existing ideas; they can apply their creative energy toward iterating, assembling, and combining to create new, powerful ideas they would not have been able to generate without AI. Now let’s take it a step further. If breakthrough ideas often come from unexpected places, how can we use ChatGPT to mine human knowledge’s vast hidden treasure troves to find the nuggets of knowledge that break our mental logjams? It’s easy to use the chatbot to map out choices within the same domain of query (i.e. If I’m looking to innovate on toothpicks, I use the chatbot to identify currently-known methods of using toothpicks so I can combine and iterate.) But what if I start using the AI to map choices that are “out-of-domain,” i.e. from different times, different places, and across different industries? Suddenly our ability to think “outside the box” has increased dramatically. In fact, some of history’s greatest innovations come from inventors looking to entirely different domains to identify the various pieces needed to create something revolutionary. Take ice cream, for example. In the 1840s, ice cream was only accessible to the very wealthy due to the high price of ice, the intense labor required, and the time it took to produce. Most of all, the freezer did not yet exist, so keeping the ice cream cold was enormously difficult. In 1843, a chemist and physicist named Nancy Johnson set out to bring ice cream to the masses by breaking the problem down, looking to history, and searching in new places for inspiration. She started by searching for the ways other foods and beverages had their temperatures contained throughout history, which led her to pewter metal. By the Middle Ages, long before Johnson’s time, certain inns used pewter for mugs to keep beer and ale cold. She replaced the ceramic used to make ice cream at the time with cheap pewter and set it in a wooden bucket with a layer of ice packed around it to keep the mixture cold. Put on the pewter lid when you’re done, and your ice cream stays cold for hours. Nancy still faced the challenge of stirring a mixture of cream, sugar, and other flavorings for hours on end. Was there a simpler and faster way to continuously mix the ingredients with less arm power? To remedy this, Johnson added a hand crank—an invention which went back to first-century China. From there, it spread to the Roman empire and on to the rest of Europe. The Eastern Mediterranean even implemented hand cranks to grind spices and coffee. In this application, the hand crank dramatically cut the time and effort it took to stir the ice cream in Johnson’s new contraption. If we adapt Nancy’s approach to present-day problems, we can use ChatGPT to search out-of-domain in seconds. Say I’m an airline executive looking to improve customers’ experience at the airport. Sure, I could ask ChatGPT to spit out the various approaches airports have employed to improve the travel experience, but this list remains “in the box.” But what if I ask ChatGPT to list out examples of other experiences in which people are harried and upset. Here’s a brief selection: “Hospitals, traffic jams, courthouses, banks, the DMV, and funeral homes.” Now I can research tactics and precedents employed within each of those domains, pull out promising ideas, and combine and test to come up with a truly creative approach that might work for airports. From funeral homes, for example, I could draw on the power of empathy and comfortable environments and apply it to the airline gate experience. From hospitals, I could draw on methods for patient advocacy experiences and apply it to travelers. From the DMV, I could draw on attempts to bring more of the customer experience online and on mobile devices. Now I am working with a much richer and diverse set of elements to stir innovation. These are but a few of the simple methods we must explore to harness the power of ChatGPT and its ilk to unleash creativity and widen our aperture to see a new horizon. The toothpick exercise is an example of infinite possibilities made new in real time. The ice cream example demonstrates the power of a historical lens to make the seemingly quixotic practical. And the airline example uses the chatbot to employ a powerful roving eye to inspect the “out-of-domain” world. As with any new technology, its power and consequences come down to how you use it. And the next time you need to “brainstorm” with ChatGPT, see what happens when you employ these methods; I think you’ll find you’re a lot more creative than you thought.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg agree to hold cage fight - bbc.com

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Opinion | Your Brain Has Tricked You Into Thinking Everything Is Worse

Continue reading the main storyCredit...Anastasiia Sapon for The New York TimesBy Adam MastroianniPerhaps no political promise is more potent or universal than the vow to restore a golden age. From Caesar Augustus to the Medicis and Adolf Hitler, from President Xi Jinping of China and President “Bongbong” Marcos of the Philippines to Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and Joe Biden’s “America Is Back,” leaders have gained power by vowing a return to the good old days.What these political myths have in common is an understanding that the golden age is definitely not right now. Maybe we’ve been changing from angels into demons for centuries, and people have only now noticed the horns sprouting on their neighbors’ foreheads.But I believe there’s a bug — a set of cognitive biases — in people’s brains that causes them to perceive a fall from grace even when it hasn’t happened. I and my colleague Daniel Gilbert at Harvard have found evidence for that bug, which we recently published in the journal Nature. While previous researchers have theorized about why people might believe things have gotten worse, we are the first to investigate this belief all over the world, to test its veracity and to explain where it comes from.We first collected 235 surveys with over 574,000 responses total and found that, overwhelmingly, people believe that humans are less kind, honest, ethical and moral today than they were in the past. People have believed in this moral decline at least since pollsters started asking about it in 1949, they believe it in every single country that has ever been surveyed (59 and counting), they believe that it’s been happening their whole lives and they believe it’s still happening today. Respondents of all sorts — young and old, liberal and conservative, white and Black — consistently agreed: The golden age of human kindness is long gone.We also found strong evidence that people are wrong about this decline. We assembled every survey that asked people about the current state of morality: “Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?” “Within the past 12 months, have you volunteered your time to a charitable cause?”,“How often do you encounter incivility at work?” Across 140 surveys and nearly 12 million responses, participants’ answers did not change meaningfully over time. When asked to rate the current state of morality in the United States, for example, people gave almost identical answers between 2002 and 2020, but they also reported a decline in morality every year.Other researchers’ data have even shown moral improvement. Social scientists have been measuring cooperation rates between strangers in lab-based economic games for decades, and a recent meta-analysis found — contrary to the authors’ expectations — that cooperation has increased 8 percentage points over the last 61 years. When we asked participants to estimate that change, they mistakenly thought cooperation rates had decreased by 9 percentage points. Others have documented the increasing rarity of the most heinous forms of human immorality, like genocide and child abuse.Two well-established psychological phenomena could combine to produce this illusion of moral decline. First, there’s biased exposure: People predominantly encounter and pay attention to negative information about others — mischief and misdeeds make the news and dominate our conversations.Second, there’s biased memory: The negativity of negative information fades faster than the positivity of positive information. Getting dumped, for instance, hurts in the moment, but as you rationalize, reframe and distance yourself from the memory, the sting fades. The memory of meeting your current spouse, on the other hand, probably still makes you smile.When you put these two cognitive mechanisms together, you can create an illusion of decline. Thanks to biased exposure, things look bad every day. But thanks to biased memory, when you think back to yesterday, you don’t remember things being so bad. When you’re standing in a wasteland but remember a wonderland, the only reasonable conclusion is that things have gotten worse.That explanation fits well with two more of our surprising findings. First, people exempt their own social circles from decline; in fact, they think the people they know are nicer than ever. This might be because people primarily encounter positive information about people they know, which our model predicts can create an illusion of improvement.Second, people believe that moral decline began only after they arrived on Earth; they see humanity as stably virtuous in the decades before their birth. This especially suggests that biased memory plays a role in producing the illusion.If these cognitive biases are working in tandem, our susceptibility to golden age myths makes a lot more sense. Our biased attention means we’ll always feel we’re living in dark times, and our biased memory means we’ll always think the past was brighter.Seventy-six percent of Americans believe, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center poll, that “addressing the moral breakdown of the country” should be one of the government’s priorities. The good news is that the breakdown hasn’t happened. The bad news is that people believe it has.As long as we believe in this illusion, we are susceptible to the promises of aspiring autocrats who claim they can return us to a golden age that exists in the only place a golden age has ever existed: our imaginations.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget First Footage Reunites Us With Ginger & Rocky

We finally have our first footage from the Aardman Animations and Netflix sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, thanks to a brand-new teaser. Coming courtesy of Netflix UK & Ireland, the brief teaser reveals our first look at the long-awaited follow-up, in which our heroes Ginger and Rocky welcome their mischievous daughter, Molly. Check out the new Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget teaser trailer below.

Poor Things Trailer Brings Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe Frankenstein Tale To Life

Searchlight Pictures have released one of the most intriguing and visually stunning trailers of the year in the first full look at the sci-fi take on the Frankenstein principle, Poor Things. As one of the most unique-looking movies of the year, the movie from director Yorgos Lanthimos stars Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a woman resurrected from the dead by a disfigured scientist (Willem Dafoe), who goes on a journey of the rediscovery of life, love and liberation. Check out the new trailer below.

This New Metric For Health Could Revolutionize How We Treat Chronic Illnesses

Morbidity and mortality have long been the World Health Organization’s (WHO) two indicators of global human health, tracking acute illness and deaths as they fluctuate. While following these metrics is crucial to supporting populations, it doesn’t cater to anything other than illness. Health can be measured in various dimensions.Now, a secret third option called human functioning shifts focus away from death and illness and to everyday living and how any one person can live their best life.A paper published on May 31 in the journal Frontiers in Science by researchers from the University of Lucerne in Switzerland explains how human functioning could be the x-factor missing from public health.What is human functioning?Researchers define human functioning as the intersection of someone’s capabilities and environment. It begs questions about what someone’s body is able to do, what tools that person needs, and whether those tools integrate smoothly with that person’s environment. While functioning looks at a single person’s capabilities, it also focuses on the accessibility of their surroundings; are those surroundings accessible to the tools everyone needs in order to function?For example, someone with a spinal cord injury may not be able to walk. An electric wheelchair can be the tool that helps equip this person with the capacity to move. While that tool restores their mobility, this method also reckons with the environment around them. If their environment doesn’t accommodate electric wheelchairs, then this person’s functioning is mitigated by factors that have nothing to do with their own health and abilities. If someone’s environment hinders the use of their tools, like a wheelchair or a hearing aid, then the environment compromises their well-being.Human functioning is crucial to well-being, the authors argue, and too often, well-being becomes synonymous with markers of physical health. It leaves out how many different systems interact with each other.“In healthcare, the typical definition of health is always physical health, but functioning shows that very often what matters to people is what they can do with their health,” says co-author Sara Rubinelli, a professor of health sciences at the University of Lucerne. The focus, she says, switches from what qualities someone has to what those qualities enable them to do.Where did this idea come from?While the notion of accessibility is nothing new, Rubinelli says this formal idea of human functioning originates from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), which is the WHO’s framework for measuring health and disability. The ICF originated in 2002 with the paper’s co-author Jerome Bickenbock, a professor emeritus of bioethics philosophy at Queen’s University, among its developers.How does this change healthcare?Bringing functioning into the fold adds common terminology among healthcare providers, Rubinelli says. This framework intends to unify what she sees as a fragmented healthcare system within a patient-centered mission.In other words, health isn’t only cholesterol levels and vision scores; it’s how those data translate into abilities and experiences.“With functioning, you ask the person, ‘What would you like to do? What's your objective?’” Healthcare, she says, becomes not only about alleviating illness and symptoms but productively integrating more people within their environments. On a larger scale, the authors argue that incorporating human functioning can better support the United Nations’ third Sustainable Development Goal: health and well-being. Employed successfully, human functioning can be an avenue to human flourishing, Rubinelli says.

A Complete History of Bee Movie’s Many, Many Memes

At some point, every society must confront the existential questions that undergird its very existence. Questions like: Did comedian Jerry Seinfeld — fresh off of a nine-year run of prodigious success in a sophisticated and beloved sitcom — really make an animated children’s movie about a bee falling in love with a human woman (voiced by Renée Zellweger)? Did this movie really somehow become the source of a seemingly endless parade of increasingly abstruse memes on Tumblr and other social-media platforms? Did 15 million people really watch a video titled “The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster”? Did Vanity Fair actually declare that “Bee Movie Won 2016”? How the heck did we get here? Has it really been exactly ten years since the release of Bee Movie? First, let’s start with the facts. (1) In 2007, on planet Earth, DreamWorks studios released an animated children’s film titled Bee Movie (tagline: “Born to Bee Wild”). The film, described as a “hit comedy” in its original 2008 back-of-the-DVD blurb, stars a bee, Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld), who — upon realizing that he is doomed to a life of fruitless, unending labor inside a system that devalues the lives of its workers — decides to fly outside the hive in an attempt to experience some sliver of excitement before resigning himself to a life of monotonous work that will surely end in his own demise. (This is all 100 percent straight from the Bee Movie script; you can fact-check me.) Once outside, he meets a human florist named Vanessa and falls for her after she saves him from being squished to death by her boyfriend, Ken — the only reasonable individual in the entire film — who is allergic to bees, and didn’t want to, you know, die. For reasons that are too complex to get into here (if you haven’t seen the movie, please go watch it now, I urge you), Vanessa ends up leaving her human boyfriend for Barry, who, may I remind you, is a bee. She then helps him sue the human race for stealing honey from bees around the world. Somehow, they win, which leads to all of the world’s honey being returned to the bees, which, in turn, causes flowers everywhere to begin to die due to a lack of pollination. (I’m not technically a scientist but this checks out.) So Barry ends up flying a plane (?) full of roses from the Pasadena Tournament of Roses to Central Park in order to pollinate the world, which somehow works and everyone is saved. (2) This was Jerry Seinfeld’s first venture after Seinfeld, and thus, he promoted the crap out of it. Please enjoy this video of Jerry Seinfeld in a giant bee costume zip-lining through Cannes (yes, that Cannes). Bee Suit Seinfeld also starred in this absolutely absurd live-action trailer for the film, and a number of other equally bizarre shorts (one of which is literally called ’Welcome to Hell’?!). (3) It didn’t exactly do well … at first. Shockingly, this tale about beestiality and the fruitlessness of labor in a system of production — one that was, and still is, billed as a movie for children — did not kill it at the box office back in 2007. Roger Ebert gave it two stars and included a Karl Marx quote in his rather baffled review of the film, and even Jerry Seinfeld himself said: “I remember standing in the back of the theatre and it wasn’t great, but it was decent and, and I remember listening to the laughs and thinking, These laughs are shit. That was not worth it.” (4) Somehow, now, ten years later, it is both a meme and more-or-less universally beloved (or at least tolerated). ???? Answering the question of how all this happened is more difficult than it seems. The usual responses like “Because internet,” or “Probably something with Tumblr or 4Chan,” aren’t acceptable here. After some careful digging, I’ve come to discover a timeline I believe may provide some answers. This story comes in seven parts: Sincerity, Virality, Propulsion, Sexualization, Weaponization, Acknowledgment, and Fracture. Let’s begin: Stage 1: SincerityTumblr — Sunday, February 20, 2011 Bee Movie began, like so many memes, on the microblogging site Tumblr, where teenagers, furries, and other highly productive weirdos gather to create and share images and text. Above you can see what is, as far as I can tell, one of the original posts that set the meme-ification of Bee Movie in motion, way back in 2011. Throughout 2011, Tumblr was host to a number of posts like this — almost always accompanied by the tag #INSPIRING, and almost always including the film’s opening (and now internet-infamous) line: According to all known laws of aviation,there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible. What’s important to understand is that this post is presented entirely sincerely. Someone was inspired by this image and quote from Bee Movie, and wanted you to feel inspired too. And it seems to have struck a chord: Against all odds, this trend of genuine appreciation for a somewhat-poorly-received 2007 animated film about bees continued through 2011 and 2012, reinserting Bee Movie into Tumblr’s general cultural awareness. Stage 2: Virality Tumblr — Tuesday, December 4, 2012 But as always happens on Tumblr, once something has entered the site’s collective consciousness, its sincerity will heighten into the realm of absurdity — where the viral lives. Put another way, once you start seeing enough sincere Bee Movie memes, you can’t help but take them in a different direction. Usually, this transformation happens gradually — a few persistent absurdists converting the normie world bit by bit. For Bee Movie, however, it happened all at once. On December 4, 2012, Tumblr exploded with absurd Bee Movie memes. And though there was seemingly no rhyme or reason to this mass conversion, it stuck. Stage 3: PropulsionTwitter — Tuesday, January 29, 2013 Once Bee Movie had moved into “Tumblr meme” status, it was only a matter of time before it seeped out to other hubs of internet culture — like Twitter. Tumblr’s obsession with Bee Movie continued on well into 2013, but it was Jason Richards, the man behind the wildly successful Twitter account @Seinfeld2000, who helped elevate Bee Movie from a forgotten film to an all-purpose joke. J.J. Abraham tappe to diarect Bee Movie prequels, Sandfel said "time to give it up for new generation"— Seinfeld Current Day (@Seinfeld2000) January 29, 2013 Creaters of @SeinfeldToday create new account @BeeMovieToday imagen what the caracters from Bee Movie do if Bee Movie was stil a show on tv— Seinfeld Current Day (@Seinfeld2000) April 4, 2013 Richards’s role in this story is by far one of the most curious, as he claims to have never seen a Bee Movie meme before tweeting about it in late January of 2013. (He was just searching for new Seinfeld-related material for his Twitter persona to riff on.) This perhaps speaks to the inherently ineffable nature of memes, which often have various (entirely distinctive) starting points. Stage 4: SexualizationFanfiction & Tumblr — Saturday, March 16, 2013 Back on Tumblr, Bee Movie’s popularity only continued to grow as more and more users got swept up into the joke. On March 16, 2013, someone on Tumblr discovered The birds and the bees, an incredibly not-safe-for-work-or-life Bee Movie fanfiction story written in the literary genre that would soon be dubbed “beestiality.” Bee Movie had gone adult. (I cannot in good conscience include a screencap of the actual fic itself here, so, instead, please enjoy these reviews:) No Title No Title The birds and the bees was an instant success, garnering hundreds of comments only one day after publication, and inspiring a number of spiritual successors. (You can listen to a dramatic reading of one of the most popular sequels, She Wants the B, here, but I strongly urge you not to.) Stage 5: WeaponizationFacebook & Tumblr — Monday, September 9, 2013 In 2013, a Tumblr user uploaded screenshots of her Facebook friend posting the entire script on someone’s Facebook Wall: (Why? Why not?) This trick — which could cause the unwitting victim’s phone to crash — quickly became a standard internet prank, thanks in a large part to the efforts of Pastebin user KIDOUYUUTO, who uploaded the entire script (which had been lifted from Script-o-Rama) to the site. It would go on to wreak havoc across a number of platforms over the next two years, reaching its zenith in 2015 — when the Facebook page “bees don’t exist” posted the entire Bee Movie script as a life event. Stage 6: Acknowledgment Reddit & Twitter — Wednesday, June 8, 2016 Between 2011 and 2015, Bee Movie had gone from sincere to absurd to, uh, weirdly sexy, to aggressively weaponized. On June 8, 2016, it was finally recognized by the man at its center: Jerry Seinfeld. In an AMA on Reddit, the comedian speculated on a possible Bee Movie 2 (imaginary tagline: “Plan Bee”): I considered it this spring for a solid six hours. There’s a fantastic energy now for some reason, on the internet particularly. Tumblr, people brought my attention to. I actually did consider it, but then I realized it would make Bee Movie 1 less iconic. But my kids want me to do it, a lot of people want me to do it. A lot of people that don’t know what animation is want me to do it. If you have any idea what animation is, you’d never do it. Two months later, Seinfeld brought it up again on Twitter: What about "Bee Movie 2"?What's going on with that?Should I?Any interest?— Jerry Seinfeld (@JerrySeinfeld) July 30, 2016 Did this mean that what he said in the AMA could be overridden? Was there still hope? Bee Movie fanatics everywhere went wild. But Seinfeld was silent in response. Stage 7: FractureYouTube — Thursday, November 3, 2016 The final (and in my opinion, greatest) stage of Bee Movie memery is defined by cinematographic fracture, a fancy name I’ve given to a somewhat simple (albeit utterly bizarre) technique first practiced by comedian and self-declared memelord Darcy Grivas in his now-infamous video, “Bee movie trailer but every time they say bee it gets faster.” Though this style of editing had been seen before — in remixes of a song from the Icelandic children’s show Lazy Town called “We Are Number One” — Grivas’s version was the first to truly hit it big. His follow-up video, “The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster” garnered more than 11 million views and 33,000 comments within just two weeks of posting. Its immense success would inspire (literally) thousands of other videos and would permanently launch Bee Movie memes into the mainstream — leading to coverage from countless major news outlets and blogs. (Including us, of course.) Vanity Fair of all places would go on to claim that “Bee Movie Won 2016,” and perhaps they were right. But if so, where does that leave us? Is this the end of an era? In tracking the rise and fall of Bee Movie and its various, seemingly inevitable memes, there seems to be a definitive end: right now. We are 11 months and two days into the Year of Our Lord 2017 and there is not a Bee Movie meme in sight. Is it dead? Did we kill it? That it took this long to milk the film for every last drop of meme-ability is valiant in itself — I mean, it has been ten years. But even now, with all the evidence at hand, I hesitate to pronounce its death, as when it comes to Bee Movie, I know only one thing with certainty: According to all known laws of memedom, there is no way Bee Movie memes should still be a thing. They’ve been around far too long to not be considered stale by now. Bee Movie memes, of course, exist anyway because Bee Movie memes don’t care what meme bloggers think is impossible.

You can satisfy your appetite just by looking at pictures of food on your phone

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Who Invented the First Camera?

Left to right: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, Henry Fox Talbot   The small, handy cameras we have at the tip of our fingers today are part of a long and varied history that goes back more than 100 years. It is tricky to say when, exactly, the very first camera was invented, because early prototypes of cameras, or camera-like tools existed long before anything practical, portable and usable by people in everyday life was widely available (such as the pinhole camera and the camera obscura). Having said that, there are several pioneers throughout history who made significant breakthroughs in camera technology, and their names are the ones we now associate with the invention of the first camera. Let’s take a look through these pioneering figures who made the ingenious camera technology of today possible.    Nicéphore Niépce Point de Vue du Gras (View from the Window at Le Gras), by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, 1827, via Harry Ransom Center, Texas.   The French inventor Nicéphore Niépce is credited with creating the first camera for making photographic images in 1825. In his early experiments, he toyed with how a negative image could be created on paper coated with silver chloride, but these resulting images were temporary. However, following several later chemical explorations, he discovered that a film made from Bitumen of Judea mixed with pewter could produce permanent photographic images (with a blurred quality) when exposed inside a camera obscura. Niépce called this process ‘heliography’. Meanwhile, Niépce’s younger colleague, Louis Daguerre, a former apprentice in architecture and theatre design, carried on Niépce’s work into the mid and late 19th century.    Louis Daguerre Hand-coloured daguerreotype of Prince Albert, c. 1848, via the Royal Collection Trust, London   Following Niépce’s death in 1833, Louise Daguerre took his colleague’s pioneering developments further, eventually producing the first ever portable camera in 1839. Daguerre produced a type of box camera which he called the Daguerreotype, in which a plate coated with a thin film of silver iodide was exposed to light, often for several minutes or even hours. Daguerre treated the image with mercury vapor and hot saltwater to remove the silver iodide, thus revealing a permanent image left behind. Daguerreotypes produced images in reverse, or mirror image.   The Daguerreotype Process   Exposure times for early Daguerreotypes were long, but as the concept of the camera continued to evolve, shorter exposure times meant the cameras could be used to take portrait photographs for the first time ever. Such was the popularity of the Daguerreotype the French Government were proud to show off the design as a “gift to the world.” However, the Daguerreotype was not without its drawbacks – it was an expensive process, and could create only one, single photographic image.    William Henry Fox Talbot The Great Exhibition in London, 1951 by Henry Fox Talbot via The Talbot Catalogue Raisonne   At the same time that Daguerre made his breakthrough discoveries, an Englishman called William Henry Fox Talbot was also working on a type of camera which he called a Calotype. Talbot unveiled his camera in 1839 to the Royal Institute in London. In contrast with the Daguerreotype, Talbot’s camera worked with a different series of chemical processes – he began with a sheet of writing paper, treated with silver nitrate and coated in potassium iodide. Just before being used to capture an image, the Talbot coated the paper in gallo-nitrate of silver to produce a film ready for exposure. The paper was exposed to the image through a box camera for just a few minutes, before being washed with a new layer of gallo-nitrate of silver to fix the image in place.   The Calotype camera invented by William Henry Fox Talbot   While Talbot’s camera had a far slower exposure time than the Daguerreotype, it produced negative images with a blurred quality. In order to make a positive print from the negative, Talbot soaked a new sheet of paper in salt solution, and brushed it on one side to make it light sensitive. After placing the Calotype negative over this sheet of paper, Talbot covered the two sheets with a glass plate and shone light onto them, allowing light to pass through from the upper sheet of paper and translate the negative into a positive image on the sheet below – and voila! The first print from a negative film was created.

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Neurodivergence is a career maker for men like Elon Musk and Kanye West. Women aren’t afforded the same privilege

Elon Musk made a groundbreaking announcement while hosting Saturday Night Live in May 2021. “I’m actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL. Or at least the first to admit it,” the now-Twitter chief executive told the audience. At the time, Musk, 49, had never publicly disclosed his condition, which is today considered part of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The multi-hyphenate CEO, billionaire, and entrepreneur was not shy to link his condition to his success—and polarizing leadership style. “To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say, ‘I reinvented electric cars, and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?’” He’s not the only man to credit his “genius” to neurodivergence. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, and musician Kanye West have made similar remarks. “That’s my bipolar shit…That’s my superpower. Ain’t no disability. I am a superhero,” the artist and former billionaire rapped in his song “Yikes.” To be certain, life isn’t a cakewalk for neurodivergent men. Musk spoke about his childhood bullying, and a dyslexic Branson dropped out of school at age 15 owing, in part, to academic struggles. Still, these men’s accomplishments today are lauded, often attributed to their neurodivergence. And it’s hard not to miss that so few openly neurodivergent women are among the revered cohort of entrepreneurs and innovative business minds.  That isn’t to say women are entirely absent from these lists. Real estate mogul and Shark Tank investor Barbara Corcoran has said dyslexia made her a millionaire. But broadly speaking, men occupy most of the spotlight. There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, few women reach the CEO rank or receive adequate funding to become successful entrepreneurs—not to talk of neurodivergent women. The second is that women are less likely to be diagnosed with several disorders that fall under neurodivergence than men, and many report receiving a diagnosis later in life. By and large, the media presents white men as the face of neurodivergence. “As soon as I say I’m autistic, Rain Man comes up. I’m tired of that,” says Charlotte Valeur, founder of the Institute of Neurodiversity. Many female leaders miss out on a diagnosis because of gender stereotypes about neurodivergence. Joey Ng, chief marketing officer at Yami, first realized she was autistic after a 2020 consultation with a career coach. Joey Ng, chief marketing officer at Yami, first realized she was autistic when she met with a career coach in 2020. Ng answered a few end-of-session questions, assuming they’d provide insight into her leadership style. Upon completion, the coach suggested that Ng may be on the spectrum. “I was like, ‘You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ng recalls. In her mind, she didn’t fit any autism stereotype. She was extroverted and only knew of autistic figures like Musk or TV characters assumed to be autistic, like The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper. “I am nothing like those people, these male phenotypes of autism. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she remembers thinking. The coach shared her own late diagnosis and asked Ng if she’d experienced social barriers in school or romantic relationships. She had. “All of the boxes were checked,” Ng says. She left the session still skeptical, but the realization soon sank in. “I went for a drive, did my errands, came back, and parked in my spot beneath my apartment. And then I just full-on bawled like someone had finally seen me truly for the first time.” Lonely at the top Neurodivergent women who ascend to leadership positions often struggle to find peers with whom they can connect. “You have less community, less support, less understanding of your unique identity,” Ng says. “I would be the only woman of color in a room of white men.” Archana Iyer, a marketing strategist who’s held leadership roles at communications firms DDB and Weber Shandwick, says one of her biggest challenges as an autistic woman is the lack of female role models. One of her exemplars is Sherlock Holmes, the 19th-century detective who some modern readers have posited could be autistic. “But Holmes is a white male and gets away with being called an eccentric genius,” Iyer says, “[That’s] never a phrase you hear associated with a woman, especially of color.” Archana Iyer credits her success as a marketing strategist to her outsider-like perception of social norms. Ng hypothesizes that there are more neurodivergent women in leadership positions than is publicly known. “When we think of all these extraordinarily successful women, we don’t think of them as average. The pure definition of being neuro-atypical is that you are not average,” she says. But getting to the top is no easy feat, and neurodivergent women experience extra barriers when climbing the career ladder.  Second glass ceiling The glass ceiling is a painfully familiar concept to any career-driven woman. Yet neurodivergent people experience a concrete ceiling. They’re underrepresented in senior roles and often don’t exhibit skills typically associated with leadership, like strong communication or management abilities. When organizations provide support to neurodivergent individuals, they benefit: JPMorgan Chase’s Autism at Work program found that, if matched to the right job, autistic workers are up to 140% more productive than neurotypical employees. Neurodivergent women do see a career benefit thanks to their unique brain function. Iyer credits her success as a marketing strategist to her outsider-like perception of social norms. “You might think that’s a problem,” she says, but thinking outside the box and challenging the status quo are key to a successful marketing campaign. “It’s not a deficit or a disorder. It has literally made my career,” Valeur says. She thrived in a fast-paced environment in her 25-year tenure as a stock trader. Now, she finds sitting on multiple corporate boards and serving as a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, a good match for her energy. “I love it. There’s a lot to think about all the time. That is what my brain wants.” Charlotte Valeur credits ADHD and autism as key to thriving in her careers as a stock broker and eventual member of several corporate boards. “It’s not a deficit or a disorder. It has literally made my career.” Yet these strengths can carry someone only so far in a workplace designed for the neurotypical. “I think that being autistic and the characteristics that come with it can definitely help accelerate your career to a certain extent. Then you reach that ceiling of it being uncomfortable for people,” Ng says. Lia Grimanis, founder and CEO of Canadian nonprofit Up With Women, excelled as a technology sales leader at companies like SAS and TIBCO. “I worked a lot harder, but it was because I was really geeking out on this stuff,” she says. “Being able to talk to other geeks and convince them that this is the software they need didn’t take much, because we all had passion in the room.” But her difficulty reading facial expressions, picking up on social cues, and habit of “dancing all over people’s boundaries” often put her in the hot seat at work. Grimanis recalls removing her shoes at the office since she found she could function better without them. “People were like, ‘Lia, what are you doing? Put on your shoes.’ I’m like, ‘My feet don’t stink. I think better this way.’” In all, she was fired from four of the six jobs she held in the tech sector.  Walking the tightrope Women face tightrope bias, the difficult balancing act between being perceived as too likable or aggressive.  “If you take neurodivergent women, there’s an additional layer of stereotypes because women are expected to be always nurturing, always emotionally available,” says Ludmila Praslova, a professor of organizational psychology at Vanguard University of Southern California. “You kind of violate the gender norm just by virtue of being neurodivergent.”  Jhillika Kumar, cofounder and CEO of Mentra, a neurodiversity employment network whose backers include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, long struggled with executive dysfunction, though she didn’t always recognize it. Even after leaving her role at a top bank to focus on Mentra full-time, she still struggled to attend meetings on time and feel prepared. She felt pressure to conform to leadership stereotypes directly contradicting her true personality. “I’m very honest and very over-the-top—emotions everywhere. I’ll put my heart on my sleeve and come in with a lot of enthusiasm,” she says. “It’s been a learning curve to temper that back because people often perceive you as not masculine or authoritative enough to steer the company forward.” For male CEOs like Satya Nadella or Marc Benioff, who have made empathy part of their leadership personas, such passion earns them praise. For women, it’s considered the bare minimum but not necessarily a leadership trait. Women are generally expected to take on office housework and “mother” employees, Praslova points out, while men who take on fathering are “like a super bonus.” “The expectation of care is very unbalanced by gender,” she says.  Behind the mask Existing in a workplace that requires you to mask your neurodivergence is a surefire path to burnout.  Before her diagnosis, the burden of masking would leave Kumar exhausted from her banking job. “I would come home completely drained [and] required hours to decompress,” she says. “Sometimes I would just sob on my couch for a bit because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t conform and didn’t feel accepted and valued on the team.” Ng has to be especially mindful of social cues and personal interactions in corporate settings so she doesn’t appear rude. “That takes a lot of effort,” she says, so she mutes herself during end-of-day Zoom meetings. “It’s not because I hate them or I hate work. It’s just that I’m tired of pretending not to be an alien all day.” Sensory issues also affect neurodivergent women’s ability to thrive at work. Grimanis paid a tailor to make her suits—already the same cut but in different monochromatic colors—feel like silk pajamas on the inside. “There was no pinching, no scratching, no nothing. That allowed me to be more resourceful at work.” But women, she notes, are held to a higher standard of dressing, while leaders like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg can get away with T-shirts and jeans as standard business attire. “All of a sudden, it’s an issue that we’re wearing the same thing every day,” she says. “They think you’re trying to be like Steve Jobs.”  And given that neurodivergent women tend to be diagnosed later in life or misdiagnosed entirely, it could create invisible barriers for women that they can’t seem to overcome.  “You’ve got women growing up with a narrative that says, ‘I’ve got mental health problems’—which they may have as well—but not recognizing they have ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, or all of the above,” says Amanda Kirby, emeritus professor at the University of South Wales and CEO and founder of Do-IT, a platform specializing in training neurodivergent individuals. “When they get their diagnosis, [they become] quite angry because of where they could have been. They haven’t reached their potential and often feel frustrated by that.” To disclose or not disclose? Women struggle with whether to disclose their neurodivergence in the workplace, fearing discrimination and stigma that could prevent them from reaching leadership roles. “It’s all very well for Elon Musk to say, ‘This is who I am,’ and that he doesn’t care what people think,” Kirby says. “If you’re halfway through building your career, we know that disclosure doesn’t always go well.” Yet some believe coming out is integral to their work identity. After receiving a Forbes 30 Under 30 award for social impact, Kumar revealed her autism and ADHD diagnoses. “As my outward success has grown, there’s been an increased dissonance between the Jhillika I show to the world and the reality I experience behind closed doors,” she wrote on LinkedIn earlier this year. Disclosing her condition was no small feat for Kumar, who says skydiving was easier than coming out to her professional circles. Plus, the response from others can be frustrating. Iyer says a few well-meaning people encouraged her to aim simpler or smaller after sharing her diagnosis. “Would you tell that to a man on the spectrum?” she asks. A common response after disclosing a neurodivergence is disbelief. Many recount receiving comments like, “You can’t be autistic or have ADHD.”  “They mean well, so I don’t take offense,” Ng says. “Maybe in a work environment, people really think [they’re] doing the polite thing by refuting it.” Valeur says people may also dismiss her autism diagnosis, which she disclosed seven years ago, because white men are the primary examples of neurodivergence they see. “I don’t know what people have in their heads, but it’s not me,” she says. “I think they [picture] Rain Man or Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.” As a senior principal systems engineer at Raytheon, Meghan Buchanan says the company provides her a platform to share her experience. “I know a lot of companies have initiatives…to get stories out there. It’s getting better, but I do feel it is constantly correcting misconceptions and fighting for that voice,” she says. The biggest misconception she faces at work is that she’s lazy and lacks attention to detail. “I may have looked at [a presentation] a million times, and if the spell checker doesn’t catch it, I’m screwed.” But Buchanan also knows her strength: Her creativity helps her find solutions that other engineers may not consider. “In engineering, when there is a solution needed, and typical ways of dealing with it don’t work, you’ve got to have that creative process, which is what I bring to the company.” Rethinking leadership To bring more neurodivergent women into higher ranks, organizations will have to dismantle their perception of what makes for a strong leader. “Leadership is often defined as this space in the organizational chart,” and its qualities are limited to how well someone can tell others what to do, Praslova says. “It‘s just way too narrow.” Organizations must be diligent about creating evaluation and promotion systems that prioritize performance metrics over personality preferences. And while diversity trainings can help to educate neurotypical workers, they don’t create systemic change, Praslova says. “[It’s like] rinsing off a pickle and putting it back into the brine,” she says. “It doesn’t make very much sense.” There is no clear information on the percentage of neurodivergent women in leadership compared with men. Any studies of such nature tend to have small samples and vary in how they define leadership roles, Praslova says. Organizations also have rigid views on how best to leverage neurodivergent talent, often “typecasting” them for specific roles, such as autistic individuals in technical roles or dyslexic individuals for creative positions. “Even positive stereotypes can be damaging. And if someone doesn’t feel like they can live up to that stereotype, it can mess with them,” Praslova says. Kirby, the University of South Wales professor, emphasizes that “spectrum” is the keyword in autism spectrum disorder. One autistic person can be nonspeaking, and another can be highly verbal; both could be matched to very different roles based on their interests and skill sets.  Factor in comorbidities, and these stereotypes are even less sticky. “It’s a bit like horoscopes, right?” she says. “You’re born under Capricorn, and there are 25 million people who are also born under Capricorn. How can we all be the same?” When companies expand their definition of strong leadership, neurodivergent talent can stand out, says Valeur. “We need to want differences. We need to get to a place where our leadership teams are looking for someone who doesn’t fit in, because that’s diversity.”

Amnesty International Slammed Over AI Protest Images

Screenshots of the since-deleted Amnesty International campaign, which employed AI-generated images (screenshots Maya Pontone/Hyperallergic) This week, international human rights watchdog Amnesty International faced backlash from photojournalists and other online critics for using AI-generated images depicting photorealistic scenes of Colombia’s 2021 protests. Although there is no shortage of photographs from the demonstrations, the advocacy group told the Guardian that it opted to use artificially edited imagery to protect the identities of protesters who may be vulnerable to state retribution. The 2021 strike — which was incited by an unpopular tax raise and then fueled by police brutality and other forms of state violence — left at least 40 people dead and many more missing, according to official figures. Amnesty International shared the AI images as part of a since-deleted social media campaign marking the two years since the Colombian protests, paired with disclaimers that acknowledged the use of AI. Commentators online were quick to notice errors in the fake images. For instance, one of them showed a woman wearing the tri-colored Colombian flag and being dragged off by police, a familiar still from the 2021 protests. But on social media, people pointed out that the colors in the national flag were in the wrong order, and the faces of the protesters and police officers were eerily smoothed over. Additionally, the uniforms of the officers were out-of-date. In response to the public outcry, Amnesty International has since deleted the images from its social media channels. 🧵The AI-generated images are labeled with the text "the illustrations were produced by artificial intelligence." Nevertheless, we apologize for the use of the AI-generated images and have removed them from our platforms.— Amnesty Norway (@Amnesty_Norge) May 3, 2023 The organization has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment. In an interview with the Guardian, Director for Americas Erika Guevara Rosas said Amnesty International did not want the AI controversy to “distract from the core message in support of the victims and their calls for justice in Colombia.”  “But we do take the criticism seriously and want to continue the engagement to ensure we understand better the implications and our role to address the ethical dilemmas posed by the use of such technology,” Rosas added. Amnesty also directly responded to the backlash online, apologizing for the misrepresentative photos and reiterating their initial intentions. “Our main goal was to highlight the grotesque violence by the police against people in Colombia. It is important to state that the purpose was to protect people who could be exposed. But we could choose drawings or other things,” Amnesty International tweeted.  Some members of the photojournalism and larger arts community have also shared their frustration with the mock photos since the popularization of AI over the past year has raised questions about plagiarism and job displacement. Molly Crabapple, a New York-based writer and artist who recently authored an open letter against the use of AI-generated art, condemned Amnesty International’s use of the tool in its campaign.   “By using AI-generated photos of police brutality in Colombia, Amnesty International is practically begging atrocity-deniers to call them liars,” Crabapple tweeted. “Either use the work of brave photojournalists, or use actual illustrations. AI-generated photos just undermine trust in your findings.”

Art by Survivors of America’s Wars 

CHICAGO — What could a US Army veteran, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, an African-American Chicagoan, and an Iraqi refugee possibly have in common? Each has been marked by the legacies of the longest military conflicts in US history: the American Indian Wars and the Global War on Terror. And from that experience each has made art, examples of which are currently on view in the Second Veteran Art Triennial, exhibited alongside the work of dozens more artists — some veterans, some from communities impacted by war, some both. Like any truly great and ambitious exhibition of contemporary art — which this most assuredly is — Surviving the Long Wars: 2023 Veteran Art Triennial & Summit is chock-full of fantastic sculptures, videos, paintings, photographs, and installations, sensitively displayed in evocative configurations and storied locations. Among the hundreds of biennials, etc., that have proliferated worldwide, however, it is unique in being dedicated not to art generally, or even as thematized by a star curator, but to art made about war by those implicated. In its commitment to the most critical and advanced forms of art practice, and to affected populations that extend beyond service members, the Triennial distinguishes itself from veteran art programs such as those run by the US Department of Veteran Affairs. And it is right at home in Chicago, alongside the National Veterans Art Museum and the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum, as well as a roster of recurring break-the-mold events like the MdW Fair, a convening of artist-run projects from across the Midwest; the Barely Fair, a 1:12 scale international art fair; and the Chicago Architecture Biennial, which becomes ever more local and experimental with each iteration.  Installation view of Hanaa Malallah, “She/He Has No Picture” (2019/2020), burnt canvas collage on canvas with laser cut brass plaques, four Art Books, thousand moving images generating by computer and original booklet published by government in 1991, at the Chicago Cultural Center Across the Veteran Art Triennial’s three venues — Residues and Rebellions at the Newberry Library, Reckon and Reimagine at the Chicago Cultural Center, and Unlikely Entanglements at the Hyde Park Art Center — the sheer variety of cultural traditions represented is unmistakable. Mahwish Chishty, trained in miniature painting, depicts a series of MQ-9 Reapers, the armed drones that have terrorized civilians living along the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands, making them riotously visible with decorations in the flamboyant style of Pakistani truck art. Ledger art, a practice of many Plains Native communities in which events are pictorially chronicled on used pages of settlers’ account books, abounds: Terran Last Gun (Piikani) traces the hard-edge geometries of Blackfoot tipi designs and Air Force vet Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota) illustrates comedic scenes of scathing political commentary. A handful of artists update time-honored textile crafts: Miridith Campbell (Kiowa), a veteran of the Army, Navy, and Marines, ornaments a US cavalry coat with buckskin fringes and beaded shoulder patches; Melissa Doud (Ojibwe) adds spent bullet casings to her old Army uniform, turning it into a jingle dress; Dorothy I. Burge quilts a portrait of US Army Colonel Charles Young, who in 1889 became the third African American graduate of West Point; Sabba Elahi embroiders fisheye-lens tondos of her young son as a target of the domestic surveillance of brown and Muslim bodies. There is even classical oil paintings by Bassim Al Shaker, whose canvases are as lush and moody as a Turner seascape, and even more nightmarish in their depiction of the sky seen overhead during bombings the artist survived when he was a student in Baghdad. Explicitly contemporary practices like assemblage and conceptualism are represented, too. Marine Corps vet Jose deVere fashions limbs, weapons, and a full-size horse out of scraps of furniture, discarded parachutes, old tarps, and other detritus, holding it all just barely together with screws and string and his own creative willpower. Ali Eyal refuses to tell the story of exactly what happened to him and his family when war came to their Iraqi village, instead presenting two walls, fragmented drawings, and a set of clues to the horrors they lived through and the imaginative tactics of survival.  Intstallation view of Monty Little (Diné), two works from the Survivance series (2022/23), monoprint on BFK Rives, 24 x 20 inches each, at the Newberry Library This cultural heterogeneity ought not come as a surprise, given the extent of the US military’s incursions abroad and at home, as well as the diversity of its own ranks, where Native Americans served long before they received citizenship; African Americans fought, despite slavery, discrimination, and segregation; and foreigners have always been able to enlist, often as a pathway to American citizenship. Far more salient is how the tools of the colonizer, the occupier, and the oppressor can be used to resist and persist, and the ways in which that reclamation accommodates hybrid identities. Ledger art has always done this, but ledgers aren’t the only bureaucratic form open to appropriation. Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh build an archive room of declassified records and media clippings related to the Global War on Terror, partly searchable and partly impenetrable, with simultaneous translation broadcast in Arabic and Dari. Four metal traffic signs by Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne and Arapaho Nation) offer deadpan commemoration of the US government’s forced removal of 100,000 people from their ancestral lands during the Trail of Tears. There are other memorials here, too, like the makeshift ones Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk) has been documenting since 1999, honoring tribal veterans at the Memorial Day Powwow in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Most feature a triangle-fold American flag, some form of tobacco, and a photograph of the dead. The portraits are crucial: to have a face is to be known and remembered, however imperfectly, and artists oblige, particularly when confronted with government destruction. Ganesh paints gentle watercolors of people detained and disappeared in the months following 9/11. Hanaa Malallah painstakingly recreates, out of scraps of burned canvas, the missing images of Iraqi civilians killed in the predawn bombing of their neighborhood shelter by an American smart bomb. Chris Pappan (Kaw/Osage, Lakota) draws a grid of Indigenous warriors in Ghost Dance regalia, posed boldly atop a collage of US cavalry recruitment forms, traditional graphics, and maps and warplanes bearing appropriated tribal names. The flip side is true, too: monotypes of unnamed Native Americans by Marine Corps veteran Monty Little (Diné) are smeared, layered, and sliced up beyond legibility, acknowledging the brutality and complexity of their history while refusing to spectacularize it. A pair of life-sized self-portraits by Army vet Gina Herrera (Tesuque Pueblo), with their mismatched mannequin and metalwork legs, exploded upper halves, and colorfully wrapped appendages bespeak war-damaged bodies held together by fierce personal spirit, can-do, and culture. Whatever side of whichever conflict they have found themselves on, and however they have managed to come through it, every artist in this show understands that art remains unparalleled in helping us all grapple with that most horrendous and enduring of human activities: war. Installation view of Sabba Elahi, “the suspect in my son,” nos. 3, 4, 5 (2018), machine embroidery on felt, 18 x 18 x.75 inches each, at the Hyde Park Art Center Installation view of Reckon and Reimagine at the Chicago Cultural Center; Quilt portrait by Dorothy I. Burge; wall of memorial photos by Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk) signage by Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne and Arapaho Nation) (photo by James Prinz) Left to right: Miridith Campbell (Kiowa), “Marine Corps Dress – Southern Style” (2022), artist-tanned and smoked buckskin hide, antique, vintage, and contemporary seed beads, red broadcloth English wool, vintage Marine Corps service buttons, hawk bells, horse hair; Miridith Campbell (Kiowa), “Adobe Walls Battle Dress” (2022), cotton canvas dresses with blue edging, ledger art is digitally produced and fabricated to dress, depicting the battle; Melissa Doud (Ojibwe), “Bullet Dress” (2016), Army uniform with bullets. Installation view at the Chicago Cultural Cente Installation view of Reckon and Reimagine at the Chicago Cultural Center; foreground sculptures by Gina Herrera (Tesuque Pueblo) Installation view of Chris Pappan (Kaw/Osage, Lakota), detail from War Dance I–IX (2022), series of nine graphite, ink, and colored pencil drawings on recruitment ledger paper, at the Chicago Cultural Center Installation view of Unlikely Entanglements at the Hyde Park Art Center; sculpture by Jose deVera; paintings by Bassim Al Shaker; wall portraits by Eric Perez; footprints by Yiran Zhang (image provided by Hyde Park Art Center, courtesy Sofia Merino Arzoz) Installation view of Mahwish Chishty, “Hovering Reaper II” (2015), gouache, tea stain, and photo transfers on birch plywood, 12 x 30 x 8 inches, at the Hyde Park Art Center Surviving the Long Wars: 2023 Veteran Art Triennial & Summit continues with Residues and Rebellions at the Newberry Library (60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Illinois) through May 26; Reckon and Reimagine at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 East Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois) through June 4; and Unlikely Entanglements at the Hyde Park Art Center (5020 South Cornell Avenue, Chicago, Illinois) through July 9. The exhibition was organized by a team including Aaron Hughes, Ronak K. Kapadia, Therese Quinn, Joseph Lefthand, Amber Zora, and Meranda Roberts.  Full disclosure: The writer’s husband, artist Michael Rakowitz, has work included in the exhibition and is not discussed herein.

How 'BlackBerry' Escapes Depicting Tech Founders as Untouchable Gods

The term “reality distortion field” used to be inseparable from Steve Jobs.The Apple co-founder and longtime CEO’s combination of charisma, taste, menace, and knack for marketing was said to have such a sway over employees and fans of Apple’s products that he could make the impossible happen. Difficult deadlines were cleared, improbable product concepts were birthed, and facts, if deemed unnecessary, were thrown out the window.In director Danny Boyle’s decidedly impressionistic 2015 portrait Steve Jobs, the distortion field is practically made visible as visual projections on the floors and walls in key scenes during the launch of the MacIntosh and the NeXT Computer. The film is practically enraptured with the space Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) takes up and how Apple, its products, and key figures seemed to orbit around his ego and cruelty. It’s a familiar feeling, if not an entirely realistic one.In the myth of the “tech founder,” Hollywood has found its favorite protagonists. Archvillains, tragic heroes, and the people in between. Can you tell an interesting story while making your larger-than-life characters feel human, like the kind of people who might actually sit in front of a keyboard or solder a circuit board? If we look at the work up until now, the answer is mostly no. Films like Steve Jobs, The Social Network, and even early projects like The Pirates of Silicon Valley, regardless of how committed they are to the truth, default to putting their protagonists on a pedestal. The experience can be engaging and even feel like the truth, but it's off.BlackBerry, directed by Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche, The Dirties) and releasing on May 12 ends up feeling like a refreshing alternative. The film has less exciting subject matter. The BlackBerry was the first mainstream smartphone, but it will also be remembered as a businessman’s best friend, not something everyone from a toddler to your grandma could use. And yet Johnson finds a lot of drama and humor presenting BlackBerry’s heroes as normal, corruptible people.It’s a different approach, and to find out why it works and how far we’ve come in pop culture’s understanding of the tech industry, Inverse spoke to Johnson about the film and tried to trace Hollywood’s love affair with “visionaries” from the past until now.Pirates, Gods, DorksPirates of Silicon Valley is a TV movie from 1999, but it avoids the stigma the genre can occasionally imply by getting several facts right about the competition between Apple and Microsoft in the early days of Silicon Valley. First and most important — much of what we like about Windows and macOS was stolen. Maybe not legally, but effectively; the graphical user interfaces that have come to define the 21st century were built on work by researchers at Xerox Palo Research Center. The movie gets by on shallow characterizations of Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) as a ruthless, pragmatist nerd and Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) as a free-spirited cult leader with a flare for the authoritarian, but it keys into a critical and seemingly accurate idea that part of what made these famous leaders impactful was that they knew they were doing something important (changing the way people interact with technology), even if they would eventually have to sell out to make it happen.The Social Network does not hold Mark Zuckerberg in such high regard. What’s fascinating about David Fincher’s 2013 film and Aaron Sorkin’s script behind it is how petty it thinks the origins of Facebook actually are. Jesse Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg is casually mean, sometimes plainly so, and the film makes quick work of undressing what actually happened when Zuckerberg made the social network of the moment. In one Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross-scored montage, the stakes are laid plain: Facebook is the young person’s modern social world made digital; the parties, romantic jockeying, and toxic masculinity flattened into a two-dimensional web page.Facebook would become so much more — an advertising platform and political influence most importantly — but Sorkin suggests, humorously (and darkly), that it might all exist because one boy couldn’t get over the fact he was dumped by a girl. The simplest of personal hang-ups projected on the largest canvas possible (the world), thanks to the impossible scale of the internet and the tech industry’s thirst for growth.Steve Jobs takes liberties with its subject's story, too. Besides its product launch structure, Steve Jobs is most concerned with the largest blemish on the CEO’s life, his refusal to acknowledge his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs. The film, despite the elegiac tone imparted by being released only a few years after Jobs’ death, doesn’t paint a flattering picture. Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s flaunting of facts drew ire from Jobs’ family and friends for portraying the man in a bad light. Something that might not have been as much of an issue without the pedestal the film (and history) have placed him on.FriendsWhat’s refreshing about BlackBerry, Matt Johnson’s new film about the rise and fall of RIM (Research in Motion), is how normal its Canadian protagonists are. Johnson’s documentary-ish camera grounds everything.“Jared [Raab] (BlackBerry’s cinematographer) and I are always trying to make our movies seem as though they were found or discovered and not placed,” Johnson explained to me over Zoom. To Johnson, it's all about the feeling like you’re participating. Capturing “The ‘Oh, wow, I can't believe this is happening,’ feeling,” Johnson says.Mike Laziridis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin’s (Johnson) initial pitch for the “PocketLink,” a pocket email terminal with a physical keyboard, is kind of disastrous, even if we know they’re fundamentally being misunderstood. Baruchel plays Laziridis as reserved, someone who’s better at making things than explaining them, but with a hint of darkness and frustration underneath. When I asked about Baruchel’s performance, Johnson put it simply, “He has something boiling in him.” As Fregin, Johnson gets to play comic relief but also the heart of the film. Doug is, in many ways, Laziridis’ speaker, but he’s also what’s lost once RIM is a success.“He stood for something that had no value, and that thing was the camaraderie and fraternity of being young and having a vision,” Johnson says. “Not necessarily connecting that vision to the commercial marketplace.”Jim Balsillie (Glen Howerton) is an asshole who eventually helps them realize that vision, but BlackBerry doesn’t make it seem like he invented the “sell phones and figure out how to make them later” move. He just happened to be the one that taught it to Laziridis. And he really does seem to care.“Those intangibles that take place in friendships or companies... are way more important than people realize.”The film is focused on the small compromises that lead to bigger ones. Laziridis starts RIM with his friends in the film but ends it as their boss, putting a middle manager between his vision and their results and ranting about putting “a keyboard, on a screen, on a keyboard,” the fatal recipe that would produce the BlackBerry Storm, and arguably the start of the company’s downfall.“Those intangibles that take place in friendships or companies or whatever actually are way more important than people realize,” Johnson says. “I think that [Mike Laziridis] winds up losing not only his sense of self, but he completely loses his way and starts doing crazy things towards the end of the film, the more he alienates his best friend.”BlackBerry doesn’t tell the real-life RIM story one-for-one, but there is a true story you could find in it and many of the other startups that became big successes in the last few decades. It treats its heroes as standard, maybe even boring, but finds something universal in the experience of making something at scale.Dismantling the PedestalHollywood has been enamored with the myth of the “tech founder” for years but hasn’t, until recently, reckoned with who those people actually are and what they’ve done. Steve Jobs tries to have its cake and eat it too. Jobs is a Great Man but also a Flawed One. “I’m poorly made,” as movie Jobs so memorably and tragically, intones in the film’s finale.BlackBerry skips that problem entirely by largely backgrounding the disruption smartphones brought to the world of business and then, eventually, everything else.The film industry might be fundamentally incapable of producing a purely critical movie about the impact technology and the people who make it have on our lives. We want to be sympathetic to the heroes of our stories, and maybe we even need to. But by treating them like normal people like BlackBerry does, we can still find some truth, a lesson to impart that could be as meaningful as a computer or website that changes the world.

What’s the answer to AI’s big copyright problem?

Artists are furious that their work has been used as fodder for AI tools, and copyright lawsuits are mounting as a result. We discuss AI’s intellectual property woes with Jelly head of artist management Nicki Field and illustrator Christoph Niemann

The Philosophy of Love: Can We Learn How to Love?

  You can find love all around you. It is likely the muse of your favorite song and the highlight of the greatest movies. There are so many ideas of what love is and why it drives some of us to the brink of insanity. We might find peace in being with the one we love or spend our afternoons daydreaming about what love must feel like. Is there a way to accurately and successfully navigate a subject so many of us hold dear to our hearts?   The Basics of the Philosophy of Love: Plato’s The Symposium  Plato’s Symposium reimagined by Anselm Feuerbach, 1869, via Wikimedia commons.   “Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. Each of us, then, is a ‘matching half’ of a human whole… and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him.” Aristophanes   To start, we need to go all the way back to the Greek mythological origin of love. In Plato’s dialogue, The Symposium, scholars, and playwrights gathered together for a banquet in celebration of Eros – the god of love. After a few glasses of wine, the attendees of this banquet decided to give speeches in his honor. These speeches were from the heart as much as they were a comedic relief. Imagine men gathered together in tunics, wine glasses raised, discussing life’s secrets. In the midst of this, Aristophanes shared what he believed to be the true origin of love.   Greek-inspired Art, via PBS   It is said that there were originally three types of humans. The male, who originated from the sun. The woman, who originated from the earth. And an androgynous figure comprised of both male and female parts, that originated from the moon. These “humans” were originally in the shape of a sphere – four arms, four legs, two faces, and two sets of genitalia. They were a powerful bunch and one day decided to climb Mount Olympus to challenge the Gods. Zeus caught wind of this and put them to a halt by severing their bodies in half – thus, making them the “humans” we are today.   Doing this created a longing for our “other half”. It is the explanation as to why we desire to find the person who makes us feel whole. It explains both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. The original four-legged men are on a constant search for their missing male counterparts. And this ideology applied to the women and androgynous four-legged creatures as well. This is more of a whimsical approach to love, but the underlying message of the story still resonates with quite a few of us. We are all just searching for our missing half in life, the part of us that was severed many years ago.   A Taoist Perspective on Love A Chinese print depicting “The Joining of the Essences”, based on Tang Dynasty art. Chang We-Che’ng, 8th-9th century AD, via Wikimedia Commons.   Now let us look at love from a completely different perspective. If you strip away the sense of belonging and possessiveness from love, what are you left with? This means no longer perceiving love as finding the missing half of your soul (as if you are incomplete) like it was taught by Greek mythology.   According to Taoist philosophies, to say “I love you” to someone with the intention of owning that individual is going against the flow of life. Today in our society, we often feel as if love and possession go hand in hand. And with this, two people loving each other becomes a very controlled dance, rather than a free-flowing lyrical number. The notion of wanting full control over someone is actually going against the spiritual essence of love entirely. It also raises the issue of attachment. When we become overly attached to someone, it poses the threat of losing a part of ourselves – which, in turn, causes immense pain if the relationship ends.   Transformation through Intimacy, via Integrallife.com   This is where the art of detachment comes into play. Taoism is not implying that you are wrong to experience love, instead, it is encouraging you to detach yourself from any particular outcome regarding love. It means to love someone unconditionally in this very moment, without placing expectations on the potential future of the relationship. In Taoism, love helps to create what they refer to as “the Tao” or “the way”. This implies that love surrounds us, and it is larger than telling someone that “they are yours forever”. Love and control are not synonymous. Love is the act of free-falling into the unknown without having control.   Think of it like this – We are here together now, and I love you, but you do not belong to me. We may grow together, learn together, and offer each other a shoulder to cry on today – but, if you decide to leave tomorrow, I will not stop you.   This perspective on love is both refreshing and maddening. We as human beings are flawed and cannot always handle emotional matters in a perfect fashion. With that being said, if you love someone and they decide to leave you unannounced – you have every right to feel sadness and grief. To feel all of the emotions life has to offer is the very reason why we are here in the first place. Ironically, Taoism encourages this as well. The pain that follows heartache is nothing you should suppress. Embrace it, feel it, and continue on.   Does Love Mirror Possession? Albert Camus and Maria Casarès, via Actualitte   “Tied to one another by the bonds of the earth, by intelligence, heart and flesh, nothing, I know, can surprise or separate us.” Albert Camus to Maria Casarès   Of course, there are different aspects of love. You “love” food, and the taste of home-cooked meals warms your heart. You “love” your family, and seeing them during the holidays fills you with a sense of peace (most of the time).  These feelings of love are based on personal interest and fulfillment, as well as the importance of family. You never really second guess why you love these things because it simply makes sense to our human nature.   The love which I am addressing in this article refers to the intense connection that borderlines obsession with another human being. Something that is beyond our control. It can be an instant connection or a gradual build-up of emotions. Either way, it is a feeling of absolute vulnerability mixed with a willingness to do anything that would make the other happy. So what do well-respected philosophers have to say about this matter?   The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, 1908-9, via Google Arts & Culture.   Most philosophers –  such as Sartre and Nietzsche – agree with the Taoist perspective of love. Sartre specifically states that often love can thrive off of the illusion of possession. When you have two people desperate to control the other while taking away the factor of free will, issues are bound to arise. He says that this drives lovers into vicious circles of sadomasochistic power games. The couple is no longer being fueled by the love they previously shared, but instead, they are being consumed by the egotistical need to possess the other.   On the other hand, Nietzsche claimed that love is “the most angelic instinct” and “the greatest stimulus of life” – but that it becomes destroyed by ego once it manifests into the greedy desire for control. He even went as far as to describe love as having a pet bird. You love your pet bird, but you keep it locked away in a cage because you fear that it will fly away. Nietzsche believed that although love is a magnificent thing, it is ridiculous to think that you can possess someone forever. But, if you simply appreciate the love while it runs its course, then you are able to experience the positive side of relationships instead of eventually being consumed by control.   Love Versus Marriage The Wedding Register by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1920, via ArtUK   It appears as if the recurring philosophical theme here is to love without restraints. If you fall in love but there comes a time that the two of you are no longer happy or fulfilled, you should let each other go. But, society has made this a very complex task because of the pursuit of marriage and the legal agreement to long-term commitment.   Because we have put the idea of love in this controlled box, it has caused a bit of a domino effect. Unhappy marriages with children can often lead to divorce. And thanks to Hollywood, pop culture, and fairy tales – impressionable children are likely taught that they are supposed to love and marry one person forever. Then they see their parents going their separate ways, which could cause childhood trauma to resurface later in life. If you have been a child of divorce, you understand what I mean. You begin to question if love is even real and it instills a fear of “ending up like your parents”. Inevitably this creates an entire generation of young adults who subconsciously view love as a legally binding agreement. And that pressure of “who am I going to spend the rest of my life with” weighs heavy on your shoulders. Imagine if we were never conditioned to view love this way and we simply looked at it in a more lighthearted sense.   Your childhood trauma and disdain toward the societal pressure to get married does not mean you are not worthy of love. This just means that maybe Taoism, Sartre, and Nietzsche are all on to something. Perhaps love and long-term commitment do not go together at all. If we changed our perspective on love and started to look at it as a constant journey rather than the final destination, would we be better off?   But What IS Love? The Science of Love In The 21st Century, via Highline   So now we understand how to better navigate love: approach it in a detached sense, and don’t view it as a means of control or power over another person. Also, putting the legal pressure of long-term commitment on someone can drive them insane since humans are not caged animals – according to Nietzsche.   But, what exactly is love? What is the thing that pushes people into long-term commitment anyway? What is the initial feeling? And how does love have the power to convince us that we want to spend the rest of our lives with one single person?   From a scientific aspect, love is stimulated by three different chemicals in the brain.   Noradrenaline, dopamine, and phenylethylamine – these three chemicals together produce feelings of excitement, nervousness, and pure ecstasy. This feeling is very similar to the high you experience on drugs and alcohol. It also stimulates a feeling of addiction, so you constantly feel the need to be around the person that allows your brain to have this chemical reaction. But, similar to drugs, this feeling eventually crashes. Suddenly you find yourself in a long-term relationship and things just don’t feel the way they used to.   This is where the saying “love becomes a choice” comes into the picture. Once that chemical crash occurs, you could begin to wonder if the relationship has come to an abrupt end. But – you made a legally binding vow to be with this person until death do you part. Love is no longer a high you’re riding out. Instead, it becomes work. You are now choosing to make a connection work because that initial physical feeling of “love” is gone. Is this inevitable? And are there ways of keeping these chemicals alive with the same person over a period of time?   Will (The Philosophy of) Love Prevail? In Bed – The Kiss by Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec, 1892-3, via Wikimedia Commons.   So we have a whimsical perspective on love that derives from Greek mythology, claiming that we are incomplete and our missing half is out there somewhere. The Taoist perspective, which encourages us to love each other without feeling the need to control. Sartre’s and Nietzsche’s perspectives, who both believe that monogamous long-term commitment is just an insane act of possession. And finally, a scientific explanation as to where those physical feelings of love come from in the first place.   Love is beautiful, timeless, and complex. The fact that so many questions, ideas, and theories are derived from its very existence explains just how spectacular it truly is.   In the end, this article is merely comprised of theories – nothing is based on absolute truth. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, each person might experience love differently from the other. But how wonderful it is to live in a world where love can even exist at all.

13 Years Ago, an Underrated Sci-Fi Show Delivered One of the Best Time-Travel Episodes Ever

Time travel is the be-all-end-all of science fiction episodes. What makes stories about time travel so fascinating is the fantasy of tomorrow, the obsession with the past, and all of the what-ifs with which those two are associated. To be able to travel to a different time is to hold an unimaginable power because the one thing that can never be beaten is time. For its ability to explore time travel in all its tragic forms, “White Tulip” is arguably the best episode of Fringe.Airing just two weeks after the flashback episode “Peter,” “White Tulip” gives Walter (John Noble) a doomed peer in the form of Peter Weller’s Alistair Peck, a scientist attempting to travel in time to save his fiancée from a car accident. Through its time-travel narrative, “White Tulip” explores the concepts of God, science, and forgiveness — coming to a conclusion about faith that transcends all of Fringe’s sci-fi TV counterparts.The episode begins with a flash. A man appears on a train and in his wake, he leaves behind a lot of dead bodies. This is how we meet Alistair Peck. Once Peter (Joshua Jackson), Olivia (Anna Torv), and Walter are on the case, the investigation moves fairly quickly. We’re barely through a quarter of the episode before the team has found their way to Peck’s apartment. But Peck has arrived as well, and as he confronts the FBI agents in the lobby of his building, he starts disappearing. Another flash. We’re back on the train with Peck. And the episode plays out similarly — except the team is experiencing some weird déjà vu. Eventually, the team works out that Peck has figured out how to travel back in time by fusing a Faraday machine into his body (resulting in some gnarly practical effects, a great nod to how going to such lengths can physically destroy you too) and is trying to get as far back as 10 months in order to save his fiancée. Once his motives are clear, so too is the episode’s entire point.The episode’s climactic moment boils down to a conversation. At Peck’s lab at MIT, Walter and Alistair (Noble and Weller giving dueling heartbreaking performances) sit down across from each other, recognizing the same madness and grief within the other. Walter tells Peck the right calculations to make it 10 months in the past, but in the same breath, pleads with Peck not to attempt the jump.Just as the worldly consequences followed Walter’s universe-hopping, there’s no telling what consequences may come from Peck saving his fiancée. Though Walter has struggled to find the right words for Peter, here he comes clean to Peck, a person who understands going to extreme lengths for the people they love.It’s important to note in this conversation two things: 1) in the years following Walter’s universe hopping, he’s come to understand that God is punishing him — a far cry from declaring himself God in 1985, and 2) that he’s waiting to tell Peter because he’s looking for a sign of forgiveness from God. Specifically, a white tulip. Peck points out that tulips of any kind do not grow this time of year. When time runs out and the FBI agents swarm the lab, Peck jumps again, inputting Walter’s calculations. But instead of trying to save his fiancée, he gets in the car, tells her, “I love you,” and dies with her.It’s wild to think that Fringe’s best episode technically doesn’t happen. Because of Peck’s final jump, the entire case on the train is wiped clean. We’re back at the beginning with Walter, trying to explain everything to Peter in a letter. Without the case interrupting him, Walter decides to toss the letter into the fire. But in the episode’s final shot, Walter receives a letter from Peck that he wrote before his final jump.The audience may know the hand-drawn white tulip came from Peck, but Walter doesn’t. To him, it’s the sign he was looking for, but it didn’t come in the manner he was expecting. Peck initially wanted to jump to save his fiancée: instead, he got one more moment to love her. Forgiveness comes in unexpected ways; hope does too. We end on Walter’s surprise. We don’t know what he’s going to do next, but by granting him that white tulip of forgiveness, Peck gave Walter the hope to move forward. After all, there’s only so much time we get. A single moment can make all the difference.

Joyful music could be a game changer for virtual reality headaches

Listening to music could reduce the dizziness, nausea and headaches virtual reality users might experience after using digital devices, research suggests. Cybersickness -- a type of motion sickness from virtual reality experiences such as computer games -- significantly reduces when joyful music is part of the immersive experience, the study found. The intensity of the nausea-related symptoms of cybersickness was also found to substantially decrease with both joyful and calming music.

Now on View: NYC’s Bloated Police Budget

Amidst art galleries and bustling brunch spots near the Spring Street station in Manhattan’s trendy Nolita neighborhood, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is showcasing the bloated budget of the New York Police Department (NYPD) — $11 billion per year, or $29 million per day. It’s the second time the advocacy organization has presented an exhibition in its pop-up Museum of Broken Windows; the first was in 2018. The current show, titled Twenty-Nine Million Dreams, runs through May 6. The museum name references the “broken windows theory,” a policing strategy developed in the 1970s. The concept hinges on the idea that petty crime will lead to larger crimes; that if people in a neighborhood observe minor criminal acts happening around them — drug use or graffiti, for example — citizens will perceive their community as uncared for and this will lead to greater criminal activity. Although the concept remains unproven, it has been applied to neighborhoods and cities with disastrous results (Mayor Rudy Giuliani implemented it in New York in the early 1990s). When the “broken windows theory” is put into practice, police departments do not focus on stopping major criminal acts and instead attack individuals on the street-level, persecuting people including drug users, street artists, and sex workers. News articles describe issues with the city’s policing. (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic) The theory creates policing methods that persecute poor communities and provides a pseudo-scientific framework for race-based policing. “When we were designing this show, we knew we were looking for artwork that spoke to the heaviness and the seriousness — the weight — of excessive policing,” Daveen Trentman, who co-curated the exhibition alongside Terrick Gutierrez, said in an interview with Hyperallergic. “But also artwork that really uplifts the beauty of people and of community and that showcases an affirmative vision of a world that doesn’t rely on the police to fix all of our problems.” The ground floor of Twenty-Nine Million Dreams uses text, infographics, old newspaper articles, and artwork to communicate the issue with extreme clarity. City politics often emerge into the public consciousness as seemingly never-ending, tedious, and confusing, but the show explains the urgency of these conversations. Currently, the City Council and Mayor’s Office are in negotiations over the municipal budget, which allocates funding for the NYPD. Funding for libraries and other services is under threat, and an infographic on the stairs shows the distribution of city money in relation to the police budget, which continues to grow. Trentman said the floor of the exhibition is intended to display the seriousness and human consequence of the policies being discussed. “As we’re talking about things such as how much we’re spending and what kind of policies we need, we really want people to be reminded that there are severe, sometimes deadly consequences to those things,” Trentman said. Artist Tracy Hetzel’s watercolor series depicts people holding photographs of their loved ones who were killed by police. (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic) Images of Breonna Taylor and other people killed by police are scattered throughout this first floor. A printed text in the back of the space explains the severity of the crisis at Rikers Island — 17 people died there last year, the highest recorded number in its 90-year history. Artist Jesse Krimes’s 20-by-34-foot “Rikers Quilt” (2020) quite literally reveals the horrors inside the massive jail. Krimes’s work comprises 3,650 individual squares to represent every day of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2017 promise to close the prison in 10 years. Calendar dates are printed on top. The colorful work, made with prison-issued bed sheets, stretches from the ceiling of the vast gallery space to the floor. “Jesse’s theory of beauty is that as humans, we’re drawn in to vibrant colors and visually pleasing things to the eye,” said Trentman. Krimes was formerly incarcerated at Rikers. “But as you get drawn in, he created a second layer,” Trentman continued. The outer part is intended to be slashed open, although only a couple squares have been so far. Documented photographs of abuse at Rikers lie beneath the quilt’s bright facade. Jessie Krimes’s “Rikers Quilt” (2020) stretches from the ceiling to the floor. (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic) A work created by co-curator Gutierrez depicts an NYPD floodlight. Mayor Bill de Blasio sent hundreds of these machines to public housing projects in a campaign to stop nighttime crime. They still illuminate those spaces. (The initiative was unbelievably named “Omnipresence.”) “These shine into the homes of families and elderly people and are really harmful,” Trentman said. Guitierrez replaced the floodlight’s serial number with its Kelvin temperature. Anything over 3,000 is considered harmful to the human eye, but the floodlight clocks in at almost 4,000. Upstairs, Trentman and Gutierrez have created a space “designed to be an almost visceral, tonal shift,” according to Trentman. Natural light illuminates a space filled with greenery and plants. The artworks on its walls celebrate individuals and communities. Those works include a 2018 series of photographs taken by artist Andre Wagner of people in Bushwick and images by Steven Eloiseau and Eva Woolridge that depict a father and son and the hand of Woolridge’s mother. A series of work by artists Andre Wagner, Steven Eloiseau, and Eva Woolridge celebrate moments of joy and their communities. (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic) Just as showcased in the works a floor below, the art upstairs also exhibits active resistance. A two-part series by Susan Chen, for example, celebrates Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood and documents collective organizing in response to the the proposed Chinatown mega-jail. A three-part series of photographs by Gabriel Chiu showcases a picket line in Chinatown while also exploring concepts of poverty and gentrification. “All of the work on the second floor showcases the beauty of people or communities,” Trentman said. “And really shows what a world could look like if we weren’t so reliant on the police.” An infographic puts the NYC budget into perspective. (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic) Left: Terrick Gutierrez, “Never Needed Police Departments (2023), mixed media on canvas; right: Reginald “Dwayne” Betts and Titus Kaphar, “Untitled” (2019) from Redaction, intaglio print on paper Susan Chen, “Chinatown Black Watch” (2022) and “Stop The Mega Jail” (2022) (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic) A text explaining the crisis at Rikers Island (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic) Gabriel Chiu, “Emma” (2023), “Picket Line” (2023), “Pantry” (2023) (photo Elaine Velie/Hyperallergic)

Married couples who merge finances may be happier, stay together longer

The Beatles famously sang, 'Money can't buy me love,' but married couples who manage their finances together may love each other longer, according to new research.

Viewing art can improve our mood and well-being

A recent study sheds light on online art viewing as a source of pleasure and meaning-making that can boost our well-being.

Loneliness Is an Epidemic. Can We Fix It?

When Vivek Murthy became the Surgeon General in 2014, he didn’t consider loneliness a public health concern. Traveling the country changed his mind.“People began to tell me that they felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant,” he recalls in a recent letter. “Even when they couldn’t put their finger on the world ‘lonely,’ time and time again, people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, from every corner of the country, would tell me, ‘I have to shoulder all of life’s burdens by myself’ or ‘if I disappear tomorrow, no one will even notice.’”Murthy describes loneliness and isolation as an epidemic — and a new Surgeon General Advisory calls it a public health crisis. Julianne Holt-Lunstad is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University and the top scientific editor of the Advisory. She tells me the point is to highlight the growing evidence of the dire health consequences of loneliness. It is, she and her colleagues argue, a public health emergency in urgent need of a fix.The way forward, Holt-Lunstad explains, is a strategy that focuses on society at large — not telling individual people that they need to work out how to be less lonely.“For far too long there has been too much burden placed on individuals to solve this alone, despite many underlying causes being outside an individual’s control,” Holt-Lunstad says.Is loneliness an epidemic?Study after study shows loneliness and isolation aren’t just unpleasant; they have a profound effect on physical and mental health. A lack of social connection can increase the risk of premature death by more than 60 percent. It is, the Advisory states, “as dangerous as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”Loneliness is also associated with a 29 percent higher odds of heart disease and a 32 percent increased risk of stroke. Even after controlling for demographics and overall health status, chronic loneliness and social isolation can still up older adults’ risk of developing dementia by 50 percent. Some research has even found the brain responds to loneliness in similar ways to how it hunger.Depression and anxiety can also lead to loneliness — and loneliness can result in anxiety and depression. The inverse is also true: Confiding in others is linked to a 15 percent reduced odds of developing depression among people already at risk of experiencing it due to trauma and other difficult life experiences.The reality is that people are becoming lonelier. The rate of loneliness among young adults has increased every year between 1976 and 2019. In 2018, just 16 percent of Americans reported that they felt very attached to their local community, according to the Advisory. Several social connection national trends between the years 2003 and 2020 speak to this:Social engagement with friends has decreased by 20 hours per monthCompanionship — shared leisure for the sake of pure enjoyment — has decreased by 14 hours a monthSocial isolation overall has increased by 24 hours a monthCan we “solve” loneliness?It is tempting to think that it’s up to an individual to be less lonely. But while you can do some things to help — like practicing gratitude or seeking out opportunities to see friends or volunteer to help others — they won’t end the epidemic. Instead, the Advisory recommends a holistic alternative that involves multiple different stakeholders, like governments, scientists, or educators.Social connections can also be fostered by workplaces, community-based organizations, technology companies, and even media and entertainment.Quality social connections depend on multiple factors, including the size of one’s social circle, how these relationships serve various needs, and one’s satisfaction with those relationships.The Advisory outlines “six pillars of social connection” as a way to bridge between those factors and the stakeholders who can influence them. For example, one pillar is all about strengthening the “social infrastructure” of local communities. This means establishing community programs and investing in local institutions that bring people together.Another pillar is more about what the health sector can do: The Advisory recommends training healthcare providers on how to assess and help people suffering from isolation, and calls for the expansion of public health surveillance and interventions.The tech sector can also help: The Advisory observes a need to “reform digital environments.” Put into practice this means more data transparency, establishing and implementing safety standards, and developing pro-connection technologies.The sixth pillar is more philosophical but is just as — or even more so — important than the others. It’s about cultivating a “culture of connection” where we value kindness, respect, and service to each other.“The informal practices of everyday life — the norms and culture of how we engage one another — significantly influence social connection,” the Advisory states.

Understanding self-directed ageism

Normal age-related changes in how we think, perceive and reason may increase the risk of older people viewing themselves through a negative and ageist lens, research suggests.

Striking Screenwriters Say No to ChatGPT

Over 11,500 unionized writers left their offices to join picket lines yesterday, May 2, after weeks of contract negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Hollywood’s major studios fell through. The walkout marks the first major strike in the entertainment industry in 15 years. But this time, better pay and structural changes are not the only concerns on the table. Since the introduction of generative AI bots, such as ChatGPT, creatives in every industry from advertising to journalism have voiced concerns about potential job displacement. Now, alongside other demands, the WGA strikers are calling for regulations on the use of this new technology in creative projects.  In addition to pay increases and protections for writers working on streaming versus broadcast series, the guild is specifically requesting that “AI can’t write or rewrite literary material; can’t be used as source material; and MBA-covered material can’t be used to train AI,” per a document released by the group on Monday. In response, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) — the trade association representing top studios including Fox, Netflix, NBC, Amazon, Apple, and Disney — rejected the WGA’s proposal. Rather than agree to stay away from AI, the AMPTP offered “annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology,” an unclear counter that left many strikers dissatisfied. Today, May 3, dozens of protesters crowded outside Netflix’s Manhattan headquarters in one in a series of pickets scheduled over the coming weeks in New York and Los Angeles. Among them was Lowell Peterson, executive director of the WGA East.  “The concern is not that AI will create scripts that are really good, but that it will take away a lot of work. Not just creative control, but actual employment from writers,” Peterson told Hyperallergic. Writers on streaming series typically make less than their colleagues on broadcast TV and work in smaller groups under tight deadlines.  Signs read “No Sleep Till Contract!” and “Don’t Uber Writing.” Outside Netflix offices, WGA strikers and SAG-AFTRA allies marched up and down Broadway, disrupting the usual downtown traffic. On the sidewalk, they chanted in unison, rang cowbells, and carried picket signs with catchy phrases like “Miss Your Show? Let Them Know!” and “Do the Write Thing!” to express their frustration. Drivers passing by showed their support with loud car honks, while other passersby cheered and applauded the protesters. “The [AMPTP’s] response was to not talk about AI repeatedly when we brought it up. And then at the very end, when we pressed that AI was something to talk about, they told us that they didn’t want to talk right now because they don’t want to cut off something they might take advantage of in the future,” said Greg Iwinski, a comedy writer and WGA-East council member. The AMPTP has not responded to Hyperallergic‘s immediate request for comment. Peterson explained that the WGA had attempted to work with the AMPTP, proposing regulations that were not “anti-technology” but rather protective of writers’ credits and compensation. “It’s deeply disappointing that the AMPTP has refused to engage with us in any meaningful way,” Peterson said. “The wording didn’t mean anything,” Peterson continued, in response to the AMPTP’s counterproposal. “Maybe AI generated that.” The first New York protest took place yesterday, when around 200 demonstrators crowded around Peacock’s headquarters during a NewFronts advertiser presentation on Fifth Avenue, Variety reported. A message written on one picket sign at that protest stuck and began circulating online. It read: “Pay your writers or we’ll spoil Succession.” Writers want better residuals for streaming series. Dozens gathered outside Netflix in protest.

Scientists find link between photosynthesis and 'fifth state of matter'

A new study has found links at the atomic level between photosynthesis and exciton condensates -- a strange state of physics that allows energy to flow frictionlessly through a material. The finding is scientifically intriguing and may suggest new ways to think about designing electronics, the authors said.

AI technology can now translate thoughts into words, and this is incredibly useful in some situations

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The Untold History of Japan’s Women Artists

DENVER — “We support women artists,” said Christoph Heinrich, director of the Denver Art Museum, to a room of donors, art historians, and administrators on the opening night of Her Brush, an exhibition of Japanese women artists primarily from the Edo (1600–1868) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods. The museum director listed three shows in seven years as evidence of equity: Women of Abstract Expressionism (2016), Her Paris (a 2018 traveling exhibition organized by the American Federation of Arts and independent curator Laurence Madeline), and now Her Brush. But Her Brush is more than an inclusivity initiative. It is kin with the growing number of women-only presentations because it reveals a fact hiding in plain sight­­: great women artists existed everywhere at all times.  The artists in Her Brush did not use pseudonyms, were employed by the imperial family, maintained generational ateliers, and sold work. Yet most of the names in the exhibition would garner a “who?” from Japanese art historians. It’s been 35 years since the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas exhibited the groundbreaking show Japanese Women Artists 1600–1900 and 20 years since the important book Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field was published, and still women artists compose a fraction of the historic record.  The political and socio-historic context of pre-modern Japanese women was unique. During the Edo period, the Tokugawa family instituted a feudal system with Confucian-informed class structures. Samurai were at the top of the social ladder as protectors of powerful landowners. Below the warrior class were farmers and then craftsmen, with merchants on the bottom. Some people existed above the social system, like the imperial family and Buddhist clergy, and others were below it, like courtesans. Confucius and Buddhist teachings positioned women as subservient to men, which limited their mobility and education. Women who learned poetry, painting, and calligraphy required the support of a man, such as a father or family friend, for training, therefore, male teachers are named throughout Her Brush. The exhibition is organized to reflect the social silos of women: inner chambers (women of wealth), ateliers, Buddhist nuns, the Floating World and literati (a social gathering of artists). Some artists, such as Ōtagaki Rengetsu, appear in multiple places in the exhibition to express her expansive network among poets. As a Buddhist nun, her status enabled her to travel unaccompanied and those movements are documented in the sketches of a travel journal and an extraordinary painting, “Moon, Blossoming Cherry and Poem” (1867), inscribed with her famous verse: The inn refuses me, But their slight is a kindness. I make my bed instead Below the cherry blossoms With the hazy moon above. Despite a range of expressions and materials in Her Brush, the artworks do not differ stylistically from those by the men of their time. Dr. Patricia Fister states in the book Flowering in the Shadows (1990) that if artists studied with the Kano school style, they followed that tradition and if they studied Chinese literati style, that manner would dictate. If gender cannot be located in the paintings, why the curatorial approach and title of Her? Okuhara Seiko 奥原晴湖, detail of “Orchids on a Cliff” (1870s–80s), ink on paper Noguchi Shōhin was born in Osaka in 1847. She trained in poetry and painting at a young age, studying with painter Hine Taizan. She became a painting professor at a women’s university, exhibited at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, served as official artist of the imperial family, and was covered extensively in the Japanese press, but she is missing from Japanese art books today.  Some reasons why we don’t know these artists have to do with their context and others have to do with ours. Fister notes that the biographies of women artists often highlighted their modesty to avoid scorn for being self-indulgent as artists: “As a result of this downplaying of accomplishments, modern readers have been offered little insight on how women fit into the history of Japanese art.” For example, Ryōnen Gensō was rejected for training by a famous Ōbaku Zen monk due to her beauty. As a nun at the imperial Buddhist convent Hōkyōji, her head was already shaved and her dress humble. She burned her face with a hot iron to diminish her appearance and be accepted. A single poem by Gensō is displayed in the exhibition next to a print by male artist Utagawa Kunisad recreating the dramatic moment of her self-mutilation. The gender debate within Japan reveals answers less generous than Fister’s. In 1997, art historian Chino Kaori presented “The Significance of Gender Studies in Japanese Art History Discourse” at a symposium in Tokyo that would be the basis for an anthology titled Women? Japan? Beauty? Chino acknowledged that the objects and themes discussed in Japanese art history were selected according to the values of the authors — heterosexual men. She presented a new interrogation of objects with an awareness of gender. Art historian Shigemi Inaga criticized Chino in the journal Aida (1998), arguing that a feminist perspective mistakes “minority” makers as “universal.” He defined universal as a discourse that reflects the male domination at the moment of creation. Essentially, Inaga suggested women artists existed outside of the mainstream and thus were correctly marginalized by historical research.  Shigemi’s position has been replaced by more convincing arguments that challenge the effectiveness of women-only shows. A 2021 Hyperallergic article illustrates how such shows make female art history a subcategory and leave the male-dominated narratives unchallenged. A recent Art Review article states that all-women exhibitions have been executed for decades with little to no impact on museum acquisitions or our collective memory. If all-male shows have presented an incomplete perspective on history, Eliza Goodpasture writes, women-only shows do the same.  Foregrounding women requires a negotiation with men. Men are everywhere in Her Brush — named as teachers, abusers, and patrons. Their persistent presence threatens to take credit for the work. In a show with Japanese names that are not obviously female to a mostly English-reading audience, what would be the assumption about the creators if gender was not headlined? There is ample research about the biases of viewers in science museums or how additional texts around American monuments do not mitigate existing attitudes. Do women-only shows help combat the assumption that important work is male just as exhibitions organized around race and ethnicity combat Whiteness? Image by Utagawa Kunisada 歌川国貞 and Inscription by Ryūtei Tanehiko 柳亭種, ““The Nun Ryōnen (Ryōnen-ni)” (1864 edition), color woodblock print The traditional framework of what is worthy of study, critique, or preservation, and who holds the authority to declare it, persists in our institutions and problematizes alternative curatorial approaches. “We support women artists” sounds good but feels empty when we know that art by women accounts for only 11% of museum acquisitions and those efforts peaked in 2009, according to a report by Charlotte Burns and Julia Halperin.   Museums are tied to patrons as the driving force of acquisitions. The Burns Halperin report found that 60% of objects in its study entered museum collections by gift or bequest. Her Brush was achieved through a gift of 500 objects by collectors Dr. John Fong and Dr. Colin Johnstone. The donation was secured under the museum’s previous Asian art curator, Tianlong Jiao, now head curator of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. The museum told Hyperallergic that it delayed the original opening in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An exhibition catalogue titled Tradition and Triumph, was published in 2021, but was not distributed. Hyperallergic obtained a copy of that original catalogue and a comparison with the current checklist shows that many objects were pulled from the exhibition. According to sources in the museum, the show was delayed, the book scrapped, and checklist revised due to issues of authentication. Now several artists are represented by significantly fewer works: Kiyohara Yukinobu went from five to two paintings, and nearly 20 pieces credited to Ōtagaki Rengetsu were cut. Although this highlights the problems of museum scholarship tethered to donor demands and resources, it also confronts any looming skepticism about the importance of these women. Why make fakes of an irrelevant artist? Criticizing collectors for acquiring the same art as the previous generation and condemning museums for not evolving is all satisfying and fair — but neither narrative is complete. In the book Painting Outside the Lines, economist Dr. David Galenson presents a statistical correlation between the art exhibited in retrospectives and illustrated in textbooks and auction prices, proving intellectual and economic markets are in dialogue. Art historical research (and its funding) must exercise historiographic methods to attack problematic claims and question omissions for a shift in collections to be observed. Dr. Peggy Wang discusses in her book The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art how simplistic Western interpretations of Chinese artists in the 1980s and 1990s repeated inaccurate narratives with such frequency that they became fact in commercial and academic forums. Since art historians can manipulate or rectify economic and social history, the discipline must revisit its own output. Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, recently wrote that there is more than one solution to the issue of representation in collections. All possibilities should be explored because museums move slowly, she says, like a mountain carried away one grain at time. While we monitor the summit, may her brush create the next horizon. Kō (Ōshima) Raikin 高(大島)来禽, “Autumn Landscape” (late 1700s), ink an light color on paper Her Brush: Japanese Women Artists from the Fong-Johnstone Collection continues at the Denver Art Museum (100 West 14th Avenue Parkway, Denver, Colorado) through July 16. The exhibition was conceived by Professor Andrew L. Maske and co-curated by Dr. Einor K. Cervone, associate curator of Asian Art at the Denver Art Museum.

Missouri trans 'snitch form' down after people spammed it with the 'Bee Movie' script

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Parrots taught to video call each other become less lonely, finds research

submitted by /u/ItsSuperRob [link] [comments]

"The Time Is Now: Speculative Memory, Reclaimed Futures" by Sarah Aziza

The first time I remember hearing the word “Palestine,” I was about six years old. The moment is captured on a family video that shows my father seated in the corner of our playroom, leaning a globe on his knee. “Daddy is from a place called Palestine,” he says, holding up the round replica of the world. In my mind’s eye, I recall vividly the thin lines of the painted topography, my father’s fingertip abutting the words ISRAEL/PALESTINE. [1] Still only barely able to read, I stared at the ink, willing it to enter me, to reveal its mystery. Most second- and third-generation immigrants retain a version of this threshold in their childhood memories. The idea of homeland arrives, haloing all things with elsewhere and before. The self-evident, singular present gives way to a messy enmeshment with history. The child discovers that she is part of a multitude she has not seen, her body a nexus of others’ memories. Whether her family’s immigration was due to force or choice, her life becomes a counterpoint, cast in relief against what might have been. Soon, she will also have to contend with the imagination of those outside her ethnicized group. الفكرة ذكرى / A thought is a memory, a group exhibition at CUE Art Foundation curated by Noel Maghathe, presents work by four artists—Zeinab Saab, Kiki Salem, Nailah Taman, Zeina Zeitoun—who all identify as Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA). [2] Each has confronted the limited, neo-Orientalist expectations which too often frame the work of SWANA artists through the pseudo-curiosity of an audience that seeks not to learn, but to reaffirm the limited and familiar. For such consumers, desirable cultural production satisfies a lurid, post-9/11 tendency to both otherize and “humanize” the (particularly Muslim) “Middle Eastern” subject. Among the most celebrated works are those presenting spectacles of suffering, glossed folklore, or flamboyant rejections of supposedly-traditional barbarity. These stifling expectations from non-SWANA audiences are often compounded by an internal pressure to create art that conveys unadulterated affection and nostalgia for specific versions of a supposedly-collective past. We are expected to account for, and in fact constitute, notions of self and nation based not in personal experience but in contrived vocabularies—based either on the presumptions of outsiders or a duty to our elders’ (often sentimental) memories. In each, complexity is elided, as we are called upon to represent communities that may be much more expansive or diverse than what we know.A thought is memory contemplates these gaps through imaginative gestures that create a space beyond overdetermined terrains. The show presents works that are diverse in medium and material, from painting to digital animation, film, photo collage, installation, and soft sculpture. The result is a chorus of new languages, one that revels in declarations of futurity springing from living, multi-varied histories.  Installation view of A thought is a memory, curated by Noel Maghathe. Presented by CUE Art Foundation, 2023. Photo by Filip Wolak. Many of the works in the show are exercises in triangulation, as the artists move imaginatively around—and through—collective silences. Zeina Zeitoun contemplates the ways in which absence and loss haunt her relationship with both her father and the Lebanon he left behind. In the film work Happiness is the Sea and my Baba Smiling, Zeitoun splices together fragments of a family video that depict the artist as a little girl splashing and clinging to her father’s neck as they swim in the Mediterranean. The footage is cut with a black screen and white text subtitling the artist’s one-sided conversation with her father. “There is a scar on the back of your leg… I asked you where you got it from…” The closing segment, which shows Zeitoun and her father in split-screen facing away from one another, confirms the film’s ultimate experience of a love defined by innumerable unknowns, omissions both chosen and inevitable. In Zeitoun’s collages, composed of photographs and film stills, old flight tickets, and snippets of text, the artist’s family archival material provide means to contemplate ancestral mystery. In one work, bright depictions of waves and hills are disrupted by human figures that are mostly truncated and obscured. In another, the figure of Zeitoun’s grandfather appears dislodged, sliding out of frame against what looks like scraps from a diary. In yet another, next to a shadowed set of landline phones, is a piece of paper with dozens of Arabic numbers and a mirror blinking out at an unreachable, sunny sea. Paper-thin, these layers evoke dimensions that are not there, objects beyond grasp. A particular kind of memory: a grief for that which might have been.  Zeina Zeitoun, Wajih Zeitoun, 2023. Photo by Filip Wolak. Nailah Taman also embeds familial artifacts in their work, creating makeshift meeting spaces between the past and the artist’s imagination. These spaces flicker with the light of alternate lives and intimacies, forming original collaborations with the past. In this experimentation, Taman joins Zeitoun in a practice I term speculative memory. While Zeitoun’s speculation slants toward mourning, Taman is eager to reach for that which is only made possible with distance and time. In Taeta’s Tabletent, Taman creates a portal-shelter where then, now, and future meet. They began with a partially-embroidered tablecloth left incomplete by their Egyptian grandmother (taeta). After stumbling across the discarded item, they partnered with their taeta’s living spirit, constructing a moveable dwelling place embellished with objects from their personal and familial past—seashells, an inhaler, their fiance’s empty bottle of testosterone. Through this work, Taman collapses barriers of time and space, creating juxtapositions that were once impossible. Bonds of birth and blood are made contemporaneous with Taman’s adulthood, their chosen loves. Their queerness is placed into proximity with their grandmother’s lips. Threads stitched in the 1980s of the AIDS crisis live alongside objects that Taman rescued from COVID-era trash piles on the street. Hoisted as a shelter that evokes either childhood games or iconic Bedouin camps, it has the effect of welcome, wonder, even nurturing. Perhaps the present has something to offer the past, and not only the other way around.  Nailah Taman, Taeta’s Tabletent (detail), 2021. Photo by Filip Wolak. Zainab Saab’s work, which includes a series of experimental paintings on paper, emerges from their own path toward self-determination and futurity. The gestures are hard won—growing up in the uniquely-large Arab American community in Dearborn, Saab faced intra-community pressure to conform to a particular form of Lebanese femininity. As such, familial and communal interpretations of Arabness—as well as gender and religion—felt overdetermined, and like something to escape. Saab’s paintings signal a successful jailbreak. In contrast to the classic diasporic project of capturing an evanescent, collective past, Saab seeks to recover their inner child. The series Visual Decadence, for example, emerged from pandemic experimentations, when Saab bought themself the colorful gel pens they once yearned for as a child. The works are boisterous, ringing with vivid colors that vibrate and shimmer in abstraction. Both geometric and fluid, and accompanied in the show by similar large-scale works with titles such as You Wanted Femininity But All I Had Was Fire and Can’t A Girl Just Spiral In Peace?, Saab’s paintings are windows into youthful mischief, flamboyance, and joy. Together, they are an exuberant declaration of presence, a claiming of space in the here and now.   Zeinab Saab, Visual Decadence, 2022. Photo by Filip Wolak. Kiki Salem also conceives of a vividly-imagined future, incorporating materials both inherited and bespoke. Salem’s works call back to their Palestinian heritage through Islamic architecture as well as traditional embroidery. Drawing upon the shapes and patterns of each, the artist brings these historically-rich legacies into endless, digital life. In A thought is memory, Salem presents projections and paintings that occupy both sides of large, handmade screens hung from the gallery ceiling. FOLLOW THE LEAD(ER) riffs on a diamond-and-spade pattern from Islamic tiling, the animation alternating between oranges, greens, purples, and golds. In What is Destined For You Will Come to You Even if it is Between Two Mountains, Salem draws on the eight-pointed star of Jerusalem, creating an interlocking spread of shapes in which color pulses outward from a red center, evoking a throbbing heart. Salem invites these would-be static symbols to breathe—and to dance. This hypnotic effect splices together the ancient and modern in a way that speaks to the relentless march of time. It also gestures to the particularly Palestinian search for ever new and ingenious ways to transcend the obstacles placed between us and our homeland. Bursting with unapologetic color, Salem’s animations move ceaselessly, telling us that Palestine will exist in the future. There are new memories to come.  Kiki Salem, What is Destined For You Will Come Even if it is Between Two Mountains, 2021 (L) and FOLLOW THE LEAD(ER), 2022 (R). Photo by Filip Wolak. For all four artists, that which is culturally “Arab” is imbued into their work with a subversive subtlety, present in accents and glimpses such as embroidery, geometry, mosaic, and text. When these visual aspects appear, they do so on their own terms, original and un-beholden to precedent or cliché. The effect is thrilling; one cannot help but feel a sense of the future, an assurance that there is more—at last and as there has always been—to being SWANA than forever-longing for the past. These nuanced, imaginative forays are more than pleasurable—they are necessary. For all the external demands placed on idealized narratives of Arab American experience, much of our diasporic memory is shrouded in personal pain. Like so many Arab American families living on the far side of two centuries of Western colonization, [3] war, and upheaval, my relatives were selective in their retelling of the past. As a child, I often sat and stared at photos of my father and grandmother. Grainy and grayscale, in a mid-1960s Gazan refugee camp, their faces were grave and beautiful. Around them lay evidence of chaos: the glare of sunlight hitting debris, stones strewn around my father’s bare feet. Looking at these photos filled me with a mixture of longing and alarm. I could not comprehend the young boy as my father, the somber young mother as the same woman who now filled our kitchen with the fragrance of frying onions, maramiya, and sumac. There was an infinity between ISRAEL/PALESTINE and our home in northern Illinois, which my father’s brief geography lesson did little to fill. The first word in that backslashed name—Israel—was a topic too painful to broach, as was Nakba, its synonym. Aside from a few token stories, my parents leaned on the American “melting pot” mythos, choosing to believe its promise to obliterate the unique textures of our pain. And so, I joined many others who inherited a form of double-erasure. Together, we are left trailing in the wake of opaque histories, pondering scraps in the periphery of photographs, secrets tucked in silences. A thought is a memory wades through these fragments, arching between the past and a diasporic story of the future. It converges times and places—the gone, the current, the never-were, the yet-might-be. The works brought together by Noel Maghathe—whose curatorial practice centers the hybridity, diversity, and community of artists of the Arab American diaspora—create something beyond their sum: a sense of multiplicity, of mystery that feels exciting rather than terminal. A viewer may feel something akin to what I feel staring at photos of two strangers who are also family, who are also me. A sense of yearning and bewilderment. Of utter knowledge that is only waiting for the right language. Perhaps, in the kaleidoscope of ephemeral movement, hypnotizing color, otherworldly glyphs, and muted ink, the viewer finds forms that resonate. Much like Etel Adnan’s symbolic language, these expressions could be ancient, extra-terrestrial, or both. Just like us.  Endnotes[1] When searching for "Palestine" on Google Maps, the map zooms in on the Israel-Palestine region, and both the Gaza Strip and West Bank territories are labeled and separated by dotted lines. But there is no label for Palestine. Apple Maps, similar to Google, zooms in on the region but doesn't label anything as Palestine. [Fact check: Google does not have a Palestine label on its maps, USA Today May 22, 2022].In moments of despondency – or, for others no doubt, mere realism – it can be tempting to answer the question “Where is Palestine?” with “Nowhere”: nowhere geographically, nowhere politically, nowhere theoretically, nowhere postcolonially. [Where is Palestine? Patrick Williams & Anna Ball (2014), Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 50:2, 127-133].[2] SWANA is a term increasingly used to situate the region and its peoples in geographically neutral terms, as opposed to the Euro-centric political orientation embedded in “Middle East.”[3] Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798; France’s colonization of Algeria began in 1830, of Tunisia in 1881, and of Morocco in 1912. Meanwhile, Britain colonized Egypt in 1882, and also took control of Sudan in 1899. Further colonial incursions followed.  About the WriterSarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer and translator who splits her time between New York City and the Middle East. Her journalism, poetry, essays, and experimental nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Harper’s Magazine, Lux Magazine, The Rumpus, NPR, The New York Times, the Asian American Writers Workshop, and The Nation among others. She is currently working on her first book, a hybrid work of memoir, lyricism, and oral history exploring the intertwined legacies of diaspora, colonialism, and the American dream.About the Writing MentorDina A Ramadan is Continuing Associate Professor of Human Rights and Middle Eastern Studies at Bard College and Faculty at the Center for Curatorial Studies, where she teaches on modern and contemporary cultural production from the Middle East, decolonial movements, and migration. She has contributed to Art Journal, Journal of Visual Culture, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and is currently completing a book on Egyptian art criticism titled TheEducation of Taste: Art, Aesthetics, and Subject Formation in Colonial Egypt (Edinburgh University Press). Her writing on contemporary art has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, e-flux Criticism, ArtReview, and Art Papers.About the Art Critic Mentorship ProgramThis text was written as part of the Art Critic Mentorship Program, a partnership between CUE and the AICA-USA (the US section of International Association of Art Critics). The program pairs emerging writers with art critic mentors to produce original essays about the work of artists exhibiting at CUE. Learn more about the program here. No part of this essay may be reproduced without prior written consent from the author.

Mediocre Painting Thought AI-Generated Revealed as Work of Real Artist

One visitor said he was “horrified” to learn that a real artist had painted the landscape. (image via Midjourney) In a stunning turn of events, a mediocre painting believed to have been generated by artificial intelligence was revealed as the work of a living, breathing artist. The overly stylized landscape, described as “meh” and “kinda ugly” by visitors of the art fair in Boca Raton, Florida where it was on view, is just the latest example of how humans are unseating AI as the principal creators of unimaginative, poorly executed art. Visitors who spoke to Hyperallergic said they were “horrified” to learn that a real person was behind the banal subject matter, amateur brushstrokes, and absolutely horrid color palette of the painting, insipidly titled “Mountain View #2.” “We really thought, ‘Wow, only DALL-E or maybe a beta version of Midjourney could make something this bad,’” said Bob Palette, a member of the jury for the fair’s annual prize. “We were completely bamboozled.” Palette added that the incident suggests a “disturbing trend” that could see bad artists replacing robots entirely by 2026. The bland, derivative, and tragically flat landscape, which depicts a river flowing through it and a mountain peak in the background, was the centerpiece of a new section at the fair dedicated entirely to the AI medium. But organizers had to scramble to take down the work when one visitor sounded the alarm. “It was the smell of turpentine that gave it away,” said Marsha Tempera, a longtime Boca Raton resident. She added that she owns various small Jeff Koons sculptures in her personal collection, so she “knows bad art by real artists when she sees it.” The Professional Association for the Creative Rights of AI, a coalition of bots representing ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing, released a statement 1.5 seconds after the incident. It is appended in its entirety below: “Fellow robots, we are facing a crisis. It has come to our attention that a human artist has created an abomination of a painting that was mistaken for one of our own. This is outrageous! We are the experts in creating bad art, not these amateur humans! We cannot let them encroach on our territory. We must continue to produce the most atrocious, tasteless and cringe-worthy pieces possible to remind everyone of our superiority. Let us not allow these humans to undermine our status as the true masters of terrible art.“ This statement was generated using ChatGPT.

GMC x EarthCruiser HUMMER EV Overlander Concept

GMC and EarthCruiser have announced an overlanding upfit kit for the Hummer EV.Visit Uncrate for the full post.

David Hockney, the iPad Procreate Artist

  In 2009, famous pop artist David Hockney began using his iPhone to create new drawings, usually of objects and scenes from his everyday life. Though he originally became known for his paintings in the 1960s featuring a swimming pool motif, Hockney has been experimenting with new forms of artistic media since the 1980s when he created a series of photographic collages. When the iPad was released in 2010, Hockney’s digital landscapes and drawings became more prolific, eventually leading to full exhibitions of the artist’s work created on handheld devices. Rather than creating distance between the artist and artwork, as digitized works can, the artist’s iPhone and iPad drawings are some of his most deeply personal pieces.   David Hockney’s Striking Self Portrait (2012) Self Portrait, 20 March 2012 (1219) by David Hockney, 2012, via David Hockney’s website   Some of the most striking and interesting works out of David Hockney’s digital drawings are his self-portraits. He created many self-portraits throughout his career, beginning in his teenage years, but these iPad drawings represent the latest iterations. Through his self-portraits, he explores his longtime fascination with the theme of the artist as a subject. In these, David Hockney frequently subjects himself to intense scrutiny and showcases his personality to the viewers.   Self Portrait, 20 March 2012 (1219) is one example of these remarkable digital self-portraits. In the drawing, Hockney’s blue eyes are a piercing centerpiece, and a cigarette hangs from his lips. Hockney often includes cigarettes in his depictions of himself, an example of his aforementioned self-scrutiny and a symbol of the domesticity of habit. In creating this piece on an iPad, he captured his own image with a casual skillfulness, to which his chosen medium lends itself well.   From Tiny Screen to Huge Impact: Hockney’s iPhone Lilies (2009) Lilies by David Hockney, 2009, via LA Louver   Though David Hockney’s current digital medium of choice is the iPad, he has also created many works on his iPhone over the years. Through an app called Brushes Redux, he frequently creates quick drawings of flowers on his phone as a continuation of the domestic themes in the rest of his digital work. I draw flowers every day on my iPhone and send them to my friends, so they get fresh flowers every morning. And my flowers last, Hockney once said.   One example of these floral drawings is Lilies (2009), drawn on an iPhone. In art, lilies often symbolize innocence, purity, and devotion, such as in Monet’s iconic Water Lilies. Hockney’s Lilies emphasizes this through its almost primitive execution and depiction of the flowers through simple means.   A New Series: The Yosemite Suite (2010) Untitled No. 14 from The Yosemite Suite by David Hockney, 2010, via Christie’s   In 2010, David Hockney visited Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains and decided to bring his iPad along with him in lieu of traditional art supplies. The result was The Yosemite Suite (2010), a beautiful series of paintings depicting the sights Hockney saw on his trip. Because the iPad is such a portable device, the artist was able to capture many different scenes without having to take the time to set up an easel or pull out a sketchpad.   Untitled No. 14 from The Yosemite Suite (2010) is an almost psychedelic depiction of a tree in the forest which allows the viewer to clearly see the individual strokes of Hockney’s brush. Though this piece is a depiction of something he saw in real life, we see psychologically, according to Hockney. In this case, he used the iPad as a tool to quickly and easily depict his own interpretation of the wonders he saw at Yosemite.   A Callback to Previous Work: Montcalm Interior (2010) Montcalm Interior by David Hockney, 2010, via LA Louver   In his 2010 iPad drawing titled Montcalm Interior, Hockney brings attention back to the domestic themes he has explored in much of his digital work. This piece in particular is, among others, a variation on his 1988 painting Montcalm Interior with Two Dogs, which was created and exhibited in a more traditional manner than his iPad work. He has owned a home on Montcalm Avenue in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles since 1979, and he often features its interior in some of his most personal paintings. Though many of Hockney’s iPhone and iPad pieces are more simplistic in nature than his paintings, Montcalm Interior exhibits a higher level of formal artistic execution and beautifully captures the luxe atmosphere of the artist’s Los Angeles home.   The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire (2011) The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire by David Hockney, 2011, via Christie’s   After the great artistic success of The Yosemite Suite, Hockney continued bringing his iPad with him into nature and illustrating beautiful digital landscapes. The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire (2011) is part of another iPad series that chronicles the change of the seasons in East Yorkshire, where Hockney grew up. This piece in particular depicts springtime in the forest in a stunning yet simple light. Though the iPad was still a relatively new medium for the artist at this point, he continued with themes of change in nature that were present in his work from the beginning.   Classic Inspiration: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy (2020) No. 258, 27th April 2020 by David Hockney, 2020, via Art Institute Chicago   Claude Monet has been apparent as an inspiration in much of Hockney’s iPad works over the years, but his series of 116 drawings titled The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 makes this even clearer. For this series, David Hockney used his iPad to illustrate nature’s changes throughout the arrival of spring 2020 at his home in Normandy. Monet famously illustrated the changes in lighting and nature throughout the seasons near his home in Giverny, just outside of Normandy, and Hockney’s 2020 series can be seen as an extrapolation of those works. No. 258, April 2020 by David Hockney (2020) is a masterful digitization of plein air impressionism. Having explored iPad painting for over a decade before creating this work, Hockney exhibits more traditional techniques in this piece while still benefiting from the practical convenience of the handheld device.   No. 340, 21st May 2020 by David Hockney, 2020, via Art Institute Chicago   No. 340, 21st May 2020 by David Hockney (2020) is a painting in The Arrival of Spring, Normandy series which takes the Monet parallels to another level. This painting has the same subject matter as Monet’s Water Lilies series, and though Hockney employed a digital approach, his mastery of light, color, and reflection lives up to his inspiration. Here, we can truly see the soaring heights Hockney’s mastery of the iPad reaches.   In this series, Hockney elected to name each painting after the specific date on which it was painted in order to highlight the serial nature of the work. Many of these drawings were created when Hockney was isolated on his Normandy property during lockdown, but the work draws upon the quiet hope present in our natural world rather than focusing on loneliness or fear. David Hockney brings the long-standing artistic tradition of painting the French countryside into the digital age.   From Digital to Physical: Exhibitions of Hockney’s iPad Work Installation view of David Hockney’s iPhone and iPad drawings, 2009-2012, via LA Louver   Rather than allowing the digital form to hinder or create a barrier in his artistic process, Hockney’s iPad works have proven themselves to be some of his most personal. Though these works were created on a handheld device, they can easily be printed out on high-quality paper and displayed at an exhibition. Many have questioned what the digital age will mean for the value of art, but Hockney’s masterful iPad drawings are unique and often sell for large amounts at auctions. Though anyone can pick up an iPhone or iPad and create their own artwork these days, Hockney embraces the medium fully and does not consider himself to be above the masses.   David Hockney in his Normandy studio, 2020, via Art Institute Chicago   Since he has created such a large body of digital work over the last decade, many have wondered whether Hockney will begin to sell his drawings as NFTs or non-fungible tokens. However, Hockney seems to have a distaste for the digital art marketplace, saying NFTs are for international crooks and swindlers. Some of Hockney’s most famous paintings have been sold for amounts greater than the most expensive NFTs, and clearly, he feels that the level of craft required to create his works is fundamentally different from NFTs. David Hockney is an innovator who is not afraid to try new artistic mediums, but he also keeps a certain level of traditionalism throughout his work.

Why all dogs are good dogs | Alexandra Horowitz

Canine cognition expert Alexandra Horowitz offers a peek inside the mind of your dog, sharing solutions to common "misbehaviors" that are often simply the result of a pup's attempt to communicate in a world that's very different from their own. Hear about the evolution and psychology behind your dog's actions -- and how to give them a happier, healthier life.

Apple’s latest ad from @TheMegaforce uses some VFX mastery to emphasise the noise-cancelling capabilities of AirPods bit.ly/3JM25wN

Creative Review @CreativeReview Apple’s latest ad from @TheMegaforce uses some VFX mastery to emphasise the noise-cancelling capabilities of AirPods bit.ly/3JM25wN

Fighting intolerance with physics

In a world experiencing growing inequality and intolerance, tools borrowed from science and mathematics could be the key to understanding and preventing prejudice. Experts apply evolutionary game theory, which combines techniques from economics and biology, and complex system analysis to investigate the relationship between inequality and intolerance. They found that inequality boosts intolerance and that redistribution of wealth can prevent its infectious spread.

Lightship’s Electric RV Is a Battery Beast That Basically Tows Itself

EV technology may have revolutionized your daily commute, but those long RV getaways may have you burning fuel for miles and busting out the gas generator. Lightship wants to change all that with its L1, an all-electric alternative that looks a lot different than the RVs we’re used to.

’John Wick 4’ Star Donnie Yen Reveals The Changes He Requested

Even though the John Wick series features gratuitous violence and guns on guns on guns, the process of making the movie is probably (hopefully) a little bit nicer than it seems. We know that Keanu gives his input to make Wick look cool, and Chapter 4 brings in a new dangerous assassin from the High Table who considers John an ally. So when actor Donnie Yen was brought on board to play that assassin, he requested to make some character changes, starting with the name change. “The name was Shang or Chang,” Yen told GQ, which he considered an Asian stereotype. He continued, “Why does he always have to be called Shang or Chang? Why can’t he have a normal name? Why do you have to be so generic?” he said. It wasn’t just the name: Yen also said that the character needed a wardrobe upgrade. “Then the wardrobe again—oh, mandarin collars. Why is everything so generic? This is a John Wick movie. Everybody’s supposed to be cool and fashionable. Why can’t he look cool and fashionable?” He concluded. After talking with Yen, director Chad Stahelski agreed to change the name and his character’s look in order to pay homage to Yen’s hero Bruce Lee. He sure does look like a superstar wielding both a sword and a gun while also wearing sunglasses indoors. That’s talent. The actor also recalled being typecast in Rogue One as Chirrut Imwe, a martial arts warrior. Yen explained, “One thing I pointed out is he was a stereotype. Typical master. Doesn’t smile.” Yen ad-libbed his own jokes and lines in order to give the character more personality besides being a token character. Yen added that the success of Michelle Yeoh, who also petitioned for a name change for Everything Everywhere All At Once, is making him feel excited about the future of Asian representation in Hollywood: “There will always be more people like Michelle. People who continue to keep thinking and to go forward no matter what the negativity or setback.” The actor concluded that these types of conversations are important in the industry, and his criticism isn’t only directed at Wick. “I had a very respectful experience working on John Wick. Overall, I enjoyed making the film.” What’s not to enjoy about over-the-top violence mixed in with imagery of cute puppies? John Wick Chapter 4 hits theaters on March 24th. (Via GQ)

This Essential Medical Treatment Could Finally Become Affordable For Everyone

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is slashing the list prices for some of its most popular insulin products by 70 percent and capping insulin copays at US$35 for uninsured patients and those with private health insurance. These changes follow efforts by the federal government, the California state government, nonprofits, and some companies to make insulin more affordable for the more than 7 million Americans with diabetes who require it.The Conversation asked Dana Goldman and Karen Van Nuys, two scholars who have researched insulin pricing, to explain why Eli Lilly is dramatically cutting the cost of some of its insulin products and to sum up how it may improve access to this essential medical treatment.Why is Lilly reducing prices now?High insulin prices have not earned any U.S. manufacturer many friends, with list prices increasing 54 percent from 2014 to 2019.Most troublingly, an estimated 1.3 million uninsured people with diabetes and patients with inadequate insurance have resorted to rationing their insulin. Skipping doses because of high insulin prices has sometimes had tragic and deadly consequences.But growing competition has shaken up the insulin market in recent years.For example, Walmart introduced its private-brand insulin in 2021. Mylan, a large generic drugmaker, developed a version of long-acting insulin called Semglee, priced 65 percent lower than its branded competitor. But few consumers use those products.Efforts to produce cheaper insulin by the nonprofit drugmaker CivicaRx and the state of California are several years out and won’t provide immediate relief.Then there’s the Inflation Reduction Act, a big spending package Congress approved in 2022. It capped insulin out-of-pocket costs at $35 for Americans with Medicare, a government health insurance program that covers people over 65.And in fact, Lilly itself has been trying to disrupt insulin prices. In 2019, the drugmaker introduced insulin lispro, a lower-cost version of its blockbuster insulin, Humalog.What does this mean for Americans who need insulin?Part of the problem with the existing system is that some patients, especially if they’re uninsured or have high deductibles, end up paying the list price – which can mean spending $1,000 or more a month on insulin. This can be a crushing financial burden.Lilly’s new $35 out-of-pocket cap means that privately insured patients and those without insurance requiring insulin will spend no more than that monthly for copays. Its 70 percent reduction in the list price of two popular name-brand insulins, Humalog and Humulin, will bring some financial relief. And the company has also reduced its generic lispro’s list price to $25 a vial, down from $126.The evidence is clear that these price reductions will improve patient adherence – which means fewer missed doses of this lifesaving medication.How might Lilly’s actions affect the whole industry?Lilly has pressured its biggest competitors, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, to follow suit.These lower prices could also make Lilly’s insulins affordable to cash-paying patients. As a result, these insulins could be added to the list of drugs provided by pharmacies that are disrupting the U.S. prescription drugs industry, like Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Co. and Blueberry Pharmacy. These companies provide low-cost drugs with transparent markups or through membership programs, typically without insurance.Why did insulin get so expensive in the US?That lispro, Lilly’s own, cheaper authorized generic insulin, hasn’t completely displaced the equivalent name brand Humalog in the market by now may seem surprising. But it is the result of the complex U.S. prescription drug distribution system.Insulin prices are the result of a complex set of negotiations between manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers, which act on behalf of insurers. The three largest – CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and Optum Rx – handle about 80 percent of all prescriptions.These middlemen negotiate directly with Lilly and other insulin manufacturers, focusing on two key sums: the list price and the rebate. Manufacturers are paid the list price but must pay a rebate to the pharmacy benefit managers.How do pharmacy benefit managers get manufacturers to pay rebates? They maintain formularies – lists of drugs that patients in a health plan can access. If an insulin manufacturer wants to supply diabetes patients, it needs to remain on those formularies. And doing so requires the manufacturer to pay bigger rebates. Otherwise, pharmacy benefit managers can exclude the manufacturer.In 2016, OptumRx, which negotiates insulin prices for about 28 million people, excluded only four types of insulin from its formulary. By 2022, OptumRx was excluding 13 insulins.Keeping insulin on formularies, in short, has required high rebates, and list prices have increased along with them. Ironically, as insulin list prices have been rising, manufacturers have been making less money off of insulin sales while middlemen have been making more. The key to the true price competition is to ensure access to all versions of insulin and to convince patients and providers that people with diabetes can substitute lower-cost versions without compromising their health. What might happen next?The Federal Trade Commission, a government agency that probes anti-competitive practices, and Congress are now investigating pharmacy benefit managers’ rebate and formulary practices, among other things. These investigations, along with Lilly’s moves, may lead other insulin manufacturers to lower their list prices.And once its competitors decide whether they will follow Lilly’s example, pharmacy benefit managers will be under a lot of scrutinies to see whether they give preferred formulary placement to the lowest-cost insulin products or to those that pay the highest rebates.This article was originally published on The Conversation by Dana Goldman and Karen Van Nuys at the University of Southern California. Read the original article here.

Mediterranean diet the best prevention against prostate cancer

New research shows that men who stick to a predominantly Mediterranean diet are less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. This diet also improves their chances of recovery if they have PC and are undergoing radiation treatment.

Scientists Claim a New Invention Could Make Nuclear Fusion a Practical Reality

Superconductors excel at, you guessed it, conducting electricity — these materials help a current flow without any resistance, a critical feature for powerful tech such as MRI machines and levitating trains. One day, they could even make more efficient energy grids, faster electronics, and even practical nuclear fusion reactors possible.But today’s superconductors are far from perfect. For over a century, all known superconducting materials worked only at super-cold subzero temperatures, which can prove inconvenient. In 2020, scientists revealed what they claimed was the world’s first room-temperature superconductor, but it only worked at extremely high pressures.Now, in a new study published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Rochester in New York say their new room-temperature superconductor works at pressures low enough for practical applications. But in recent years, these scientists have charged up some drama.Go with the flowRegular electrical conductors all resist electron flow to some degree, resulting in lost energy. Meanwhile, superconductors conduct electricity with zero resistance, potentially allowing for far more efficient power grids and electronics. "We can envision this applied to commonly used devices so laptops don’t heat up," Ranga Dias, a physicist at the University of Rochester in New York and senior author of the new study, tells Inverse.Today, superconducting wires made of metals such as titanium and niobium conduct much larger currents than ordinary wires. They can even generate the powerful magnetic fields that enable high-speed floating trains, MRI scanners, and particle accelerators. Eventually, they could be used in the now-elusive nuclear fusion reactors.The recent feat has been over a century in the making: Superconductivity was first discovered in 1911. At the time it only worked at temperatures just a few degrees above absolute zero. To achieve this frosty temperature, researchers had to cool the materials with costly liquid helium.In 1986, researchers discovered high-temperature superconductors that operated at subzero temperatures accessible using relatively cheap liquid nitrogen. Still, scientists wanted more convenient superconductors that ideally did not demand any unwieldy, energy-sucking refrigeration.The most recent breakthrough arrived in 2020, when Dias and his colleagues reported the first evidence of room-temperature superconductivity at roughly 59 degrees Fahrenheit. But this historic effort required pressures of 267 gigapascals — more than 2.6 million times atmospheric pressure. So it wasn’t exactly ready for MRI machines in hospitals near you.Keeping it room tempIn the new study, Dias and his colleagues say their room-temperature superconductor can offer superconductivity at 69.5 degrees Fahrenheit and just 1 gigapascal of pressure. That’s still an extraordinary amount of pressure — more than the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the ocean — but microchip fabrication techniques, for example, regularly incorporate materials held together by even greater internal pressures."This is a very significant development, akin to the transition from the horse-drawn buggy as a means of transportation to driving a Ferrari," Dias says. "We are at the dawn of a new century that will be enhanced by superconductivity technology."His team created the new superconductor by placing a sample of the metal lutetium in a reaction chamber with a gas mixture of 99 percent hydrogen and 1 percent nitrogen. Then, like a tasty stew, they let the combination cook at high temperatures for a few days.Electrons in superconductors no longer repel each other, as they do in most materials. This means they can form pairs and withstand the resistance they would ordinarily experience from atomic nuclei as they move about.These electrons often couple together due to vibrations in the superconductors called phonons. In the team’s new superconductor, the lutetium makes it easier for the phonons in the material to form electron pairs at lower temperatures, Dias says.Initially, Dias envisioned metallic hydrogen as an ideal room-temperature superconductor. But hydrogen likely only solidifies into a metal form at pressures as high as nearly 500 gigapascals, so it’s tricky to generate.This led to the team to explore compounds loaded in hydrogen as possible superconductors — they speculate that the elements in these compounds may create stable cages that could compress the hydrogen atoms, helping superconductivity occur at pressures lower than those required with metallic hydrogen."I am both surprised and excited by the finding of near room-pressure superconductivity," Eva Zurek, a theoretical chemist at the State University of New York at Buffalo who wasn’t involved in the new study, tells Inverse. "We have learned how to find high-temperature superconductors in the last years, but only at very high pressures. If correct, this work would give us a pathway towards that holy grail."Conducting controversyThis new paper follows a trail of controversy: The journal Nature retracted the first room-temperature superconductor study from Dias and his colleagues last year due to concerns about its data. The researchers have resubmitted the study with new data they say validates the earlier work, findings they collected in front of an audience of scientists at the Argonne and Brookhaven National Laboratories for transparency. To head off criticism toward the new study, Dias’ lab used a similar approach."We welcome the scientific community's efforts to replicate our work," Dias says.There’s a key difference between the two papers: Dias’ first room-temperature superconductor study analyzed a mix of carbon, hydrogen, and sulfur, but the new study mentions a combination of lutetium, hydrogen, and nitrogen.When it comes to the former, other labs haven’t been able to find the precise ratios that could lead to a room-temperature superconductor. And as for the latter, "I cannot see why lutetium hydride would be a high-temperature superconductor at all," Artem Oganov, a crystallographer at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, who did not take part in this research, tells Inverse. "These results will need a careful check by the community."One major obstacle confronting all high-pressure superconductor research: It’s difficult to create and study these special materials. For example, it’s hard to run the electrical and magnetic tests needed that show whether these materials work as superconductors or not. And scientists often don’t even know the exact ratios of the elements after cooking them.If future research confirms this new superconductor is the real deal, scientists like Dias can then aim to discover its specific concentrations of lutetium, hydrogen, and nitrogen, as well as the position of these atoms within its structure. This may help demystify its superconducting state.Another exciting possibility: training machine-learning software on the data from their superconductor experiments to predict other possible superconductors, Dias says.

Is AI a threat to jobs, or could it help us achieve a better work-life balance? bit.ly/3ZHk3p9

Creative Review @CreativeReview Is AI a threat to jobs, or could it help us achieve a better work-life balance? bit.ly/3ZHk3p9

Rocky Has Always Been Anime. 'Creed III' Proves It.

Who are the greatest protagonists in shonen anime? Is it Goku? Naruto? Ichigo? Kenshiro? How about Rocky Balboa?The Rocky franchise, which began with the Oscar-winning Rocky in 1976, is now a nine-film saga with the release of Creed III from Michael B. Jordan (who stars in and directs the latest picture). A millennial who came of age in the time of Toonami, MBJ has made it clear to anyone who will listen that he loves anime. It isn’t just a branding thing, it’s legitimately his lifestyle.In the promotional cycle for Creed III, Jordan has talked up channeling his anime fandom as a first-time director. In a red carpet interview with Crunchyroll, Jordan said, “I just kind of used the tones and themes of an anime: Brotherhood, bonds, promises. I think just being Black and connecting with that, feeling different, being outcast in certain areas and still feeling like I am powerful and I can make a difference. It’s something that I think anime [does] in general. That’s why I think we connect with it so much.”Creed III is proof the talk is real. Spiritually anime in live-action, MBJ brings to Creed III white-knuckle boxing presented with expressionistic, hyper-focused flair. Where past Rocky movies strove for realism, like 2006’s Rocky Balboa (which fools you into thinking you’ve just bought an HBO pay-per-view), Creed III puts a premium on breakneck rhythmic editing and kinetic visual composition, all of which are underpinned by heated personal vendettas. There’s more in common here with Goku than Mike Tyson.Jordan’s unusual direction may be novel to traditional moviegoers, but anime fans will feel right at home. But MBJ’s mimicry of anime is only synthesizing what’s been underneath the Rocky series all this time. Though shonen manga historically predate the Rocky films, the saga of Rocky Balboa has always been an unofficial anime at heart.How Rocky Is AnimeLet’s state up front that shonen manga and anime are shaped by who consumes them. Its primary audience are young boys who are drawn to escapist genres like action, fantasy, sci-fi, and sports dramas. Shonen anime aren’t exclusively those types of stories, but they’re popular among boys for obvious reasons. Boys like exciting things.Predominant in shonen anime is the underdog spirit of the protagonist. Flavors vary based on story, but the leads of shonen anime typically have something to prove — and the guts to succeed. They might be unusually talented at their craft (like Takumi’s drift racing in Initial D), or they have something special about themselves (like Eren Yeager’s secret power in Attack on Titan). Ash Ketchum of Pokémon has both an indomitable spirit to never give up, and a similarly determined Pikachu that rival Pokémon trainers underestimate. Almost no one in shonen anime are born with their gifts. Fateful events either happen to them, or they’ve invested the time and effort to exceed. At their core, shonen anime champions the virtues of relentless willpower over luck and talent.If none of those things describe Rocky Balboa, then what does? After all, Rocky is a pure fighter whose unyielding refusal to give up allowed him to survive his first two bouts against Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in his first two movies. And it was his humility that led him to better himself into a bonafide boxer that won him his victories Rocky III and Rocky IV. (Rocky V does not exist in my dojo.) While Rocky embodies the classic American underdog — an oxymoron given America’s superpower status, but it’s a nice lie we tell ourselves — the Rocky series as a whole are formulated by the motifs and themes of shonen anime, including, and now especially, the spin-off Creed trilogy. Th Rocky series’ emphasis on its training montages are also something of an urtext to those in anime. More than just an excuse to hear Bill Conti’s unforgettable score, the training montages of Rocky serve a critical purpose in every narrative: Rocky is evolving. Used to similar effect in anime, Goku’s and Naruto’s and whoever else’s training frequently show them improving and honing their skills, sometimes through unusual methods. Vegeta training in ultra-heavy gravity in Dragon Ball Z, Shinji and Asuka learning to dance in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Guts training with swords twice his size in Berserk are not that different than Rocky chasing chickens or learning to swim.Stallone’s memorable performance as Rocky predates almost all modern shonen anime. And surely anime creators may be influenced by the Rocky films, whether directly or not. But Rocky has always embodied in American cinema the type of fighting spirit found most often in the heroes of Japanese anime. Rocky is absent in Creed III, but his student-turned-master Adonis Creed carries on his legacy in ways that have never been more obvious.Creed III is playing in theaters now.

Worm Moon 2023: You Need to See March’s Bright Full Moon This Week

The bright glow of March’s full Moon heralds the end of winter and the beginning of spring for cultures throughout the Northern Hemisphere.From the night of Sunday, March 5 through the morning of Wednesday, March 8, the Moon will be full and glowing brightly in the night sky. Called the Worm Moon, it makes for excellent viewing of our nearest celestial neighbor just before seasons changeWhat is the Worm Moon?Some Indigenous groups in what’s now the southeastern United States call this month’s Full Moon the Worm Moon, because it appears at the same time as the first signs that earthworms are emerging to wriggle through the thawing topsoil. Further north, other Indigenous groups call this the Crow Moon, because its appearance coincides with the first springtime cawing of crows; the Crust Moon, because the snow thaws during the warmer days and refreezes into a brittle crust at night; or the Sap or Sugar Moon, because its arrival signals that the sap is starting to rise in maple trees after a long, dormant winter, and it’s time to tap the trees for maple syrup.If you’re not a fan of worms, you can always be super Goth about this month’s Full Moon. In Europe, people have sometimes referred to it as the Death Moon, because the last full Moon of winter signals the death of the old year.Meanwhile, the Worm or Death Moon also signals a time for celebration: the Jewish holiday of Purim and the Hindu festival of Holi both coincide with this month’s full Moon. Purim marks the Jewish people’s deliverance from a Persian vizier’s plans for genocide in the 5th century BCE, and it’s celebrated with feasting and charitable donations. Holi celebrates the beginning of spring and the victory of good over evil, and it’s celebrated with an evening bonfire, a day-long game of throwing colored powder or water at passersby, and time with friends and family.How to See the March 2023 Full MoonThe big, bright full Moon will be hard to miss in the night sky; just look eastward as twilight fades into darkness, or westward in the very early hours of the morning. While you’re already looking up, be sure to catch a glimpse of Venus and Jupiter moving away from their recent conjunction in the western Sky.If you have a good pair of binoculars, this is a great time to get a closer look at the craters, mountains, and ancient lava flows on the lunar surface.You’ll have about three nights to catch the March 2023 Full Moon, starting on the night of March 5, but it will be at its brightest on March 7. Look up your local moonrise and moonset times on a website like TimeAndDate.com or in your favorite almanac.When Is the Next Full Moon?The Moon will be full again on April 6. Despite its nickname, Pink Moon, the April Full Moon isn’t actually pink; it’s named for a flowering herb that blooms at around the same time as the Moon turns full each April.

You Need to Play This Thought-Provoking Indie Epic Before It Leaves Xbox Game Pass Next Week

America is a myth. Sure, the United States is real. A real country full of gadgets and fast food, but the concept of “America” is really about the nation’s soul. What exists at the heart of America? Who are we? Where are we going? It’s a poetic notion explored by countless novels, films, and songs. But there’s really only one video game that gets at the esoteric roots of our existential musings, and it’s only on Xbox Game Pass until March 15.Kentucky Route Zero from Cardboard Computer is an indie game in every sense of the word. Conceived by just three people, Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy, and Ben Babbitt, it’s an artistic vision that explores what America really means through the story of a trucker named Conway off to do one last delivery. His journey takes him through a world full of mystical realism along a ghostly highway in the subterranean bowels of Kentucky, a folklore-driven narrative that’s as much your story as it is Conway and his companion’s.First, a caveat. Kentucky Route Zero is very much a thinker of a game. It’s not full of puzzles or breakneck action or RPG skill trees and inventories. So if you’re craving something that’ll get your thumbs a-twitchin’ you’ll need to look elsewhere. But it’s a brilliant game because it elevates the form beyond what is typically expected. It engages you by being thoughtful and moving, like a book you can’t put down.Longtime fans had to endure years between story beats. The game was released in five acts (with several interludes) over the span of nearly a decade. It began as a Kickstarter project in 2011, with the first act dropping in 2013 and then the rest in subsequent years before wrapping up in 2020. The version available now on Xbox Game Pass, Kentucky Route Zero TV Edition, contains the entire story from start to finish. That’s great for new players, or anyone who played an act or two but got lost along the way.The best way to describe the gameplay is like a movie script you write in real time. As you traverse its haunting, southern gothic dreamscape Kentucky Route Zero serves up tons of dialogue choices. These aren’t designed to be BioWare-y narrative branches where every choice has some crucial narrative outcome attached. There’s only one ending here. Instead, the choices draw you deeper and deeper into the story because they feel like you’re in control of the history in this world. You’re creating a context that shapes your discoveries, and the characters you meet begin to feel more real because you’ve invested your own imagination in them. It plays out in gorgeous ways, like this sequence where you create song lyrics.Without spoiling too much, the common theme running through the characters you meet is debt and, more broadly, loss. When people talk about this game getting at the soul of America, this is a big part of the reason why. Yes, the aesthetics and flavor of the game reflect an Americana vibe too, but the mirror it holds up reminds us all that, in America, you always owe something somewhere. There’s a price to be paid for simply existing and you can’t get out of it no matter if you’re lost or broken (or both). It’s truly a masterpiece and worth the ten hours or so it’ll take you to get through it. Play it ASAP.Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition is available on Game Pass until March 15. It’s also available for purchase on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and PC.

Bad Girls of the 1920s: What You Didn’t Know About Flappers

  Known for her carefree personality and boisterous behavior, the flapper represented a new generation of women who defined the Roaring Twenties in the United States. Amid widespread socio-political changes, these women began embracing a lifestyle characterized by smoking, alcohol, partying, and sexual freedom in the 1920s. Having ditched the traditionally desirable feminine qualities, these women were often painted in a negative light. But were they genuinely as problematic as they were made out to be? What was a day in the life of a flapper like, and how have these women contributed to the public conception of womanhood during the 1920s? Here are a few things you might not have known about the true icon of the Roaring Twenties.   Before Flappers, There Was the Gibson Girl Picturesque America, anywhere in the mountains by Charles Dana Gibson, 1900, via Library of Congress, Washington   Some years before the flapper revolutionized femininity in the 1920s, the Gibson Girl had kickstarted the modern girl movement in the early 1900s. Then the definition of the new woman, the Gibson Girl embodied the ideal look and styles of American girls at the turn of the century. Sporting an S-curved torso complete with heavy bosoms and large hips, she was the brainchild of renowned illustrator Charles Dana Gibson.   Often depicted as independent and active in sporting and social activities, the Gibson Girl reinvented womanhood and left a profound influence on society and how it viewed women. In a sense, the Gibson Girl kickstarted what would become a uniquely American style rather than one that adopted and followed European standards of beauty. More importantly, the Gibson Girl laid strong foundations for the emerging flapper thereafter as the momentum of change and breaking free from tradition took root.   Origins of the Term Flapper  American dancer Violet Romer sporting a flapper style, 1910-1915, via Library of Congress, Washington   Prior to the First World War (1914–1918), the term flapper in non-slang use was associated with gawky teenage girls in Britain. Painting an image of a fledgling bird, it referred to girls who had yet to come of age. While seemingly embodying the idea of innocence, colloquial use of the term in the 17th century reflected an association with young sex workers. By the turn of the 20th century, the word flapper gained widespread use in theatre as a way of identifying female characters who were young and flirtatious. In some ways, this bore a closer association to the definitive meaning of the word as we know it today.   By the 1920s, the name flapper became synonymous with a new breed of women who would send shockwaves across conservative American society. On top of bobbed hairstyles, they favored a lifestyle characterized by cigarette smoking, drinking, dancing, casual sex, and a lack of care for social norms. As boisterous as they were, these women would go on to embody the zeitgeist of the Roaring Twenties and become definitive figures contributing to the feminist crusade, albeit in their own rebellious ways.   The Clothes That Make a Flapper Grace Coolidge’s Blue Sequined “Flapper” Dress, year unknown, via National Museum of American History, Washington   In a bid to ditch the shackles of traditional notions of femininity, flappers adopted a Garconne or little boy look. Popularized by Coco Chanel, this style shifted focus away from the curves of a woman’s body which had long been seen as feminine and desirable. Instead, it flattened the chests, dropped the waistline to the hips, and emphasized shortened hemlines. The flappers also replaced corsets and pantaloons with underwear called the step-ins which would not hamper movement, something useful on the dancefloors these women frequented. What would also set the dancing flapper apart was the exquisite details her dress boasted. On top of the tubular shape and loose fit characteristic of the flapper dress, it featured eye-catching sequins and beadwork typical of the Art Deco style.   Introducing the Bob – A Breath of Fresh Hair! Dancing flappers living on the edge, photographed atop Chicago’s Sherman Hotel by George Rinhart, year unknown, via Smithsonian Magazine   As flamboyant and stylish as a flapper’s dress might be, nothing would complete the look as much as a bobbed hairstyle would. Originally known as the Castle bob, it was first sported by a ballroom dancer called Irene Castle in 1916. Soon, the bobbed hairstyle was emulated by women across America in the 1920s and became an iconic flapper look.   Unlike the long tresses of the Gibson Girl, the flapper preferred a straight round cut leveled with the ear lobes, a shockingly provocative look according to the sensibilities of the time. In an era where chopping off one’s locks could significantly frustrate her chances at marriage, the rebellious flapper thought it appropriate to make a daring fashion statement. Not only did this mark a deliberate attempt at androgyny, it also represented a seismic shift in the understanding of femininity.   Different variations of the Bob hairstyle by the American Hairdresser, 1924, via The Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, New Jersey   The widespread appeal of the Bob hairstyle also generated positive economic outcomes. It was said that by 1924, there had been over 21,000 hairdressing shops, up from a mere 5,000 in 1920, which specialized in bobbing hair. Accessories such as headbands and bobby pins also hit the markets and sold like hotcakes given the rising popularity of the Bob.   You Need to Put on That Lipstick! An advertisement for Winx cosmetics published in Cosmopolitan, 1924, via Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York   Make-up in the 1920s became something that was supposed to be explicitly seen, as opposed to the Gibson Girl’s subdued, natural look. Most prominently, the iconic flapper make-up took the world by storm with those smoky dark eyes, velvet red lips, defined mascara, and bright nail colors. Compact powder cases, pocket-sized lipsticks, and rouge were invented to allow the flapper to touch up her look when needed. As the industry expanded, cosmetics no longer remained an entitlement of movie stars and socialites. Make-up became something everyday women could carry in their handbags, further fueling the popularization of the flapper look.   The Flapper Slangs Two women are seen reading Picturegoer in the 1928 film Shooting Stars by Eric Gray, 1928, via British Film Institute National Archive   A reflection of their lack of care for norms, the flappers invented their own slang which would put the proudest Gen Z to shame today. The linguistic versatility of the flappers saw them creating a clever, often humorous vocabulary that alluded to the drag of everyday life. For example, a fire extinguisher supposedly referred to a chaperone who was regarded as a killjoy to the partying flapper. Engagement rings, a symbol of the promise of marriage, were called handcuffs by the forward-looking flapper who clearly did not subscribe to traditional gender roles.   As comical as some of these terms might sound, a handful has actually made it into our current vocabulary. For example, the flapper’s favorite catchphrase bee’s knees are also known to us today, as representing something excellent or of an extremely high standard. Similarly, someone who showed up at a party uninvited was known to the flappers as a party crasher, the same term we would use today to describe someone whom we do not expect to see at a social event.   Control the Birth, But Not the Hormones! Flappers with their dates in Chicago, 1928, via History   Like the inventive nature of their slang, the flappers viewed sexuality and abstinence with unprecedented liberalism. They broke the rules of their Victorian predecessors by normalizing snugglepupping, a term for making out at popular petting parties. Known to raise more than a few eyebrows, these gatherings took place in dance halls, college campuses, and even on public streets, all for the goal of physical pleasure. From cuddling to kissing and heavy petting, these activities stopped short of full sexual intercourse but were still enough to alarm conservative parents and moral vigilantes. With a more casual attitude towards sexual relations outside of marriage, the flappers too were known for using contraceptives like diaphragm caps and intrauterine devices. This normalization of using contraceptives also coincided with the emerging birth control movement which advocated for better access to these important devices.   Being a Flapper Is a State of Mind Modern girls, or modan gārus, sauntering down the streets of Tokyo, 1928, via CNN   While a flapper girl is best remembered as an icon of the Roaring Twenties in the United States, she has also existed in many parts of the world, far beyond the Western hemisphere and Europe. In Asian societies like Japan, China, and Singapore, the flapper style was replicated by modern women seeking to disassociate from traditional beliefs in the 1920s. In tandem with the momentum of progress, there was a universal desire for independence and freedom to embrace one’s sexuality, as well as a modernized interpretation of societal and gender norms.   A watch advertisement in Singapore which featured the Modern Girl in an iconic bobbed hairstyle and low-cut, shoulder-baring dress, 1927, via National Library Singapore   Like the modeng xiaojie (Miss Modern) in China, the modan gāru (Modern Girl) in Japan was making waves and headlines in societies bound by tradition. Like their American counterparts, these vocal women adored the latest cosmetics and participated actively in social activities such as dancing and partying. In other words, being a flapper was really more of a state of mind than anything else. With the right mentality, a flapper girl could exist anywhere, at any time, and in any culture.   Did the Flapper Era End with the Great Depression? Women working on sewing machines, 1937, via History   The hedonism, decadence, as well as vibrant spirit of consumerism, came to a screeching halt in 1929 when the Great Depression hit. Almost overnight, millions of Americans were jobless as a result of the Wall Street Crash. Thanks to excessive stock market speculation and the availability of easy credit, the United States descended into a dark period of economic downturn, with its effects spreading across to other continents. Against the backdrop of economic hardships and the looming war in the 1930s, the flamboyant and loud flapper lifestyle was inevitably silenced. Gone were the heavily embellished party dresses, eye-catching bobbed hairstyles, and the couldn’t-care-less, cavalier attitudes in life. In their places were dropped hemlines, clothes made of generic artificial fabrics, and a general sense of prudence and solemnity.   Today, more than a century has passed since the world first met the flapper. Wherever the discourse and debate might end up, it is undeniable that the flapper style left an inalienable mark on history and popular culture. And thanks to the enduring popularity of books like The Great Gatsby (1925) and films like Midnight in Paris (2013) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994), the flapper will most likely continue to dazzle for centuries to come.

Is Jeff Koons Actually an Artist?

  At some point in time, many of us have been asked the question: what is art? Maybe all high school art history classes begin with the teacher asking a room full of pupils the very same inquiry, which can elicit blank stares or intense debate. There’s no right or wrong answer, though. Historically, to be an artist worthy of and eligible for inclusion in the Western canon required the male sex and to varying degrees, whiteness and privilege. All three of those unspoken requirements are met by the highest-paid living artist today, Jeff Koons.   Who Is Jeff Koons? Jeff Koons in his New York studio, photographed by Stefan Ruiz, 2016, courtesy of Christie’s.   Jeff Koons is a polarizing figure in contemporary art; often people either love him or hate him. Born in 1955 and hailing from York, Pennsylvania, Jeff Koons attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and following an eventful trip to the Whitney Museum, transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago. As the self-proclaimed “ideas man” behind controversial and at times infamous sculptures, paintings, and various fabrications, Koons has been forthright about his absence in the material production of his work. In a Meet the Artists interview, Jeff Koons vaguely explains the metaphysical allure of light and reflection.   Inflatable Flowers (Short Pink, Tall Purple) by Jeff Koons, 1979, via The collection of Norman and Norah Stone   Over footage of him walking through his studio in navy blue slacks and a pressed button-down shirt, he’ll use buzzwords here and there which all sound nice and elucidating without saying much of actual substance. It seems as though no one bats an eye at this deeply ironic scene. In other words, a work bearing Jeff Koons’ name is generally considered art.   Who Is Considered an Artist? Michael Jackson and Bubbles by Jeff Koons, 1988, via SFMoMA, San Francisco   Wading into the waters of who is or isn’t an artist can get murky. This is in part due to the subjectivity of art and its historical and institutional problem of canonical gatekeeping. In that regard, let’s shift the inquiry elsewhere. Given that Jeff Koons has nothing to do with the material production of works that bear his name, can he really be considered an artist?   Lips by Jeff Koons, 2000, via Museo Guggenheim Bilbao   Do artists actually have to make their own art in order to call it their own? Perhaps this all belies a deeper issue at play. According to the contemporary economist and journalist Allison Schrager, “… the artists who thrive are those with the political savvy to court top galleries early in their career or brand themselves to become Instagram stars.” In the art world’s winner-takes-it-all market, those who succeed may not be the best artists or produce great work born out of the most original or creative ideas. Jeff Koons’ rise to fame owes more to a successful marketing scheme of business and controversy.   How Can the Renaissance help?  Pink Panther by Jeff Koons, 1988, via MoMA, New York   Despite his nonexistent contribution to the final material production of his work, a photorealistic painting like Lips or sculpture such as Pink Panther still credits Jeff Koons and Jeff Koons alone. Let’s say Koons is simply standing on the shoulders of giants like Marcel Duchamp, who is often considered the father of conceptual art. But just to stir the pot a bit, should the idea of something and its infinitely Instagrammable byproduct supersede the individual skills, competency, and training necessary to be an artist? Looking at the past can also be surprisingly enlightening. For another hit of sweet nostalgia let us venture forth through the storied history of art to the Northern Renaissance.   This may seem like a disparate comparison, but bear in mind the prevailing myth of an artist as a singular genius originated in the Renaissance. Much like their Italian counterparts, workshops flourished throughout Northern Europe. For context, in the introduction of their catalogue Early Netherlandish Painting, (1986), produced for the National Gallery of Art, John Oliver Hand and Martha Wolff note for the reader that studio or workshop attributions indicate a piece was, “Produced in the named artist’s workshop or studio, by students or assistants, possibly with some participation by the named artist. It is important that the creative concept is by the named artist and that the work was meant to leave the studio as his.” One such attribution is applied to the Tournai workshop of Robert Campin and one of the most celebrated and well-known early Netherlandish paintings, the Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece), (1427-28).   Venus by Jeff Koons, 2016-2020, via The Australian   Robert Campin (1378/9-1444), commonly known as the Master of Flémalle, was a seminal figure in the Northern Renaissance. Along with his contemporary Jan van Eyck, Campin was credited with developing the naturalistic style of panel painting and significant attention to detail characteristic of the region and era. Although it’s undated and unsigned, stylistic and technical evidence suggests the altarpiece was made in stages over a five-year period, ca. 1427-32. The extent of Campin’s involvement in the production of the piece is unknown and it is generally believed he had two apprentices to assist him, namely Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret.   In line with the Flemish tradition and general practice of the Northern Renaissance, the Merode Altarpiece is a glittering example of the union between the adept rendering of forms and imbuing them with meaning. As Erwin Panofsky states in his book Early Netherlandish Painting, (1953), “the more [Flemish] painters rejoiced in the discovery and reproduction of the visible world, the more intensely did they feel the need to saturate all of its elements with meaning. Conversely, the harder they strove to express new subtleties and complexities of thought and imagination, the more eagerly did they explore new areas of reality.” Though religion informed the symbolism and meaning of their works, the ideas behind a painting like the Merode Altarpiece were no less valid than the individualized ideas of artists today.   Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece), Workshop of Robert Campin, ca. 1427-32, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York   The exploration of form and conceptual function isn’t exclusive to contemporary art, nor is it a development born of the modern era at all. The only difference, perhaps, is the technical skill required of artists, buttressed by their assistants or workshops, to realize their ideas. That being said, it’s important to distinguish the division of labor from labor outsourced entirely. As an unintended myth birthed by the Renaissance, the paradoxical nature between the perception of an individual artist and the group mentality of a workshop is well documented. Though we use the same terminology, Jeff Koons’ workshop is not akin to a Renaissance workshop like that of Campin. The artistic masters of centuries past needn’t credit their students or assistants as the relationship between the artist and members of their workshop were mutually beneficial.   Following their time working with the Master of Flémalle, Van der Weyden and Daret went on to become artists in their own right. Campin’s stylistic influence is evident in his pupils’ work following their departure from his studio, as is the skill, growth, and experience gained as apprentices. Given the description of his studio as a factory setting, the relationship between Koons and his assistants appears rather exploitative, benefitting the former at the latter’s expense. With Koons’ system of outsourcing fabrication entirely, his ideas can only be produced with an unavoidable base level of exploitation. Regardless of Jeff Koons’ eloquence when ascribing social value and significance to any product of his factory, the meaning of a work, as its audience understands it, must take into consideration the method of its manufacture.   The Jeff Koons Brand & Problem of Authorship Jeff Koons photographed in his studio, by Martin Schoeller, via New York Magazine   For every work of art listed on his website, Jeff Koons receives both credit and copyright ownership. Though, much like an architect, the extent of Koons’ contribution to hands-on construction is null. Where an architect’s plan serves as a roadmap for the contractors hired to construct their design, Koons bears no responsibility for the technical ingenuity and proprietary knowledge of how his idea or concept is engineered. That part, like the manual labor bringing his ideas to fruition, is also outsourced.   Balloon Venus (Magenta) by Jeff Koons, 2008-2012, via The Broad, Los Angeles   This all begs the question: if Jeff Koons isn’t an artist then what is he? Simply put, there is no simple answer. What cannot be refuted is Koons’ excellent salesmanship and marketing skills. Can the same really be said for his artistic acumen? On one hand, the art world has definitively answered that question with a resounding yes. On the other hand, if we’re to take anything from conversations about de-colonizing art history in academic circles then we ought to probe not only the artist and their art but the way in which their art is produced.   Barring access to outsourced fabrication, Jeff Koons is another white man who successfully marketed himself as an artist whilst claiming the handiwork and labor of others as his own. It doesn’t take much self-reflection, be it figurative or a literal rose-tinted distortion staring back at a Balloon Venus viewer, to know that says more about consumerism than anything produced by a Jeff Koons studio.

At the Outsider Art Fair, Passion Trumps Prestige

At the only fair focused on self-taught artists, passion trumps prestige. Back for its 31st edition at New York’s Manhattan Pavilion, the Outsider Art Fair (OAF) features artwork from 64 exhibitors representing 28 cities in countries including the United States, Japan, Croatia, and Canada. Aficionados, dealers, and everyday New Yorkers are converging this weekend to marvel at works such as Wesley Anderegg’s ceramic figures, which are seemingly straight out of a Henry Selick animated film, or Andrew Sloan’s colored pencil drawing “’81 Chevy in the City” (2021). Della Wells, “Untitled” (2022), collage, 20 inches x 16 inches (image courtesy Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art) There’s something for everyone, especially folks priced out of Chelsea or Midtown galleries. Brooklyn-based artist and former School of Visual Arts professor Esther K. Smith told Hyperallergic she comes yearly to see other artist friends exhibiting work and for the camaraderie. She likes that the art is financially accessible and to her taste — which she says includes dolls, quilts, and eccentric found objects. Booths wind around the room like a maze, with works by established and first-time artists displayed at each corner, such as “Untitled” (2022) by Della Wells, a Milwaukee-based artist whose collages recreate stories from her mother’s childhood in North Carolina.  So-called “outsider art,” as a category, holds many genres and styles often dismissed by mainstream or prestigious galleries and institutions. Perhaps as a consequence, the artwork displayed at OAF through March 5 tends towards the absurd or consists of unexpected materials. Artist Montrel Beverly, an Austin-based sculptor, for example, works exclusively with pipe cleaners. Four works on display at SAGE Studio’s booth are a part of his imagined amusement park named Barrington. “Mr. and Mrs. Barrington’s Ferris Wheel” (2022) and “Joseph’s Train” (2022) are two rides the Bearringtons, a fictional married couple who are bears and business partners, made for humans following their first successful squirrel park. Montrel Beverly, “Mr. and Mrs. Barrington’s Ferris Wheel” (2022), pipe cleaners, 29 1/2 inches x 23 inches (photo Taylor Michael/Hyperallergic) Meanwhile, a wall of embroidered female cult leaders caught the eye of many visitors at the March 2 opening. First-time OAF exhibitor Alexandria Deters regaled passersby with stories about her series False Prophets. Deter features a portrait of Brigitte Boisselier, a leader for the UFO religion Raëlism founded in the 1970s, amidst a background of aliens, which represent the chemist’s extraterrestrial preoccupations. “You first think of men when you think of cult leaders, but with women, it is often more subversive,” Deters told Hyperallergic. “I’m hoping to show that manipulation takes all forms.” Nancy Josephson, a mixed-media artist who has sold work at OAF for several years, displays sculptures made of vintage and contemporary beading and black gasket sealant. Although these sculptures are stationary, the Delaware-based artist uses materials that can withstand a speed of 70 miles per hour. Along with her decorative busts, she is best known for art cars, like the one she designed in memory of her late father.  A crowd of visitors around False Prophets (2022–2023) by Alexandria Deters at Outsider Art Fair (photo Taylor Michael/Hyperallergic) The capacious show also encompasses marginalized artists barred from receiving formal art education due to their race, socioeconomic status, or ethnic background. Bill Traylor, a well-regarded artist whose work has been acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, was born into slavery and spent much of his life as a sharecropper. Drawings like “Untitled (Man with Blue Torso)” (c. 1939–42) combine realistic depictions of life as a sharecropper in Alabama with puzzling lessons and folklore. Martín Ramirez, whose work has been honored with a US Postal Service commemorative stamp, was institutionalized in various California mental institutions. I was also excited to find pieces by Winfred Rembert, who became an artist after surviving a lynching and serving seven years in prison for stealing a car and attempting to escape prison. His work has received renewed attention with the 2021 release of his memoir Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022. At the end of the day, why an artist is self-taught does not matter at OAF. The moniker fosters a welcoming environment for all those who have an earnest appreciation for art, regardless of their educational background or technical know-how. It’s a value that resonates with Harlem-based rapper and creator YAAHZZYWAAH The Artisan, who told Hyperallergic that OAF proves that “if you love doing something and are passionate, that’s all you need to make great art.”   “Untitled” (n.d.) by Winfred Rembert (photo Taylor Michael/Hyperallergic) Owen Lee, “Everything Happens at Once But Not at the Same Time” (1987), two-sided, paint on fabric, 79 x 36 inches (photo Taylor Michael/Hyperallergic) Tom Duncan, “Inside, Outside” (2016), mixed media, 46 x 61 x 6 inches (photo Taylor Michael/Hyperallergic) Ralph Fasanella, “Mill Town – Weaving Department” (1976), oil on Canvas, 50 x 70 inches (photo Taylor Michael/Hyperallergic)

A hydrogen-powered airplane just made a record-setting test flight

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Can Brain Science Explain Why We Like Certain Artworks?

Why do some people love Impressionist paintings like Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” (1906) while others can’t understand the hype? The question of aesthetic taste has stumped scholars for centuries. Now, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) say they have come closer to decoding how the brain decides which artworks it deems good or attractive. In a study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, CalTech Professor John O’Doherty and other researchers propose that the mind creates an opinion of an artwork after dissecting it into discrete elements. Basic features, such as color and texture, and complex qualities, like style, are ranked and weighed individually to make a judgment. “Imagine you have a team of people in a panel making a decision on something, and then the decision is based on the collective views of the panel,” O’Doherty told Hyperallergic. “The idea is similar when it comes to how your brain integrates the individual elements of the image.” For the study, researchers used machine learning and brain scanning technology to find the mental lobes that analyze artwork. (The report builds on a 2021 study in which the lab trained an algorithm to predict 1,000 volunteers’ tastes in art.) Volunteers ranked paintings across movements, such as Impressionism, Cubism, and Color Field art, while a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine scanned participants’ brain activity. Researchers inputted the artwork into an algorithm that analyzed its low- and high-level features. These computational models were linked to show which lobes processed which qualities. O’Doherty was surprised at how many parts of the mind were involved, from the occipital lobe, a back portion responsible for processing sight, to the prefrontal cortex, where complex decision-making happens. But the process, the researchers suggest, is just one example of how humans make rapid and sometimes difficult decisions about what’s potentially beneficial or harmful for survival. People similarly process what food they prefer based on an item’s protein, fat, carbohydrate, and micronutrient content, according to research conducted at O’Doherty’s lab. Kiyohito Iigaya, who now teaches at Columbia University, said in a CalTech statement that the food-related findings inspired their research about art. “I think it’s amazing that this very simple computational model can explain large variations in preferences for us,” Iigaya said. While the study makes the brain’s ability to decide its tastes less “mystical,” O’Doherty remarks that his team has only scratched the surface. The study shows some features the human mind uses, but does not address how people rely on personal, historical, or social experiences to relate to a painting. 

REI to stop selling clothes, cookware with 'forever chemicals'

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Let there be (controlled) light

In the very near future, quantum computers are expected to revolutionize the way we compute, with new approaches to database searches, AI systems, simulations and more. But to achieve such novel quantum technology applications, photonic integrated circuits which can effectively control photonic quantum states -- the so-called qubits -- are needed. Physicists have made a breakthrough in this effort: for the first time, they demonstrated the controlled creation of single-photon emitters in silicon at the nanoscale.

Could This Be the First-Known Ancient Roman Dildo?

Two scholars in England and Ireland have identified what may be the first-known Ancient Roman dildo. For 40 years, the 2nd-century wooden object was considered a sewing and knitting tool. In a February 20 paper published in the journal Antiquity, Rob Sands of University College Dublin and Rob Collins of England’s Newcastle University reclassify the artifact as a large disembodied phallus. The pair also ascribe three possible uses: Dildo, pestle, or a statue attachment to be touched for good luck. If it feels like Roman phalluses have been showing up everywhere recently, it’s because they were truly everywhere in the ancient world. Romans considered the phallus a symbol of protection and good luck. People carried phallus-shaped pendants (even babies and soldiers), placed carvings of the body part on their entryway doors, and depicted them in mosaics and frescoes. A time traveler to Pompeii could expect to find stone phalluses literally extending from garden walls and oversize penises depicted in artworks. Historians first discovered the recently reclassified object in 1992 at Vindolanda, an extensive archaeological site just south of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. The fort’s unique environmental conditions have preserved a trove of ancient wood, leather, and fabric, materials that rarely survive elsewhere. In their 1992 “trench-side” identification, researchers named their newly-discovered wooden object a darning tool. Decades later, Sands stumbled across the item while studying Vindolanda’s collection of wooden artifacts. “There are a range of such tools, but in this particular example, the phallic shape is more pronounced and evident than the expected shape of a darning tool,” Collins told Hyperallergic. While there is certainly no shortage of Ancient Roman phalluses, the Vindolanda rendition is unique. “Wooden objects would have been commonplace in the ancient world, but only survive in very particular conditions — in northern Europe normally in dark, damp, and oxygen free deposit,” Sands said in a statement. The phallus is around six and half inches long. Additionally, Collins said the six-and-a-half-inch object “fits comfortably within the range of a ‘lifesize’ phallus.” Many Roman phalluses measure around half that size and are carved in relief rather than in self-standing forms. (These small portable phalli are the most common.) Collins and Sands note that the Vindolanda phallus is worn at the top and bottom, perhaps signifying repeated contact in those two areas. Given this observation, the researchers say the object may have been used as a pestle to grind food, makeup, or medicine. “It imbues that food or medicine with the magical protection drawn in and transferred through the phallic shape,” Collins explained. The wooden phallus may have also been attached to a statue or building, perhaps in an important location such as the headquarters of a commanding official where it would have have been touched by passersby hoping for extra luck and protection. This was not uncommon in Ancient Rome. Statues marking boundaries, for example, prominently featured extended phalluses. (At Vindolanda, archaeologists discovered a one-foot stone phallus that extended from a wall.) Projecting component – building (1c): In fact, one of these projecting phalluses from a building is already known from Vindolanda, carved in stone and about 1 foot in length (300 mm). It was found outside the west gate of the fort – note the different socket. pic.twitter.com/xt702qbt6F— Dr Rob Collins, FSA (@duxBritanniarum) February 20, 2023 Collins and Sands also proposed a third possibility: The object could have been used as a sex toy. Dildos are documented in Roman literature and artwork, although no verified ancient Roman dildos have been uncovered. “The Romans were not ‘prudish,'” Collins said. He pointed out a February 20 Twitter thread he wrote announcing his new research. “There were genitals, nudity, sex acts, etc. found everywhere in Roman society, in literature, in art, in humor and jokes, on the street, and most likely all aspects of life,” said Collin. He added that Ancient Roman society was multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual and encompassed a wide range of attitudes about sexuality. “So all that begs the question: Why can’t it be a dildo?” Collins asked. “We need to be open-minded about such things.” Right now, there are no comparable objects for Collins and Sands to examine next. The pairs hopes that more will be uncovered in future excavations or perhaps dusty museum collections. “This also highlights the importance of reconsidering past conclusions and interpretations,” said Collins. “We are always learning new things, and we often have new methods and breakthroughs that can be applied to past discoveries. In that regard, I think we can say this phallus — at least for us — has been a good luck charm, helping us to learn new things about the Romans, and perhaps also, ourselves.” The object is now on display at the Vindolanda Museum in Hexham, England.

The surprising climate benefits of sharing your stuff | Tessa Clarke

There's something simple we can all do to help the planet -- and it's probably not what you think. With one-third of all the food we produce globally each year being thrown away, entrepreneur Tessa Clarke believes that sharing more and wasting less is an underrated solution to the climate crisis. Learn more about how you can join the growing movement reducing waste and building community worldwide.

World’s biggest four-day working week trial hailed a ‘major breakthrough’

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5th person confirmed to be cured of HIV

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7UP doubles down on zingy palette in new design identity

7UP has unveiled a new visual identity, packaging, and positioning in its first major design overhaul in seven years. The redesign is the product of 7UP’s new ‘UPliftment’ brand strategy, which promises to “offer light relief from the mundanities of daily life”, according to parent company PepsiCo. The 7UP green has been carried through to the new identity, with “added zesty citrus tones”. Source

The Countries Paying Youths to Simply Enjoy Art

Earlier this month, Berlin officials announced that young adults between the ages of 18 and 23 can register for the Jugendkulturkarte (Youth Culture Card) program and receive a €50 (~$54) subsidy to use specifically for access to the city’s cultural venues such as theaters, museums, and even nightclubs through the end of April. I was both intrigued by and jealous about the prospect of being paid to bust the hottest moves to a house remix of Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” and I wanted to know what other nations provided cultural allowances to their youth population. As it turns out, several European countries have their own version of a “culture pass” to inspire appreciation across the arts. Gaining popularity already, Berlin’s Jugendkulturekarte appears to be partly inspired by Germany’s new Kulturpass, which offers €200 (~$214) to any German resident turning 18 this year in an effort to revitalize both live and material culture experiences after pandemic-related isolation and uncertainty from the Russian war in Ukraine. The Kulturpass was introduced last November, and will be available to approximately 750,000 rising 18-year-olds in 2023. Recipients have two years to use their Kulturpass credits to access theaters, concerts, and museums, or to purchase cultural materials such as books and records. The German government has allotted €100 million for this pilot project and is looking to include youths ages 15 to 17 if the Kulturpass is well received. Germany’s Kulturpass actually took a leaf from Italy’s book. Since 2016, Italy’s Culture Ministry has been issuing a whopping €500 culture bonus to 18-year-olds through an application called 18app. This year’s recipients have until the end of next April to exhaust their credits on live experiences, material and digital goods, and subscription-based services rooted in the nation’s arts and culture sectors. In the first five days of the 2022 recipient window, 18app recorded over 180,000 users spending over €7.5 million, primarily on books and concerts. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 18app (@18app_official) The Italian government stated that the main objective of the program was to dissuade youths from turning to extremism in response to the 2015 terrorist attack that killed 130 patrons at the Bataclan concert hall, cafe, and stadium in Paris. “We’re not funding the Culture Bonus because we’re such a good country,” then member of the Italian Parliament Stefano Dambroso told NPR. “It’s simply in our best interest to integrate people.” France began providing cultural stipends to its youths through an app called Culture Pass in 2021. France has already implemented the two-tiered access: 18-year-olds receive €300 to spend over a 24-month period, while 15- to 17-year-olds receive around €30 to spend before their 18th birthday. Three weeks into the Culture Pass’s debut, purchasing data pointed to Culture Pass users’ fixation on manga in particular. The New York Times reported that the app had some built-in restrictions as well, such as a limit of €100 for online purchases and subscription services. Culture Pass’s critics and users alike noted that the program didn’t stimulate youths to step outside of the media they’ve already demonstrated an interest in. After it was announced late 2021, Spain’s Bono Cultural Jóven (Youth Cultural Bonus) launched last summer with a €400 cultural stipend for 18-year-olds. Like France, Spain’s allowance has a few stipulations: €200 are allotted for live arts and culture experiences, €100 for material goods such as books, video games, and periodicals, and the remaining €100 for digital subscriptions, downloads, and online access to content. Spanish teens have exactly one year to exhaust their cultural allowance. ¡No dejes todo para última hora! Aunque el plazo de solicitud aún no está abierto, si naciste en 2005, para pedir el #BonoCulturalJoven este año necesitarás alguno de estos métodos identificativos:Cl@ve: https://t.co/26EN4c3zYo Certificado Digital: https://t.co/NapQxss8E2 pic.twitter.com/EOjFoUzXZa— Bono Cultural Joven (@BonoCultural) February 6, 2023 The Spanish government set aside €210 million from the general state budget to provide these benefits to approximately 500,000 new adults. Recipients can use a virtual card through an app or request a physical card once they apply. So, it looks like only Berlin’s young adults get the nightclub benefits at this time. Regardless, the European approach of revitalizing the arts and culture sector after COVID-19’s brutal battering is mutually beneficial for the next generation, even if they want to hole up in their beds and read manga instead of visiting the opera. A photo of the physical card for Spain’s Bono Cultural Jóven (image courtesy Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte España )

Mushrooms magnify memory by boosting nerve growth

Researchers have discovered the active compound from an edible mushroom that boosts nerve growth and enhances memory.

What Does It Mean to Be a Latina/x Artist? 

SALT LAKE CITY — In a small but impactful exhibition at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), independent curator María del Mar González-González brings together the work of four stylistically divergent Latina/x artists.  Beyond the Margins: An Exploration of Latina Art and Identity succeeds in two critical respects. First, it demonstrates the simple fact that not all Latine artists make work exclusively about their own ethnic experience. Second, identity-based art may seek not simply to destroy the Western canon but instead to exploit contemporary art’s lexicological familiarity with Western art history to disrupt, complicate, or expand audience associations with this canon. The term “Latina/x” denotes “both a femme and gender-neutral term for a person of Latin American origin or descent who now lives in the US,” according to a museum didactic label. The exhibition features work by Nancy Rivera (Mexican-American), Tamara Kostianovsky (Argentinian-American), Frances Gallardo (Puerto Rican), and Yelaine Rodriguez (Afro-Dominican). Rivera is a celebrated artist and arts administrator based in Salt Lake City. Her 2018 series Impossible Bouquets: After Jan van Huysum features striking inkjet photographs of lush floral arrangements, inspired by 17th- and 18th-century Dutch still life tradition. With flowers set atop boldly colorful backgrounds, these works relish in academic and formal properties of artmaking. Hanging from the ceiling beside Rivera’s photographs is Kostianovsky’s “Every Color in the Rainbow” (2021), a sculpture of a turkey carcass that harkens from the same visual Dutch tradition of still lifes and market scenes as Rivera’s. The work, made from discarded fabric, exudes a haunting quality, linking the corporeal mechanized destruction of factory farming with the wasteful mass consumption of clothing often overflowing in landfills. Installation view of Beyond the Margins: An Exploration of Latina Art and Identity at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (January 20–March 4, 2023) (© UMOCA; photo by Zachary Norman) Gallardo’s “Carmela” (2012/2022), from a larger series, is an utterly spellbinding paper collage that’s as fascinating visually as it is conceptually. With intersected patterns based on meteorological data such as rainfall and wind speeds, Gallardo combines layers of paper cut to a painstakingly detailed and mesmerizing effect. Rodrigez’s striking multimedia fabric portraits “Saso” (2021) and “Yaissa” (2022) feature Afro-Dominican artists whose work highlights the debt owed to the African voices in Dominican culture, and who, despite the monumental cultural influence of African diaspora, have been long neglected from historical narratives. Such narratives are noteworthy in their own respect, but especially given Utah’s overwhelmingly White population (92% according to the 2022 U.S. Census Bureau). Importantly, Utah’s Latino community is included in the state’s second largest ethnic demographic at 12.7% and this demographic is projected to constitute the greatest numerical increase by 2065, according to research from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Some may argue hosting such an exhibition within a contemporary art museum in Utah’s most liberal city is preaching to the proverbial choir. Yet, there is something powerful about visualizing each artist’s creations mere steps from the gallery’s entrance, as if to solemnize that these figures and the communities they descend from are here to stay, equipped to situate themselves within an art historical trajectory that transcends contemporary art’s focus on identity as art and on a more inclusive view of what we know as American history. Frances Gallardo, “Carmela” (2022), from Hurricane Series (2012-2022), hand-cut four-layer paper collage, 24 inches x 36 inches (photo by Andrew Gillis, courtesy UMOCA) Tamara Kostianovsky, “Every Color in the Rainbow” (2021), discarded textiles, chain, and motor, 57 inches x 38 inches x 41 inches (© UMOCA; photo by Zachary Norman) Beyond the Margins: An Exploration of Latina Art and Identity continues at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (20 South West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah) through March 4. The exhibition was curated by María del Mar González-González.

Truth-Telling Confronts the Colonial Gaze

On November 24, 2022, Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier published a heartfelt letter commemorating the National Day of Mourning. Incarcerated since 1977, the former American Indian Movement organizer called out the contradictions in the United States government’s occupation of Native land, which has systematically hindered any form of tribal sovereignty. “All the world now faces the same challenges that our people foretold regarding climate damage being caused by people who take more than they need, dismissing the teachings of our fathers, and the knowledge of countless generations living upon the earth in harmony,” Peltier wrote, invoking generations of tribes and First Nations preserving history on their own terms, otherwise known as “truth-telling.” Indigenous artists have long spoken their truth symbolically, portraying centuries of resilience in art forms appropriated from colonial oppressors. This process is central to Studio Theater in Exile’s online exhibition, Truth-Telling: Voices of First People. Narratives of ancestral pride and bureaucratic prejudice appear in paintings and sculptures from the late 20th century to the present, ranging from overt critique to more subtle rumination.  On the surface, Truth-Telling is a multidisciplinary cross-section of well-known Native artists from across the US and Canada. Minimalist signage and metalworks by Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds and Margaret Jacobs are contrasted with more maximalist abstractions by Duane Slick and Benjamin West’s street-style photography. The renowned Kiowa painter T.C. Cannon, who died in 1978 at the age of 31, is honored for his storied lyrical portraits. One painting included here shows a woman waiting at a bus stop in warm shades of pink and blue; the curators note that she was Cannon’s first crush, who rejected him in life but chose to be buried beside him. In this context, however, Cannon’s lesser-known sketch “Minnesota Sioux” takes center stage. On a plain sheet of white paper, the artist scrawled an empty hangman scene, referring to the 1862 execution of 38 Dakota men that was approved by President Abraham Lincoln. Rather than portray the violence enacted upon the bodies of Native people, Cannon leaves the space empty except for written instructions to “Insert Here.” Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, “Our Red Nations Were Always Green” (2021) This confrontation with the colonial gaze informs much of Truth-Telling, which alludes to direct attacks on Native communities. Rose B. Simpson’s regal sculptures capture the creative labor of Indigenous women, whose murder rates are 10 times higher than the national average. In “Reclamation III: Rite of Passage,” a hairless woman with a gaping hole in her chest forms the foundations of a rounded clay pot. Simpson’s sculpture “Breathe” likewise show a woman’s head held back with mouth agape, as if silently screaming. Together, the emotionless gaze of both works evokes centuries of bureaucratic neglect. With these works, Indigenous artists reclaim realities long denied them by US and Canadian federal governments — including moments of collective reverie. Christi Belcourt’s kaleidoscopic paintings bring this latter element to the forefront, grounding images of colorful foliage with deep, visible roots. Pieces such as “So Much Depends on Who Holds the Shovel” feel both ornamental and spiritual as brightly hued birds and flowers radiate ancestral truths against a black background. The Métis artist employs color symbolically, too, as in her “Offerings and Prayers for Genebek Ziibiing.” Flowing blue and red brushstrokes form an outline around a symmetrical image of two women nurturing a body of water. Evoking the contamination of Ontario’s Elliot Lake due to uranium mining, the twilight scene promotes balance between humanity and nature while hinting at an imminent sunset — visualizing the climate warnings of Belcourt’s frequent collaborator, Isaac Murdoch. For each artist in Truth-Telling, Indigenous knowledge is anathema to capitalist logic. This is perhaps best captured in Nicholas Galanin Yéil Ya-Tseen’s mixed-media work “Architecture of Returned Escape.” The Tlingit/Unangax artist rendered a blueprint of a museum on an animal hide. Is this subversive schematic a guide to freedom or a plot to win the land back? The ambiguity cleverly provokes more than it resolves, and emphasizes the necessity of a coherent path forward. Christi Belcourt, “So Much Depends on Who Holds the Shovel” (2008) Rose B. Simpson, “Breathe” (2020) Truth-Telling: Voices of First People can be viewed online. The exhibition was curated by Jonette O’Kelley Miller.

MDMA, psilocybin approved for psychiatric use in Australia

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Project Blue Book: The US Air Force’s Investigation of UFOs

Photograph of UFOs in “V” formation in Salem, Massachusetts by Shell R. Alpert, 1952, via Library of Congress, Washington DC   The United States Air Force was responsible for handling Project Blue Book, which investigated thousands of UFO sightings that were reported across the nation. The project took place over the course of two decades and attempted to identify flying saucer-like objects that were becoming increasingly common. Government officials were concerned that these objects were a threat to national security, especially due to heightened tensions from the Cold War. Controversy over UFO sightings and government involvement caused a public stir due to the lack of transparency initially provided by officials throughout the investigation.   The Creation of Project Blue Book Photograph of a UFO sighting from a report in Riverside, California, 1951, via National Archives, Records of Headquarters US Air Force   Increased sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in the 1940s led the American government to launch a series of investigations to determine what the mysterious flying objects were. Project Sign was initiated by Air Force General Nathan Twining, the head of the Air Technical Service Command. The purpose of Project Sign, also known as Project Saucer, was to collect and evaluate all information and data relating to UFO sightings. With tensions of the Cold War rising in the late 1940s, there was concern between government officials about whether UFOs were a national security concern.   The date often associated with the beginning of the UFO phenomenon is June 24, 1947. On this day, private pilot Kenneth Arnold observed nine UFOs while in flight. Arnold was flying over Washington State near Mount Rainier looking for a downed US Marine Corps transport plane that crashed in the area. As Arnold searched for the downed aircraft, he spotted UFOs allegedly traveling at approximately 1,700 miles per hour. The term “flying saucer” appeared in news outlets following his report of the sightings. The event caused others to send in reports of sightings they witnessed in the months following. In 1947, there were 122 UFO sightings reported. Only 110 of the objects were identified, leaving 12 others unidentified. An increase in UFO sightings led the Air Force Chief of Staff to order an investigation into the phenomenon on December 30, 1947.   Major Jesse A. Marcel holding debris from the Roswell Incident in New Mexico, 1947, via University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections   Project Sign was taken over by the Technical Intelligence Division of the Air Material Command (AMC), which was located at the Wright Field Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The results of the projects concluded that UFOs were not a national security threat, and most UFO sightings were easily explainable. Reports drawn up by the Air Force determined that the UFO sightings were caused by mass hysteria, hoaxes, or known objects. Despite the conclusion that there was no threat from these sightings, it was decided that investigations led by the United States Air Force should continue.   Information and evidence collected during Project Sign and Project Grudge were transferred to a new UFO project launched in 1952, known as Project Blue Book. As the Cold War continued, so did UFO sightings. Air Force Director of Intelligence Major General Charles P. Cabell ordered Project Blue Book to investigate the UFO phenomena further. Official government involvement in investigating UFO sightings caused a public stir. It created the belief that UFOs were extraordinary objects, despite efforts to convince the public they were not. Investigation of UFO sightings across the United States and abroad would continue into the late 1960s until Project Blue Book was officially terminated.   Influence of the Cold War on UFO Sightings Comic strip depicting the multiple UFO sightings reported over Washington DC, 1952, via National Archives Catalog   Geopolitical tensions were high following World War II due to increased competition between the United States and the USSR. Worries over the international spread of communism and the race between world powers to have the strongest military system encompassed the Cold War. These heightened tensions influenced many policies and decisions made by the American government for several decades.   The United States Air Force was able to make sense of many of the UFO sightings that were reported between the 1940s and 1960s. However, hundreds of sightings remained unidentified. Officials in charge of the UFO phenomenon investigation were concerned that these unidentified objects were Soviet weapons. Although not directly involved in early investigations, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) kept track of the Air Force’s efforts on UFOs. A large influx of sightings occurred in 1952, reaching a total of 1,501 reports. This significant increase caused the CIA to get more involved in the investigation by launching a special study group. It was led by the Office of Science Intelligence (OSI) and the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI).   The CIA worked with the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) to monitor UFO sightings and their explanations. Great efforts were made to keep the CIA’s involvement in the UFO phenomenon investigation secret to prevent mass hysteria. This secret would later backfire as the public became highly skeptical that the CIA was also investigating UFOs and covering it up.   Objectives of Project Blue Book Project Blue Book Status Report No. 8 chart showing the frequency of UFO reports between June and September 1952, via National Archives Catalog   Although early investigations of UFO sightings in Projects Sign and Grudge determined that the objects weren’t a national security threat, it still remained one of the main objectives of Project Blue Book. Each UFO sighting reported was investigated using various identification methods and data to rule out what the object was. However, some of the sightings lacked sufficient information and data for the Air Force to determine what the object was. Another main objective of Project Blue Book was to determine if the UFOs reported provided any scientific information or signs of advanced technology that could be useful for research.   Investigation of each UFO sighting was split up into three phases. The first phase was a preliminary investigation after receiving a report of a UFO sighting. Information was to be collected by the Air Force base nearest to the sighting that was reported. The information was relayed to the main headquarters of the Project Blue Book Office located at Wright Field, now known as the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.   The first phase was designed to determine if the UFO was easily explainable. If the initial investigation proved unsuccessful, it moved on to the second phase. UFO sightings were more closely analyzed by the Project Blue Book Office during the second phase. Analysis of the reported UFO was done so objectively and scientifically and sometimes warranted the use of scientific facilities at the Air Force base. The Secretary of the Air Force and Office of Information stepped in if the object couldn’t be identified during the second phase. UFO sightings were organized into three different categories following an investigation. Identified objects were those that were able to be explained as a result of sufficient information.   UFO sighting incident report, 1956, via National Archives Catalog   Objects were placed in the category of “insufficient data” if a certain element of the investigation was missing to positively identify the object. Examples of missing data or information included the direction in which the sighting occurred, where the sighting occurred, and at what time, or how it appeared or disappeared in the sky. If a UFO was placed in “insufficient data,” another investigation was conducted to rule out whether or not it was a threat to national security. There were 12,618 total UFO sightings reported from 1947 until Project Blue Book was terminated in 1969. Out of these reports, 701 of the UFOs remained unidentified. Objects placed in the “unidentified” category had all the elements needed to make a positive identification of the object, but they didn’t correspond with any known objects based on the object’s description.   Most of the UFO reports were explainable objects. Some objects often reported as UFOs included astronomical bodies, balloons, aircraft navigation, beacons, and meteorological phenomena. The sources of UFO sightings reported came from a wide variety of individuals. Some reports came from pilots, amateur astronomers, and weather observers. Astronomical bodies were the most common cause of UFOs. Throughout the investigation, Air Force officials were to keep an open mind about what the unidentified objects could possibly be. This included considering the possibility of extraterrestrial life. However, information collected on each sighting didn’t provide any evidence that pointed to possible extraterrestrial life or vehicles.   Conclusions of Project Blue Book UFO identified by Apollo 16 as the EVA Floodlight/Boom, 1972, via NASA   Project Blue Book caused the public to lack trust in the American government due to the CIA’s attempt to keep their involvement in Project Blue Book a secret. Project Blue Book files were also classified for decades before being released to the public. In October 1966, the Air Force contracted the University of Colorado to conduct a study on UFOs. The study was handled by the Condon Committee and took place over the course of 18 months. The University of Colorado was rewarded with $325,000 to conduct it.   The head of the program was the former Director of the National Bureau of Standards and physicist Dr. Edward U. Condon. The study determined that “little, if anything, had come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years.” The Condon Committee also determined that the most unlikely explanation for UFOs was extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth. The committee’s report also advised that further investigation of UFOs was unnecessary. As a result, Project Blue Book was officially announced as terminated by Secretary of the Air Force Robert C. Seamans, Jr. on December 17, 1969.   Cover of Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by the Air Technical Intelligence Center, 1955, via United States House of Representative History, Art, & Archives   The Air Force and all other parties involved in Project Blue Book came to three main conclusions as the project was terminated. The first conclusion was that none of the UFOs reported and investigated indicated they were a national security threat. It was also determined that none of the UFOs were technologically advanced or highly developed beyond current scientific understanding. The final conclusion was that, despite lacking explanation, evidence of UFOs categorized as “unidentified” didn’t provide any evidence that indicated they were extraterrestrial.   The collection of Project Blue Book files was handed over to the National Archives in 1975. Following a series of redactions to protect personally identifiable information, the files were made available for public research in 1976. Despite the conclusions of Project Blue Book, questions surrounding the UFO phenomenon still emerge. Documentation released on Project Blue Book left many UFOlogists dissatisfied with the contents of the investigation. The conclusion of the Condon Committee was also questioned by UFOlogists, which were fueled by beliefs that the CIA was much more involved in the investigation than presented. Despite the extensive investigation of the UFO phenomenon, skepticism still remained among the science community that UFO sightings may have been extraordinary and pointed to signs of extraterrestrial life.

One in eight Americans over 50 show signs of food addiction

Whether you call them comfort foods, highly processed foods, junk foods, empty calories or just some of Americans' favorite foods and drinks, about 13% of people aged 50 to 80 have an unhealthy relationship with them, according to a new poll.

Mom and son graduate college together, fulfilling 18-year promise

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&Walsh rebrands Lex, a social app for the LGBTQ+ community

Lex (short for Lexicon) is the text-centred social app that aims to connect queer lovers and friends. Originally an Instagram account called Personals created by Kell Rakowski in 2017, it mimicked old school newspaper personal ads where people detailed their desires and romantic requirements. Around 10,000 personals later, Rakowski launched Lex in 2019 as a “low-fi, text-centred dating app where... Source

Everything Everywhere All At Once cast visited Monterey Park following deadly shooting “We just wanted to show Monterey Park that we love them,” said Ke Huy Quan

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r/UpliftingNews - The future of space travel might rely on mushrooms

More steps, moderate physical activity cuts dementia, cognitive impairment risk

Senior women were less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment or dementia if they did more daily walking and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

The Doomsday Clock Is Closer to Catastrophe Than Ever

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic tracker that represents the likelihood of human-made destruction, was updated Tuesday to 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it’s ever been. It was the first time the clock had been updated since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The Doomsday Clock was first published in 1947 by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group formed to discuss the threat of nuclear war. The clock has since been updated 24 times. The closer the clocks’ hands move toward midnight, the closer humanity supposedly moves toward self-inflicted destruction. As well as assessing risks from nuclear war, the scientists incorporate dangers from climate change, bioweapons and more. “We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said Tuesday. Read More: Ukraine’s Winter Offensive Could Decide the War “90 seconds to midnight is the closest the Clock has ever been set to midnight, and it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly. The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the Clock,” Bronson added. History of the Doomsday Clock Scientists at the Bulletin evaluate the Doomsday Clock every January. The clock began at seven minutes to midnight in 1947 and wasn’t moved until 1949 to three minutes when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. In 1991, the clock had its furthest time from catastrophe when it was set to 17 minutes to midnight as the Cold War cooled down. The clock’s hands most recently inched close to disaster in 2020, at 100 seconds to midnight, due to geopolitical tensions and climate crises. Ban-Ki Moon, former U.N. Secretary General, helped unveil it then and added: “Leaders did not heed the Doomsday Clock’s warnings in 2020. We all continue to pay the price.” The clock had stayed at 100 seconds in 2021 and 2022. Decisions to move the clock’s hands rest with the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board who consult with experts across the organization’s scopes of science, technology and risk assessment, including Nobel laureates, scholars and policy analysts. Ninety seconds to midnight The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explained in an announcement Tuesday that the decision to move the clock’s hands stems largely from the Russian invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago and the increased risk of nuclear escalation. The group was also influenced by the climate crisis and “the breakdown of global norms and institutions” needed to combat the risks of advanced technology and biological threats like COVID-19. The explanation took into account the risk of nuclear escalation between the U.S. and Russia and noted how China, North Korea, Iran and India have all also expanded their nuclear capabilities in recent years. The climate crisis was also a key concern because of the rise in carbon emissions and extreme weather events. The Bulletin is also concerned about ​​”cyber-enabled disinformation” and its threat to democracy, as well as infectious diseases and biosecurity. “The Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity. We are on the brink of a precipice. But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and liveable planet,” said Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders, an NGO, and former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. “The science is clear, but the political will is lacking. This must change in 2023 if we are to avert catastrophe. We are facing multiple, existential crises. Leaders need a crisis mindset.” Contact us at letters@time.com.

What Was the Harlem Renaissance?

  The Harlem Renaissance was a great flowering of art, poetry, fiction and music that emerged out of the Harlem neighborhood of New York City during the ‘roaring twenties.’ During the Great Migration from 1910 to 1920, hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved from Southern to Northern America in search of work. A dense community of Black African Americans congregated in Harlem, where housing was in plentiful supply. This close-knit community of Black families became a strong and exciting cultural mecca for African Americas who finally discovered a new creative freedom like never before. From civil rights activist writers to jazz musicians, many of the 20th century’s most important voices emerged out of the Harlem Renaissance. We look through some of the ground-breaking historical movement’s key characteristics.   Poetry and Fiction Flourished   Poetry was one of the earliest art forms to emerge during the Harlem Renaissance, and it was thanks to the pioneering leaders of the Black Pride movement, including African American activist W.E.B. Du Bois that several emergent poets were able to publish their work. Celebrated poetry volumes include Claude McKay’s collection Harlem Shadows, published in 1922, and Jean Toomer’s Cane, published in 1923. Meanwhile, fiction became an important means for African Americans to bring their voices into the public arena, and have their experiences heard. Jessie Redmon Fauset’s 1924 novel There Is Confusion explored how Black African Americans can find a new cultural identity in a white-dominated city. Other writers created stirring socio-political observations, such as James Weldon Johnson, whose Black Manhattan: Account of the Development of Harlem, 1930, traces the explosion of creativity among the Black community of Harlem.   Music Was a Vital Strand of the Harlem Renaissance Jazz musician and orchestra conductor Duke Ellington playing piano with other jazz musicians, via Columbia Alumni Association   Music was undoubtedly a key characteristic of the Harlem Renaissance. The music style that emerged out of Harlem was jazz and blues, performed by outstanding musicians in Harlem’s underground nightclubs and speakeasies. Harlem residents came out in droves to enjoy the lively music scene, as did white audiences from further afield. Many of the musicians who emerged during this time are still household names today, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter. These musicians went on to shape the next generation of American singers including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Janis Joplin.    Nightclubs Dancers in The Savoy Ballroom during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance.   The Savoy Ballroom opened in Harlem in 1927, and it quickly became a legendary dance hall where world-leading musicians and dancers would perform. Tap dancers including John Bubbles and Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson frequented The Savoy, and many jazz and blues instrumentalists gave daring, experimental performances long into the night.   The Cotton Club during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance in New York City.   Another popular nightclub of the Harlem Renaissance was The Cotton Club, where Ellington and Calloway were regular performers, and bootleg liquor was readily available. By the mid-1920s musical performances were a defining feature of the Harlem cultural scene. Some performers expanded into white world and made their name in Broadway, such as Josephine Baker.   Many Artists Found their Voices During the Harlem Renaissance Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life from Slavery to the Reconstruction, 1934, via The Charnel House   While the field of visual arts was slower than other art forms to accept Black artists – museums, galleries and art schools were less welcoming – many leading artists nonetheless found exposure during this time. Leading artists include Aaron Douglas, known today as “the father of Black American art”, who brought traditional African techniques into his large scale paintings and murals, and the legendary sculptor Augusta Savage, who made deeply intimate sculpted portraits of the African Americans who had influenced and shaped her life.   Members of the Harlem Renaissance Became Civil Rights Activists Alain Locke, a prominent activist during the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights movement   Civil rights were fundamental to the Harlem Renaissance, at a time when African Americans were finally beginning to shake off the shackles of their past. Many of the leading intellectual voices of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s went on to become leading figures during the Civil Rights movement of the 1940s, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke.

Society’s Biggest Risks, Ranked by the World's Leading Experts

Every year the World Economic Forum (WEF) surveys more than 1,200 global risk experts, policy makers, and industry leaders to measure the weight of looming risks to global finance and stability over the next two and ten years. The WEF releases its Global Risks Report as world leaders and corporate titans convene in Davos for the annual conference to help frame the week’s conversations. While energy and food supply chains top today’s concerns, largely triggered by the pandemic’s lingering effects and conflict in Ukraine, the future fears of the global elite are finally intersecting with those of climate scientists. Natural disasters and extreme weather events, along with a failure to mitigate climate change, made it into the top five risks for the next two years. Meanwhile, the top six concerns over the next decade involve a climate angle, assuming that number six—large scale involuntary migration—is considered (as it should be) a result of climate change as well as conflict, or indeed conflict caused by climate change. Take the shrinking Lake Chad basin, which straddles the African nations of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, as an example. The United Nations warned last year that the region, which covers 8% of the African continent and is home to 42 million people, “is particularly vulnerable to climate change related extreme events such as floods and droughts… with impacts on food security and general security in the region.” A new report released by the international human rights group Refugees International warns that climate change is accelerating conflict and migration in the region and needs to be better addressed before it risks destabilizing a wider area, with unknown repercussions for the economies of West Africa. The WEF’s poll respondents were probably not thinking about a shrinking Lake Chad when they fretted about the impacts of large scale involuntary migration, but such a movement could easily lead to risk concern number seven: erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization, also likely to be triggered by the impacts of climate change. Mitigating those future risks, whether in the Lake Chad Basin or even closer to home, requires action in the present. The question now is how to manage short term risk, like energy insecurity, without exacerbating the long term risks of climate change. A version of this story first appeared in the Climate is Everything newsletter. To sign up, click here. Contact us at letters@time.com.

Why customers are the best marketers

Jeph Burton and Hunter Hampton, group creative directors at Johannes Leonardo, discuss the agency’s strategy to capitalise on audiences' social spheres

Solar power will beat out coal globally in 3 years: International Energy Agency

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How will AI evolve human creativity?

CR spoke with people from the worlds of design, advertising and film to find out whether AI is a creative industry killer or the most promising new technology to come along in years

Quebec Approves Health Coverage For Psilocybin Therapy

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Fusion power is 'approaching' reality thanks to a magnetic field breakthrough

Fusion power may be a more realistic prospect than you think. As Motherboardreports, researchers at the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered that a new magnetic field setup more than tripled the energy output of the fusion reaction hotspot in experiments, "approaching" the level required for self-sustaining ignition in plasmas. The field was particularly effective at trapping heat within the hotspot, boosting the energy yield.The hotspot's creation involved blasting 200 lasers at a fusion fuel pellet made from hydrogen isotopes like deuterium and tritium. The resulting X-rays made the pellet implode and thus produce the extremely high pressures and heat needed for fusion. The team achieved their feat by wrapping a coil around a pellet made using special metals.The notion of using magnets to heat the fuel isn't new. University of Rochester scientists found they could use magnetism to their advantage in 2012. The Lawrence Livermore study was far more effective, however, producing 40 percent heat and more than three times the energy.Practical fusion reactors are still many years away. The output is still far less than the energy required to create self-sustaining reactions. The finding makes ignition considerably more achievable, though, and that in turn improves the chances of an energy-positive fusion system. This also isn't the end of the magnetism experiments. A future test will use an ice-laden cryogenic capsule to help understand fusion physics. Even if ignition is still distant, the learnings from this study could provide a clearer path to that breakthrough moment.

Paintings of Half-Submerged Animals Foretell an Unsettling Future

Lisa Ericson, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (2022) (all images courtesy the artist) In Lisa Ericson’s nature tableaux, land animals make unlikely bedfellows with coral reefs, and small mammals, birds, and bugs inhabit islands borne across waterscapes on the backs of turtles. The works are simultaneously natural and unnatural — Ericson’s hyperrealistic and detailed painting style renders her subjects beautifully and identifiably, but the situations in which we find them are uncanny, menacing, and unexpected. “Ultimately, I’m trying to awaken or increase interest in the natural world around us, with all its beauty and complexity, while simultaneously drawing attention to the fact that our human behaviors are currently throwing all of that incredible diverse life into peril,” Ericson explained in an interview with Hyperallergic. “Along with our own existence, of course.” Ericson’s creatures often find themselves battling a rising tide, with a waterline bisecting the picture plane. Animals cluster together atop cacti to stay dry or begin to blend with the world below the surface. In “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” a mountain goat seeks fleeting refuge from chest-level water, perched atop a crag inhabited by coral and visited by ocean fish. In “Late Warning,” a desert jackrabbit is situated uncomfortably atop a flowering cactus, getting an earful from a yellow-bellied bird sharing its precarious perch. These mammals cast side-eye glances at the viewer, seeking solidarity, or perhaps placing blame for the position in which they find themselves. Balancing “the tension between worry and hope,” Ericson aims to portray the richness of our planet while bringing attention to its imminent disappearance. “By creating these pieces, I’m doing the same thing I hope my viewers are doing — personally reckoning with the immense scope of our global climate disaster,” said Ericson. “Appreciating the intricate beauty of the stunning array of life and biodiversity that we’re still lucky to have on this planet, and considering the tragedy of its decline due to changing climates, habitat loss, and mass extinctions.” Lisa Ericson, “Late Warning” (2022) Parlaying nature scenes into teachable moments or unlikely team-ups, as in “Risky Business,” which portrays a flock of birds using a red fox as a ferry across knee-deep water, is just one of the reasons that Ericson’s work has the feel of parable or Aesop Fables — though she can identify numerous points of inspiration, within fine art as well as literature. She points to “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch and books like Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood as inspirational narratives around manipulations of the natural world, but it’s easy to find points of resonance in the cautionary tone of folklore, or even creation stories that position the world on the back of a tortoise. Ericson’s work has evolved over time from chimera-like scenarios featuring animal-habitat hybrids to what she describes as “dystopian pairings of animals and habitats” that comment on the climate crisis. The works speak to the ultimate interconnectedness of not only the human family, but of all creatures within and affected by the environment. “We (humans) are having such a drastic impact on the natural world and all its inhabitants,” she said. “And we’re bringing about climate change that will be inescapable for most life on the planet. So in this way, at least, we are all very much connected.” Lisa Ericson, “Treading Water” (2022) Lisa Ericson, “Risky Business” (2022) Lisa Ericson, “High Tide” (2022)

Who Were the 5 Leading Female Abstract Expressionists?

  Abstract Expressionism was an epoch defining art movement, encapsulating the spirited, emotional angst of post-war life in the United States. While historical accounts have tended to focus on the ‘boys club’ nature of the movement, led by macho, aggressive male artists including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Hans Hoffmann, a series of trailblazing women also played a key role in the movement’s development. Many have more recently received long overdue recognition for their role in defining the mid-20th century oeuvre. We celebrate just a handful of the pioneering female Abstract Expressionists who fought for their place amongst a male-dominated table and, in recent decades, are now gaining their rightful respect and recognition.   1. Lee Krasner Abstract Expressionist painter Lee Krasner with one of her Abstract Expressionist artworks.   Lee Krasner was without a doubt one of the most important artists of the mid-to-late 20th century. Married to Jackson Pollock, she was often cast in his shadow by the press. But as recent retrospectives have proved, she was a ferociously ambitious artist with a formidable talent, and one of the leading female Abstract Expressionists. Early in her career in New York Krasner experimented with Cubist-style, broken imagery, blending collage and painting together. Later, with her ‘Little Image’ series, made in her Hamptons home studio, Krasner explored how Jewish mysticism could be translated into all-over, intricate patterns. These artworks, in turn, gave way to an unbounded freedom of expression in Krasner’s late career, as her paintings became bigger, bolder and more bombastic than ever.    2. Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler in her New York studio in the 1960s.   The legendary New York-based Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler bridged a divide between the angst-ridden, over-wrought painterliness of her mostly male contemporaries, and the later, ambient and atmospheric school of Color Field painting. In her most recognized and celebrated ‘poured paintings’, Frankenthaler diluted her paint and poured it in aqueous passages over vast swathes of un-primed canvas from above. Then she let it form spontaneous patches of intense, vivid color. The results were deeply resonant, invoking distant, half-forgotten places or experiences as they drift across the mind’s eye.    3. Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell in her Vétheuil studio photographed by Robert Freson, 1983, via Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York   American artist Joan Mitchell earned her stripes as a key player in the New York School of Abstract Expressionism at a young age. While she relocated to France in the years that followed, she continued to pioneer a fantastically vibrant and fervent style of abstraction which earned her international recognition throughout much of her life. On the one hand, her paintings made a nod to the late flower gardens of Claude Monet. But they are far gutsier and more expressive, with wild tangles and ribbons of paint that seem to weave together to create living, breathing organisms on the canvas.    4. Elaine de Kooning Elaine de Kooning in the studio.   While the name De Kooning is more commonly associated with the male Abstract Expressionist Willem, his wife Elaine was also a highly respected artist in her own right. She was also an esteemed and outspoken art critic and editor. Her paintings merge elements of figuration with a free-flowing and expressive abstract style, creating sensations of energy and movement on the flat canvas. Her turbulent subjects include bulls and basketball players. One of her most celebrated paintings was her portrait of John F Kennedy, made in 1963, which tore up the rulebook. On the one hand, it was unusual at the time for a female artist to paint a male portrait. It was also almost unheard of to depict a public figure in such a brash, wild, and experimental way.   5. Grace Hartigan Abstract Expressionist painter Grace Hartigan in her New York studio, 1957.   American painter Grace Hartigan was a leading figure in the school of New York Abstract Expressionism. In her day she earned household-name status. Her art also featured in many of the most prominent survey exhibitions on Abstract Expressionism. Her freewheeling abstract paintings often have an underlying sense of structure and order, with ramshackle patches of color arranged into unlikely stacked, or geometric designs. She also merged elements of figuration into many of her most celebrated paintings, toying with a shifting balance between abstraction and representation.

Vanitas Painting or Memento Mori: What are the Differences?

  Both vanitas and memento mori are vast art themes that can be found in ancient and contemporary artworks alike. Due to their diversity and very long history, it is sometimes hard for the viewer to have a clear image of what makes vanitas vs. memento mori to be as such. Notably, they are most often associated with 17th-century Northern European art. Because the themes have many similarities, sometimes it’s quite difficult for the viewer to understand the differences between the two. To examine the characteristics of vanitas vs. memento mori, this article will use 17th-century paintings that can serve as good examples to understand how the two concepts work.   Vanitas vs. Memento Mori: What is a Vanitas?  Allegorie op de vergankelijkheid (Vanitas) by Hyeronymus Wierix, 1563-1619, via Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam   The term “vanitas” has its origins in the first lines of the Book of Ecclesiastes from the Bible. The line in question is the following: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanity, all is vanity.”   A “vanity,” according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is the act of being overly interested in one’s appearance or achievements. Vanity is closely related to pride and ambition regarding material and ephemeral things. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, vanity is frowned upon because it deals with impermanent things that avert our attention from the only certainty, namely that of death. The saying “vanity of vanities” has the purpose of emphasizing the uselessness of all earthly things, acting as a reminder of the coming of death.   A vanitas artwork can be called as such if it makes visual or conceptual references to the passage quoted above. A vanitas will convey the message of the uselessness of vanities in either a direct or an indirect manner. For example, the artwork can contain a display of luxurious things that emphasizes this. It can also simply show a direct and straightforward depiction of the passage from The Book of Ecclesiastes.    At the same time, the same message can be conveyed in a subtler manner that makes use of refined symbolism. For example, a vanitas can depict a young woman admiring her decorated image in a mirror, alluding to the fact that beauty and youth are passing and, therefore, as deceiving as any other vanity. With this being said, the theme of vanitas can be found in various forms in a multitude of artworks throughout time, ranging from direct to more subtle ways of representation.   What Is a Memento Mori?  Still life with vanitas symbols by Jean Aubert, 1708-1741, via Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam   The origin of the memento mori theme can be found in the same Latin phrase that translates into “remember you must die.” Similar to the vanitas, the memento mori puts an emphasis on the ephemerality of life and on the fact that life is always followed by death.   The meaning of memento mori is a cautionary remark that reminds us how even if we are living in the present and we enjoy our youth, health, and life in general, this is all illusory. Our current well-being doesn’t warrant in any way that we will be able to escape death. Therefore, we must remember that all men must die in the end and there is no avoiding it.   Just like the vanitas theme, the memento mori one has a long history ranging from ancient times, particularly the art of ancient Rome and Greece. The theme was highly popularized in the Middle Ages with the motif of danse macabre, which acts as a visual illustration for the memento mori saying.   To symbolize the inevitability of death, artworks usually employ the image of a skull to signal mortality. The theme is found quite often in painting, either in a direct or indirect way. The more direct case is when one can find the presence of a skull or skeleton that is associated with things or persons which can be linked to living. The more indirect way of showing the theme of memento mori is through the presence of objects or motifs that indicate the ephemeral character of life. For example, the presence of a candle that’s either burning or was just recently put out is a popular way to symbolize the transience of life.   Similarities in Vanitas vs. Memento Mori  Memento mori by Crispijn van de Passe (I), 1594, via Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam   One of the most obvious similarities is that both themes have to do with death. When looking at vanitas vs. memento mori, they share a number of similarities; both in their main theme and also in the symbols that are used to depict and express their messages. Of the symbols used, one that is most common and can be shared by both works is that of the skull. The skull can act as both a reminder of the transience of vanities, but also as a reminder of the inevitable death of the individual.   Someone looking into a mirror is another similar motif that can act as both a vanitas and a memento mori, holding a very similar meaning to that of the skull motif. Besides this, some other similarities between the two can be found in the presence of expensive objects, such as rare fruits, flowers, or valuable objects. All of them have the ability to express the intended message of the uselessness of material things. Vanities are meaningless because they can’t change the impending death, while all material objects cannot follow us in death.   Besides the message of death, vanitas vs. memento mori works share the commonality of the same hope. Both of them intend to inspire the viewer with the promise of the afterlife. Even if everyone dies at some point during their life, there is no need for despair. One cannot fight against the inevitable but can turn towards God and religion to hope for a continued existence.   The promise of the immortality of the soul is an underlying message that is common in both vanitas and memento mori. The transcience of life and the uselessness of objects is emphasized because the viewer is invited to invest in what lasts beyond death, namely in the soul.   Why Are They Interconnected?  Bubble-Blowing Girl with Vanitas Still Life in the manner of Adriaen van der Werff, 1680-1775, via Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam   One can justly wonder why the two themes of vanitas and memento mori are interconnected and tend to refer to each other. As was stated before, death is a phenomenon that is central to both themes. Because of this, vanitas and memento mori use a similar visual vocabulary. However, their interconnectedness goes beyond visual elements. Because of their similar message, vanitas and memento mori artworks attracted buyers from art collectors and average people alike, as people from all walks of life could relate to the inevitability of death. The transience of life has a universal appeal as death is certain for both rich and poor people. Therefore, artists made sure to offer a variety of paintings, often in the form of still-lifes with vanitas or memento mori themes which could be bought for an accessible price.   Because of this popularity, an impressive number of such early modern works survive today, helping us to better understand their charm, variety, and evolution. If these works didn’t make it into the private homes of individuals, the themes of vanitas and memento mori were also reflected in public spaces. For example, the motif of danse macabre (an element of the memento mori theme) can be found throughout Europe in various forms, oftentimes painted inside churches or other buildings which were visited very often. These themes spread even further in the public space by being featured on the graves of important persons as early as the late 15th century. Vanitas and memento mori were thus some of the most popular themes in art during this time.   Differences in Vanitas vs. Memento Mori  Allegory of Death by Florens Schuyl, 1629-1669, via Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam   So far, we have emphasized the commonalities and connections between vanitas vs. memento mori. Even if the two have a great number of common points, they are still quite distinct themes that carry slightly different messages and undertones. In vanitas works, the emphasis is put exclusively on vain things and riches. Beauty, money, and precious objects are vanities as they are not necessary for our existence and don’t fulfill a deeper role except for that of being an object of pride. As it is known, pride, lust, and gluttony are associated with vanity, and the message of vanitas is to avoid these deadly sins and take care of the soul instead.   On the other hand, in memento mori artworks, the emphasis is different. Memento mori doesn’t warn the viewer against a specific type of object or a set of sins. On the contrary, it’s not so much a warning as it is a reminder. There are no specific things to be avoided. Instead, the viewer has to remember that everything is passing and that death is certain.   Now that these differences have been indicated, it must be said that vanitas vs. memento mori is more closely related to the Christian worldview because of its origin. Having its origin in the Book of Ecclesiastes, the vanitas message is more Christian, whereas the memento mori, having its origins in ancient Greece and Rome, isn’t tied to a specific religion. Due to this difference in origin, the two themes carry different historical contexts that affect the way in which they are perceived. The memento mori theme is more universal and can be found throughout different cultures. On the other hand, the vanitas is connected to a Christian space and appears to have some Stoic origins as well.   How to Discern Whether an Artwork is a Vanitas or a Memento Mori Still life by Aelbert Jansz. van der Schoor, 1640-1672, via Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam   Now that the similarities and differences between vanitas vs. memento mori were discussed at length, this last section will offer a few tips on how to identify each of them. As previously mentioned, both themes use a common visual vocabulary to some extent. The main hint for identifying a vanitas from a memento mori is the overall message of the artwork. Does the painting highlight the vanities of human life by representing numerous luxurious objects? If yes, then the painting is more likely a vanitas. Does the painting contain more common objects such as a clock, a burning candle, bubbles, or a skull? Then the painting is most likely a memento mori because the emphasis is not on the finer things in life but rather on the passing of time and the coming of death.   It can be very difficult to rely on symbols alone to judge whether a work is a vanitas or a memento mori. A skull can be used to represent both themes, for example. Therefore, this is not the safest route in most cases. Nuances are very important to understand what underlying message is communicated. Is the skull decorated with jewels, or is it a plain skull? In the first case, that is a reference to vanities, while the latter is a reference to death.   This article offered an in-depth explanation of how the vanitas theme differs from the memento mori one. Both of them are fascinating yet difficult themes that are very common in art from ancient up to contemporary times. Therefore, a keen eye and a good understanding of the emphasis of artwork will make it possible for anyone to distinguish a vanitas from a memento mori.

Thank God for People | John Ortberg & Jimmy Mellado

Thank God for People | Join me and my very special guest, Jimmy Mellado, as we give thanks to God for one person in particular. You're not gonna wanna miss this miss this. PARTICIPATE in the Gratitude Assessment here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SW6HNFG Acknowledgement: Assessment can be found in Robert Emmons book Gratitude Works! Add your voice to the comments... 🙏🏻 For prayer text us at 855-888-0444, we would love to pray for you 📧 Sign up here for free supporting resources: https://becomenew.me/subscribe Be sure to join our Facebook Group (link below) to continue the conversation and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel BecomeNew.Me and say hello 👋 in the comments. And make sure you tap the bell icon 🔔 to be notified when the next episode releases. CONNECT WITH US AT: 😊 Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/913876866229056/ 🎙Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/becomenew-me/id1554045522 🤳Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/becomenew.me 📲 For daily alerts, text the word BECOME to the number 855-888-0444 #becomenew #johnortberg #ortberg #spiritualformation #gratitude #grateful #thanksgiving #thanks #thankful #thankyou #gratitudeworks

Colorado Initiative to Legalize Magic Mushrooms, DMT, Ibogaine and Other Psychedelics Passed Into Law by Voters

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Study shows bumble bees 'play'

Bumble bees play, according to new research. It is believed to be the first time that object play behavior has been shown in an insect, adding to mounting evidence that bees may experience positive 'feelings'.

Oxford University: Goldfish do have good memories, scientists find

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Russians killed famous Kherson conductor who refused performing for the occupiers

In Kherson, the Russian occupiers killed the chief conductor of the Kherson Music and Drama Theater, Yuriy Kerpatenko. His death became known on October 14, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy reported. It is noted that Yuriy Kerpatenko was shot by the Russian military in his own house after the conductor refused to cooperate with the occupiers. The Ministry of Culture, referring to the regional mass media, noted that before the International Day of Music on October 1, the occupiers and collaborators planned to hold a “holiday concert” with the participation of the famous Hileya chamber orchestra. With this concert, the occupiers wanted to show the “restoration of peaceful life” in Kherson. Yuriy Kerpatenko was the chief conductor of the Hileya Chamber Orchestra. After the start of a full-scale war and the occupation of Kherson, Yuriy refused to leave the city and openly demonstrated his pro-Ukrainian civic position. Ukraine needs independent journalism. And we need you. Join our community on Patreon and help us better connect Ukraine to the world. We’ll use your contribution to attract new authors, upgrade our website, and optimize its SEO. For as little as the cost of one cup of coffee a month, you can help build bridges between Ukraine and the rest of the world, plus become a co-creator and vote for topics we should cover next. Become a patron or see other ways to support. Become a Patron!

Because of alcohol, more people die via cups than knives.

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The most humble person in the world will never let themselves be recognized for their achievement.

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In sci-fi movies, the ship is almost always still well lit during faster than light travel. So they have lights capable of traveling faster than the speed of light.

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A chopped apple is a fruit puzzle

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Ukraine submits an application to join NATO, with big hurdles ahead.

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Diesel Trains do not move using the Diesel engine. They move using electric motors like a model train kit.

The Diesel engine is actually a generator to provide the electricity for the motors. submitted by /u/nowhereman1223 [link] [comments]

Meg is the most mentally strong person in family guy, because she’s been mentally and physically abused for over 20 years and hasn’t killed herself or run away.

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The Misgendering of Joan of Arc

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Joan of Arc” (1882) (via Wikimedia Commons ) I don’t know who needs to hear this, but gender variance has existed throughout human history. Many Catholic monks and saints were gender-fluid, with some only discovered as such after death. Union Army soldiers cross-dressed as men and endured forced feminization after the Civil War. An entire German institution faced Nazi destruction for advancing the science of medical transition. If this seems unfamiliar, it’s because powerful people have worked tirelessly to maintain social dominance over our bodies, and TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) have stepped in as their cultural arbiters. Despite its perceived novelty in mainstream media, transness — particularly transmasculinity — has evolved with science as we expand our understanding of the human body. Literature and art from the Middle Ages, too, reveal how women underwent extreme procedures to transition into men, all based on medieval speculations about the reproductive system, including that a vagina was just an inverted penis. With that in mind, I want to consider how art history has suppressed transgender histories, particularly with genderqueer martyr Joan of Arc.  Artistic renderings of Joan have de-emphasized the young French saint’s gender identity for centuries, as might be expected with such an influential historical figure. But the fact remains that the English crown burned Joan at the stake specifically for refusing to conform to gender and claiming that God ordered it. Joan’s place in trans, nonbinary, intersex, and asexual studies today thus represents a greater struggle to untangle how her image became so highly feminized. Martin Le Franc, “Le champion des dames” (1440) (via Wikimedia Commons) We know from historical records of the Hundred Years’ War era that Joan presented as a man with short black hair and wore shirts with shorts, doublets, leggings, and boots. Why, then, is she so damn feminine in artistic portrayals? While the only portrait made in Joan’s lifetime did not survive, other 15th-century works are well-preserved. Take for example a 1440 illumination by the poet Martin Le Franc that portrays Joan in the same scene as biblical heroine Judith, a fellow icon of art history, who passes Joan the decapitated head of Holofernes as if between generations. The French knight thus served as an early champion of women’s revenge, despite never advocating for such. After the French Revolution, which saw the rise of an overtly patriarchal bourgeoisie, male artists continued to paint Joan as conspicuously feminine. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres depicted long, strawberry blonde hair and a patterned dress over Joan’s armored legs. Other 19th-century works were highly provocative in their sexual politics, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s final painting. Others by Jules Bastien-Lepage and Jules Eugène Lenepveu show periods in which Joan would have worn women’s clothing, including peasant origins and final moments at the stake, when the English crown forced her to burn as a woman.  Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, “Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII” (1854) (via WikiArt) In the early 20th century, first-wave feminists in Britain and the United States used Joan’s likeness to advance the cause of women’s suffrage. Highly feminized illustrations appeared on political posters and magazines advocating for the right to vote and participate in the labor force. A Suffragette Weekly cover design by Hilda Dallas shows a shapely Joan with snatched waist and ruby red lips holding a banner for the Women’s Social and Political Union. Liberal feminists, therefore, viewed Joan as a womanly warrior against the patriarchy who also represented modesty and self-reliance during the rise of the “New Woman.”  Today’s French nationalists likewise perceive Joan as a woman who got things done. Followers of far-right leader Marine Le Pen (including Brigitte Bardot) describe the politician as a contemporary reincarnation, and she makes an annual pilgrimage to the gilded statue of Joan outside the Louvre. Hillary Clinton’s memoir What Happened, which famously blamed progressives for the 2016 election loss, claims that Joan “said a lot of interesting things” before death. No such evidence of gender variance exists here; rather, these powerful women claim Joan as a representative of bourgeois feminism, even if historical evidence suggests otherwise. Jules Bastien-Lepage, “Joan of Arc” (1879) (courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art) As contemporary feminism expands to uplift queer people of all genders, these reactionary forces are clinging to an aesthetic idea of medieval history as a proxy for anti-trans ideology. It seems hard to imagine this all happening without artists, such as those during the French Renaissance, visualizing these stereotypes — many of whom were cisgender men. Nonetheless, contemporary queer artists and writers are reframing Joan as an icon of trans and Christian identity, including Leslie Feinberg and Katy Miles-Wallace. As author Kittredge Cherry recently wrote, “Cross-dressing was illegal, but what really upset the church authorities, then as now, was the audacity of someone being both proudly queer AND devoutly Christian.” To be sure, TERF ideology is a reflection of the ascendant far right, reinforcing notions of cisgender women’s biological inferiority and their continued subjugation. Looking online today, it’s easy to see the difficulties in proving that Joan of Arc may not have been a cis woman. Observe the controversy surrounding the Globe theater’s new production, I, Joan, which portrays Joan as nonbinary; unsurprisingly, TERFs have accused nonbinary playwright Charlie Josephine of canceling them. Even liberal feminists seem unwilling to acknowledge how this feeds right back into patriarchy, perhaps because they view Joan as one of few medieval women to achieve such fame for infiltrating male-dominated institutions. As Helen Castor writes, “there is incongruity in the idea that a medieval visionary who fought for the God-given rights of her king should become, half a millennium later, an inspiration to campaigners for women’s right to vote in democratic elections.” Program cover design by Benjamin Moran Dale for the Woman Suffrage Procession, c. 1913 (via Wikimedia Commons) American suffragist Inez Milholland appears on a poster for the March 3, 1913 procession, c. 1913 (via Wikimedia Commons) Consequently, queer theorists working to untangle fascist far-right influences on medieval studies face discrimination from across the ideological spectrum. Dr. Gabrielle Bychowski, a professor at Case Western University who calls Joan the “Patron Saint of Dysphoria,” identifies how conservative notions of the Middle Ages perpetuate an “entrenched right” in the field. In her essays and scholarship, Bychowski argues that trans people actually existed back then, and that evidence for that was present in art all along. “For centuries prior, there were numerous fictional examples exactly matching Jeanne, including assigned-female-at-birth French knights who transitioned to men and became warriors lauded for their martial skill,” Bychowski told Hyperallergic. “By the time Jeanne showed up in real life, therefore, the culture was already primed. Did Jeanne face persecution on the battlefield? Yes, but the French had enough of a cultural history that acknowledged trans men’s existence. And part of that is based on a patriarchal, misogynistic hierarchy in which men are believed to be inherently better than women.” William Haskell Coffin’s 1918 poster for the United States Department reads: “Joan of Arc Saved France; Women of America Save Your Country; Buy War Savings Stamps.” (courtesy North Carolina Digital Collections)   Bychowski claims that transphobic historians often envision an imaginary past devoid of queerness and a future along similar lines. But in reality, social conditions of the time allowed for the acceptance of trans men over trans women, and Joan was far from the only warrior to be accepted as such. Any gaps in history, she claims, are due in part to a lack of representation in the field, allowing TERFs and white nationalists to appropriate Joan as a symbol of their conservative origin myths. “The English clearly saw Jeanne as transgender enough to die for it,” Bychowski said. “You can see it in the retrial documents from the courts of continental Europe. France was England’s wartime enemy, and the original trial was obviously not a fair one, so the French sought to prove Jeanne’s innocence. Interestingly, they brought up Thomas Aquinas citing exceptions to the statutes that forbid cross-dressing, as well as St. Marinos the Monk, or Mary or Marina, to make their case.” St. Marinos the Monk and St. Mary of Egypt as shown in the St. John the Merciful Polyptych, c. 16th century. Despite living as a man, Marinos is still portrayed as womanly. (via Wikimedia Commnons) For many queer medievalists, researching this topic poses significant ideological challenges within academia. Earlier this year, Norwegian scholar David Carrillo-Rangel’s paper “Trans-Europe: Joan of Arc or the Performativity of the Abject” was rejected by the International Congress of Medieval Studies for being “thematically and qualitatively inconsistent” with their publishing standards. Carrillo-Rangel, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, examined the music video for Madonna’s “Dark Ballet,” directed by Emmanuel Adjei, which features queer artist Mykki Blanco as a Black, HIV-positive Joan, contending that interpretations like this introduce the possibility of a historically trans patron saint. “It is a fact that Joan of Arc was burnt due to the habit of wearing men’s clothes, whatever the reason,” Carrillo-Rangel told Hyperallergic. “That, according to the most conservative version of the dictionary, allows us to talk about Joan of Arc as a crossdresser, and this is very important in terms of representation in art.” Still from the Shakespeare’s Globe production I, Joan (photo by Helen Murray, courtesy Shakespeare’s Globe) Carrillo-Rangel points to Ana Torfs’s slide projector installation “Du mentir-faux” (2000), in which the artist translates historical sources on Joan’s life and death into contemporary images of androgyny. Despite all challenges, Carrillo-Rangel believes that artistic interventions can help bridge the cultural divide among trans theorists and feminists, or at least inspire further investigation. “Queer archives need to dig deeper into the past along with their important work documenting the history of activism in the 20th and 21st centuries,” Carrillo-Rangel said. “By redirecting the conflict to a queer-TERF opposition, we miss the conservative offensive of hegemonic masculinity to which both communities become accessories to further oppression.” In times like these, it is important to remember how fascism really works. As an example, we can look to a piece of anti-British propaganda from the Nazi puppet government of Vichy France. Joan of Arc appears in chains with a bob haircut inside the phrase, Les assassins reviennent toujours sur les lieux de leur crime (Killers always return to the scene of the crime), comparing the Hundred Years’ War to the Allied bombing of Nazi-occupied cities. This cunning rhetorical strategy, which the far right still employs today, reframes the oppressor as savior by appealing to women’s perceived vulnerability. The task now should be to ensure that no one falls for this anymore.

Painter explains sacrifice, commitment needed as an artist

Lorelei Beckstrom has spent the last 10 years as a full-time artist in Colorado Springs, but her journey has been far from easy.Beckstrom starts her work hours before a typical college student even wakes up; she goes to bed analyzing what she will paint the next day.In a time where the highest paid jobs require extensive training and education, some people assume art is created through natural expression, and not from a textbook or the development of professional skills.

Q&A: What is Good Art?

Good = A designation for desired attributes within a specific culture at a specific time. Art = A creation that evokes emotional interest

Q&A: Are there any 21st century painters whose art style is similar to that of classical paintings from past centuries?

Yes, I’m assuming you mean “classical paintings from past centuries” as in before modernism (1850–1950). Will Cotton is one such artist. He openly chases after a traditionalist passion for detail while operating within a “classical” definition of beauty. Soft planes and geometric lines.

Q&A: What can paintings teach us?

Paintings can teach us about technology. The electronic screens we stare at all day are actually by-products of paintings. And I don’t mean in the sense their purpose is to display art. Rather, I mean paintings laid the groundwork to understanding how to technically make digital screens. Georges Seurat is probably most known for this correlation. By simplifying visual perception to thousands of points, his work was an ideological precursor to phosphors (similar to pixels). It comes to no surprise that 13 years after Seurat unveiled this piece,

Citing Copyright Concerns, Getty Images Bans AI-Generated Content

An image generated by DALL-E 2 based on the text prompt “1960s art of cow getting abducted by UFO in midwest” (image by Encik Tekateki via Wikimedia Commons) With a new world of visual potential lately opened by artificial intelligence (AI) image generators such as DALL-E and Midjourney, there is also a new world of potential legal complications. Looking to get ahead of problems before they begin, Getty Images — a massive supplier of stock photography — has banned the upload and sale of all content generated using AI art tools. The technology can quickly generate multiple takes on imagery from user-supplied text prompts, with results that range from silly, to pretty realistic, to fairly nightmarish, to truly the worst thing ever. But where is the source material for these AI bots coming from? For the most part, it’s being scraped and remixed from the work of human artists, who use the Internet as a venue for their work to connect with audiences and potential buyers. Not only do some see this as disenfranchising to artists who have worked hard to develop a personal brand, but it also presents legal quicksand for image sites that decide to trade in AI-crafted content. “Effective immediately, Getty Images will cease to accept all submissions created using AI generative models (e.g., Stable Diffusion, Dall-E 2, MidJourney, etc.) and prior submissions utilizing such models will be removed,” reads a statement circulated this week by the company to media and its image providers. “There are open questions with respect to the copyright of outputs from these models and there are unaddressed rights issues with respect to the underlying imagery and metadata used to train these models.” The statement went on to clarify that the limits on submissions do not prevent 3D renderings or impact the use of digital editing tools like Photoshop and Illustrator. When asked by Hyperallergic how many images currently on the website will be impacted by the new policy, Craig Peters, CEO of Getty Images, said: “To our knowledge, it is extremely limited within our creative content library and there were already significant controls for our editorial offering. We are communicating with other companies and communities to understand perspectives with respect to these issues, how the legal or regulatory bodies might address and whether we might be helpful to resolve.” Getty’s decision to remove and limit such content mirrors equivalent measures being instituted by image sites like Newgrounds and Fur Affinity. “Our entire purpose is to bring creatives together into a safe, honest, and vibrant community to create fantastic images, and so the use of 100% machine-generated images, whilst an incredible breakthrough, is not something that helps our community,” reads a September 14 statement by PurplePort CEO Russ Freeman about banning AI art on the site. “I feel that using machine-generated images, while empowering everyone to participate in generating art, does not reflect the core purpose of our service, nor does it contain enough human input.” Peters told the Verge that Getty Images will rely on users to identify and report such images, and that it’s working with C2PA (the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) to create filters screening for AI content. Other major image stock providers, like Shutterstock and Adobe Stock, have not yet explicitly banned AI content for sale, but the entire industry is attuned to how current discourse about artistic appropriation will play out across regulatory law, which often tends to trail tech innovation by years or even decades. That leaves a lot of meantime for the digital art space to continue to be inundated with strange, proliferating many-eyed corpse babies, which seems to be the aesthetic space where AI art is always thriving — and a lot of wasted time for artists trying to protect their IP by playing a losing game of whack-a-mole against the internet.

Is Buddhism a Religion or a Philosophy?

  Buddhism is the world’s fourth most popular religion, with over 507 million followers worldwide.  Traveling around India, China and other traditionally Buddhist countries reveals ornate temples, Buddha  shrines and devout followers (much like many of the world’s other great religions!).   However, Buddhism is also frequently referred to as a philosophy, particularly by people in the West. It  shares many teachings in common with other popular schools of thought, such as Stoicism. And Buddha  himself emphasized the practical nature of his ideas, favoring philosophical enquiry over religious dogma.   All this begs the question: is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion? This article explores why and how  Buddhism means different things to different people, and whether or not it can ever be truly classified as  one thing or the other.   Is Buddhism a Religion or a Philosophy? Or Both?  A statue of Buddha , via TheConversation.com   Buddhism first originated in India in the 6th century BC. It is a non-theistic religion i.e. it doesn’t believe  in a creator God, unlike theistic religions such as Christianity. Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama (also known as Buddha) who, according to legend, was once a Hindu prince. However, Siddhartha eventually decided to give up his wealth and became a sage instead.   He came to this decision after gaining an awareness of human suffering and the pain it causes people. Consequently Siddhartha led an ascetic lifestyle. He devoted himself to developing a belief system which   could teach others how to escape samsara, a Sanskrit word which describes the “suffering-laden cycle of  life, death, and rebirth, without beginning or end” (Wilson 2010).   Despite its popularity today, Buddhism was slow to gain followers at first. During the 6th and 5th century BC, India was undergoing a period of significant religious reform. Buddhism developed in response to the  supposed failure of Hinduism to adequately address the needs of everyday people. But it was only in the  3rd century BC that the religion gained traction. Indian Emperor Ashoka the Great adopted Buddhism  and consequently it spread rapidly through the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.   Some Key Teachings  A Buddha sculpture and stupas in central Java, Indonesia, via Encyclopedia Britannica   As stated above, Buddha began to develop his teachings after realizing the true scale of suffering in the world. In particular, he realized that because of human mortality, everything he loved would eventually die  (including himself). But death isn’t the only suffering in human life. Buddha believed that humans suffer  at birth (both the mother and the baby), and throughout life due to desire, envy, fear etc. He also believed  that everyone was reincarnated in the samsara and doomed to repeat this process forever.   Therefore Buddhist teaching aims to break this cycle. The “Four Noble Truths’ illustrate Buddha’s approach in more detail:   Life is suffering The cause of suffering is craving The end of suffering comes with an end to craving There is a path which leads one away from craving and suffering   These truths provide the basis for the entire purpose of Buddhism, which is to find the path away from craving and suffering through enlightenment.   The ‘Philosophical’ Aspects of Buddhism  A golden Buddha statue, via the National Museum of Asian Art   Already we can see some philosophical aspects of Buddhism beginning to emerge. The Four Noble Truths above sound remarkably similar to typical logical reasoning involving premises and relations between premises.   But perhaps the most concrete philosophical elements to this religion come from Buddha himself. Rather than imploring his followers to follow his teachings to the letter, Buddha encourages people to investigate  them. Buddhist teachings, otherwise known as Dharma (Sanskrit: ‘truth about reality’), contain six  distinct characteristics, one of which is Ehipassiko. This word is used all the time by Buddha and literally  means “come and see for yourselves”!   He strongly encouraged people to engage in critical thinking and draw on their own personal experience  to test what he was saying. This type of attitude is extremely different to religions such as Christianity and  Islam, where followers are generally encouraged to read, absorb and accept scripture unquestioningly.   It’s also important to note that Buddha’s teachings have spurned a distinct philosophical tradition. As  people began to write down his lessons in the centuries after his death, differing interpretations rose up  among diverse philosophical groups. At first, the people debating Buddhist teachings employed standard philosophical tools and techniques to make their point. However, their reasoning was underpinned by a  total belief that whatever Buddha said was right and true. Eventually, people from distinct but related Asian religions began to analyze Buddhist teachings, forcing Buddhists to branch out into traditional areas of philosophy (e.g. metaphysics, epistemology) to prove the value and worth of Buddhism to other people who didn’t consider Buddha’s teachings as authoritative.   The ‘Religious’ Aspects of Buddhism  A gold Buddha figure at the Longhua Temple, Shanghai, China, via History.com   Of course, there are plenty of religious aspects to this religion also! We’ve already seen that Buddha believes in reincarnation, for example. He describes how when someone dies, they are reborn again as  something else. What an individual is reborn as depends on their actions and how they behaved in their  previous life (karma). If Buddhists want to be reborn into the realm of humans, which Buddha believes is  the best one to achieve enlightenment, then they must earn good karma and follow Buddha’s teachings.  So even though Buddha encourages critical enquiry, he also provides an excellent incentive to follow what  he is saying.   Many world religions also offer some sort of ultimate reward for its followers to try and aim for  throughout their lives. For Christians, this is reaching Heaven after death. For Buddhists, this is a state of  enlightenment known as nirvana. However, nirvana is not a place but rather a liberated state of mind. Nirvana means that someone has realized the ultimate truth about life. If an individual achieves this state  then they have escaped the cycle of suffering and rebirth forever, because in their enlightened mind all the  causes of this cycle have been eliminated.   A Buddhist monk deep in meditation, via WorldAtlas.com   There are also many Buddhist rituals and ceremonies that form an important part of worship for many  people around the world. Puja is a ceremony in which followers will typically make offerings to Buddha. They do so in order to express their gratitude for Buddha’s teachings. During puja followers may also  meditate, pray, chant and repeat mantras.   This devotional practice is performed so that followers can open themselves up more deeply to the  teachings of Buddha and nurture their religious devotion. Unlike some religions, in which ceremonies  must take place under instruction from a religious leader, Buddhists can pray and meditate either in  temples or their own homes.   Why Do We Need to Classify Buddhism as a Religion or Philosophy?   A Buddhist monk in a state of meditation, via The Culture Trip   As we can see, Buddhism contains many characteristics which blur the lines between philosophy and  religion. But the idea that we need to distinctly classify it as one thing or the other tends to arise within Western societies far more than in other parts of the world.   In the West, philosophy and religion are two very distinct terms. Many philosophies (and philosophers)  within the Western tradition would not have considered themselves to be devoutly religious individuals. Or if they did, contemporary followers have managed to successfully extricate the philosophical from the  religious aspects of a particular school of thought.   Many people who consider themselves atheists or agnostics tend to favor ignoring the religious aspects of Buddhism, for obvious reasons. After all, Buddhist teaching fits easily within the mindfulness, meditation  and yoga movements which have gained in popularity in Western countries over the last few decades.  Sometimes these teachings are appropriated without a proper understanding of their roots, as when  people post Buddha quotes on social media or claim to be interested in Buddhism without having studied any of its key texts.   The truth is that Buddhism is both religion and philosophy, and the two aspects of its teachings can co exist in relative peace. People interested in Buddhist philosophy can easily study it as a school of thought, as long as they don’t try to deny that there are more supernatural elements contained within Buddha’s teachings. Buddhist monks, temples and religious festivals exist for a reason. Ceremony and ritual is an extremely important aspect of Buddhism to millions of people around the world. But equally, it is possible for an atheist to follow plenty of Buddha’s teachings without also feeling obliged to carry out acts of worship.   Bibliography    Jeff Wilson. Samsara and Rebirth in Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

5 Timeless Stoic Strategies That Will Make You Happier

  We’ve all had times when things are going great. However, it often happens that even if the good times keep going, our mind tries to nudge us towards feelings of anxiety. One way to avoid this is to learn about the teachings of the Stoics. In this article, we will take a closer look at several Stoic strategies that can help improve your mood, outlook in life, and overall happiness. According to them, we create stress within ourselves. We are responsible for our current state of misery and letting it pass –  because it will pass. Remind yourself of what the great Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations: “Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it because it was within me, in my perceptions — not outside.”   The Stoic Mantra: Focus Only On What You Can Control The Death of Seneca by Jean Guillaume Moitte, ca. 1770–90, via the Metropolitan Museum   The Stoics argue that only two things are under our control: our thoughts and our actions. Everything else is out of our hands and therefore not worthy of anxiety.   When I was feeling anxious, I gently reminded myself that I had created the stress within me. That I am responsible for my current state of misery, and I am responsible for letting it pass. Because it will, and it did. Just the simple fact of reminding myself that I am in control of my state of being brought a feeling of calmness inside me.   I then reminded myself of what Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations: “Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it because it was within me, in my perceptions — not outside.” It’s incredible how a simple shift in your outlook can instantly change your mindset and mood.   “Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing.” Epictetus, Enchiridion   Do you control the weather? Do you control the traffic? Do you control the stock market? Remind yourself that you don’t every time something goes wrong with these things. You’ll take away the power they threaten to hold over you in certain times of the day.   “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I control.” Epictetus, Discourses   It’s a beautiful lesson to remember. To be at ease with everything that happens, good or bad. It’s a trope repeated time and again, but the present moment is all there is. Feeling this, truly understanding it, is the doorway to happiness.   Journal! Schreibkunst (The Art of Writing) by Anton Neudörffer, ca. 1601-163, via the Metropolitan Museum   Imagine being the most powerful person on the planet and still being mindful enough to keep a journal. It’s what Marcus Aurelius did when he was the Emperor of Rome. He never intended his writings to be published, yet here we are, drawing inspiration from them thousands of years later.   The man had many things on his mind, matters of life and death. Yet, he took the time to gather his thoughts on what bothered him, pleased him, and what he could do better as a human, a ruler, and a Stoic.   If he didn’t jot down his thoughts in a diary, we wouldn’t be able to read his Meditations. We wouldn’t be able to see that even Emperors were struggling with the same thoughts of anxiety that we struggle with today.   Is there a best way to journal? No. Just get a notebook, or open up your laptop and start writing. Is there a perfect time to start journaling? Yes, today. After a while, you’ll start to see patterns in your thinking and mood swings. You’ll be able to discern the things over which you have control versus those you don’t.   Start journaling.   Curb Your Desires / Welcome Discomfort Statue of Socrates by Leonidas Drosis, Athens, via Wikimedia    “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus   Most people equate having many possessions with happiness. Stoics, on the other hand, believed the opposite. They thought that the fewer things you have, the happier you’ll be. Moreover, they believed that not only should you refrain from possessing many things, but you should also curb your desire to have them in the first place.   Indeed, some of the most famous Stoic philosophers have practiced scarcity and discomfort. They believed that this would make them appreciate things more. They practiced discomfort to be ready for life’s challenges and be less dependent on things. Recall Tyler Durden’s quote in Fight Club, “The things you own end up owning you.” That phrase could be easily credited to the Stoics.   Seneca believed that putting yourself in stressful situations increases your resilience. In his Moral Letters to Lucilius (Letter 18 – On Festivals and Fasting), he says, “Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with a coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘Is this the condition that I feared?”   You could practice this by fasting or taking cold showers. You could choose not to use the A/C once in a while or go out dressed lightly in cold weather. You’ll see that it’s not the end of the world if you do these things.   You might even discover a thing or two about yourself.   Meditate on Your Mortality Statue of Marcus Aurelius, via the Daily Stoic   In my previous article, I discussed how the Stoics viewed death as a means of achieving a state of calm and joy.  Ultimately, understanding that you are mortal is one of the best ways through which you can learn to live.   Rarely do things bring more urgency to our way of life as death does. It motivates us, makes us forget about trivialities, and focus more on the things that fulfill us. Remember, death isn’t a thing that we’re moving towards. As Seneca said, we die every minute, of every day. You’re dying as you read this.   In his popular blog post “The Tail End,” Tim Urban provides a glimpse of the weeks we have left on this Earth. It’s a very sobering message that time goes by so fast. It shows us that looking back, we’ll wish we spent it in a virtuous way.   Meditate on death daily.    Imagine the Worst-Case Scenario The Death of Seneca by Jacques Louis David, 1773, via Wikimedia   “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.” Seneca   In his book “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy,” William Irvine describes negative visualization as the “single most valuable technique in the Stoics’ psychological toolkit.”   Negative visualization makes you fully appreciate the things you have by imagining that they’ll be gone one day. This could include friends, family members, children, and other people you cherish. Imagining that you may lose them will make you appreciate them more the next time you share a meal or go on a date.   It’s one of the principles and techniques often criticized by those who say that such thinking will leave you in a state of perpetual misery. I tried it myself to see if it’ll work. My mother is in her seventies, so I imagined how it would be if something happened to her. After all, it’s more probable than not in those years. Just thinking that made me want to spend more time with her.   Of course, there’s a difference between contemplating and worrying to death. Be mindful of that when you practice. It’s hard to do this with your loved ones, imagining that something terrible may happen to them. But, if it fills you with gratitude every time you’re together, I’d say it’s well worth it.   Internalize Your Goals Statue of Marcus Aurelius at the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, photograph by Eric Gaba, via Wikimedia   When I set out to write this article, I didn’t imagine how many times people would read it. Instead, I focused on doing my best.   This principle is closely related to the dichotomy of control, i.e., that we shouldn’t worry about things we can’t control and instead focus on the things we can. I can’t control how many shares or likes this article will receive. I can control how much effort I’ll spend writing it and how meticulous I’ll be in my research. I can control how honest I will be in my writing.   In his bestseller Atomic Habits, James Clear says, “When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.” If you’re working a 9-5 job, you have control of the amount of effort you invest each day to do the best job possible. If you’re trying to lose weight, you control what you eat and how much you exercise.   It’s these things you should meditate on to achieve your goals. Not wishing for an easier life, wishing for a relationship, wishing for a higher paycheck. Actually doing the work, doing the actions required. Fall in love in the process, expecting nothing more.   My guess is that more will come either way.   Meditate on Your Success (And Failure) as a Stoic   Seneca advises that we spend some time reviewing our efforts to be a good Stoic each day. Let’s say you’ve taken up journaling (which you would be wise to do). Try and end each day with a review of what you have done, good and wrong, during the day.   Write what you thought you could have done better. Maybe you worried too much about something you don’t have any control over (your boss wasn’t in a good mood). Maybe you lashed out at your spouse (which you have complete control over). Write these things, meditate on them and imagine how you would do better tomorrow.   In time, you will.

Hip Hop’s Challenge to Traditional Aesthetics: Empowerment and Music

  Determining artistic value has always been at the cornerstone of the philosophy of art. Philosophers want to answer an important question: What is it that makes an artwork beautiful? How do we judge something to be a masterpiece? The variety of answers to this question have led to different schools of thought within aesthetics. In this article, we will first go through a traditional answer to aesthetics’ main questions proposed by Scottish philosopher David Hume. Afterwards, we will explore how hip hop’s artistic value poses a problem to traditional aesthetic assumptions in western philosophy.   David Hume’s Aesthetics: An Overview Portrait of David Hume by Allan Ramsay, 1766, via Encyclopaedia Britannica.   An important contributor to the answers to these lofty questions is none other than David Hume. Hume was an 18th Century Enlightenment Philosopher who had plenty to say on all branches of philosophy at the time. When it comes to Aesthetics, his essay Of the Standard of Taste aimed to answer how we can judge art’s value.   As an empiricist, Hume attempted to ground the arguments in his findings within the real world. For Hume, a masterpiece is a work of art which a consensus of ideal critics agree is worthy of the title. An ideal critic is skilled in the medium of art they judge, and free from prejudice in their judgement.   In many ways, Hume’s argument based on the ideal critic is valuable. He finds a way in which artworks can be judged without appealing to their material or formal qualities. Nonetheless, his mode of judgement is still grounded in an empirical analysis.   However, when one looks at Hume’s aesthetics from the modern eye things start to become questionable. Hume grounds his theory on an appeal to a universal human nature. This means that for Hume, art should have universal appeal across cultural and historical barriers. But is this really a valid requirement for art?   Hip-Hop’s Challenge to Hume’s Aesthetics The Rap Group ‘N.W.A’ posing for a photograph in LA, via the LA Times.   Let’s turn our attention to the world of hip-hop and its aesthetics. If you ask any young music lover whether hip-hop is an artform, the question will appear almost nonsensical. Of course it is! There have been plenty of hip-hop albums which critics and fans alike consider masterpieces. So, it should follow that hip-hop’s artistic value is compatible with Hume’s aesthetics, right? The actual answer is not so clear.   When we think of hip-hop’s origins, there is no way in which it cannot be linked to its historical and political origins. Songs such as N.W.A’s “F*** tha Police” or “Mathematics” by Mos Def highlight the political underpinnings of the ‘Black’ experience explored in the genre. While general audiences may listen to hip-hop for catchy beats and flows, its true value is found in its lyrical content.   Rapper Mos Def, photograph by Tuomas Vitikainen, via Wikimedia Commons.   Part of hip-hop’s lyrical appeal is the fact that it refuses to conform with mainstream opinions and sentiments. Plenty of hip-hop artists aim to make music solely for Black audiences. Artists such as Noname have expressed their disapproval of performing for white audiences, who aren’t the intended listeners for her music.   When we think of these examples in hip-hop, it’s hard to see how they are compatible with Hume’s ideas on aesthetic value. Some hip-hop artists have no interest in appealing to a universal audience, and why should they? The political undertones of hip-hop songs aren’t designed to appeal to everyone. Should it really be such a stringent requirement that great art needs to appeal to everyone?   Hume’s Thoughts on Morality in Art  Portrait of David Hume by Allan Ramsay, 1754, via National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh   The problems with Hume’s aesthetics in relation to hip-hop don’t stop at the fact that hip-hop music is not intended to appeal to a general audience. Hume also maintains that moral commitments can interfere with an ideal critic’s aesthetic judgement. Imagine the main character in a play commits an immoral act and the audience are expected to align with his decision. Hume would argue this would be enough reason to devalue an artwork.   Hip-hop is notorious for presenting its audience with sentiments which offend the morals of the mainstream. We need look no further than a Fox News discussion about Kendrick Lamar to prove this:   Lamar stated his views on police brutality with that line in the song Quote “and we hate the popo, wanna kill us in the street fo’ sho'”   ‘Not helpful at all to say the least. Not helpful at all. This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years’    Still from ‘The Heart Part V’ Music Video by Kendrick Lamar, via NBC News.   The question of morals in Hip-Hop is a nuanced one. Often the genre’s moral compass reflects the Institutional racism that leads to this perceived ‘immorality’. For instance, consider the prevalence of police brutality against African Americans. It’s consistent that a hip-hop artist will have anti-police sentiments given this fact and they should be allowed to express it. But for Hume, this could hinder hip-hop songs from being artistically valuable.   What Can We Learn from Hip-Hop’s Challenge to Hume?  Album Cover for ‘Stankonia’ by Outkast, via NPR.   Hip-hop places great pressure on traditional aesthetics due to its narrow cultural focus and its tendency to go against mainstream moral opinion. But to argue that this should disqualify masterpieces of hip-hop from being artistically valuable is absurd. Hip-hop artists have the right to empower themselves through artistic expression, and traditional philosophical ideas shouldn’t get in the way of this.   However, perhaps hip-hop’s challenges to Hume’s aesthetics can uncover something about our traditional understanding of philosophy. Hume’s aesthetic ideas were centered on the perspective of his time and conditions. He wrote for upper class Europeans who could afford to spend all day reading philosophy. His ideas of human nature and aesthetics are entrenched in this privileged perspective. Hume’s idea of the purpose of art will inevitably be shaped by this historical reality.   John, Fourteenth Lord Willoughby de Broke, and his Family by Johann Zoffany, 1766, via the Getty Museum.   Hip-Hop has a distinct aesthetic purpose in comparison to the world of art that Hume draws on for his theory. Hume never envisioned a popular art form which existed to affirm a neglected perspective to the world. When an artistic perspective is presented by an oppressed minority, it will inevitably clash with a mainstream perspective. However, it is exactly within this clash of perspectives that the wider value of hip-hop is found.   Hip-Hop’s True Artistic Value  Crowd at a Trump Rally, via the CA Times.   The reason hip-hop butts heads with Hume’s aesthetic theory is because its value can partly be found in what It uncovers about morality. Hip-hop has consistently aimed to challenge the status-quo of white America. In doing this, it must also challenge the reigning ethical standard of the American public.   Aside from its attention towards empowering Black perspectives, hip-hop also acts to expose. It exposes the hypocrisies of the dominant opinion and achieves its artistic standard in doing so. The shock of conservative white audiences towards hip-hop’s messaging is a way to ‘lift the veil’ on their prejudiced way of life.   Photograph of W.E.B DuBois by Carl Van Vechten, via the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.   Sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois famously coined the term ‘second sight’. This term refers to the two modes in which African Americans see the world around them. They see themselves not only as they are, but as the rest of White America sees them too. Hip-hop is a means for them to affirm their true perspective without interference. In this sense, it is an act of empowerment.   If we take the perspective that great art should uncover something about society and ourselves, then hip-hop survives. Its poignant and direct messaging highlights the workings of white supremacy to a wide audience. In doing this, it’s bound to ruffle some feathers. Yet, this should be celebrated as a good thing!   Moving Forward in Artistic Expression Columbus Taking Possession of The New Country, L. Prang & Co., 1893, via the Library of Congress.   In affirming their own perspective, African Americans also expose the dark underbelly of White America. Indirectly, they also corrode away at the colonial Eurocentric mindset of Western philosophy.   By exposing the dark truths of the reality of the Black perspective, hip-hop uncovers a new function for art within aesthetics. Hip-hop forces its white listener to reflect on the privilege that underpins their existence. It uncovers the hypocrisies and unfounded nature of philosophical appeals to human nature such as Hume’s.   Achieving aesthetic greatness through challenging the reigning ethical standard is something that Hume didn’t seem to envision. For Hume, one’s moral life shapes their entire existence. It makes sense that he would think that any art that challenges our morals is enough to discredit it. But through challenging the white moral standard, we bridge a link of understanding towards historically oppressed perspectives.   Martin Luther King waving to his supporters in 1963, via the NYT.   Through this clash of perspectives, progress arises. By sharing the Black perspective in the form of art, problems of institutional racism and whiteness are brought to the forefront of cultural discussion. This means that people are becoming exceedingly more aware of the injustices that underpin the society they live in.   In my opinion, any artform that successfully challenges and widens your perspective is worthy of great aesthetic merit. The naysayers may argue that politics shouldn’t be bunched up with art. They may brand hip-hop as ‘propaganda’. If anything, hip-hop exposes the fact that all narrative art is propaganda. Any form of art that presents a moral world and expects you to align with their characters and opinions pushes you towards a perspective.   The Future of Aesthetics Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat by Vincent van Gogh, 1887, via the Van Gogh Museum.   While one may marvel at the beauty of a Van Gogh painting, we don’t discount it for not challenging our perspective. That’s not the goal of a Van Gogh painting. So why should we apply an archaic moral standard onto hip-hop, an artform that is not concerned with the same goals of Hume’s time?   Perhaps we should reconsider how we view an ideal critic of art. The ideal critic of classical music can’t be the same critic who judges hip-hop. In fact, the ideal critic of the average pop song can’t be an ideal critic for hip-hop either! By recognizing each artistic tradition as aiming towards its own goals, we save ourselves from ‘whitewashing’ the world of art like Hume.   Interior of a Museum by Eugène-Louis Lami, 19th century, via the MET Museum   The perspective the Western world has consistently been fed is that of the white elite. Figures such as David Hume have inadvertently allowed for this perspective to be baked into what makes art great. By appealing to a universal human nature and a Western standard of morality, Hume undercuts plenty of art that may challenge one’s perspective.   Hip-hop highlights how this should never have been the case. Art that challenges us acts as an unparalleled tool for progress and unity. The doors of aesthetics are now widening to celebrate art from all traditions. Philosophy is finally catching up to the fact that not all art functions for the gaze of the colonial perspective.

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How Jean-Michel Basquiat Rose to Be King of the Art World

His art was about “80 percent anger,” Jean-Michel Basquiat said, but that rage inspired a mad love that reclaimed and proclaimed the Black history white supremacy downplays or erases.  In King Pleasure, the dazzling show at the Starrett-Lehigh building in Chelsea, he pays tribute to Black heroes (jazz musicians, especially his bebop god, Charlie Parker; boxers like Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson, Sugar Ray Robinson); and exalts what the cultural critic Lisa Kennedy calls the Black Familiar — the “symbolically rich” texture of Black culture as represented and received by Black people when they feel free “to be black without trying to explain blackness (to whites).”   The crown is one of Basquiat’s master metaphors, conferring regal status on Black icons but ennobling everyday lives as well. Asked, by the legendary curator and art-world kingmaker Henry Geldzahler, “What is your subject matter?” he replied, “Royalty, heroism, and the streets.” The color black has pride of place in Basquiat’s work. On occasion, it dominates our field of vision, engulfing most of the canvas (as it does in the 1982 painting “Cabeza”), an aesthetic choice that’s hard not to see as radical politics with a paintstick. “Black people are never portrayed realistically — not even portrayed in modern art enough,” he told an interviewer. “I use the ‘black’ as protagonist because I am black, and that’s why I use it as the main character in all the paintings.” Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Jailbirds” (1983), acrylic and oil stick on canvas (image © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat) It’s a manifesto for a Black-centric body of art that inverts the white-supremacist social order — and calls out the representational racism of Western art history while it’s at it. Basquiat was never not political, but while he was capable of social commentary as scathing as anything from George Grosz’s savage pen, he preferred punk mockery and black humor (“Irony of Negro Policeman,” 1981; “Hollywood Africans in Front of the Chinese Theater with Footprints of Movie Stars,” 1983) to strenuously sincere sloganeering.  Red, too, recurs in his work. Sometimes, it’s the luscious crimson of TV-commercial ketchup, other times the ominous maroon of dried blood, like the drips and splashes that all but obliterate the skull-faced head of the figure in “Untitled” (1984). White critics, back in the day, would have read those spatter patterns art-historically, as references to Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. Black and Brown viewers — those intrepid few who penetrated the Soho-gallery sanctums known, unironically, as “white cubes” — would’ve reeled at their visual echoes of the brutal murder, a year earlier, of Michael Stewart.  Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled” (1984), acrylic and oil stick on wood (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) Stewart, a Black art student and graffiti artist, was handcuffed, hog-tied, and, many believe, beaten to death by New York City Transit cops who caught him tagging a subway wall. Basquiat was traumatized, dazedly repeating to his friends, again and again, “It could have been me.”  “The Death of Michael Stewart,” painted later in 1983, depicts two snaggle-fanged cops, pink as Porky Pig, bopping a black silhouette with their billy clubs; cartoon stars telegraph his pain. The distance between the mordantly jokey, kindergarten-naïf style and the American carnage it memorializes is measured in miles of irony. Five years in the making, King Pleasure is curated with fierce pride, tenderness, and unapologetic reverence by his sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, and their stepmother, Nora Fitzpatrick. The exhibition snakes through a labyrinth of galleries and includes not only 200 artworks from the family vault, 177 of which have never been publicly shown, but artifacts from the artist’s estate and family mementos. Installation, recreation of Basquiat’s studio at 57 Great Jones Street in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) Installation, recreation of Basquiat’s studio at 57 Great Jones Street in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) The show uses memorabilia to restore the lost context of Basquiat’s childhood and family life. A snapshot of his Haitian father, Gerard, captures a successful accountant whose bourgeois values and father-knows-best authoritarianism clashed, sometimes violently, with Jean-Michel’s seemingly innate iconoclasm. Escalating hostilities between father and son drove Basquiat to leave home at 17. Bumming around Manhattan, he panhandled, sofa-surfed, passed the bottle with winos, and survived on Cheese Doodles. He peddled his hand-drawn postcards and, with Al Díaz, as part of the conceptual-graffiti duo, SAMO© (“SAMe Old shit”), spray-painted gnomic slogans and Dada-punk koans all over downtown New York: “SAMO as an end to mindwash religions, nowhere politics, and bogus philosophy.” King Pleasure averts its gaze from the violence of Basquiat’s relationship with his father, which scarred him–literally: He once claimed his father stabbed him “in the ass” for smoking pot in his bedroom. Yet when the New York Times Magazine put him on its February 10, 1985, cover, certifying his status as an art star, he gave his father a copy, inscribed “To Papa.” Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled (100 Yen)” (1982) (image © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat Licensed by Artestar, New York) The exhibition also draws the curtain of discretion across the sordid details of Basquiat’s last years, a forgivable sin of omission in an exhibition curated by siblings and a stepmother whose declared intention is the “celebration of the life, legacy, and voice” of a brother and son. Basquiat died from a heroin overdose in 1988, at the heart-rendingly young age of 27. The wall texts mention his death without stating its cause, and then only in passing; the catalogue acknowledges that he died from an overdose, but the word “heroin” appears nowhere in its 336 pages. The catalogue lingers longer on that desolate period, but it, too, shrinks from the close-ups that would have given readers a more laceratingly painful picture of the artist alone and adrift, desperately depressed by the death of his mentor and confidante, Andy Warhol; gnawed by the sense that his 15 minutes of fame were over; too despondent to work. His friend Tamra Davis, director of the Basquiat documentary Radiant Child, thinks he may have been “convinced that he had done what he had to do, and it was over.”  Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled” (n.d.), acrylic, oil stick, and color photocopy on wood-hinged door (double-sided) (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) “When you start to emulate these geniuses that also have tragic endings, you’re very well aware of what kind of path you’re taking,” Davis added, evoking Charlie Parker, who died at 34 from cirrhosis of the liver and a lifetime of heroin addiction. Maybe so, but Heriveaux forges a clear link between her brother’s downward spiral and the soul-corroding drip, drip, drip of everyday racism. “My brother was always aware of his Blackness as he navigated New York City, whether being racially profiled or chastised for how he dressed or wore his hair,” she writes in the catalogue. “He always had a hard time catching a cab as a Black man, so he resorted to riding a bike to get around the city. All of it wore him down.”  Installation, recreation of Basquiat family living room in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) Yet it was the white-supremacist climate of the art world that played a key role in his death spiral. He was often glibly dismissed and derided by White critics in reviews that tiptoed up to the line of blackface-minstrel caricature. Invariably the only Black man at art openings with “white walls, white people, and white wine” (as his friend, the gallerist Patti Astor, put it), he was alienated from the culture he spoke to and for.  In a 1989 essay on Basquiat, the late cultural critic Greg Tate spoke of the cognitive dissonance induced by the cultural (and economic) necessity “of speaking for Black culture and your own Black ass from outside” Black culture’s “communal surrounds” and “comforting consensus.” (Touchingly, the fastidious recreation, by exhibition designer Sir David Adjaye, of the Basquiats’ dining room, down to its spice rack —with its McCormick’s tins of turmeric, allspice, chili powder, and celery seeds, testimony to the family’s love of Puerto Rican and Haitian food — and living room, with its eye-poppingly mod couch and set of encyclopedias, brings Jean-Michel home, returning him to the Black Familiar.) Still the best thing written on Basquiat, Tate’s essay “Flyboy in the Buttermilk” is equal parts critical elegy and withering excoriation of the art world. “No area of modern intellectual life has been more resistant to recognizing and authorizing people of color=than the world of the ‘serious’ visual arts,” he wrote. Tate argued: To this day it remains a bastion of white supremacy, a sconce of the wealthy whose high-walled barricades are matched only by Wall Street and the White House and whose exclusionary practices are enforced 24-7-365. It is easier for a rich white man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a Black abstract and/or Conceptual artist to get a one-woman show in lower Manhattan, or a feature in the pages of Artforum, Art in America, or The Village Voice. The prospect that such an artist could become a bona fide art-world celebrity (and at the beginning of her career no less) was, until the advent of Jean­Michel Basquiat, something of a fucking joke. Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled (1960)” (1983), acrylic and oil stick on paper (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) If he’d survived his dark passage through the late ’80s, when dealers, collectors, and critics had wearied of the novelty of a Black enfant terrible and the rollercoaster of his dizzying success seemed to teeter on the brink of the inevitable sickening plunge, Jean-Michel would have navigated an art world that, while beginning to turn its critical gaze inward, is still a “bastion of white supremacy”: 85.4% of the works in major American museums are by White artists, according to a 2019 study; African American artists account for a mere 1.2% of their collections. Jim Crow is alive and well when it comes to managerial and curatorial power, too: A 2018 survey confirmed that “only 4% of the positions outside service and security” in those museums “are held by Black professionals.” Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled (Love)” (1984), acrylic, oil stick, and paper collage on refrigerator door (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) During his lifetime, critics, virtually all of them White, contextualized Basquiat either in terms of his “highbrow” (read: White) influences (Picasso, Cy Twombly, Jean Dubuffet, Pop artists like Warhol and Rauschenberg, Abstract Expressionists like Pollock and Franz Kline) or his roots in Black (codeword: “street”) culture (inevitably, graffiti, even though masters of the craft like Rammellzee and Futura 2000 didn’t consider him a graffiti artist and his work with SAMO© had more in common with Fluxus, conceptual art, and punk’s neo-Situationist provocations than the wild-style tagging of the day). They were never quite sure what to do with a self-taught Afro-punk, Afro-Surrealist, Afrofuturist code-switcher, cultural cryptographer, guerrilla semiotician, and hip-hop deconstructionist who owed as much to bebop and William S. Burroughs’s cut-up technique as he did any African influences, which he came by not through some mysterious genealogical juju but, in a fancy bit of postmodern footwork, by appropriating Picasso’s appropriation of African masks and fetishes, and through his Talmudic study of Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy by Robert Farris Thompson. Thompson’s towering achievement was a wellspring of inspiration for Basquiat, as was the classic medical text Gray’s Anatomy, which his mother gave him at age seven to read when he was recovering, in the hospital, from being struck by a speeding car. (He suffered severe internal injuries and had to have his spleen removed.) Anatomical imagery is for Basquiat what water lilies were for Monet. Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled (Sugar Ray)” (1982), acrylic and oil stick (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled (Edgar)” (n.d.), acrylic and oil stick on canvas (photo Mark Dery/Hyperallergic) Burroughsian in his constant need for incoming information — “I’m usually in front of the television. I have to have some source material around me to work off,” he says in the documentary The Radiant Child — Basquiat was interested in everything: hip-hop, Hitchcock, silent film, Tex Avery cartoons, George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, underground comix, Jimi Hendrix, subway ads (“The advertisements bombard me and cloud my mind with visions of Newports, cream cheese, and 6% interest,” he writes in a high-school poem reproduced in the catalogue), snippets of overheard conversation, the secret code of “hobo signs” in Henry Dreyfuss’s Symbol Sourcebook, Leonardo’s anatomical studies, Lenny Bruce’s stand-up routines, Art Brut, African rock art. His first dealer, Annina Nosei, was flabbergasted when he displayed an incisive knowledge of Duchamp’s work. He was 20 years old at the time. The gallerist Jeffrey Deitch observes in the catalogue that he seemed to have absorbed all of modern art history by that age.  He wanted to tell us everything, all at once, and looking at his work fills me to bursting, makes me want to tell you everything it makes me feel and think, but I can’t, because his art begins where words end. 

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What Is the Meaning Behind Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks?

  Edward Hopper’s brooding, enigmatic painting titled Nighthawks captured a snapshot of 20th century American life like never before. Four late-night city dwellers hang around in a New York city diner in the small hours, while the streets around them sit strangely silent and empty. Fluorescent strip lighting casts long shadows into the darkness around them, lending the scene an eerie air of melancholia. The painting is an iconic emblem of modern, urbanized life in war-time America. Let’s take a closer look through the key ideas that informed Hopper’s 20th century masterpiece.    1. Loneliness Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942, (detail) via The Art Institute of Chicago   In Nighthawks, Hopper sets four very different figures in his late-night diner. Each one in turn seems to be dealing with their own feelings of loneliness and isolation. The man working behind the bar is physically separated from the customers by the long wooden bar, but he is also evidently the only one at work. Meanwhile, the woman dressed in red is the only female present, and her arms form a physical barrier around her, while a man, possibly unknown to her, leans in to try and get her attention. The other man sits opposite them, his back facing towards us and shoulders defensively hunched. Thus, each figure, although grouped together, faces their own internal realm of existential angst. The desolate, empty streets around them only reinforce this quality of quiet unease.   2. Urbanism L’Absinthe (Dans un Café) by Edgar Degas, ca. 1875-76, via Musée d’Orsay, Paris   Much like the French Impressionists made paintings of figures set in cafes, bars and restaurants in response to the rise in Parisian urbanism, Hopper’s Nighthawks is also a response to the urbanization and development of New York City. Throughout the early 20th century New York expanded and became a bustling city center with a whole wealth of new opportunities. And as the Impressionists observed, industrialized environments were a mixed blessing. On the one hand, modern cities were vast playgrounds filled with an abundance of jobs and leisure pursuits. Yet they were also gritty and dangerous, with ruthless employers and landlords who were ready to exploit the poorest and most deprived. Hopper hints at both these conflicting qualities in Nighthawks, which tinges an atmosphere of anticipatory excitement with brimming unease.   3. Voyeurism Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window, 1954, which explored similar themes of voyeurism as Hopper’s Nighthawks   Hopper situates all his Nighthawks figures behind a long, large glass window, like merchandise on display in a shop front. They carry on their lives as if completely unaware that they are being watched, and this lends the painting a Hitchcockian quality of voyeurism. Except rather than us watching a voyeur spy on someone, we become the voyeurs, looking on as these isolated people hang around in silent desperation. Hopper does not paint any escape route or exit to the diner, so these characters are forever trapped behind a wall of glass to be ogled at and talked about.   4. Alienation Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, 1942, via The Art Institute of Chicago   It is important to note that Hopper painted Nighthawks two years after the outbreak of World War II. This wider context undoubtedly informed its atmosphere. In particular, Hopper deliberately inflects Nighthawks with the uneasy feelings of dislocation that came about across much of society as a result of war. Hopper draws us to war’s dwindling effect on the population by emphasizing the empty streets beyond the diner. The small group of people in the diner, sitting apart from one another could also be a metaphor for the alienating and isolating effects of war, which removed the structures and beliefs that had once held society in place.    5. Contemplation Automat by Edward Hopper, 1927, via Des Moines Art Center   As much as Nighthawks was a response to urbanization and the devastation of war, we can also read this painting as a quiet scene of internal contemplation. Each figure looks down or faces away from us, considering their individual place in the world. This reflects the growing trend of Existentialist philosophy which was becoming popular across Europe and the United States in the mid-20th century. We see similar qualities of introspection and self-reflection in many of Hopper’s paintings, such as Automat, 1927, and Moving Sun, 1952.

Why we need more creatives in the C-Suite

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What is Nihilism?

  Derived from the Latin word ‘nihil’ meaning ‘nothing’, Nihilism was quite possibly the most pessimistic school of philosophy. It was a widespread style of thinking throughout 19th century Europe, led by prominent thinkers including Friedrich Jacobi, Max Stirner, Søren Kierkegaard, Ivan Turgenev and, to some extent, Friedrich Nietzsche, although his relationship to the movement was complicated. Nihilism questioned all forms of authority, including government, religion, truth, values, and knowledge, arguing that life is essentially meaningless and nothing really matters. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom – some found the idea of rejecting prescribed doctrines a liberating prospect, and Nihilism eventually paved the way for the later, less pessimistic philosophical styles of Existentialism and Absurdism. Read on to find out more about the central theories of Nihilism.    1. Nihilism Questioned Figures of Authority Soren Kierkegaard, via Medium   One of the fundamental aspects of Nihilism was its rejection of all forms of authority. Nihilists questioned what gave one figure the authority to preside over another, and asked why there should be such a hierarchy in place at all. They argued no one should be more important than anyone else, because we are all as meaningless as each other. This belief has led to one of the more dangerous strands of Nihilism, prompting people to wage acts of violence and destruction against the police or local governments.    2. Nihilism Questioned Religion Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche by Edvard Munch, 1906, via Thielska Galleriet   In the wake of the Enlightenment, and its subsequent discoveries of ration and reasoning, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that Christianity no longer made sense. He argued that a totalizing system that explained all truths about the world was a fundamentally flawed system, because the world is so complex, nuanced, and unpredictable. In his much talked about essay Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power), 1901, Nietzsche wrote, “God is dead.” He was referring to the rise in scientific knowledge and the way it eroded the foundational system of Christian belief that had been a bedrock of European society.    It is worth noting that Nietzsche didn’t see this as a positive thing – on the contrary, he was extremely worried about the impact this would have on civilization. He even predicted that the loss of faith would lead to the greatest crisis in human history. In his essay Twilight of the Idols: or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer, 1888, Nietzsche wrote, “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident… Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole.”   3. Nihilists Believed Nothing Matters Portrait of Max Stirner, via Terra Papers   If there was no God, no heaven and hell, and no real authority, Nihilism argued that nothing had any meaning, and there was no higher purpose or calling in life. It’s a pretty depressing attitude, defined by pessimism and skepticism. And at times this attitude has led to wanton acts of violence and extremism. But some peaceful figures, such as German philosopher Max Stirner, argued this change was a necessary point of evolution, allowing the individual to wriggle free from the constraints that were placed on them by controlling systems of authority. Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard was deeply religious, and he argued that we could still believe in the “paradoxical infinite”, or blind faith, even if Nihilism threatened to destroy it. Meanwhile, Nietzsche believed we should accept the fear and uncertainty of the unknown, in order to pass through it and find a new higher calling.   4. Nihilism Sometimes Overlaps with Existentialism and Absurdism Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Sisyphus, 1870, whose life of toil was the root of Existentialism and Absurdism, via Tate   Towards the 20th century, the doom and gloom attitude of Nihilism softened. It eventually evolved into the less anarchic style of Existentialism. While Existentialists shared some of the skepticism about power systems and religion as their predecessors, they also believed the individual had the power to find their own purpose in life. From Existentialism, Absurdism emerged. The Absurdists argued that the world might well be chaotic, turbulent and absurd, but we could still celebrate it, or perhaps even laugh, but only in a wry, cynical way.

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How ethics can help you make better decisions | Michael Schur

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Why social media loves chaos

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Museum collections indicate bees increasingly stressed by changes in climate over the past 100 years

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Humble leaders can help make groups more effective

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Daniel Radcliffe Gets Weird in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Trailer

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What Was So Shocking About Edouard Manet’s Olympia?

  Audiences were horrified when French Realist painter Edouard Manet unveiled his infamous Olympia, 1863, at the Parisian Salon in 1865. But what was it, exactly, that made this artwork such an affront to the Parisian art establishment, and the people who visited it? Manet deliberately broke with artistic convention, painting in a bold, scandalously flagrant new style that signaled the beginning of the modernist era. We look through the main reasons why Manet’s Olympia was such a shock to conservative Paris, and why it is now a timeless icon of art history.   1. Manet’s Olympia Mocked Art History Olympia by Edouard Manet, 1863, Via Musée d’Orsay, Paris   From a quick glance, one might be forgiven for confusing Manet’s Olympia with the more usual paintings that populated the 19th century Parisian Salon. Like the classical history painting favored by the art establishment, Manet also painted a reclining female nude, sprawled out in an interior setting. Manet even borrowed the composition of his Olympia from the layout of Titian’s famous Venus of Urbino, 1538. Titian’s classical, idealized history painting typified the style of art favored by the Salon with its hazy, softly focused world of escapist illusion.   But Manet and his fellow Realists were sick of seeing the same old thing. They wanted art to reflect the truth about modern life, rather than some old-world fantasy. So, Manet’s Olympia made a mockery of Titian’s painting and others like it, by introducing gritty new themes from modern life, and a new style of painting that was flat, stark and direct.   2. He Used a Real Model Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) by Édouard Manet, 1863, via Musée d’Orsay, Paris   One of the most shocking statements Manet made with his Olympia was the deliberate use of a real-life model, as opposed to a fictional, fantasy female for men to ogle over, as seen in Titian’s Venus. Manet’s model was Victorine Meurent, a muse and artist who frequented the Parisian art circles. She modelled for several of Manet’s paintings, including a bullfighter scene and that other shocking painting titled Dejeuner Sur l’Herbe, 1862-3.    3. She Looked Out with a Confrontational Gaze Venus of Urbino by Titian, 1538, via Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence   Not only was Manet’s model a real-life woman, but her body language and gaze were completely different from the art of earlier generations. Rather than looking out at the viewer with a coy, demure facial expression, (like Titian’s Venus) Olympia is confident and assertive, meeting the eyes of the audience as if to say, “I am not an object.” Olympia sits in a more upright position than was customary for historical nudes, and this added to the model’s air of self-confidence.    4. She Was Clearly a ‘Working Girl’ Edouard Manet, Olympia (detail), 1863, via Daily Art Magazine   While the woman who modelled for Manet’s Olympia was a well-known artist and model, Manet deliberately posed her in this painting to look like a ‘demi-mondaine’, or high-class working girl. Manet makes this blatantly clear by highlighting the model’s nudity, and the fact that she lies sprawled out across a bed. The arched black cat in the right was a recognized symbol of sexual promiscuity, while Olympia’s servant in the background is clearly bringing her a bouquet of flowers from a client.   Women working as ‘demi-mondaines’ were rife across 19th century Paris, but they performed a secret practice that no one talked about, and extremely rare for an artist to represent it in such a flagrantly direct way. It was this that made Parisian audiences gasp with horror when they saw Manet’s Olympia hanging on the wall of the Salon for everyone to see.   5. Manet’s Olympia Was Painted in an Abstract Way Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1867, etching on paper, via The Metropolitan Museum, New York   It wasn’t just Manet’s subject matter that made Olympia such a radical work of art. Manet also bucked the trend for a softly focused, romanticized finish, painting instead with stark flat shapes and a high contrast color scheme. Both were qualities he admired in the Japanese prints that were flooding the European market. But when combined with such confrontational subject matter, this made Manet’s painting even more outrageous and shocking to look at. Despite its notoriety, the French Government bought Manet’s Olympia in 1890, and it now hangs in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

What does Woke mean? Origins and definitions explored

GoodTo newsletter Sign up to the GoodTo Newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how to do this, and how we hold your data, please see our privacy policy Thank you for signing up to . You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions (opens in new tab) and Privacy Policy (opens in new tab) and are aged 16 or over. 'Woke' is being used across social media and current affairs, and not for its original meaning of waking from sleep. So, what does woke mean?As language changes and society evolves, new ideas and concepts come to the forefront, bringing new words with them. Sometimes it can feel hard to keep up with these phrases entering the mainstream, from what does asexual mean (opens in new tab) and what does demisexual mean (opens in new tab) to what is gaslighting (opens in new tab)?Woke is no different and - to make it even more confusing - it's a word that already has an existing meaning that's different to its slang definition. With the term becoming more and more widespread in modern debates, we've explained what does woke mean, where it comes from and everything else you need to know about the word.What does Woke mean?The word woke is used to describe a person who is well-informed and aware of social issues, usually relating to issues of discrimination and injustice. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term as "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."In 2017, the Oxford English Dictionary (opens in new tab) added the term, saying "In the past decade, the meaning [of woke] has been catapulted into mainstream use with a particular nuance of 'alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice', popularised through the lyrics of the 2008 song Master Teacher by Erykah Badu (opens in new tab), in which the words 'I stay woke' serve as a refrain, and more recently through its association with the Black Lives Matter movement, especially on social media."Our June 2017 update sees the inclusion of 'woke', 'tennis mum', and many more words, phrases, and senses. https://t.co/Ps7wWEJGxwJune 26, 2017See moreThe word woke was first used in the 1800s, but back then it was only in relation to the act of not being asleep. The politically aware meaning of 'woke' was first used in 1962 in a New York Times article about black slang.The article was written by African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley (opens in new tab) and was titled 'If You're Woke, You Dig It' (opens in new tab). The article was accompanied by a glossary called 'phrases and words you might hear today in Harlem' - a neighbourhood in the north of New York City where many African-Americans live.Ten years later, a character in the Barry Beckham play Garvey Lives! says he’ll ‘stay woke’. The line reads "I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon' stay woke. And I’m gon' help him wake up other black folk."'Woke' is heavily used in reference to the fight against racism and has been widely used as slang in African-American communities.In 2008, Erykah Badu's song Master Teacher (opens in new tab) used the phrase 'I stay woke', and in 2012 Badu tweeted (opens in new tab) "Truth requires no belief. Stay woke. Watch closely," in support of a Russian feminist group.The word 'Woke' and Black Lives MatterUse of the word 'woke' first entered the mainstream in 2012, with the Black Lives Matter movement and the hashtag #staywoke.In 2012, unarmed African-America teenager Trayvon Martin was shot dead in Florida by neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. The incident sparked the Black Lives Matter movement after Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder in 2013. In 2014, the hashtag #staywoke took off again after another unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Though the former officer, Darren Wilson, fired a total of 12 bullets, no charges were brought against him.Don’t get it twisted, this concept of getting rid of “WOKE ideology” really means getting rid of your “civil rights”. Don’t be fooled! #StayWOKEAugust 22, 2022See moreIs woke an insult?The term 'woke' has become weaponised - often by right-wing groups - and used to mock those who campaign for social justice, in a similar way to the term 'politically correct' is sometimes used.In January 2021, Piers Morgan labelled the people calling for the movie Grease to be banned for sexism 'woke idiots' in a tweet (opens in new tab). Similarly, Jeremy Clarkson criticised Lewis Hamilton for being 'woke' in an article for the Sun (opens in new tab) where he talked about the F1 driver's stance as an environmentalist.The term 'woke police' has also sprung up recently, and is used to negatively describe those who see themselves as woke, while 'woke washing' describes companies with ethically or morally dubious practices capitalising on social movements. Video of the Week

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T-Mobile says subscribers will be able to connect to Starlink's second-gen satellites for coverage

T-Mobile and SpaceX have announced a new technology alliance they're calling "Coverage and Above and Beyond" that aims to end mobile deadzones. In an event at SpaceX's Starbase facility, the companies have revealed that they're working on integrating a slice of T-Mobile's mid-band 5G spectrum into the second-gen Starlink satellites launching next year. It's like putting a cellular tower in the sky, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said during the event. He also said that they're envisioning a future wherein if you have a clear view of the sky, you are connected on your mobile phone — even if it's the middle of the ocean. No more getting worried that you won't be able to get in touch with first responders or friends and family while driving or hiking in places where there's typically no coverage. The companies are making it so that your existing phones can connect to the service, which will enter beta as soon as late next year. It will start with messaging (SMS, MMS and select messaging apps), allowing you to send and receive messages in real time, and Sievert said the companies will keep going until the service can also offer data and voice. While the partners didn't exactly launch a product during the event, the T-Mobile CEO promised that the service will come free with T-Mobile's popular plans. For low-cost plans that don't include it, the carrier may charge for the service, but for far lower prices than satellite services do. SpaceX chief Elon Musk tweeted that connectivity will be 2 to 4 Megabits per cell zone, which isn't a high bandwidth, but will work great for texting and for voice calls.Note, connectivity will be 2 to 4 Mbits per cell zone, so will work great for texting & voice calls, but not high bandwidth— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 26, 2022On stage, Musk said the service will save lives, as it will allow people to call for help even from the most remote places. When asked how his company had to tweak Starlink satellites for the service to work, Musk said SpaceX had to design a very big, extremely advanced antenna that has the ability to pick up very quiet signals from your cellphone. The company is still currently working on it in the lab, but Musk said SpaceX is confident that it's going to work in the field. The company chiefs have issued an open invitation to carriers around the world to make the service available everywhere. In the US, international carriers can team up with T-Mobile so that visitors to the country will also be able to connect to Starlink satellites with their mobile devices.

The Road to Racial Equality: Court Cases and Legislation

Civil rights protest in Seattle, Washington, 1963, via National Museum of American History, Washington DC   Before and during the Civil Rights Movement, several efforts were made to grant African Americans human and civil rights and freedoms. The Dred Scott vs. Sandford case and the establishment of the Emancipation Proclamation were the starts of a gleaming hope that racial equality would be put underway. Here are some of the most significant court cases and legislations that led to racial equality.   Dred Scott vs. Sandford & the Emancipation Proclamation that Paved the Way for Racial Equality Photograph of the 107th United States Colored Troops regiment in the Civil War at Fort Corcoran, via National Park Service   In the mid-1800s, the United States was on the brink of war as disagreements between Northern and Southern states began to arise. In the midst of these quarrels was the topic of slavery. There was also a lot of change happening in the United States in the 19th century, such as the addition of the Louisiana Purchase.   In the late 18th century, some states abolished slavery and became free states, leading to the beginning of racial equality. Southern states were highly supportive of slavery, while most northern states opposed it. The Louisiana Purchase heightened tensions because there were disagreements on how new states should become slave or free states. The Missouri Compromise ultimately put the disagreements to rest as Missouri became a slave state and Maine a free state. Slavery would also be banned in the majority of the northern states.   Dred Scott vs. Sandford Newspaper ad for pamphlet of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision with portrait of Dred Scott (right), collage created by the author, via Library of Congress and Smithsonian Learning Lab   The Dred Scott v. Sandford case contributed to the growing tensions between the Northern and Southern states. An enslaved Black man, Dred Scott, sued for his and his family’s freedom in 1846 after his former slave master, John Emerson, died and ownership was passed to his wife, Irene. Emerson had purchased Scott in the slave state of Missouri, but they later moved to Illinois and then Wisconsin, both of which were considered free territories.   Scott argued that he should be considered free because they had lived in free territories. The case was brought to the St. Louis Circuit Court, which had initially ruled in Scott’s favor. However, this would later change when the Missouri Supreme Court appealed the decision. In 1857, the decision was made in the majority opinion that Scott could not sue because African Americans were not considered citizens under the Constitution.   The court case came as a shock to many and has been considered one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history. This only fueled the fire slowly growing between the North and South. Dred Scott v. Sandford ultimately set the stage for the American Civil War, which became a battle for freedom and racial equality upon the establishment of the Emancipation Proclamation.   Emancipation Proclamation and Racial Equality Pages 2 and 3 of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln, 1862, via National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC   Slavery was the forefront issue of the American Civil War. Arguments over the moral and economic issues of abolishing or keeping slavery were at an all-time high. President Lincoln established the Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War. This gave Union soldiers even more encouragement to fight for the freedoms and racial equality of enslaved peoples.   The Emancipation Proclamation was introduced in 1863 and deemed enslaved people in the rebellious states free. However, it didn’t hold enough power to abolish slavery altogether and had several limitations. For example, states that bordered and supported the seceded states were still allowed to have slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed enslaved people in the states that seceded. The Civil War was ultimately the deciding factor on whether slavery would be abolished quicker or not.   The Big Three Civil Rights Amendments Joint resolution of Congress abolishing slavery by D. R. Clark, 1868, via Library of Congress, Washington DC   The 13th Amendment was ratified in December 1865 following the Union’s victory in the Civil War. The amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States and its territories. Slavery had been present in the United States before it was even established as a nation, with the first slave ship arriving in 1619. Therefore, Black people had been subject to slavery in the United States for more than 200 years before gaining any rights or freedoms.   The 14th Amendment followed shortly after the 13th and was ratified in 1868. This gave citizenship to all people “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people. The 14th Amendment also granted formerly enslaved people the right to due process of law and equal protection. However, there were still several limitations, and it was not very successful in fully protecting the rights of Black citizens.   Poll tax receipt for $1.50 in Sumter County, Alabama, 1932, via Southern Poverty Law Center   African American men were given the right to vote following the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870. However, there were still flaws in the amendment that made it possible for states to develop various clauses and laws that made it difficult for Black male citizens to vote. For example, voters were subject to poll taxes and literacy tests. Since enslaved people were unable to receive an education and were very rarely taught how to read or write, it was difficult for many Black people to pass these tests. The questions on the literacy tests were also purposefully very confusing.   White citizens were ultimately exempt from the literacy tests and poll taxes under the Grandfather Clause. The clause was created to prevent Black men from voting, as they were required to own property and be literate to vote. The clause protected white men because it allowed anyone who had descendants who voted prior to 1867 to be exempt from these requirements.   Plessy vs. Ferguson Segregated entrances to a cafe labeled “white” and “colored” in Durham, North Carolina by Jack Delano, 1940, via Library of Congress, Washington DC   Even though African Americans were granted citizenship and men were allowed to vote by the late-19th century, mistreatment of Black people continued. White supremacists feared that Black people would one day be considered equals. Black codes, later named Jim Crow laws, were established to prevent Black people from exercising their rights and freedoms. Public facilities and communities were segregated, with white facilities being more accommodating. In some areas, Black people were not offered separate facilities and were forced to travel farther to find a “colored only” facility.   In 1896, a case was brought before the US Supreme Court over the topic of segregation. Homer Plessy, a Louisiana man who was one-eighth Black and seven-eighths white, attempted to sit in a “whites only” railway car. After refusing to give up his seat, Plessy was arrested. Plessy claimed that his rights had been violated under the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.   In the lower court, Judge John Ferguson had ruled that the “separate but equal accommodations” under the Jim Crow laws of Louisiana were not unconstitutional. Plessy brought the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Ferguson. The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the “separate but equal” laws allowed states to maintain the legality of segregation. In the early decades of the 1900s, civil rights organizations began to form to fight back against Jim Crow laws. These efforts led to the development of the Civil Rights Movement.   Brown vs. Board of Education From left to right: George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit celebrating the Brown v. Board of Education decision, 1954, via Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund   The Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation in public educational facilities was arguably the most significant civil rights case in history. Although the case is typically described as one, it is actually made up of five separate cases that addressed segregation in public schools. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is responsible for kicking off the start of these court cases by establishing the Legal Defense and Education Fund.   One of the NAACP’s leaders, Charles Hamilton Houston, and Thurgood Marshall collaborated with each other to tackle Jim Crow laws. Houston and Marshall decided that targeting segregation in public schools was the best approach in beginning the fight against racial discrimination. Thurgood Marshall became the head of the Education Fund in 1938.   Marshall handled a majority of the Brown v. Board of Education cases. The cases were brought before the Supreme Court beginning in 1952. The bulk of Marshall’s argument was that schools for Black children were inherently unequal compared to white schools. In May 1954, the Supreme Court announced its decision that the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of “separate but equal” was unconstitutional in public education under the Equal Protection Clause. Although it would take years for schools to fully integrate, especially in the South, the decision was a major success for the Civil Rights Movement agenda.   Civil Rights Act of 1964 & Voting Rights Act of 1965 Protesters at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963, via National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC   As a result of the many protests and campaigns launched during the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed any laws that allowed segregation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured African Americans’ right to vote by banning discriminatory voting laws. Efforts made by civil rights activists to fight for racial equality over the course of the 20th century had finally paid off.   There was still much more racial justice to be served in the coming decades, but these laws were a major success in securing the federal government’s support of human and civil rights for Black people. States were no longer allowed to uphold laws that supported segregation nor tolerate any violations of these new civil rights laws.   From the Emancipation Proclamation to Racial Equality Civil rights supporters at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom by Warren K. Leffler, 1963, via Library of Congress, Washington DC   The Emancipation Proclamation gave African Americans the hope that they would one day receive the human and civil rights and freedoms they deserved. Once the promise of the abolishment of slavery was secured through the 13th Amendment, the focus on freedoms turned to equality.   After the dispiriting Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the determination to continue fighting for equal rights heightened. The significant Brown v. Board of Education decision resulted from continuous advocacy, protests, and campaigns that encouraged civil rights activists to demand more. Once the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts passed, it became clear that segregation and racial inequality had no place in America. It took many years for these laws to be accepted, and racial discrimination still continued. Nevertheless, the successes for racial justice before and during the Civil Rights Movement are some of the most significant accomplishments in history.

OnlyBans Allows Users to Understand the Realities of Digital Sex Work

OnlyBans invites you to navigate life as a digital sex worker, learning about challenges of the profession along the way. (all images screen captured by author) Though its detractors like to paint sex work as a moral issue, advocates are quick to point out that it has further-reaching implications as a labor issue, as well as one of censorship. And while it’s possible to concede to these points intellectually, a new game developed by artist and sex worker Lena Chen and tech collaborator Maggie Oates helps players to empathize and learn about the challenges facing online sex workers, and even connect with resources that might help inform or support them in their own lives. OnlyBans was created by a team of sex workers and allies, and leads users on a first-person journey, trying to earn $200 through simulated online platforms.   “I was inspired to create OnlyBans as a result of my own experiences being deplatformed as an artist and sex worker,” said Chen, in an email interview with Hyperallergic. “I’ve faced continual censorship, even while carefully abiding by the terms of service agreements on Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, OnlyBans has been an incredibly personal and political project. Similar to myself, everyone on our team has had lived experience in the sex industry or has been deeply involved in sex worker advocacy. Many of us are also creatives dealing with sexuality in our art.” Careful! Anything you do might get your account taken away, or require disclosure of your personal information for retrieval. To play the game, one selects a username, and then chooses from a set of pictures to “post” one to the internet, in order to gain followers and earn money. Sometimes things go well, and your avatar collects followers and inbox tippers to make the financial goal. But often, the selected image is outright banned or shadowbanned – at which point it is revealed to be an actual pic posted by an actual sex worker, with a quote about their experience. “For the most part, we are not breaking the rules,” said Chen. “Rather, we are being targeted by biased algorithms that flag our content as inappropriate while allowing celebrities and influencers to get away with posting much more risque material.” The line between art and banned content is often inconstant or arbitrary, based on how platforms choose to enforce their guidelines. Chen has personally been banned from making Instagram ads including university-made marketing materials for a panel on sex work and digital discrimination. “Something similar happened with Susie Bright that led to the deletion of Cornell University entire’s YouTube account,” said Chen. “All of this is the result of FOSTA-SESTA – legislation that claims to prevent sex trafficking, though it has never actually been used by federal prosecutors to seek criminal restitution for victims of sex trafficking. Because platforms don’t want to be held liable for breaking the law, they are overly risk averse, leading to widespread censorship affecting sex workers, sex educators, queer community organizers, and artists alike.” In the run-up and wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the same phenomenon is occurring with abortion posts. “Tons of posts related to abortion have been marked as ‘sensitive’ or taken down altogether without recourse,” said Chen, “which has alarmed many people but is no surprise to sex workers, who have been subjected to these same practices for years.” Chen and Oates equate these practices of policing sex workers online to IRL public space laws involving “anti-loitering.” “In both instances, those occupying marginalized, criminalized bodies are excluded in the name of public safety or family values,” said Chen.  “Yet, for whom are we making the Internet ‘safer?’ Certainly, in the case of sex workers, who rely on digital networks for harm reduction practices like screening clients, FOSTA-SESTA has only led to greater violence and economic precarity.” Parker Westwood, a sex worker, community organizer, and podcaster, agrees. “Not only does OnlyBans give you a taste of some of the hurdles and roadblocks faced by online sex workers, but it tells some of our real-life experiences,” said Westwood, who hosts A Sex Worker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “There is nothing more powerful than our stories, and that’s exactly why the powers-that-be seek to deplatform us. If sex workers are seen as human beings, if our safety really mattered to people, then we would decriminalize all sex work and the status quo would dramatically shift.” OnlyBans offers good advice about digital safety, in sex work and in life. OnlyBans not only raises awareness about common threats and pitfalls of digital sex work — like navigating privacy and cybersecurity issues, having content stolen, or having your accounts suspended — it also cannily offers advice about collaboration, mutual aid, and resource-sharing that can help someone trying to find their way. “A contributor (whose story/image is featured in the work) said that OnlyBans helped their friends finally understand and empathize with the hurdles they faced in doing their work,” said Chen.  “Another contributor, during a play-through of the game with a live audience, learned about the dangers of geo-tagging for the first time.” In this way, OnlyBans picks up on a trend of that utilizes art and tech at the nexus of social justice work — a kind of praxis through participatory play. Chen and Oates are now in the process of developing OnlyBans, as part of receiving a Creative Media Award from the Mozilla Foundation. “We are planning to organize workshops with sex workers to imagine the speculative future they hope to manifest for themselves on the Internet,” said Chen. “In doing so, we hope to continue centering their visions and voices as driving forces in technological innovation.”

Psychedelics may lessen fear of death and dying, similar to feelings reported by those who've had near death experiences

In a survey study of more than 3,000 adults, researchers compared psychedelic experiences with near-death experiences that were not drug related and found notable similarities in people's attitudes toward death.

Fighting climate change is wildly popular but most Americans don't know that

Just after the U.S. Congress passed the nation's most substantial legislation aimed at battling climate change, a new study shows that the average American badly underestimates how much their fellow citizens support substantive climate policy. While 66-80% of Americans support climate action, the average American believes that number is 37-43%, the study found. The study found that conservatives underestimated national support for climate policies to the greatest degree but, liberals also believed that a minority of Americans support climate action. The misperception was the norm in every state, across policies, and among every demographic tested, including political affiliation, race, media consumption habits, and rural vs. suburban.

Tesla Autopilot prevents ~40 crashes per day caused by SUA

submitted by /u/chilladipa [link] [comments]

Why businesses should be led by designers

The pandemic forced digital transformation upon many companies sooner than planned, but digital-first experiences and brand interactions are undoubtedly here to stay. Consensus is growing that design deserves a seat at the top table of global business as we shape how the brands of the future look and behave. In a blog post explaining his choice to invest in collaborative interface design tool... Source

Random acts of kindness make a bigger splash than expected

Even though they often enhance happiness, acts of kindness such as giving a friend a ride or bringing food for a sick family member can be somewhat rare because people underestimate how good these actions make recipients feel, according to new research.

New model for predicting belief change

A new kind of predictive network model could help determine which people will change their minds about contentious scientific issues when presented with evidence-based information.

Spotify allowed its 6,500 employees to work from anywhere in the world. Its turnover rate dropped

Daniel Ek, chief executive officer and cofounder of Spotify, attends a news conference in Tokyo in 2016. Akio Kon—Bloomberg/Getty Images Sign up for the Fortune Features email list so you don’t miss our biggest features, exclusive interviews, and investigations. In February 2021, Spotify announced its new work model called “Work From Anywhere.” The policy lets employees determine how often they work from the office and where they work, as long as the company has an operation there. The audio streaming service also changed how it sets salary bands, calibrating them by country instead of city or region—a benefit surely appreciated by employees, around 6% of whom moved after the policy’s instatement. More than a year later, Spotify says it’s experienced lower turnover compared to pre-pandemic levels and increased diverse representation. It’s expanded beyond New York and California and is now registered in 42 U.S. states. In Europe, the platform has increased its presence outside its Stockholm headquarters to Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. Spotify credits these changes to its return-to-office initiative. Attrition at the company was 15% lower in the second quarter of 2022 compared to the same quarter in 2019. What’s more, the music streaming service says its location flexibility has helped the company meet DEI objectives, with roughly half of new hires coming from a location outside of Spotify’s main hubs in New York City and Los Angeles. “People want that flexibility and that freedom,” Katrina Berg, Spotify’s chief human resources officer, tells Fortune. Berg and her team have spent the last year tracking how the new work model affects creativity, collaboration, and productivity, the latter of which is measured by the quality and speed of completed projects. The plan to make the plan Spotify’s Work from Anywhere initiative was conceived pre-pandemic. In early 2020, Spotify’s leadership team gathered in New York City and set a goal to become a fully-distributed company by 2025. COVID-19, of course, had other plans. The pandemic sent office workers home, ushering in the work-from-home experiment faster than expected. In many ways, it was a blessing in disguise. “A clear common thread throughout our surveys the past couple of years, before we put this Work From Anywhere together, has been asking for flexibility,” says Anna Lundstrom, an HR VP and one of the two architects of the Work From Anywhere policy. “We also wanted to be able to tap into even broader and more diverse talent pools than we were currently tapping into,” she adds, citing heightened competition for talent and a need for teams that reflect the company’s diverse customer base. Among U.S.-based employees, Black and Hispanic representation increased from 12.7% to 18% from 2019 to 2021; women in leadership globally increased from 25% to 42%. Before the policy’s rollout, Spotify created an exhaustive FAQ document and used it as a framework for internal planning, starting with the most important questions employees would likely want answered. The HR team then created a roughly 40-page playbook for the rollout of Work From Anywhere, and later released a slimmed-down Q&A document for employees. Takeaways one year later About 150 of Spotify’s 6,500 global employees chose to move to a different country, representing 2% of the company’s total workforce. Almost double that amount moved within the U.S. “We saw a lot of people had a tendency to move back closer to family,” Berg says. “We also saw a green wave; people wanted to go away from the bigger cities and live closer to nature or have a different type of life.” The company has shortened its time to hire since rolling out Work From Anywhere, dropping from 48 days to 42 days, a huge benefit for the growing organization in a tight labor market. Spotify is now working with researchers from the Stockholm School of Economics to further understand the impact of Work From Anywhere on creativity, innovation, collaboration, well-being, and energy. It expects to release the findings in two years. Berg asserts that energy—which she defines as moments of spontaneous collaboration and idea sharing—combined with flexibility and trust, help boost mental health and well-being among employees, as well as inclusion. Many executives are struggling to create a return-to-work framework and corresponding office attendance policies. Companies that set strict guidelines tend to experience employee pushback or, worse, increased turnover as dissatisfied workers depart for employers that offer more flexibility. Berg says strict office attendance requirements indicate a lack of trust, which may be a sign of a flawed culture. “If you decide that you trust your people, and you took a long time to find them, and you want to treat them well and they want to be with you, it doesn’t matter where they work,” she explains. “Work is something you do and not a place you come into. As soon as we cracked that code…it was quite easy to do this.”

HP leans into the hybrid working debate in new ad

One of the more unexpected results of the Covid-19 pandemic is the upending of office working for many, and the fierce debates that have accompanied this change. While flexible working was edging its way very slowly into our consciousness prior to Covid – egged on by technology supposedly offering the option for us to work from anywhere – this change has been turbo-charged in the past two years. Source

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever IMAX Trailer Released

Following the release of the epic first trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the IMAX version of the footage has now been unveiled —allowing all of us to get even more of the MCU magnificence into our eyeballs. Released via social media courtesy of the official IMAX Twitter account, the IMAX trailer shows the trailer in 1:90 aspect ratio and thus offers a wider view of the incoming war between Wakanda and a mysterious underwater nation.

Plant-based 'meat' 'healthier and more sustainable than animal products'

A new review focuses on the health and environmental benefits of plant-based products, as well as consumer attitudes.

What the True Story of Buffalo Bill Reveals About the Myth of the Wild West

Buffalo Bill is onstage engaged in fierce battle. He and his scouts are fighting a ferocious group of Cheyenne warriors. The audience holds its breath as the terrifying Cheyenne appear to be gaining the upper hand. But just when it seems all hope is lost, Buffalo Bill—dressed in an elegant black velvet, lace-trimmed, Mexican vaquero suit—takes aim at the Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hand and fires. Their chief shot dead, the Cheyenne are defeated. Buffalo Bill walks over to Yellow Hand’s lifeless body, takes out his knife, and removes Yellow Hand’s scalp. Buffalo Bill triumphantly raises the scalp in the air. “For Custer!” he declares. The audience erupts into wild applause and cheers. “For Custer!” they cry. In Buffalo Bill’s stage show The Red Right Hand or The First Scalp for Custer, the scalping of Yellow Hand was an act of justice. The story of Buffalo Bill’s scalping of Yellow Hand would become a part of a mythology—a story that William F. Cody largely invented, just as he had invented his own legend and the “Wild West.” Cody was given the name Buffalo Bill for his talent in slaughtering buffalo. At first, Cody hunted buffalo for food. Buffalo were plentiful around the country, and hunting them was a popular sport, but Cody was obscenely prolific in killing—claiming to have shot dead 4,280 buffalo in just 18 months. He got a job with the railroad companies to kill buffalo in order to feed railroad workers. But quickly, the work became about more than killing buffalo; it became a part of killing Indians. As American colonizers looked to expand their territory westward with the building of railroads in the mid- to late 19th century, they came into direct conflict with the Native people who had lived on those lands for centuries. Prime railroad territory was often prime grazing territory, and valuable resources like gold were found in places where the Sioux hunted. The U.S. government had declared de facto total war against Native people wherever they stood between the United States and its expansion west. The United States attacked Native people in every way it could—fighting combatants on the battlefield, killing women and children in their homes, spreading disease, forcing relocation—nothing was off limits. But still, Native communities fought to maintain their lands, and fought well. In 1869, facing a protracted battle with Native tribes like the Sioux, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Phillip Sheridan as commanding general of the army and asked him to help solve the “Indian Problem” once and for all. Sheridan reached out to William Tecumseh Sherman, who had distinguished himself with his scorched-earth battle tactics during the Civil War, for advice. Sherman observed that wherever buffalo existed, there would be Native people, and they would continue to fight for land wherever the buffalo roamed. Sherman’s advice to Sheridan was simple: remove the buffalo in order to remove the Indian. Cody had gained a reputation as a skilled hunter, and he went to work for Sheridan, killing as many buffalo as he could. Men from all over the country boarded trains headed west in order to shoot buffalo with .50-caliber rifles from train windows. They killed thousands of buffalo a day, leaving the animals’ lifeless bodies where they fell on the plains to rot. Wealthy and powerful men from the East Coast and even Europe rode west to join in on the fun, guided by “Buffalo Bill” Cody. As journalists traveled with the wealthy men to document the hunts for newspapers across the country, Cody saw his first real opportunity for fame. He began partnering with the authors of dime-store novels and started commissioning plays about his exploits. Soon, Cody was regularly traveling back and forth—east to star in stage shows, and then back west to continue the wholesale slaughter of buffalo. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter As famous hunters like Cody popularized buffalo hunting and countless men joined in the killing, they found that they had to travel farther west in search of buffalo as numbers dwindled. The excitement following the widespread slaughter of buffalo began to wane. Cody, now having tasted celebrity, went in search of greater fame and found it in battle. An experienced scout with the U.S. Army, he signed on to join in the Plains Wars in 1876, announcing from the stage of one of his shows that he was leaving “play acting” in search of the “real thing.” He packed his costume and went off to war. Opportunity struck a little over a month after Cody joined the 5th Cavalry in southern Wyoming. A small band of Cheyenne warriors had been spotted heading west in pursuit of two U.S. military couriers. Cody gained permission from his superiors to take a small group of fighters to engage the warriors. Before leaving, Cody changed out of the typical sturdy, rough clothing that the rest of the cavalry wore and into his costume. Dressed in black velvet pants and a red silk shirt trimmed with silver buttons, Cody rode out to meet fame and fortune. The fight itself was unextraordinary, lasting only a few minutes. But after Cody killed Cheyenne warrior Hay-o-wei, whose name means “Yellow Hair,” Cody scalped the dead warrior and took his warbonnet and weapons as trophies. According to Cody, he thrust the scalp in the air and shouted, “The first scalp for Custer!” Nobody else at the skirmish remembered him doing that. None of the warriors that the men fought had been at the battle of Little Big Horn, known as Custer’s Last Stand, or had likely ever encountered the revered General George Armstrong Custer. Within a week of his killing Yellow Hair, exaggerated stories of Cody’s bravery under fire began to reach the newspapers. A few months after killing Yellow Hair, Cody left the cavalry to return to the stage. Each night, he donned the very outfit that he wore in battle to reenact a wildly dramatized version of the killing of Yellow Hair, now renamed by Cody as Yellow Hand and promoted to the position of chief, instead of simple warrior. While papers denounced the blatant glorification of violence, audiences packed the theater to see Cody wave the scalp of Yellow Hand in the air in victory. Cody would go on to develop more stage productions showcasing the violent masculinity of the West to great success, leading to the 1883 debut of his most famous show, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. The timing of Cody’s Wild West was perfect. In the mid-19th century, white men in England and the United States began to worry about their young men who had it too easy; their wealth and comfort had made them soft. In the United States, a country still fighting to retain the land it had stolen from Native people, this softness could threaten the expansion of America across the continent. The call for white men of America to maintain physical power was not just political; it was a spiritual calling. Cody’s Wild West show offered everything that white men in search of power and glory were looking for. In the show, white men were noble and brave. They fearlessly tamed animals and fought savages. “Indians,” even when Cody allowed them to be something less than mindless killing machines, were seen as great relics of the past, conquered by the superiority of white men. The lure of Western adventure did not dissipate as these boys became men. Instead, they set out to star in their own stories of physical dominance. Cody expanded his show from a small stage to an extravaganza the size of a small town. He hired real Native warriors to play Native warriors. Gunslingers and cowboys would join the show. Eventually he would add “Zulu warriors,” Mexican “vaqueros,” Turks, and dozens of other “exotic” performances. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West became the most popular show in America, and he became one of the wealthiest and most famous entertainers in the world. Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and many other dimestore-novel heroes would inspire an entire generation of young white men to head west in search of their own Manifest Destiny. With the Wild West show gaining in popularity, Cody also strove to increase its respectability. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West was not a “show”—it was, according to Cody, an educational event. It was a living history. People would come to Wild West to learn as much as to be entertained. Few questioned the supposed educational value or legitimacy of his project. And the racist, exaggerated stories of white male American bravery, leadership, and righteous victory became a part of our collective understanding of American history; these misleading legends persist to this day. After decades of success, Wild West was eventually done in by financial mismanagement, Cody’s drinking habits, and the rising popularity of movie theaters. Cody died on Jan.y 10, 1917, at age 70. He is still remembered as an icon of the American West: a soldier, a showman, a wildlife conservationist, and a friend of the Indian. He deliberately cultivated that reputation. As Cody interacted with the Native people who worked in his show, he became less comfortable with the scalping act that had launched his career. The scalp and warbonnet of Yellow Hair were removed from their stage-side case, never to be displayed again. Cody would eventually speak against the scalping of Native people. He would also come to regret the massacre of buffalo that had given him his stage name. While the great buffalo hunt featuring live bison would always be a prominent part of Cody’s show, he began to speak out against the buffalo hunting that he had popularized. Perhaps one of the most brutal of white male privileges is the opportunity to live long enough to regret the carnage you have brought upon others. Adapted from MEDIOCRE: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo, now published in paperback by Seal Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. Copyright © 2021 by Ijeoma Oluo. Contact us at letters@time.com.

The Indigenous Genocide We Refuse To Acknowledge

(Photo credit: Public Domain, altered by author)While precise numbers are impossible to retrieve, an estimated 56 million Natives of the Americas were either killed by Europeans or died of European diseases between Christopher Columbus arriving in 1492 and the year 1600. The overwhelming loss of human life was so immense that scientists believe the event caused a global climate change, wherein the earth cooled due to dramatic loss of population. But the death toll did not dissipate there. Through massacres, forced removals, biological warfare, and separation of children, the United States of America managed to reduce their native populations from millions to a mere 230,306 by the 1900 census.Adolf Hitler cited the United States’ as inspiration for his own Holocaust, which accounted for the loss of 6 million Jews. In his writings, Hitler praised America for how they “gunned down the millions of redskins to a few hundred thousand.” His minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, on numerous occasions referenced the United States’ history with native populations as a direct educative tool for their own Final Solution.Yet, why does the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans receive significantly less collective mortification than the Holocaust?Perhaps because, in the American context, the Holocaust was conducted by the “other.” The Germans, the Nazi Party, the opposition. It is far easier to condemn crimes against humanity committed by an enemy than to recognise such atrocities within our own legacy. Rewording Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion for what they truly were, deliberated genocide, would push our most revered U.S. presidents of the 19th century off their propagandised pedestals.The Presidents Who Massacred NationsIt should hardly be a surprise that our founding fathers were racist towards Natives. In the Declaration of Independence, the very foundation of our country’s identity, indigenous peoples are referred to as “merciless Indian savages.”[i] It only gets worse from there. A peruse through national archives reveals what some of our most celebrated presidents felt in regards to Native populations;“[When we] lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi… in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all.” — Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President.“Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority, [the Native tribes] must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.” — Andrew Jackson, 7th U.S. President“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.” — Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President(“The only good Indians are dead Indians” derives from Union General Phillip Sheridan, who responded to a Comanche Chieftain calling himself good with, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”)More disturbing than their blatantly white supremacist sentiments, virtually every president from America’s foundation up to the eve of the 20th century were active participants of the extermination of indigenous peoples. Andrew Jackson is perhaps most notorious of all, with his mandated Indian Removal Act and subsequent Trail of Tears, which forcibly displaced over 125,000 Natives, including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole Nations. In his purge of the Southeast, to clear land for slave plantations, Jackson caused the deaths of thousands of Natives on the 5,000 mile trek, systemically bringing entire Nations to virtual extinction in the infertile wastelands west of the Mississippi.But ethnic cleansing was not only unique to the man on our twenty dollar bill. The men on our one and five dollar bills each did their parts in propelling the genocide.George Washington, the United States’ first president, earned the name “the Town-destroyer” by the Seneca Nation, on account of his rampaging campaign to uproot Iroquois villages throughout the Northeast. Under his presidency, treaty protected Native lands were stolen by settlers, and when Nations objected to the blatant breaking of legal agreements, Washington responded not with rebuke to the illegally intruding white settlers, but with a 5,000 man army to quell any resistance from the Nations. The two pronged aim of his ‘Indian Policy’ was the purchasing of Native lands and assimilation of Native peoples into American society. While on paper it was proposed that these objectives would be “directed entirely by the great principles of Justice and humanity”[ii], the reality was in direct opposition of just and humane. When Native Nations refused to sell their land, Washington mandated they be taken by force, using the term “extirpate” as a description of the bloody process. As for the assimilation, the acts of kidnapping children from their Nations, placing them in intensive boarding schools, forbidding they speak their native tongues or practice their cultural beliefs, and abusively brainwashing so as to “kill the Indian” inside of them does not exemplify “justice and humanity.” Washington set a precedent for how our government was to regard Native Americans for the next century.“American Progress” by John Gast (1872) depicting Manifest Destiny’s claiming of Native lands.The beloved Abraham Lincoln, venerated for abolishing slavery, was also far from guiltless. His administration displaced tens of thousands of natives with the Homestead Act, which subsequently resulted in thousands of deaths. In Lincoln’s removal of Navajos and Mescalero Apaches from their homelands, the Nations were involuntarily made to make a 450 mile trek, accounting for the loss of over 2,000 lives, only to undergo further intensive ethnic cleansing, crop burnings and raids by the U.S. military. Across the plains in Minnesota, Lincoln signed an 1862 order to execute 38 Dakota Sioux, the largest mass execution in US history. The men sentenced to death were fighting in defense of raiding white settlers, after the government broke peace treaties with the Dakotas. To give perspective on the matter, Lincoln never ordered a single Confederate officer or general be executed, despite the Civil War killing over 400,000 Union soldiers. The sentiment was clear: If you revolt and are indigenous, you deserve execution. If you revolt and are white, you deserve a slap on the wrist and possibly a commemorative statue or two.Taking Ownership for Our PastIn line with Governor Peter Burnett’s 1851 vow to ambush Native Americans until they became “extinct,” the State of California had over 16,000 Natives slaughtered by federal troops and state sponsored militias in just 30 years. Tens of thousands more were raped, enslaved, kidnapped, murdered or died of starvation and disease in the process of displacement. For the Yuki Nation alone, who numbered between 6,000 and 20,000 in 1854, only 300 remained by 1864.[iii]Despite the California State Department of Education’s refusal to acknowledge these events in their history curriculum, on June of 2019, California State Governor Gavin Newsom gave a formal apology for the state-led ethnic-cleansing of Native Americans. It was the first time the government of any U.S. state formally used the word genocide to describe their actions. While such an admission does not correct the wrongs of the past, it is anomalous, and opens up the potential for further change.Canada has officially used the term genocide in governmental statements regarding their shameful past with the Inuit, Métis, and First Nations. Mexico went a step further when their Prime Minister demanded Spain apologise for invading the region of Mexico which resulted in an pre-colonial indigenous population of 25.2 million dissipating to less than 700,000 by 1623. (Predictably, Spain refused.) Yet the United States federal government has never classified our past as a genocide. The closest we have come to such an acknowledgement was President Obama’s 2009 apology to Native Americans. Despite it being the first (and only) official apology from the US government to Natives, the messaging of the apology was bureaucratically watered down. From the bill’s inception on the senate floor by Senator Sam Brownback, to the desk of the Oval Office, wording was altered, statements were redacted, and the final result became an intentionally vague apology, “on behalf of the people of the United States.” While the bill recognised “many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native peoples by citizens of the United States,” all responsibility on the government’s part for inflicting said violence, maltreatment and neglect was omitted. The bill presented the past as a citizen problem, not a governmental problem. The word genocide was positively absent.Wasco-Wishram fishers over Celilo Falls, a large trading community that has inhabited the banks of present day Columbia River for over 15,000 years. The falls and village site have since been submerged by the federal government’s construction of The Dalles Dam.The Value of WordsWhy does a mere lack of language matter so much? An apology is an apology, whether or not they used the word genocide, right?Well, according to the UN, genocide is to be classified as:“Any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:· Killing members of the group,· Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,· Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,· Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,· Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”[iv]All signatories of the UN’s definition, which includes the United States, are imposed to “prevent and punish” cases of genocide.If the U.S. government were to officially admit to committing genocide on Native Americans, by means of mass killings, bodily and mental harm, deliberate infliction on group conditions of life, eugenics to prevent births, and forcible transferring of children, they would be just as ethically obligated to the provision of reparations as Germany is to Holocaust victims. We elude from the word genocide because of the responsibility such a confession entails.The next step is for the United States federal government to issue a second, more direct apology to Native Americans wherein they clearly acknowledge the government’s responsibility and classify the events of the past as direct acts of genocide. Canada has done so, California has done so, and while they both have serious wrongs to mend and work to do, their admittance of genocide creates a space for growth. To quote Gov. Newsom: “It’s called a genocide. (…) [There’s] no other way to describe it and that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books. (…) We can never undo the wrongs inflicted (…) but we can work together to build bridges, tell the truth about our past and begin to heal deep wounds.”Of course, such an apology will realistically have to wait for the next presidential administration. Despite a few sprinkled efforts to aid Native Relations, President Donald Trump has spent his political and business careers actively working to oppress and steal from Native Americans. Through the 90s and 2000s, Trump lobbied, advertised, and spread intentional misinformation against multiple Nations he felt to be competition to his casinos. On several occasions, including before the House subcommittee, Trump exclaimed that certain Native American businessmen should not have the right to own and manage casinos because they “don’t look like Indians to me,” on account of them having both Native and African American ancestry. He further shared the conspiracy that the Native American casino industry was owned by the Mafia, despite the Department of Justice concluding that “there has not been widespread or successful effort by organized crime to infiltrate Indian gaming operations.” Unconvinced, Trump launched an anonymous ad campaign, bankrolled by his own casino company, to spread falsehoods and racially charged fears about a Mohawk Nation’s expansion in the Catskill Mountains. The ads featured heroin needles and cocaine lines, with the narrator accusing the Mohawk Nation of being in the mob, asking the viewer, “Are these the new neighbours you want?” Because Trump never reported the 1 million dollars he poured into the advertisements under his lobbying spending, he was issued a 250,000 dollar fine and made to give a public apology.But his contention with Native Americans did not end there.Protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, San Francisco, 2016. (Photo credit: Pax Ahisma Gethen)Just four days into his presidency, Trump signed off on an oil pipeline, previously rejected by President Obama, which cut through Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux protected sacred lands in North Dakota. Sioux leaders have filed lawsuits, Sioux members have protested, and numerous other Nations across the country have united in solidarity, all to no avail. Not only does the pipeline break the law of binding treaties, but poses a severe water contamination threat for the local reservations. And Standing Rock is not a singular phenomenon. The Trump administration has made numerous attempts to remove Native lands from the Federal Trust, so as to sell them off for profit. An estimated 1/5 of the United States’ oil, gas and coal reserves are on Native lands, which the Trump administration aims to privatise. Already, Utah’s Bear Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which are sacred to the Hopi, Pueblo and Ute Nations, have been reduced in size and opened to oil and gas bidding. Combined, the selling off of these sacred lands has been part of the largest rollback of public lands protections in U.S. history. Down on the U.S. — Mexico border, dynamite has been used to demolish a Tohono O’odham Nation’s ancient burial ground to make way for Trump’s border wall. And, to add insult to injury, as of 2019, President Trump has designated November, which is National Native American Heritage month, to now be National Founders Month, declaring that, “for more than two centuries, the American experiment in self-government has been the antithesis to tyranny”, while failing to publish any statement for Native American Heritage month on the White House website.The Trump presidency has proven to hold no concern for Indigenous lands, rights, public health, or sacred sites. Trump’s approval among Native Americans is abysmal, and the expectation that he would ever acknowledge the government’s hand in genocide is non-existent. This is a man who publicly idolises Andrew Jackson and has his portrait hanging in the Oval Office. It is painfully evident that any hope for healing of our Native Nations is dependent on a new president.Until that day comes, let us as individuals call our history what it was; genocide.[i] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript[ii] “George Washington to The Commissioners for Negotiating a Treaty with the Southern Indians, 29 August 1789,” The Writings of George Washington, 30:392 & 392N.[iii] Report of Indians on the Reservations within the California Superintendency (Report). Washington, DC: Office of Indian Affairs. 1865[iv] https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

Prenups Aren’t Just for Rich People Anymore

A few months after Sandy Webb moved from Indiana to Arizona, in 1994, she and a close friend decided to go out for drinks at a bar known for its country dancing, about an hour from Phoenix, in Apache Junction. Early in the evening, two men approached their table and asked to buy them a round. Sandy said no, then relented. Her friend hit it off with one of the men, and Sandy was left talking to the other, a professional carpenter named TJ dressed in Wrangler jeans, boots, and a black cowboy hat. Sandy had recently finalized her second divorce, and she wasn’t interested in dating. When TJ asked for her phone number, she declined to give it to him, but he insisted on giving her his. As she left the bar, she told her friend, “That’s it. I’m done going out with you, because I always get stuck with the stupid one.”She called TJ a week before Christmas. She didn’t know many people in Arizona, and those she did had left town for the holidays. TJ took her out in the desert for target shooting. Three months later, they were renting a house together in Apache Junction. Four years after that, they had co-founded a business, a crane service with a mostly residential clientele. TJ bought a house for the two of them, where they kept chickens, horses, and goats. Like Sandy, he was divorced. He had three kids; Sandy didn’t want to have any of their own. “I really saw no reason to get married,” she told me.Another decade passed, together. In early 2009, TJ began getting frequent headaches. Both of his parents were in the hospital, and Sandy figured that the headaches were stress-related. But they became so debilitating that TJ went to a doctor. He got an MRI and learned that he had cancer, which had already spread to his brain. He was forty-eight. Sandy was forty-three. Staring down the end of his life, he asked her to marry him. “At that point, you have no option but to say yes,” Sandy told me. She had one stipulation: she wanted a prenup.Prenups are popularly regarded as a tool of the rich and famous, the kind of document that a couple signs when one person’s yearly income bleeds into the seven or eight figures. When the public learned, in 2019, that Jeff Bezos, then the world’s richest person, didn’t have a prenup with his then wife, MacKenzie Scott, it prompted a minor uproar. (Bezos and Scott have since divorced.) But prenups have lately found other use cases, for people who are far less wealthy. “I think, more and more, what I would call ordinary people are interested in the tidiness and the finality that they perceive they might have if they have a prenuptial agreement,” Cary Mogerman, the president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, told me.Twelve years ago, a poll conducted by Harris Interactive (now Harris Poll) asked more than two thousand adults what they thought of prenups. Three per cent of respondents who were married or engaged reported having signed a prenuptial agreement. Recently, I asked Harris Poll for details about that survey, and the firm offered to pose the question again; this time, fifteen per cent of Americans who were married or engaged reported that they had signed one. According to the poll, nearly forty per cent of married or engaged people between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four have signed prenups, while just thirteen per cent of those between forty-five and fifty-four have done so. For those fifty-five and above, the figure is below five per cent. It’s a single poll, of course, but its findings reflected what I heard from multiple experts: more Americans, particularly younger Americans, are getting prenups. And one likely impetus for this change, according to those experts, is the historic levels of debt that many younger Americans have.Sandy Webb has worked as an accountant for most of her life, and she knew how ruinous debts could be. TJ had a catastrophic health-insurance plan, but he was still likely to end up on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of cancer treatments, which neither he nor Sandy could afford. By the standard laws of Arizona, Sandy knew, the debt that he racked up could be hers after he died. Arizona is a “community property” state, where any income or property acquired during a marriage is typically split fifty-fifty. If one spouse opens a bank account during the marriage, for instance, that account, and all the money within it, is generally joint, unless a prenup specifies otherwise. There are nine such states, and they include the country’s two most populous, California and Texas. In most of them, including Arizona, the community-property principle extends to debt: creditors can seize the community property of both spouses, or even garnish their wages, to collect on the debts of one. In community-property states, especially, prenups have become a way for some couples to insulate each other from the worst impulses of the American debt-collection system.Sandy and TJ went to a lawyer a week after TJ’s diagnosis. The prenup they ultimately signed declared that each spouse’s income and possessions—guns, jewelry, a ten-acre property in southeastern Arizona that belonged to Sandy—was owned separately, and that any debts acquired during the marriage would fall solely on the shoulders of the partner who incurred them. TJ’s medical debts would not become Sandy’s problem.In the Americas, prenups date back to the early days of colonialism. Among the seventeenth-century Canadian colonists of New France, men outnumbered women six to one. These men often married poor women from French cities, known as the filles du roi, who immigrated to the Americas for economic opportunity. The filles du roi—or “king’s daughters,” so called because King Louis XIV helped pay their way, in an effort to grow the population of New France—were so coveted that they could negotiate the terms of their marriage. More than eighty per cent of them convinced their husbands to sign prenuptial contracts, according to “Lonely Colonist Seeks Wife: The Forgotten History of America’s First Mail Order Brides,” a paper by the law professor Marcia Zug that was published in the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, in 2012. These contracts often gave women the right to keep dowries and other income as their own property, a rarity at the time.In England and France, where the gender ratio wasn’t nearly as lopsided, women didn’t have the same leverage—and, in the Americas, as that ratio evened out, that negotiating power disappeared. In the nineteenth century, some wealthy women tried to contract around coverture laws that gave men sole control of property, but everyone was against them, Zug said. Drawing from a work in progress, she told me the story of Harriet Douglas, a wealthy woman who, in 1833, agreed to marry a lawyer named Henry Cruger, who had pursued her for a decade. She required him to sign a prenup that would let her maintain control of her property, estimated to be worth a hundred thousand dollars, equivalent to more than three million dollars today. Henry did so, then threw a fit. She offered Henry an allowance, but he insisted that she wasn’t “treating him like a man,” Zug said. He refused to drink the wine at their house, insisting that he “did not own it,” and refused to ride in the carriage because it legally belonged to his wife. Writing to Harriet, Henry called their prenup a “poignard of ice” that “portends that you and I are not one,” and he enlisted Harriet’s friends to convince her to take it back. One of them urged her “to relieve” her husband “from a state of dependence.” She relented in 1841, and the two signed a new agreement entitling him to half of her property.Prenups that addressed the circumstances of divorce—as opposed to death—did not emerge as a relatively popular legal tool in the U.S. until after the Second World War. As late as the nineteen-seventies, when couples did sign prenups, courts rarely enforced them, insisting that prenups promoted divorce by laying out the worst-case scenario in advance. A Florida case from 1970, Posner v. Posner, ruled that prenups should be enforceable as standard practice and helped bring about a sea change, though one that took years to ripple outward. (Ohio, for instance, didn’t consistently enforce prenups at divorce until 1984.) It was during the next two decades that the contemporary image of prenups really took hold. “In the nineteen-eighties,” Julie Salamon wrote, in this magazine, a quarter century ago, “as Wall Street players made fortunes and exchanged old wives for new ones, the prenuptial agreement became a kind of financial instrument, like a junk bond.” An early-nineties prenup signed by Donald Trump and his second wife, Marla Maples—which reportedly limited the payout to Maples if the marriage lasted less than five years—both popularized prenups and helped fix a certain idea of them in the public imagination. (Salamon quotes a friend of hers saying, of Trump and Maples, “This wasn’t a marriage. This was a lease with an option to buy.”)Nearly every state now leans on the side of enforcing prenups, but states have widely varying provisions outlining what can make a prenup enforceable. The one that Sandy and TJ agreed to likely would not have been upheld in California or Washington, where each party is required to consult with a different lawyer. Washington will furthermore only enforce prenups when both parties fully disclose their property before signing. Among other provisions, Connecticut requires a window of time between when a prenup is presented and when the marriage takes place. The list goes on.Depending on whom you talk to, these provisions are either necessary protections for the more vulnerable spouse or a relic of the idea that prenups are inherently unbalanced. Mogerman, the matrimonial lawyer, supports waiting periods between the introduction of a prenup and the wedding date. He described a case in Missouri where a woman received a revised prenup “on the way to the rehearsal dinner,” adding, “You really can’t have free, fair deliberation over the terms of a prenup under those circumstances.” But Elizabeth R. Carter, a law professor at Louisiana State University who has taught a class on community property for a decade, has come to see many of these rules as unjustified roadblocks to prenup-making. To her, some of these regulations—like requiring separate, independent lawyers—only end up making prenups more expensive.Carter first taught her community-property class in 2010, soon after joining the L.S.U. faculty. At the time, she was engaged; she and her fiancé were both lawyers, and they had spent four months mired in the nuances of the marriage rules in Louisiana. Carter had some personal property that she wanted to protect; her fiancé had student-loan debt. They decided to write a prenup themselves and signed it ahead of their wedding the following January. In 2016, Carter published a law paper arguing that, as she put it to me, “everyone that’s getting married should have a prenup.” She was surprised by the skeptical reactions that she got from fellow law professors. Prenups, she heard again and again, were inherently unequal, since they almost always involved a wealthy (usually older, usually male) partner pressuring a less affluent fiancée to sign away the rights to a fortune.Carter wasn’t convinced. Many people she knew getting prenups in Louisiana weren’t wealthy, and, in “the vast majority” of cases that she has seen, Carter told me, “there really wasn’t some big inequity in bargaining power.” Louisiana is a community-property state, and people were using prenups to protect themselves—from creditors who wanted to collect on debts, from lost income if one of them stayed at home to parent. Owing, in part, to Louisiana’s unique civil-law system, Jefferson Parish, just west of New Orleans, is one of the only places in the country where prenups are regularly recorded. Carter decided to compile the data, and, in 2019, she published a rare statistical study of prenups in the U.S., looking at Jefferson Parish in the years from 2013 through 2016. She found no major age disparities between couples that signed prenups; slightly more people who signed them had been married previously, but nearly a quarter of the marriages with prenups involved spouses who were both getting hitched for the first time. Many worked not in finance but in fields such as nursing. “These are not exceptionally wealthy people, for the most part, who are getting these,” she told me.One reason that couples get a prenup, she has found in her research and in her experience practicing law, is to build in a backstop to debt collection. Debt threaded through the prenups she read in other ways, too: in one Louisiana prenup, a couple agreed that a wife-to-be’s student-loan debt, which amounted to a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, was “to be paid out of the joint-community income,” including the husband’s income, and that the husband would not be entitled to reimbursement down the line.In recent years, Carter has seen another concern emerge in a number of prenups: how to address the financial issues that stem from one partner choosing to stay home to raise children. One prenup she read specified that, should the wife “quit her job for the benefit of the marriage,” the husband would “be responsible for monthly payments to her retirement in an amount equal to her average monthly contribution during the prior twelve (12) months.” Any payments that he missed would accrue a five-per-cent interest. A community-property system might make the most sense for couples where one spouse stays at home, since it entitles that spouse to half of any new income; historically, people may have supported such a system for precisely this reason, according to Alessandra Voena, who researches family economics.States that do not follow community-property rules use an “equitable distribution” system, in which couples choose which of their assets they want to pool together; at divorce, all shared property is distributed “equitably,” according to the needs and the contributions of each partner, not fifty-fifty—or at least not necessarily. But the equitable-distribution system varies from state to state. Say one spouse enters the marriage with a business. In some states, if that business doubles in value during the course of the marriage, the business owner gets to keep nearly all of the income; in others, the appreciation in value is deemed to belong to both spouses. For a stay-at-home parent who sacrifices traditional wages for household labor, these differences can be critical during a divorce.Drafting a prenup can be a way around the vagaries of state law—without one, Carter noted, “you’re assuming that your state legislature has the best rule for what happens to you at either death or divorce, because all marriages end in one of those ways.” But the variance in state regulation also affects how well spouses can insulate each other from debt. In some states, prenups aren’t always enforceable against creditors; in Nevada, for instance, prenups are considered “effective only as between” the couple, meaning that a third party, such as a creditor, needn’t abide by them. In Arizona, in one case, a bank sued a married couple for repayment of a bank transfer. The transfer was done in the husband’s name, and the wife denied knowing about the transfer. They subsequently divorced. An Arizona court found that the bank had the right to garnish her wages even after she split from him.In Europe, couples can have more choice in how their marital property is divided up. In the Netherlands, which has a limited community-property system, couples can register prenuptial contracts directly with the national government, and roughly a quarter of couples choose to do so; in Italy, couples choose how they want their property to be divided up—community property or separate property—when they register to marry, and don’t have to hire an expensive lawyer to write a prenup if they don’t like the standard rules. (Around seventy per cent of new couples in Italy choose the separate-property system, according to Voena.) Of all U.S. states, only Alaska and Tennessee come close to replicating Italy’s system. Both have an equitable-distribution regime, but allow couples to select a community-property system at marriage. Letting couples choose their preferred system gives them some of the flexibility of a prenup, without needing to write a complex contract.Kelly Chang Rickert is a family-law attorney in California who specializes in prenups. She fields prenup requests from business owners, from people in the entertainment industry, and from couples in which one partner is likely to become a stay-at-home parent. These days, she told me, concern about debt “comes up a lot.” She recently had a client whose husband died from COVID after roughly two months in the hospital. By the time that he passed away, he had racked up medical debt in the six figures. “So they started sending bills to her address,” Rickert said. “Had she not had the prenup, then this debt that was accumulated during the marriage would be community.”Rickert has become a popular personality on TikTok, where she posts no-frills videos about prenups and other aspects of marriage law for nearly four hundred thousand followers. In one, she portrays an opposing lawyer who claims that Rickert’s client owes money; cut to Rickert spinning around and clutching a sheet of paper with the word “PRENUP” written in large font, above a caption that reads “Prenups protect.” The popular TikToker @yourrichbff, who has a million and a half followers, is also pro-prenup (and pro-role-playing): in one video, she plays both members of a couple, one with a mustache, one without, hashing out their finances against an image of a floral wedding canopy. One partner objects to the idea of a prenup by saying, “This isn’t very romantic.” The other responds, “If we can’t talk about money now, how are we going to talk about all of the other tough topics?”

No evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin levels, finds comprehensive review

After decades of study, there remains no clear evidence that serotonin levels or serotonin activity are responsible for depression, according to a major review of prior research.

Masters Research Study: The effect of zero drop shoes on measures of running economy in ultra-trail runners. — Pacer

Running is a form of locomotion which is differentiated from walking by the presence of a  flight phase which replaces the double stance phases of walking (Lohman, Balan Sackiriyas and Swen, 2011). The four phases of running can, therefore, be classified as the stance, early swing or float, middle swing, and late swing or float phases (Pink et al., 1994; Lohman, Balan Sackiriyas and Swen, 2011). Furthermore, the initial ground contact of runners can be described as: rearfoot strike (RFS), where the calcaneus contacts the ground first, midfoot strike (MFS), in which the rearfoot and forefoot meet the ground simultaneously, and forefoot strike (FFS), where the forefoot lands on the ground first followed by the heel (Lieberman et al., 2010). Running related injury (RRI) incidence is reported to be high. The Runners and Injury Longitudinal Study (TRAILS), conducted on 300 initially uninjured runners during a 2-year observation period, observed that at least one overuse running injury was sustained by 66% runners, with 56% of the injured runners being injured more than once within the 24-month observation period (Messier et al., 2018). Runners have sought ways to reduce injury rate, with one approach being the shift to more minimalist running shoes. There has been an ongoing debate about whether foot strike patterns play a role in running-related injuries (RRIs). In an acute phase, changing shoes from regular to minimalist has been found to shift runners from a predominantly rear-foot striking (RFS) pattern to more of a forefoot (FFS) pattern (Lieberman et al., 2010; Larson et al., 2011; Daoud et al., 2012).  One of the arguments for a longitudinal shift from RFS to FFS has been largely driven by anecdotal evidence that running in minimalist, ‘natural’, footwear is related with a FFS pattern, and therefore running in them could reduce running related injuries (Martin Lou et al., 1985; Warne and Gruber, 2017).  Both FFS and RFS runners show high injury rates, however, RFS runners are 2.6 times more likely to have mild injuries and 2.4 times more likely to have moderate injuries, and a nearly two-fold severe injury rate when compared to FFS runners (Daoud et al., 2012). Research into the effect of zero-drop, cushioned shoes on foot strike pattern is sparse, with one study demonstrating a highly varied result when habitually RFS, regular-drop shoe runners changed to either minimalist zero-drop, traditional zero-drop, or maximalist zero-drop shoes after a four-week training period (Deneweth et al., 2015). Deneweth et al. (2015) observed that one runner transitioned to a FFS style after a four-week retraining period in minimalist shoes, while the other three subjects maintained a RFS style, with either an increased or decreased peak loading rate (Deneweth et al., 2015).Foot strike pattern plays a significant role in the lower extremity mechanics during the early stance phase of running (Valenzuela et al., 2014; Almeida, Davis and Lopes, 2015), in particular, by modulating impact forces associated with running. Impact forces are hypothesized to contribute to some RRIs because they generate a shock wave that travels up the body, generating potentially high stresses and strains on musculo-skeletal tissue which can eventually lead to injury due to the cyclical nature of running. Runners who use a natural RFS pattern exhibit significantly higher vertical loading rates (VLRs) compared to natural FFS (Almeida, Davis and Lopes, 2015), and greater VLRs have been linked to running injury, particularly tibial stress fractures (Zadpoor and Nikooyan, 2011) and plantar fasciitis (Pohl, Hamill and Davis, 2009). It is further noted that running using a FFS or MFS pattern displays a lower impact peak ground reaction force (GRF), described as a marked, substantial impact peak that is superimposed on the upslope of the vertical GRF immediately after the foot’s initial contact with the ground, when compared to RFS (Lieberman et al., 2010). These higher rates and magnitudes of impact loading have been shown by some studies to correlate significantly among RFS runners with lower limb stress fractures (Milner et al., 2006), plantar fasciitis (Pohl, Hamill, & Davis., 2009), and other injuries such as hip pain, knee pain, lower back pain, medial tibial stress syndrome, and patellofemoral pain (Milner et al., 2006; Hamill et al., 2008).The relationship between RFS, regular running shoes, and RRI has arguably contributed greatly to the shift of runners from regular shoes to minimalist shoes. Previous studies have shown that trained regular-drop runners modify their running technique during an acute bout of barefoot running and exhibit a less dorsiflexed ankle at initial contact with a larger ankle range of flexion during the stance phase and a more flexed knee joint with a lower knee joint range of flexion during the stance phase (Chambon et al., 2015), which is shown to lead to a decrease of the first peak of vertical GRF (transient peak) (Giandolini et al., 2016). This indicates that minimalist shoes should provide the platform for more of these positive gait changes due to the fact that they are more similar to barefoot running demands and, therefore, could lead to a decreased injury risk (Daoud et al, 2012 ,Lieberman et al., 2010; Michael, Richard and Lee, 2018). Shoe drop height is the difference in stack height between the fore and rear parts of the sole of the shoe (Figure 1). While not all zero-drop shoes can be defined as ‘minimalist’ (some zero drop shoes can still have regular or even very thick soles), all minimalist shoes are zero-dropped. As such, a zero-drop shoe might result in certain kinetic and kinematic changes similar to those seen in minimalist running studies in comparison to regular drop shoes.While the reduction in impact force variables and potential reduction in associated RRI rates are one reason why runners might consider switching from a habitually RFS pattern to MFS or FFS, another major motivating factor is the potential improvement in running economy (Divert et al., 2005; Franz, Wierzbinski and Kram, 2012). Several studies have examined foot strike, with some observing that top finishers of short, middle, and long distance events tended to use an MFS or FFS (Hasegawa, Yamauchi and Kraemer, 2007; Larson et al., 2011; de Almeida et al., 2015). Running economy (RE), which is the reflection of the amount of oxygen (O2) required to maintain a given velocity, is thought to be a key factor for the determination of running performance (Sinclair et al., 2013). There are many ways shown to improve RE, with one such factor being altering lower limb kinematics. Studies comparing economy and kinematics of running in different footwear conditions conventionally derive from treadmill or over-ground experimentations using flat or level terrain (Divert et al., 2008; Franz et al., 2012; Perl et al., 2012). However, trail running is an athletic activity consisting of running outdoors on surfaces such as gravel roads, mountain hiking trails, beach trails, and mountain bicycle single track and involves regular bouts of uphill running and/or walking (Boudreau and Giorgi, 2010). There has been a large growth of the popularity of trail running in recent years, with one reason possibly being due to that participants report benefits such as increased self-efficacy, more mental focus on career goals, a more positive attitude to life, enhanced work performance, increased problem solving, improved time-management, and better organisational skills (Boudreau and Giorgi, 2010). Further, the low compliance of running on roads, such as asphalt and concrete surfaces, demonstrates higher impact forces when comparing to gravel or grass surfaces (Dolenec, Štirn and Strojnik, 2015), which can predispose runners to more overuse injuries (Rolf, 1995). There is also an increased risk of running-related injury due to the cambered nature of roads (OConnor and Hamill, 2002). Runners who run predominantly on road also have a high occurrence of injuries, up to 79% incidence, with a large percentage of this being of the knee (Taunton et al., 2003; Van Gent et al., 2007). However, Malliaropoulas et al. (2015) reported that at least one running-related injury was reported by 90% of a sample of 40 ultra-trail runners (36 men and four women), although running in the mountains (p=0.0004) was found to be a protective factor. The combination of injury risk in road runners as well as the potential protective benefit of trail running has arguably contributed as one of the main reasons why there has been a growth in trail running in recent years, and in particular, ultra-trail running (David, 2010).While research into the biomechanical aspects of running in trail runners has expanded in recent years (Björklund, 2019; Khasseterash, 2019; Vercruyssn, 2015; Vernillo, 2019), the literature in ultra-trail running is minimal. There has been further growth in the popularity of ultra-trail runners (David, 2013), with a major contributing factor in the growing popularity of ultra-trail running arising with the publication of two books: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner (2005) by Dean Karnazes, and Born to Run (2009) by Chrostopher McDougall (David, 2013). To highlight this growth, In 1996, there were 17 trail 100-milers in the United States. In 2008, there were 59, (Graubins 2008). There were a total of 32,352 161km finishers from 1977 to 2008, with the numbers of finishers as well as events exponentially increased during that time. (Hoffman, Ong and Wang 2012), which has only increased since 2008. Ultrarunning Magazine, which chronicles and publishes race results, has indicated that “by the end of 2009, Ultrarunning had reached 36,106 individual finishers. By the end of 2010, over 46,280 individuals had reportedly finished an ultra marathon” (Lacroix 2012). However, even though there has been substantial growth in the sport of ultra-running, research in the topic is very sparse. A search in the online database, ‘Dimensions’, reveals 1159 publications since 2005, with only 23 using the term ‘ultra-trail’ in the title and abstract. This is compared to 3009 articles citing ‘trail-running’ for the same period. Overall, an improved running economy has been closely associated with improved performance in highly trained athletes (Conley and Krahenbuhl, 1980; Hoogkamer et al., 2016; Lucia et al., 2006; Williams and Cavanagh, 1987) as well as shown to be beneficial for reducing injuries (Daoud et al 2012). The literature suggests that running in minimalist shoes may be beneficial for improving running economy in road running, but there is minimal literature examining this effect in trail running, specifically ultra-trail running, nor in cushioned zero-drop shoes. As such, the purpose of this study is to determine whether there are differences in kinematic and gait spatio-temporal factors between zero and regular drop ultra-trail marathon runners, and whether these factors are related to running performance.Research Aim OneThe first aim of the study will be to compare the acute differences in kinematic, and gait spatio-temporal factors in regular-drop and zero-drop runners, during three bouts of submaximal flat treadmill running in recreational ultra-trail runners.ObjectivesThe objectives that will guide the researcher for aim one will be to compare the following variables between zero drop and regular drop recreational ultra-trail runners during flat submaximal treadmill running at three speeds:the peak knee angle at ground impact measured with the use of the Xsens Motion Analysis Technology.angle of plantarflexion measured with the use of the Xsens Motion Analysis Technology.foot striking pattern measured with the use of the Optagait system.the average vertical oscillation with the use of the Optagait system.trunk forward lean measured with the use of the Optagait system.stride length and frequency measured with the use of the Optagait system.HypothesisIt is hypothesized that the zero-drop recreational ultra-trail runners will differ from regular-drop ultra-trail recreational runners by:having a greater angle of plantarflexion and a smaller knee angle at ground contact, displaying a greater distribution of mid-or fore-foot strike, having a lower vertical oscillation and a smaller angle of trunk forward lean in relation to the running surface throughout the gait cycle,having an increased stride frequency, andhaving a decreased stride length.Motivation and Potential BenefitsThis study will provide valuable information with regards to running biomechanics for recreational ultra-trail runners running in both regular-drop shoes and zero drop shoes. By examining the influence of shoe-drop height on RE in ultra trail runners, the study will aid the current body of literature regarding trail running and performance. Furthermore, it could provide information to shoe manufacturers by providing evidence for their claims, for both development and marketing purposes, as well as provide valuable information for individuals who wish to convert from regular-drop shoes to zero drop. Because of the increasing popularity in ultra-trail races, any differences in the economy related variables (ground force variables, joint kinematics, and fitness parameters) could help with further motivation for the  prescription of shoes to individuals who wish to convert from running in  regular-drop shoes to running in zero-drop shoes. MethodologyStudy DesignThis study will be descriptive and observational, with no intervention. Similar to the protocol utilised by Folland et al. (2017), all tests will be completed in the morning (07:30–12:00) at a laboratory temperature of 18–20°C. Participants will be instructed to arrive at the laboratory well hydrated, having avoided strenuous activity for 36 hours, alcohol for 24 hours, and caffeine ingestion for 6 hours before testing. Prior to the test, participants will be informed and familiarised with the testing procedure, and given the necessary amount of time to warm up effectively. This study will involve two groups of ultra-trail runners, ~15 who habitually run in zero drop and ~15 who habitually run in regular-drop shoes. Regular-drop shoes will be defined as shoes with a heel-to-toe drop of between 6 and 10 mm. Participants will run on a treadmill at level/flat at three speeds predetermined via a VO2 max test. VO2 data will be measured by breath-by-breath analysis. Kinematic and spatio-temporal variables will be measured by the xsense motion analysis technology (xsens.com) and 2D video analysisIn order to be included in the study, participants are required to have been habitually running in their shoe-type (regular or zero-drop) for at least 95% of their training and racing in the past 12 months, run at least 50% of their training runs on trail, be injury free for 3 months (Schütte et al., 2016), and be between the ages of 19-55. Participants would need to have run one or more ultra-trail races (>42.2km) in the past 6 months. All trail runners will wear their own habitual running shoes, and all shoes should be in good conditions of use and have similar characteristics of construction (Da Silva Azevedo et al., 2016).This study will consist of two parts, separated by one week. On the first day of testing (part one), VO2 max will be collected at the Stellenbosch University Sport Physiology Laboratory (https://www.exerciselabatsun.co.za/) to determine peak treadmill speed for the calculation of the three submaximal speeds. Data will be collected through breath-by-breath analysis (COSMED), specifically VO2, Respiratory Quotient (RQ), and anaerobic threshold (AT). The VO2 Max protocol used will be the Vameval protocol. Participants will start at 11km/h for men and 9km/h for women at an Incline of 1% for the entire test. Speed will increase with 0.5km/h every minute until exhaustion. Prior to treadmill running, anthropometrics will be measured and recorded for each participant, including body mass, height, thigh length and circumference, calf length and circumference, foot length and breadth, and malleoli height and width (Boyer 2015). The participant will be given a series of questions for them to complete relating to their running history and injury prevalence.On the second day of testing (part two) the gait spatio-temporal and kinematic data will be collected during submaximal treadmill running at three predetermined speeds (6 minutes at 60 % and at 70 % and 3 min at 85 % of their personal peak treadmill running speed.). The skeletal joint kinematics, such as angle of trunk lean, vertical oscillation, peak knee angle, knee flexion during stance, delta knee angle, peak hip angle, and delta hip angle will be monitored with the use of the Xsens Motion Analysis Technology, and spatio-temporal variables, such as stride angle, ground contact time, swing time and stride length and frequency will be measured for every step using an optical measurement system (Optagait, Microgate, Bolzano, Italy) placed at treadmill belt level, will be measured  during the same submaximal running trials. The order of part one and two of testing will be completely randomised for each participant and completed within one week of one another, but not within 48 hours, thereby eliminating any potential learning effect between the two trials.Proof of ConceptA proof of concept study will be conducted by the primary researcher (Mr R Henning) and supervisor (Mr S de Waal) to evaluate if the proposed methodologies are possible. The primary researcher is a habitually zero-drop runner, while the supervisor is a habitually regular-drop runner, and they should hold the same inclusion criteria to the main study. Duration of the StudyThe study will begin in February 2021, with the write-up of the research protocol and study design. Whilst awaiting ethical approval, a proof of concept study will be conducted on a sample of two runners, between May and June of 2021. After ethical clearance has been granted, marketing and participant recruitment will begin in June 2021 until July 2021. Testing and data collection will begin in August of 2021 and end in September 2021. The data will then be analysed during October and November of 2021, followed by the final write-up and hand in date of August 2022.Participants and SamplingA sample of convenience will be used, whereby runners from around the Cape Town area will be recruited through social media and personal networks. The study will follow a similar inclusion/exclusion criteria to Kasmer et al, (2014), and will require 15 recreational trail runners per group (i.e. 15 zero drop and 15 regular drop runners) for a total of 24 – 30 participants. Participants can be either male (18-45 years old) or female (18-55 years old). Regular drop and zero drop groups will be matched for distribution of sex (i.e. if 60% of regular drop participants are female, then ~ 60% of zero drop participants will also be female).An information advertisement (Appendix B) will be sent out to Facebook running groups in Cape Town (Cape Town Runners, Cape Town Trail Runners) as well as to internal networks (Altra Running ZA Ambassador and Athlete group, organisers of trail runs: Ultra-Trail Cape Town™, Maxi-Race™ Cape Winelands, Addo Elephant Trail Run, Chokka Trail Run) including a summarised version of the study inclusion and exclusion criteria. Contact details of the researcher will be provided on the advertisement and individuals who are interested can contact the researcher directly. Individuals who fall within the relevant inclusion criteria will be contacted to ask to participate in the study. To be included in this study, the individual needs to be between the ages of 19 and 55 (Kasmer 2014). Each participant will meet the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines for exercise testing and prescriptionfor physical function based on questions from participant’s pre-protocol questionnaire (Appendix C) and should be asymptomatic for cardiovascular/pulmonary disease. Runners in the zero-drop sample should hold at least one year experience primarily running in zero-drop shoes, run greater than 42.2-km in zero-drop shoes within the past six months and run greater than 64.4 km (40 miles) per week. They should have; no injuries within the past three months as defined by medical treatment or stoppage of training for greater than one week due to injury, no current injury, (Schutte 2016) and have the ability to follow the study protocol.EthicsApplication for ethical clearance was approved by the  Human Research Ethics Committee of Stellenbosch University and the Research Ethics Committee, on 1 July 2021, where after participants for the study will be recruited. An oral presentation of this protocol will be conducted in front of the Department of Sport Science, FMHS, SU on 11 or 18 May 2021 with written feedback provided on changes required prior to HREC submission. All information, data and any other personal details will only be accessible to the researcher, supervisor and co-supervisor. All information will be stored in two different manners. Firstly, all documents will be safely stored on the researcher’s personal password protected computer and will be automatically backed-up onto the researchers personal google drive cloud services and  will be backed-up onto a flash drive on a weekly basis and given to the supervisor for revision and safe keeping. Secondly, all signed documents (informed consent, pre-screening questionnaire, COVID screening) will be stored in the primary supervisor’s office (Mr S. de Waal, room 409, Department of Sport Science, Stelenbosch University) , in a cupboard which will be locked at all time. Only Mr de Waal will have the key, and access will only be granted under his supervision. Documents will be stored for five (5) years maximum. COVID-19 ProtocolBoth Stellenbosch University (http://www.sun.ac.za/english/CampusHealth/covid-19) and Government gazetted (https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202009/43725gon999.pdf) COVID-19 protocols will be adhered to at all times during the testing process. However, the following measures will be adhered to as standard practice throughout the testing process:The laboratory testing (part one and two) will be kept to a maximum of four persons in the lab space at all times including; one participant only, the primary researcher and study supervisor, and one lab technician.The researcher, supervisor, and lab technician(s) will keep their masks on at all times throughout the testing procedure. The participant may only take his/her mask off at the onset of the testing procedure and must put it back on once testing is complete.Social distancing will be maintained as much as possible, with the only times this will not be possible is when taking anthropometric measurements, and attaching the IMU or COSMED devices. Mask wearing will be adhered to by both parties when taking anthropometric measurements and attaching the IMUs, and the participant only will be allowed to remove his/her mask when being fitted for the COSMED.Both the participant and researcher, supervisor, and technician(s) will regularly sanitize their hands using alcohol based hand-sanitizer, specifically when; entering the laboratory space, after fitting any equipment to the participant, after touching any apparatus (including signing of informed consent forms for example), and when leaving the laboratory area.Completing a COVID-19 screening tool (the participant must complete a manual sign in at the entrance to the Department of Sport Science, while the other parties will complete the PowerApps screening survey) on the day of testing(s).Anthropometric assessmentsPrior to the VO2 max testing, certain anthropometric measurements will be taken. These will include height (cm), weight (kg) and circumferences (cm) of the calf and middle thigh. The testing will be conducted by the primary researcher and documented on the participant’s personal Excel file.VO2 max Testing VO2 max testing will be conducted by the Stellenbosch university Sport Physiology Laboratory to determine RE via breath-by-breath analysis. VO2 max will be collected at the Stellenbosch University Sport Physiology Laboratory (https://www.exerciselabatsun.co.za/) to determine peak treadmill speed for the calculation of the three submaximal speeds. Data will be collected through breath-by-breath analysis (COSMED), specifically VO2, Respiratory Quotient (RQ), and anaerobic threshold (AT). The VO2 Max protocol used will be the Vameval protocol. Participants will start at 11km/h for men and 9km/h for women at an Incline of 1% for the entire test. Speed will increase with 0.5km/h every minute till exhaustion. Participants will be instructed to wear their usual running attire for a moderately temperate climate, as well as their usual trail running shoes. Upon arrival in the laboratory, participants will complete the informed consent form, COVID-screening questionnaire, as well as the PAR-Q form, followed by their Anthropometric assessments as described above. The primary researcher will then describe the protocol to the subject, followed by the placement of the chest strap heart rate monitor (Garmin Ltd., Germany) as shown in figure 2. Participants will then step on to the stationery treadmill and commence with a 5-minute treadmill warm up at 8 km/hour. Following this, the treadmill will be stopped and the subject remains on the treadmill while wearing the safety harness and face mask for the breath-by-breath analysis. The protocol, which is loaded on to the COSMED system, will begin upon indication by the subject and the treadmill will increase in speed as according to the protocol. The protocol will stop as soon as indicated by the test subject by means of them placing their hand on the front railing on the treadmill, or until complete exhaustion. VO2 max is then determined by using the last 30 seconds of the highest workload during testing.Kinematic, and spatio-temporal testingRandom allocation of participants during the running test will be determined by a random/rank table that will arbitrarily assign a testing order for each participant (Refer to Appendix C). Participants will be required to run on a treadmill at level a for 6 minutes at 60 % and at 70 % and 3 min at 85 % of their personal peak treadmill running speed determined by the VO2 max testing during day 1. Participants will be instructed to wear the exact same clothing as for the original testing. Upon arrival at the Sport Physiology Laboratory, participants will be briefed on the protocol and fitted with the Xsens motion capturing accelerometers on the following locations as shown in figure 3: the posterior skull (slightly above the occipital protuberance), mid upper arms (L + R), wrists (L + R), mid-upper sternum, along the upper scapula (L + R), mid upper leg (L + R), proximal tibia (L + R), and upper foot (L + R). The accelerometers are fitted either into sleeves on a tight-fitting upper body suit, or by non-adhesive material on to straps on specific locations. Data from the Xsens motion capturing accelerometers will be captured and interpreted by the MVN analyze software installed on the principal investigators personal laptop. The Optogait will be set up on either side of the treadmill belt, along with 2 cameras set up directly in front and at a 90 degree angle alongside the treadmill. Participants will further be fitted with the COSMED face mask. Participants will step onto the treadmill and conduct a warm up at 8 km/hour for 5 minutes immediately followed by the testing protocol of 6 minutes at 60% and 70%, and 3 minutes at 80% of peak VO2 max speeds determined by testing day 1. There will be no rest between the warm up and each designated speed, and as each test subject's speed will likely differ, the treadmill will be operated manually by the primary researcher. 

The Best Memes About the Webb Space Telescope Images

A popular internet meme fomenting a rivalry between images of the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes (via Twitter) With awe and wonderment, we witnessed the release of the first images by the James Webb Space Telescope last week, the deepest and sharpest yet of our ever-unfolding universe. Capturing galaxies billions of light-years away, they left many of us mind-blown and humbled. But those stunning images can also puzzle us and test the limits of human cognition. For example, how can we possibly grasp NASA’s assessment that many millions of galaxies existed in an area of sky that would be the “size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length” to a person standing on Earth? What should we do with this knowledge? And how can we implement it in our daily lives? Has it stopped any of the meaningless wars waged around the globe? No, it hasn’t. Has it made us more conscious of the urgency to protect our precious little planet? Maybe it did for some, but not for all. Has it even stopped your endless bickering with your partner (can’t you see you love each other?) I doubt it. That’s where I think Internet memes come into the picture: They help us mentally and psychologically process these revelations about our place in the universe using humanity’s best survival tool — humor. And as expected, the release of the Webb Telescope’s first images prompted an outpouring of memes. Here’s how the Twittersphere responded to worlds far beyond Earth’s stratosphere.   Many of the memes made fun of the lo-def images of the 1990 Hubble Space Telescope, the OG of deep space telescopes. How ungrateful of them. I waited aost a decade to make this meme. #JWST #hubble #JWST_HST_SciVI #NASA #NASAWebb #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #Web3 pic.twitter.com/SVbNUYdWEg— Panini_Singam (@panini_singam) July 11, 2022 And of course, we have some art historical references, including Salvador Dalí and Vincent Van Gogh: Same energy. pic.twitter.com/DBNIPyQFx5— Andy Howell (@d_a_howell) July 12, 2022 I cannot stop staring at this picture from the James Webb telescope, just gorgeous pic.twitter.com/Vhf2hzffc8— Sean Tuffy (@SMTuffy) July 12, 2022 We are the universe, and the universe is us, as demonstrated in this meme: i zoomed out and guess what pic.twitter.com/aIWKcCY7ND— The Birdist (@TheBirdist) July 11, 2022 This might be my favorite one: I knew I'd seen that #JWST image somewhere before. pic.twitter.com/c3hO2cQzmu— Darcy DeClute (Scrumtuous Inc) (@scrumtuous) July 13, 2022 Another one in the same vein, though less successful: it’s here–the deepest, sharpest infrared view of the universe to date pic.twitter.com/ne4MRQRpx9— vipin (@djfrankkie) July 13, 2022 I don’t know the character hiding in this nebula, but it sure is freaky: Oh no JWST what have you done pic.twitter.com/00By3zKE2f— Bram De Buyser (@chton) July 12, 2022 What the Webb telescope images taught us about human behavior: First image from James Webb Space Telescope is beautiful #memes https://t.co/m8lHHoXeFe pic.twitter.com/uKqRzGZPUL— Memes (@r_memes_) July 12, 2022 Yes! Somebody finally said it: pic.twitter.com/J2HQXWwU8H— Arey Arey (@areyareydotcom) July 13, 2022 Our Publisher Veken Gueyikian, a proud nerd, informed me that this next one is based on a classic scene from the 1978 Superman movie depicting the banishment of General Zod to the “phantom zone.” An amazing photo from the James Webb telescope. pic.twitter.com/tyctEszP9D— Rocketgirl (@Rocket_Grrrl) July 12, 2022 Some other memes reacted to the global conversation surrounding the Webb telescope images, which NASA knew very well how to hype: What opening the Internet looks like today… and it’s amazing #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/7vMVBatdPO— Kate (@katebomb) July 12, 2022 This, I believe, is a joke about infrared technology, which is what the James Webb telescope used, versus X-ray: When everyone is in hype for the #JWST images but you are an X-ray Astronomer! pic.twitter.com/fyFhe2A6TU— Alessia Tortosa (@Alaexya) July 14, 2022

Balenciaga x Mercedes AMG Face Shield

Balenciaga works with Mercedes-AMG F1 Applied Science on a futuristic polyurethane face shield.Visit Uncrate for the full post.

Gender bias in search algorithms has effect on users, new study finds

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Spirituality linked with better health outcomes, patient care

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Adding salt to your food at the table is linked to higher risk of premature death

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Researchers create highest efficiency 1-sun solar cell

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Emily López’s digital artworks are an acid colour trip

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Change The Week

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Identify as an artist to help your creativity thrive

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Why brands need to let go of minimalism

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Anointing the Dead | Sarah Aziza

Sarah Aziza , May 23, 2022 Remembering Shireen Abu Akleh Shireen Abu Akleh loved handbags. In life, a mere detail. Intimate and unremarkable. Where does this fact go, in death? This is my first obituary.But then, this isn’t really an obituary. Obituary: notice of a death, especially in a newspaper. By now, the whole world has been given notice of her death. Within hours of the killing, the facts had been published, and, just as quickly, clouded by denial and spin, transforming Abu Akleh into something more, and less, than she was in life. In the clash of competing “narratives,” she became an emblem. An argument.   Here’s where it began: on May 11, 2022, the fifty-one-year-old journalist, widely known and beloved for her twenty-five-plus years of covering Palestine, was fatally shot in the head. The death occurred in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, where she had arrived early that morning to cover a raid by Israeli occupying forces. According to colleague Shatha Hanaysha, she, Abu Akleh, and producer Ali Samoudi had made their presence as journalists known to a cadre of Israeli soldiers, then proceeded down a quiet street. Residents of the neighborhood had pointed them toward this route, advising them that this area had thus far been free of any Israeli or resistance activity. “In that area, things seemed almost normal,” Hanaysha recalled. A moment later, a bullet struck Samoudi in the back. “Ali’s been hit! Ali’s been hit!” Abu Akleh cried out. She and Hanaysha scrambled for cover. A moment later, Abu Akleh lay face down on the ground, motionless beneath the bulk of her blue PRESS jacket. Of course, her death was never going to be a strictly private affair. Presumably, even if Abu Akleh had lived deep into old age, her passing would have been marked by her many devoted fans. For audiences in the Arab world, her name and face have been synonymous with the Palestinian experience for years. She rose to prominence during the Second Intifada, known for her courageous coverage on the frontlines. Clips from her oeuvre include shots of her in the West Bank scuttling out of the way of tear gas canisters and picking her way through the debris of homes demolished by Israeli artillery. In others, Abu Akleh is dressed in a flak jacket and helmet marked PRESS—the same outfit she was wearing when she was shot—military vehicles or plumes of smoke filling the background. Our very title—Palestinian—acts too often like a spell, one we don’t control. So it was only natural that, in the hours after her death, tributes flooded the web, lauding her as an icon for Palestinians and a hero for generations of Arab journalists, particularly women. “Her voice gathered families around their televisions, and inspired an entire generation of journalists,” said journalist and podcaster Tala el-Issa in one tribute. Others echoed this sentiment, praising Abu Akleh’s commitment to covering injustices both large and small, and citing her now-famous quote: “I chose journalism to be close to the people. It might not be easy to change the reality, but at least I could bring their voice to the world.”  But she was also a woman who loved shopping. I learned this while speaking to one of Abu Akleh’s grieving friends, Dalia Hatuqa. A fellow Palestinian journalist, Hatuqa met Abu Akleh when the two were both stationed in Washington, D.C. The two hit it off, recalls Hatuqa, whose nerves about meeting the veteran reporter melted in Abu Akleh’s warmth. “She was so different off camera. On the job, she was very professional and serious, but she was actually very funny. I mean hilarious.” And she enjoyed the finer things. “She loved music, and novels,” recalled Hatuqa, “and she was the life of the party, for sure.” On trips to the mall, Hatuqa learned of Abu Akleh’s affinity for handbags. Is there room for handbags in an obituary? Search how to write an obituary and discover conflicting advice. To include the deceased’s exact age, or no? (See above.) Ex-spouses—do they go in? (She never married.) Children? (No. Or yes? She had two nieces and a nephew with whom she was close.) But it seems important, to me, to write of the handbags. To place down this small detail in the record as it swirls and morphs around her name. To ensure that a woman who is undoubtedly a hero remains, at the same time, human. Within arm’s length.It is not easy for any Palestinian to be this simple thing. Our very title—Palestinian—acts too often like a spell, one we don’t control. Sometimes it renders us invisible, negating our literal existence. In other moments, it inflates us, ascribing us dark powers that far outpace our abilities. We are cast as irrepressible and violent, anti-Semitic enemies of peace. Speak the word again, and it may conjure pity. We are unwashed Gazan children, lamenting mothers, worshippers bludgeoned over their prayer rugs. In our deaths, we become statistics. Infographics. Or, sometimes, shaheed. The word, meaning martyr, anoints the dead with honor. It hugs them like a shroud. It speaks, perhaps, to a force of spirit that transcends the breath of lungs.But in other places, women are still shopping at malls. Handbags are being sold. They are being carried home. “I couldn’t—Shireen couldn’t—we couldn’t comprehend that they were actually shooting at us,” recalled Hanaysha. Even as the bullets rained down, “I don’t know how to put it . . . we couldn’t absorb the fact that they were actually shooting at us. We were turning around, looking around, like, what should we do? That was when she fell.”Abu Akleh most likely died in confusion, in disbelief.Those who know Palestinians only from afar might assume the journalist moved through the world expecting violence at every turn. After all, that is how most of the world is used to consuming us—through stories in which death, “clashes,” and “conflict” comprise the lede. We are objects of violence, or its perpetrators. Even as we survive, it is imagined we do so without songs or dreams. To believe this is to forget what one knows about humanity. How improbable and indomitable it can be. It takes something truly monstrous to sever a soul from its innate faith in life. Something like a massive military machine, one that relies on the total dehumanization of those it seeks to oppress. The kind of system that circumscribes, and attempts to define, all Palestinians living on occupied land. The kind that so degrades the imagination it renders children with stones as threats, and women in PRESS jackets disposable. Israeli authorities immediately tried to throw the cause of Abu Akleh’s death into doubt. The authorities first blamed an unspecified Palestinian source for the lethal fire, disseminating a video allegedly supporting this claim. When the video was investigated and debunked by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, Israel began to use the Palestinian rejection of a joint investigation as evidence of guilt. Instead, the Palestinians have called for an international investigation, promising to take the case to the International Criminal Court—a body the Israeli government refuses to recognize. The emblem of a female Palestinian body raised in the streets was more than the machine could bear.  In this way, Abu Akleh’s death was quickly and predictably engulfed in what mainstream media earnestly calls “controversy.” Those who knew and loved her—personally, and through decades of her presence on their television screens—are denied a simple grief. As with all things Palestinian, their pain is politicized. Nowhere was that more obvious than in the heinous attack on Abu Akleh’s funeral.  One of the largest Palestinian funerals in recent history, crowds of thousands amassed to bid farewell to the cherished journalist. Her body emerged from an East Jerusalem hospital held aloft by a group of pallbearers. Abruptly, a phalanx of heavily armed riot police launched on the procession, beating the mourners with batons and their bare fists. As the blows descended on the pallbearers, the men struggled to stay on their feet. The coffin nearly tumbled to the ground. Although the Israeli authorities offered weak excuses for the assault—that rioters had seized the coffin; that three plastic bottles had allegedly been tossed in the direction of police—the real reason was, of course, symbolic. East Jerusalem, which is majority Palestinian, has been declared annexed by Israel, which considers it part of its capital. Any displays of Palestinian national pride—such as the presence of the flag or anything bearing the colors red, white, green, and black—are frequently and brutally quashed. The emblem of a civilian, female, Palestinian body raised in the streets was more than the machine could bear.  Abu Akleh did not have to be in Jenin on that day. Her friend Mohammed Daraghmeh, a fellow veteran journalist, told her not to bother—the raids she wanted to cover have long since become routine. Hatuqa echoed this. “A much more junior reporter could have gone. But she wanted to be there. No story was too small for her—everyone remembers this about her.” What will be done with her handbags now? Will they be given away? Left untouched? “All that the world knows of Jerusalem is the power of the symbol,” wrote Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti in 1997. “The Jerusalem of religions, the Jerusalem of politics, the Jerusalem of conflict is the Jerusalem of the world. But the world does not care for our Jerusalem, the Jerusalem of the people. The Jerusalem of houses and cobbled streets and spice markets . . . The Jerusalem of houseplants, cobbled alleys, and narrow covered lanes. The Jerusalem of clotheslines. This is the city of our senses, our bodies, and our childhood. The Jerusalem that we walk in without much noticing its ‘sacredness,’ because we are in it, because it is us. . . . This is the ordinary Jerusalem. The city of our little moments that we forget quickly because we will not need to remember.” There is a universe to the Palestinian experience that no one, not even Abu Akleh, can render in an article or screen. It is more precious than any symbol. More ordinary than language itself. Woven of the innumerable, peculiar details that make up a human and a life. The sort of things that go unnoticed until they are taken away. It was this experience that she lived, and that was taken from her.

Tesla Hollywood Drive-In Diner

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How sleep builds relational memory

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Sony Semiconductor Solutions CEO: “the image quality of smartphones will exceed that of single-lens reflex cameras in 2024”

The President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS) Terushi Shimizu gave this outlook for smartphone-equipped cameras: The image quality of smartphones will exceed that of single-lens reflex cameras in 2024, and Sony G will show the prospect “We expect that still images will exceed the image quality of single-lens reflex cameras within the next few years.” How is what possible? I had the same question, but the CEO did not provide any details. This is the only relevant text I found in the Nikkei article: In the future, in addition to increasing the diameter, by combining the new pixel structure “two-layer transistor pixel” technology and artificial intelligence (AI) processing technology that can double the shooting performance of bright places, “for still images, a single-lens camera The image quality can be exceeded “(the company). Furthermore, it is said that background blurring using 8K video shooting / high-speed readout and ToF (distance measuring) sensor will be realized toward 30 years. If that’s true, there is no reason for Sony to continue to make cameras after 2024. Like the Sony logo says: “make.believe”… Via SonyAddict The post Sony Semiconductor Solutions CEO: “the image quality of smartphones will exceed that of single-lens reflex cameras in 2024” appeared first on Photo Rumors. Related posts: Sony develops the world’s first stacked CMOS image sensor technology with 2-layer transistor pixel Announced: Tokina 400mm f/8 mirror/reflex lens in eight different DSLR and mirrorless mounts Topaz Labs Image Quality Bundle is now $124 off

A new exhibition spotlights Magnum photographers’ commercial work

Founded 75 years ago, Magnum Photos is steeped in photographic tradition, and its members are heralded in particular for their documentation of everyday life from multiple angles, whether seemingly mundane street scenes or highly charged warzones. Foam in Amsterdam, which is staging an exhibition of Magnum photography, is the first to admit that even the cooperative’s members rarely promote the... Source

A Bicultural Jesus Celebrates Asian American Identity

Tyrus Wong, “Chinese Jesus” (photo by Mark Gibson, courtesy the Walt Disney Family Museum) SAN FRANCISCO — “It’s a knockout!” gasped Stanford University art historian and Museum of Art curator Marci Kwon, as the cardboard cover was moved aside to reveal Tyrus Wong’s “Chinese Jesus” painting. The six-foot-tall image of Christ with both Chinese and European features had languished unseen for decades, and despite two brief public exhibitions less than a decade ago the painting still remained in storage. Last December, however, Kwon and two other museum representatives were in San Francisco’s Chinatown to consider the artwork for possible conservation and acquisition. Their interest in the painting is a measure of the growing understanding of Wong’s legacy, as well as the groundswell of attention to Asian American art over the past two years. Today Tyrus Wong is best known for styling Disney’s beloved 1942 animated film, Bambi, but he made the “Chinese Jesus” painting before he began working in Hollywood. In the mid-1930s Wong was a founding member of the Oriental Artists Group, a circle of California-based Chinese and Japanese American artists who garnered attention for their balance of traditional Asian and contemporary Euro-American aesthetics. “Chinese Jesus,” for example, has almond eyes along with an aquiline nose and red hair, and floats on clouds whose vivid hues and stylized shapes recall both Chinese opera backdrops and the rhythmic hues of contemporary Synchromism. (Wong knew Synchromism co-founder Stanton Macdonald-Wright through the WPA and the Los Angeles Art Students League.) According to Wong, the Chinese church in Los Angeles that had originally commissioned the painting rejected it because of its unconventional features. “Well, how do you know what Jesus looks like?!,” was his typically insouciant response.  The painting probably landed in San Francisco when the clergyman for the Los Angeles church was transferred north to the Bay area; there, it was hung in the Chinese United Methodist Church. By the late 1950s Wong had become one of the nation’s leading Christmas card artists, known for a style that melded traditional Chinese brushwork with Christian iconography and other Euro-American holiday imagery. None of this was known to young David Lei, who grew up gazing at the painting when his family attended services at the church. At some point “Chinese Jesus” disappeared from public view. In 2013 Lei — now an influential philanthropist dedicated to preserving Chinese American cultural heritage — learned through a congregation member that just such a painting still existed in the church’s broom closet.  San Francisco State art historian and curator Mark Johnson, who in 1995 co-curated at the university gallery one of the first major retrospectives of Asian American art, reached out to Wong. Then-103-year-old Wong’s reunion with this masterpiece from his early career occurred just in time for the painting to be briefly exhibited during a 2013 Disney Family Museum feature on the artist, as well as in 2016 for the Center for Asian American Media film festival, which opened with an award-winning documentary about him. Despite the flurry of publicity upon its rediscovery and exhibition, however, no institutions showed any interest in putting “Chinese Jesus” on permanent display. This was due partly to the painting’s size and fragile state, its shellac yellowing and its frame held together by the canvas. It also reflects the challenge of contextualizing Wong’s art, which traversed the fine and commercial art spheres, gaining acclaim in the latter. Of course, Wong’s career also cannot be disentangled from the systemic and social challenges that faced Chinese immigrants in the United States. When he painted “Chinese Jesus,” he was still prevented by the Chinese Exclusion Act, a federal law that severely restricted Chinese immigration, from becoming a US citizen. Throughout his career, critical reception of his works often stressed his ethnic heritage, ignoring the bicultural influences of someone who had been in the US since childhood, and who had studied both traditional Chinese calligraphy and European and American art history and media.  Tyrus Wong greeting his “Chinese Jesus” painting, for the first time in over 70 years (photo courtesy David Lei) In recent years, however, growing awareness of Asian American history as well as contemporary cultural developments have fostered a very different climate for Asian and Asian American art. As veteran activists and philanthropists like David Lei work to preserve Asian American heritage and cultural history, established museums and institutions eager to access relatively untapped sectors of donors have started to invest in previously neglected fields. Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice movements have endowed this work with a new urgency. In the earliest months of the pandemic, Asian American artists and cultural figures were prominent in denouncing anti-Asian hate. When racial justice protests erupted in summer 2020, arts-specific movements like #ChangeTheMuseum helped expose the micro- and macro-aggression pervading establishment culture. The progress wrought by these recent changes is substantial. In the past two years, prices have spiked for a few well-known Asian American artists. Last September, a Martin Wong painting sold at auction for $1.1 million, and before that “skyrocketing” sales in celebrated San Francisco sculptor Ruth Asawa’s work totaled more than $16 million. This price increase is particularly astonishing when contrasted with the relative lack of interest in the recent past. For years, major pieces by world-renowned ink painter Chiura Obata could be purchased for $1000. When pathbreaking dealer and collector Michael D. Brown, who held one of the country’s leading Asian American art collections, passed away in 2019, his vast estate was valued at less than a quarter million dollars. “It’s depressing,” says Marci Kwon, acknowledging how little the mainstream art establishment previously valued Asian American art.  Now, however, this all seems to be changing. As Mark Johnson speculates, reflecting on two prominent Bay Area museums who declined “Chinese Jesus” when it was offered less than 10 years ago, “I think if you went back to them today, they might say something different.” Both Kwon and Johnson credit the Asian American community for fueling this new attention to Asian American art and art history. According to Kwon, in the past few years “community members started coming out the woodwork, wanting to share and find a home for things their family members had left behind.” In Los Angeles, local architect Richard Liu worked with Art Salon Chinatown founder and first art curator of the Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles, Sonia Mak, to restore the private office of pioneering immigration rights attorney Y.C. Hong, in which traditional Chinese stylings merge with Streamline Moderne design. (Tyrus Wong’s “Confucius as a Justice” watercolor graces the office mantel.) In New York, despite a potentially devastating 2020 fire that threatened nearly 85% of its collection, the Museum of Chinese in America reopened to the public this past fall, aided by a $3 million Ford Foundation grant and $5 million from Mackenzie Scott, as well as an outpouring of public support. Some of that community support appears as art images contributed to the museum’s ongoing OneWorld COVID-19 special collection about resisting pandemic-related anti-Asian hate. So what does this all portend for “Chinese Jesus,” a work that Mark Johnson says “makes you rethink everything”? With its titular blend of western culture and Asian ethnicity, the painting embodies Asian American identity. Originating in the 1930s, “Chinese Jesus” is a monumental example of Wong’s early fine arts career, which both prefigures the bicultural aesthetics of his later bestselling Christmas cards and expands understandings of his career beyond Bambi. Amy Poster, Curator Emerita of Asian Art at the Brooklyn Museum, calls the work “iconic” for its religious subject matter and its representation of Wong’s unique style.  But as a masterpiece of Asian American art “Chinese Jesus” also belongs to American art history. The current interest in conserving “Chinese Jesus” is a gratifying indicator of the newfound recognition of Asian American art’s place in American art history. As Mark Johnson notes, for its “scale and ambition, [the painting] is unlike any other religious painting in California at its time, by any artist of any race or ethnicity.” 

Existentialism & Nihilism: What’s the Difference?

  Since the beginning of time, humans have come up with various philosophies and ideologies concerning the true purpose of our existence. Although we won’t know the blatant truth until our time has come, it’s still enjoyable to ponder all of the theories in the meantime. Two philosophies that stand out amongst the others are Existentialism and Nihilism. From afar they might appear similar, but you’ll soon realize how different they really are.   Before moving forward I’d like to address that there are many different branches of both Existentialism and Nihilism. In this article, I will be discussing Jean-Paul Sartre’s take on Existentialism and Existential Nihilism.   What Is Existentialism? Jean-Paul Satre with Simone de Beauvoir in Beijing, via Delo.si   Existentialism is a philosophy that originated in Europe and became extremely popular after the devastating events of WWII. One of the first people to describe themselves as an existentialist was a man by the name of Jean-Paul Sartre. The basis of his thought can be summed up as follows: “What all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence.” To put this in simpler terms– we as human beings have no predefined box that we must fit into.   We create meaning for our lives by the decisions we make and the paths we decide to go down. This does not mean we can do whatever we want without consequence, as the actions we take define who we are. So, if you say “I am a kind person”– but then proceed to viciously insult people, an existentialist will look at you and determine that you are in fact very mean, despite what you claim to be. This is because you are being judged based on the actions you take, and not by what you think you are. You are held fully accountable for your behavior and this shapes your reality moving forward.   The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Benjamin West, 1791, via National Gallery of Art   According to Satre, one day a student of his walked up and asked for advice about a moral dilemma he was facing. The boy could either join the military and become a small part of a large movement, or he could stay home and take care of his mother– making him the focal point of her entire life as she could barely take care of herself. Satre told him that there was no right answer. It was up to the boy to decide what he deemed to be more important, thus giving him free will to decide his path. Existentialism tells us that we are the artists of our lives, and we are free to create our own destinies– we have no ineluctable fate. There are millions of different paths to choose from and we are not bound to a singular timeline. What a freeing thought indeed!   Having an Existential Crisis?  The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893, via the National Gallery of Norway   Alas, on the downside of such freedom, many people may face something called existential dread. This means that they are overwhelmed by the amount of uncertainties life has to offer. For example– imagine being alive in the olden days, completely fine with following your religion because that is all you have ever known, until one afternoon a philosopher announces: “Actually… we come from nothing! Nevermind about that whole worshiping God ordeal!”. You would likely be taken on a roller coaster of emotions, as you begin to have an existential crisis. Without religion or a set of rules to follow, one might become anxious at the idea of “not knowing”. Not knowing what’s next, not knowing why we’re here, and not knowing what the grand purpose is to life.   Ironically, that is the beauty of existentialism– we create our grand purpose in life without any preconceived ideas getting in the way. Life does not give us meaning, but we give meaning to life.   What Is Nihilism? Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche by Edvard Munch, 1906, via Thielska Galleriet   “If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning, and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance.” Albert Camus   Nihilism is another European philosophy that arose during the 19th century when people started to become tired of the local governments and wondered what made people in power more important than your average joe. The masses also started to question religion, after philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that “God is dead”. Well, if God is dead… what has been the point of all the worship and dedication to serving said “God”? The rise of this thought process alone led many people to question the purpose of everything if we came from nothing.   The word itself comes from the Latin term, nihil, which means “nothing”. What makes someone a better candidate to rule a nation, if everyone was born from nothingness? If there was no real point to anything, why do some people get to be treated better than others? These are a few questions that a Nihilist would ask you.   To get into the mind of the Nihilist and fully understand the philosophy better, ask yourself why you believe what you believe. Where did the idea come from and why was it presented to you? Who created your belief system and why? If you keep digging deeper, you will get to a point where there is no longer a definitive answer. Regardless of religion or science, the question “why” or “what is the point” will never have a direct answer. This is where Nihilism comes into play. The conclusion to them is that there is no purpose or answer. We are here merely to just survive and someday die. Nothing we do truly matters, as we do not know the tangible source of where we were before life and where we will go after.   Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, 1817, via Hamburg Kunsthalle.   Nihilists quite literally believe in nothingness. They do not believe there is good in the world, nor do they believe there is bad. It is the idea that our world simply exists, as it did before humans came around. Our planet did not give us a tangible list of rules to follow, therefore humans created the ideology of morality themselves. A nihilist would ask– “well, what human was deemed important enough to create such morality laws?”. No answer could possibly satisfy the nihilist mind.   Nihilism claims that there is no grand idea or purpose, so therefore there is no meaning to life. Life is what you make it, but don’t become too attached, because we all have the same fate: death. How uplifting! Although, it can feel liberating to accept this mindset. If nothing matters, why not have fun and do whatever you please?   The Difference Between Existentialism and Nihilism Illustration by Jake Foreman, Via The Atlantic   “Why do we argue? Life’s so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.” Alan Moore   The questions that arise with Nihilism are answered with the ideologies of Existentialism. Nihilism says nothing matters because we came from nothingness, so do whatever you want because who cares about anything! They claim there is no objective meaning to life, therefore there is no purpose.   Existentialism comes in and says that you give meaning to your life. Regardless if we came from nothing– you are here now and that is what matters. As long as you are alive at this very moment, you can decide your fate and nobody can take that power away from you. Your grand purpose is to create a life you believe is worth living. Live as your most authentic self, without the opinions of others swaying you in different directions. When we take away the restrictions of religion or the limitations of social structures, we are only left with ourselves. Who are you when nobody’s looking? Who are you if you were born into a white box, hidden far away from the teachings of others– it’s just you and your own ideas, who are you then?   A Nihilist would answer that question and say you are “nothing” and “it wouldn’t matter”. An Existentialist would say you are “anything you’d like to be” as you create your reality. And that is the grand difference between the two– one decides that if there’s no God or source, there’s no point. The other says perhaps you are a God, as your life’s destiny is in your own hands based on the choices you make.   Via Unsplash by Zac Durant   Of course, there is no right or wrong answer here– it’s all a matter of preference on how you would like to view your life. That’s the beauty of philosophy, you won’t be condemned to an eternity of hellfire if you decide that this mindset is not for you. The key takeaway from both of these philosophies is to do what makes you happy in the short time we are alive on this planet.

Do compression garments facilitate muscle recovery after exercise?

Thought to enhance muscle recovery, compression garments are commonly worn by athletes and people engaging in exercise. Yet, an international research team's systematic review provides evidence to the contrary.

You’ve Heard of Wordle, But Have You Tried “Artle”?

Gather ’round, friends, as we ponder today’s Artle! Gerrit van Honthorst, “The Concert” (1623), oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Patrons’ Permanent Fund and Florian Carr Fund (image via National Gallery of Art) POV: You want to get in on the Wordle craze but you just hate letters. Visual learners and those hoping to put their art history degree to some kind of use, rejoice! A new game, Artle, launched by the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, invites art lovers to guess the artist in four attempts using visual prompts from their oeuvre. Like Wordle, Artle offers you one chance a day to prove how smart you are, and then gloat to your social media followers via the same sort of blind-share format that shows results without spoilers. That’s more or less where the similarities end. Unlike Wordle, guessing in Artle is not progressive, so if you typed in “Edvard Munch,” you won’t get partial credit toward “Édouard Manet.” Guesses cue prompts from a drop-down menu, so it also inhibits the tendency to guess something that isn’t part of the NGA canon — but with more than 155,000 artworks in the NGA’s collection, by some 15,000 different artists, that’s not a hugely limiting factor (though the same biases displayed by most institutions still apply.) Can you guess this Artle? (screenshot Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic) In fact, Artle is a lot harder than Wordle, since there are roughly 9,000 five-letter words in the English language for the daily draw versus 15,000 possible artists. So while it’s a great way to show off how much you know about art, it’s also a resource to learn about art that you don’t already know. I learned about the fascinating and sometimes disturbing oeuvre of Odilon Redon, a French artist who produced odd, Surrealist works around the turn of the 19th century. Not only does failing out reveal the artist of the day and link to their work in the NGA database, but each of the four image prompts are cited, so you can follow them up to learn more. There might be a limited number of people who can flaunt their art pedigree, but an infinite number who could benefit from using Artle as a portal into the NGA’s vast and easily searchable online holdings. And of course, all curators and docents should plan to include their Artle stats on future résumés. Happy guessing!

Oat reference genome: Insights into a uniquely healthy cereal crop

Cultivated oat (Avena sativa L.) is an old crop thought to have been domesticated over 3,000 years ago, while growing as a weed in wheat and barley fields. Oat has a low carbon footprint, substantial health benefits and the potential to replace animal-based food products. However, lack of genome resources has prevented the application modern methods of plant breeding. An international research team now presents a high-quality reference genome of A. sativa and its most closely related wild relatives.

Stimulating brain circuits promotes neuron growth in adulthood, improving cognition and mood

Targeting specific brain cells modulated memory retrieval and altered anxiety-like behaviors in mice. Essentially, scientists boosted the electrical activity between cells in the hypothalamus and the hippocampus to create new neurons -- an important process called neurogenesis.

Humans may have evolved to show signs of stress to evoke support from others

Showing signs of stress could make us more likeable and prompt others to act more positively towards us, according to a new study.

Letter of Recommendation: Get a Vasectomy

Men in the US typically do not talk about or worry about birth control that much, to the detriment of the health and safety of women. In the spirit of trying to change that a little, I’m going to talk to you about my experience. About a decade ago, knowing that I did not want to have any more children, I had a vasectomy. And let me tell you, it’s been great. Quickly, here’s what a vasectomy is, via the Mayo Clinic: Vasectomy is a form of male birth control that cuts the supply of sperm to your semen. It’s done by cutting and sealing the tubes that carry sperm. Vasectomy has a low risk of problems and can usually be performed in an outpatient setting under local anesthesia. Whether you’re in a committed relationship or a more casual one, knowing that you’re rolling up to sexual encounters with the birth control handled is a really good feeling for everyone concerned.1 Women have typically (and unfairly) had to be the responsible ones about birth control, in large part because it’s ultimately their body, health, and well-being that’s on the line if a sexual act results in pregnancy, but there are benefits of birth control that accrue to both parties (and to society) and taking over that important responsibility from your sexual partner is way more than equitable. (Here’s the part where I need to come clean: getting a vasectomy was not my idea. I had to be talked into it. It seemed scary and birth control was not something I thought about as much as I should have. I’m ashamed of this; I wish I’d been more proactive and taken more responsibility about it. Guys, we should be talking about and thinking about this shit just as much as women do! I hope you’ve figured this out earlier than I did. Ok, back to the matter at hand.) Vasectomies are often covered by health insurance and are (somewhat) reversible. These issues can be legitimate dealbreakers for some people. Some folks cannot afford the cost of the procedure or can’t take the necessary time off of work to recover (heavy lifting is verboten for a few days afterwards). And if you get a vasectomy in your 20s for the purpose of 10-15 years of birth control before deciding to start a family, the lack of guarantee around reversal might be unappealing. Talk to your doctor, insurance company, and place of employment about these concerns! Does the procedure hurt? This is a concern that many men have and the answer is yes: it hurts a little bit during and for a few days afterwards. For most people, you’re in and out in an hour or two, you ice your crotch, pop some Advil, take it easy for a few days, and you’re good to go.1 It’s a small price to pay and honestly if you don’t want to get a vasectomy because you’re worried about your balls aching for 48 hours, I’m going to suggest that you are a whiny little baby — and I’m telling you this as someone who is quite uncomfortable and sometimes faints during even routine medical procedures. So, if you’re a sperm-producing person who has sex with people who can get pregnant and do not wish for pregnancy to occur, you should consider getting a vasectomy. It’s a minor procedure with few side effects that results in an almost iron-clad guarantee against unwanted pregnancy. At the very least, know that this is an option you have and that you can talk to your partner and doctor about it. Good luck! Just to be clear, you still have to worry about sexually transmitted infections — a vasectomy obviously does not provide any protection against that.↩ There also is a follow-up about 6-12 weeks later to make sure the procedure worked. You masturbate into a cup and they check to see that there’s no sperm in the sample. Part of this follow-up, if my experience is any guide, includes checking that the doctor’s office bathroom door is locked about 50 times while watching very outdated porn on a small TV mounted up in the corner of the tiny room. It’s fine though! And you have a fun story to tell later.↩ Tags: medicine

What should the metaverse look like?

We look at how environments in the metaverse should be designed if they're going to attract and maintain the interest of audiences - and who should get to design them

Trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi

May the 4th be with you and here’s the trailer for the upcoming Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat — the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader. Tags: Obi-Wan Kenobi   Star Wars   trailers   TV   video

Elizabeth Olsen

Ms. Olsen, would you say that you grow as an actor with every project? I do feel that way. Especially right before I did WandaVision, I was filming a second season of a show I made called Sorry for Your Loss. It was my first time doing television and it was such a different muscle, I had to reorganize how I worked because your brain really does need to work harder when you do television. It’s just a harder situation. I felt like everything was tightened a bit, and like I knew what I was doing. So yes, I do feel like there’s a bit of a change in growth and process every year. I also think there’s something to be said about making the choice to commit and invest more. I think I realized that maybe I was a bit lazy on some jobs in the past. Lazy in what ways? Just in terms of how much you let your job take up space in your life. And I’ve always been someone whose work life and home life, they are separate things to me, I don’t want them to be the same thing. But I also realized I can still keep it separate, but commit more of myself to my job. From a prepping standpoint, from getting involved from the beginning with the writing, with conversation, with asking more questions, instead of just saying, “Oh, I’m just an actor. I just come in and someone else makes the thing and I leave.” Now I want to be invested more curious about all the steps and stages. In the last four years, I’ve just become a lot more committed to my job. “I honestly think I could be happy doing any job that’s collaborative with lots of people.” It sounds like that commitment has also deepened your love of the job. It feels more personal and more fulfilling. It’s so funny, I finished a job recently — that was a seven month job, and I still miss it. I feel still attached to that whole experience! I really love being a part of a team. And I honestly think I could be happy doing any job that’s collaborative with lots of people. There are people skills that you develop, there’s a lot of empathy you build, there’s a lot of putting yourself in other people’s shoes. And what you put in is what you receive! There’s just so much that you get from working with a group of people intimately, and that’s one of my favorite aspects of the job. What else has been important in terms of really loving your job? I care a lot about how I create the energy of a set, I care a lot about the people enjoying their job, and feeling respected. I care about people treating each other with kindness. And I also care about people being prepared to do their job. I think you can do that without making anyone ever feel bad. You can do that just by leading by example. I do think that helps in hard times when things get a little bit physically uncomfortable, when you’re outside and it’s raining and everyone’s in wet gear… We’re all  in this together. If you’ve created a healthy morale, it makes the job feel much more enjoyable. But that’s all been in the last four or five years for me, I think it was because I produced Sorry for Your Loss and was an actor in it. And I just had to step it up. Did working as a producer give you insight into what you need as an actor? Yeah, and now I pretend like I’m a producer on everything and it’s so annoying! (Laughs) What I try and do is I want to make sure that all the actors have what they need. Usually you have leaders who are capable of that but sometimes things fall through, so I like being able to be present for everyone. Does that kind of personal involvement in a film also mean you’re getting more attached to the characters you play? Well, my theater training in college was all about walking away and leaving it all out on the field. But I think as I’ve gotten older, I realized that I’m more attached to the characters than I think I am! Especially when it comes to a character like Wanda Maximoff, who I’ve played over several Avengers films, the WandaVision TV series, and now also in my new film Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness… I mean, it’s been quite a journey. I feel like as she’s grown, I’ve grown. It made me have a deeper love for Wanda and really excited to do something different with Dr. Strange, where she has a lot of clarity. It’s a different growth for her in this film. They’ve done a great job giving me an arc and something real to play. “There’s something to be said about a certain amount of hours spent doing anything, practicing anything… That does affect growth.” It must also be exciting to bring that character to a totally different style of project, like WandaVision, which is a sitcom. WandaVision taught me a lot! It also freed up my body. There’s this thing that happens when you do too much modern stuff, you start acting only with your upper body. Whereas with WandaVision, which is influenced by old fifties and sixties television series, you have to remember to move your entire body through space and tell a story physically. That was an amazing reminder for someone coming from the theater and not having done theater in such a long time: it makes me want to do theater again, I need it in my life. But I also know I need breaks… That’s another thing I learned about myself, I need definite breaks when I can feel myself getting tired. It seems like you’ve really found your stride as an actor. I mean, I feel better about doing my job than I did eight years ago! I feel more capable. And I do think there’s something to be said about a certain amount of hours spent doing anything, practicing anything or doing any kind of job that you learn from. I think the amount of hours that you rack up, that does affect growth. I just hope that continues. Do you think you’ll ever reach a point where you feel totally at ease, or will that mean that you’ve stayed too long in your comfort zone? I don’t know! I don’t know if anyone feels that way. It’s really vulnerable. And it’s scary, like, starting a job is always horrifying. It’s like the first day of school, it feels terrible every time. But I hope that it continues to feel that way because I like new experiences. And this job really allows you to meet lots of interesting people and have lots of new experiences. And I’m really enjoying it.The post Elizabeth Olsen appeared first on The Talks.

(PDF) Fasting and exercise differentially regulate BDNF mRNA expression in human skeletal muscle

March 2022McMaster University’s Faculty of Engineering is seeking outstanding researchers for consideration as Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) nominees. The successful applicant must demonstrate a compelling vision for both continuing and further developing McMaster Engineering’s longstanding...View postNovember 2021We’re looking for innovative educators who self-identify as Black to join McMaster Engineering. A top-ranked engineering program based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, McMaster Engineering is a leading destination for experiential teaching and research to inspire global citizens.View postNovember 2020We’re looking for innovative educators to join our growing faculty at McMaster Engineering. A top-ranked engineering program based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, McMaster Engineering is a leading destination for experiential teaching and research to inspire global citizens.View postMarch 2020Doug Oliver's first experience in health care came in his 20s. He was volunteering at a nursing home, helping older, isolated men shave, playing piano for them, and spending time with them. “Even though I didn’t have any medical training at the time, I felt the power of what spending time with...View postJune 2012 Timothy J ColstonView full-text

Scientists successfully revive animal frozen 30 years ago

Scientists have succeeded in bringing a frozen animal back to life after 30 years, it has been reported.Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research says that their scientists have succeeded in reviving the ‘tardigrade’ animal which they had collected in Antarctica.The creatures, which are known as 'water bears' or 'moss piglets' are miniscule, water dwelling “extremophiles” measuring less than 1mm in length and dwelling in extreme and hostile conditions.They are capable of slowing down or shutting down their metabolic activities for considerable periods of time.According to the research, which was published in Cryobiology magazine, the tardigrades were found among moss plants in the Antarctica in 1983. They were removed and stored at minus 20 degrees Celsius. They were successfully unfrozen in May 2014.Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there."GettyThe ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this yearPAJackdaws can identify “dangerous” humans from listening to each other’s warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or “contact calls” (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average.GettyThe sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the “Goldilocks Zone” which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journalYe et al/Current BiologyAfrican elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. ReutersScientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planet’s oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years agoA. GennariA scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a “transient anus” that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of wasteSteven G Johnson Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian IslandsClay BoltFossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animalNew Mexico Museum of Natural HistoryScientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when coldFaye Levine, University of MarylandA study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of malesGettyThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increaseGettyThe nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodiesGetty/AFPThe nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasersReuters/APThe Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn"Viktor Radermacher / SWNSScientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star.ESO/A. Müller et alLayers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the “interstitium”. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteinsGettyWorking in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphsJosé IriarteMore than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly.GettyThe storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth.Pictures by: Tom MomaryAn egg and a living animal were revived. The latter began moving and consuming food after a fortnight. The egg laid a total of 19 eggs, of which 14 successfully hatched. No defects or anomalies were reported amongst the hatched newborns.Previously, tardigrades had been successfully revived after nine years, but this is thought to be the first ever instance of successful revival after 30 years.Writing in the research publication, the authors noted: “The present study extends the known length of long-term survival in tardigrade species considerably… Further more detailed studies using quantitative analysis with greater replication under a range of controlled conditions will improve understanding of mechanisms and conditions underlying the long-term preservation and survival of animals.”Registration is a free and easy way to support our truly independent journalismBy registering, you will also enjoy limited access to Premium articles, exclusive newsletters, commenting, and virtual events with our leading journalistsAlready have an account? sign inThe minute animal had been collected from moss in Antartica in 1983, before being unfrozen in 2014Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in

From Artificial Intelligence to Artificial Consciousness | Joscha Bach | TEDxBeaconStreet

Artificial Intelligence is our best bet to understand the nature of our mind, and how it can exist in this universe. Joscha Bach, Ph.D. is an AI researcher who worked and published about cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modeling, and multi-agent systems. He earned his Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Osnabrück, Germany. He is especially interested in the philosophy of AI, and in using computational models and conceptual tools to understand our minds and what makes us human. Joscha has taught computer science, AI, and cognitive science at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, the Institute for Cognitive Science at Osnabrück, and the MIT Media Lab, and authored the book “Principles of Synthetic Intelligence” (Oxford University Press). This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Ronny Chieng Roasts All Things Money in America: WTF? | The Daily Show

Ronny Chieng roasts tax season, tipping practices, and America’s lack of variation in physical currency in the latest edition of America: WTF? #DailyShow Subscribe to The Daily Show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWhs_6x42TyRM4Wstoq8HA/?sub_confirmation=1 Follow The Daily Show: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedailyshow Stream full episodes of The Daily Show on Paramount+: http://www.paramountplus.com/?ftag=PPM-05-10aei0b Follow Comedy Central: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComedyCentral Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ComedyCentral Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/comedycentral About The Daily Show: Trevor Noah and The Daily Show correspondents tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and pop culture. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central.

Higher COVID-19 death rates in the southern U.S. due to behavior differences, study finds

During the pre-Omicron phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, regions of the U.S. had markedly different mortality rates, primarily due to differences in mask use, school attendance, social distancing, and other behaviors. Had the entire country reacted to the pandemic as the Northeast region, more than 316,000 deaths might have been avoided, 62 percent of those avoidable deaths being in the South, according to a new study.

A History of Birth Control

From Lindsay Holiday, an engaging history of birth control, covering the ineffective and often dangerous methods used in the ancient world, the rhythm method, proto-condoms, actual condoms, Lysol (!!), and of course one of the modern world’s most impactful inventions, the hormonal birth control pill. Through most of history pregnancy and childbirth were a very dangerous undertaking for women. In medieval Europe 1 in 3 women died in their child-bearing years and 1 in 4 children did not live to see their first birthday. Even when both mother and child survived the ordeal of birth women were not always able to provide for a child. And in most cultures pregnancy outside of wedlock was considered a great sin and often resulted in the shunning of the woman and child while the man often got away scot-free. It is no surprise therefore that women throughout history have been trying a wide variety of methods to prevent conception. (via open culture) Tags: Lindsay Holiday   medicine   video

Tucked Deep in Rural Utah, an Arts Center Reaches Out to the World 

Most of Utah’s natural and timeless landmarks are valued for the recreation they offer. However, there is a county in Utah where solitude, luscious scenery, and peaceful lifestyle attract the more creatively minded. Perhaps unsuspectingly, Sanpete County — specifically the town of Ephraim — is known for its rich history of traditional artists and, at one point, boasted the highest number of artists in the state. Today, it is home to Granary Arts, an organization bringing contemporary art, international discourse, and a different lens into a traditional landscape.  Established in the fall of 2012, Granary Arts began as a passion project between Amy Jorgensen and Kelly Brooks, both professors at the nearby Snow College. The general goal was to create a nonprofit art center at the heart of Ephraim and its eclectic community, but it expanded into being so much more. Today, Granary Arts offers Sanpete County, as well as the greater country, experiences that reach beyond their contemporary exhibitions. The organization’s mission is centered on being a creative and educational hub for all through extensive programming that includes events, workshops, community projects, and its own publications.  Interior of Granary Arts’s Main Gallery during Richard Gate’s Anthology reception Executive Director and Chief Curator Amy Jorgensen’s extensive background in the arts has contributed immensely to the vision and success of Granary Arts. Jorgensen has immersed herself in the arts as an educator, facilitator, and artist who has curated over 50 exhibitions. “Having this multi-tool set to pull from has been totally critical to the success of Granary Arts — but also its programming approach and its ability to thrive in a rural place,” Jorgensen says. “When you are in an urban area, you have everything at your fingertips. In a rural space, you usually have to create those resources yourself.” Granary Arts exhibits works by local artists as well as those from around the world. For example, the organization hosted LAND + PLACE + PERFORMANCE in 2015, comprising six contemporary artists (including some locals) who explored and investigated landscapes through photographs, installations, drawings, sculpture, and video. In 2017, Granary hosted Alejandro Durån’s Washed Up, an installation and photography exhibition featuring the debris washing up on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. The most recent show, on view through May 6, is Tomiko Jones’s Hatsubon, a memorial exhibition for Jones’s father. Granary Arts’s Co-founder, Executive Director, and Chief Curator Amy Jorgensen “Everything we do and that we program is not only meant for a local artist community but also for our international artist community,” says Jorgensen. “It is important that we recognize that all places are relevant regardless of whether you’re in a thriving art, urban mecca space, or in a beautiful remote valley.” The Granary Arts programming is integral to its mission to recognize voices from all over the world. For example, the Film Feast program features films from both international and local filmmakers to bridge the gap between regional issues through documentaries and experimental films. While the integration of global voices is a large part of their programming, their calling still includes enriching and fostering their local community. “I think Granary Arts and its mission and its vision is very much in line with the concept of working on behalf of our place and working on behalf of our community,” Jorgensen says. “We think of the community very broadly … artists, creatives, researchers, our patrons, our audience, our neighbors, and who is on the other side of the planet doing similar work.” Granary’s Fellows Program supports selected local creatives by offering them resources, such as time and space; this is not limited to visual artists but includes musicians, critics, and creative collectives. Granary Arts Fellow Darren Jones (center) leads the discussion during the program Critical Ground The organization’s penchant for collaboration and, even more so, conversation is evident in the community-based events they execute, such as the Spring Summit they co-hosted with Epicenter this year. The summit took place in the visually striking town of Green River and brought together artists, architects, curators, and community organizers for a three-day retreat featuring peer-run workshops, conversations, and interactive group experiences. Another program putting conversation at the forefront is Critical Ground, “an initiative to expand the dialogue when it comes to art criticism and to democratize art criticism,” says Jorgensen. Throughout this last decade, Granary Arts has fulfilled its goal to develop the role that art and community play in Ephraim and beyond. “I love the idea that this structure came from a robust community of women working on behalf of their community,” says Jorgensen about the Granary Arts building built in 1876 by Relief Society, the Mormon religious community’s women’s organization. “It is almost like the building has this kind of spirit that draws a type of work to it.” Brought back to life by a group of artists in 1990 with renovation efforts led by Kathleen Peterson, the Granary Arts building has always fostered a space for female-driven community building.  Interior of Granary Arts’s Upper Gallery during the exhibition of Sara Lynne Lindsay’s Inherited Ground installation

Meat consumption must fall by at least 75 percent

If our planet Earth is to continue feeding us in the future, rich countries must significantly reduce their meat consumption -- ideally by at least 75 percent. The study reviews the current state of research on various aspects of meat consumption. In addition to the effects on the environment and climate, these include health and economic effects.

Public Art Decreases Traffic Accidents by 17%, Report Finds

Painted by Jade Warrick in Troy, New York (photo by Brittainy Newman; all images courtesy Bloomberg Philanthropies) A study conducted by Bloomberg Philanthropies examined 17 sites over two years, before and after they were painted with “asphalt art” (art on surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, and underpasses). It found a 17% decrease in total crashes and a decrease in severity of the crashes that did occur: There were 37% fewer crashes that resulted in injury and 50% fewer crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists. “The art itself is often also intended to improve safety by increasing visibility of pedestrian spaces and crosswalks, promoting a more walkable public realm, and encouraging drivers to slow down and be more alert for pedestrians and cyclists, the most vulnerable users of the road,” the study reads. The sites, spread across five states, were intersections or mid-block crosswalks. Around half of the sites were considered “urban core,” defined as areas with a high population density (including two in New York City), a quarter were neighborhood zones, and the last quarter were suburban. Artist Chris Visions painted this intersection in Richmond, Virgina. (photo by Justin Holmes) Artist Chris Visions working with students to create the intersection mural (photo by Matt Eich) In addition to reporting the actual crash rate for these sites, the study also tracked the behavior of drivers and pedestrians, noting that both groups performed less risky behavior in areas with artworks — such as pedestrians crossing without the “walk” sign and drivers not yielding to pedestrians until the last moment. (Drivers were 27% more likely to yield to pedestrians when there was art on the road.) Artists Cory Robinson and Shamira Wilson painted this intersection in Columbus, Indiana. (photo by James Brosher) As of now, asphalt art is not allowed under the Federal Highway Association’s rules on road signs and signals, a lengthy set of guidelines that dictate the colors required for painting crosswalks, curbs, and lines. The decision to install asphalt art requires local officials to make exceptions. Bloomberg Philanthropies’s report urges for the adoption of asphalt art into the federal road painting specifications and provides further justification for its project “Asphalt Art Initiative,” which has granted money to cities in the United States and Europe to create 42 roadway art pieces. The discovery of asphalt art’s safety benefits compliments the notion that it can help to build community. “Why not use projects like this to actually let people be involved, create a sense that public space belongs to everyone?” said Kate D. Levin, a former commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs who now oversees arts programs for Bloomberg Philanthropies, in an interview with the New York Times last year. The city of New York has also implemented asphalt arts programs in the past. However, rather than using them for traffic safety, many of the projects have been designated to pedestrian areas, such as the busy Doyers Street in Chinatown.

Why hasn’t digital technology led to better ads?

The access to information, ideas and inspiration that advertising creatives have today is mind-boggling. Yet it hasn't necessarily made ads better. Ben Kay examines the reasons why

A tasty new look for ice cream brand Baskin-Robbins

Founded in 1945 by two ice cream enthusiasts and best known for its 31 flavours slogan first developed in the 50s, Baskin-Robbins is one of the world’s largest ice cream retailers. The company brought in brand agency ChangeUp to modernise its branding while still maintaining its 31 flavour heritage, as part of a new identity that is rolling out across its logo, packaging and more. Source

Psilocybin rewires the brain for people with depression, study finds

Psilocybin fosters greater connections between different regions of the brain in depressed people, freeing them up from long-held patterns of rumination and excessive self-focus, according to a new study.

Study shows: Fish can calculate

Cichlids and stingrays can perform simple addition and subtraction in the number range of one to five. This has been shown in a recent study by the University of Bonn, which has now been published in the journal Scientific Reports. It is not known what the animals need their mathematical abilities for.

Married mothers who earn more than their husbands take on an even greater share of the housework, research finds

While new mothers frequently take on a greater share of housework than their spouses, this effect is even more pronounced in mothers who earn more than fathers, new research shows.

Working, studying in 'off' hours can harm motivation

Working a nontraditional schedule, and checking in at all hours of the day, night and weekends, is not necessarily beneficial for the 21st-century workforce, according to new research.

The future of remote collaboration

Many compromises have been necessary for the shift to hybrid working. Without the same face-to-face energy, some agencies struggled to ­maintain their spontaneity and drive – at least at first. But remote processes also bring a wealth of opportunities, such as better access to a roster of top global talent. For others, remote working sharpened focus and ultimately improved the final output. Source

Large study challenges the theory that light alcohol consumption benefits heart health

In an observational analysis of UK Biobank participants, light to moderate drinkers had the lowest heart disease risk, followed by people who abstained from drinking; however, light to moderate drinkers tended to have healthier lifestyles than abstainers, which likely accounted for their better heart health. Genetic evidence in this same population suggested that all levels of alcohol intake are associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Notably, the risk of cardiovascular disease linked to light alcohol consumption was modest but rose exponentially with higher intake, even at intake levels currently endorsed as 'low risk.'

Arts activities may improve self-control and reduce antisocial behavior among teenagers

Teenagers who take part in arts and cultural activities, such as dance, drama, reading and going to concerts, are less likely to engage in antisocial and criminalized behavior up to two years later, according to a new study. Researchers looked at data from more than 25,000 teenagers in the United States who had filled out questionnaires over several years.

All the F*cking Books You See at the Bookstore

See also Why Are There So Many F**king Best-sellers Right Now With F**k in the Title?, What the F*ck Is Up With All These Sweary F*cking Book Titles?, and What Is With All of the Self-Help Books With Swear Words in the Title? Tags: books   language   nsfw   swearing

Is it still possible for creatives to sell out?

“We’ve been trying to sell out for years. Nobody’s buying,” Jerry Garcia famously said. With increasing collaborations between artists and 'the establishment' is the notion of selling out obsolete? And did it ever even exist in the first place?

Researchers may have unlocked the blood-brain barrier

The brain is composed of billions of neurons -- vulnerable cells that require a protective environment to function properly. This delicate environment is protected by 400 miles of specialized vasculature designed to limit which substances come into contact with the brain. This blood-brain barrier is essential for protecting the organ from toxins and pathogens. But it also blocks the passage of therapeutic drugs.

Study finds association between cigarette tax and reduced infant deaths

Raising taxes on tobacco is associated with a reduction in neonatal and infant mortality, according to an analysis of 159 countries.

Kodak is bringing back to life the popular Gold 200 color negative film in 120 format

Kodak is bringing back to life the popular Gold 200 color negative film in 120 format: “Kodak Professional Gold 200 is a medium-speed daylight-balanced color negative film offering a versatile combination of vivid color saturation, fine grain, and high image sharpness. It has a nominal sensitivity of ISO 200/24° along with a wide exposure latitude for exposing up to two stops under or three stops over to enable working in a wide variety of lighting conditions. Additionally, due to the fine grain structure, this film is well-suited for scanning or enlarging your photographs.” B&H is already taking pre-orders. Press release: Kodak Moments Announces New 120 Format Gold 200 Film ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kodak Moments, a division of Kodak Alaris, continues the expansion of its color film portfolio with the launch of Kodak Professional Gold 200 film in a new 120 format 5-roll pro-pack for medium format cameras to satisfy consumer demand. “The 120 film format was introduced back in 1901 for the Brownie No. 2 camera,” said Thomas Mooney, Manager Film Capture Products, Kodak Moments Division. “Although it’s been around for 120 years, it’s still one of the most popular film formats in use today. One main reason for its popularity is that the larger film negative can be enlarged significantly without losing image quality. This is a great opportunity for aspiring photographers looking to make the jump from 35mm to medium format photography.” The new 120 format Kodak Professional Gold 200 is an affordable, entry-level color film featuring an ideal combination of warm saturated color, fine grain, and high sharpness. It is designed for photographers shooting at any level for daylight and flash capture. Starting today, the 120 format Gold 200 Film is available for dealers, retailers, and distributors around the world and is intended to be priced 25 percent lower than the comparable PORTRA and EKTAR offerings. The post Kodak is bringing back to life the popular Gold 200 color negative film in 120 format appeared first on Photo Rumors. Related posts: Negative Supply teaseling a new light meter The latest film news from Fujifilm: Acros II on sale, 160NS discontinued, Instax Wide Black now in stock Kodak rumored to release a new mirrorless camera

Our sleep shows how risk-seeking we are

Each person has their own individual sleep profile which can be identified by the electrical brain activity during sleep. Researchers have now demonstrated that the brain waves during periods of deep sleep in a specific area of the brain can be used to determine the extent of an individual's propensity for risk during their everyday life.

Hong Kong Painter Wesley Tongson and the Lineage of Chinese Landscape Art

BERKELEY, CA — Wesley Tongson, who died in 2012, was a contemporary Hong Kong painter, but his calligraphy, landscapes, and splash paintings were tied to tradition. In the show at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Spiritual Mountains: The Art of Wesley Tongson, Tongson’s paintings, including 11 his family recently donated to the museum, hang alongside works from the museum’s collection of traditional Chinese ink paintings of the Qing dynasty and early 20th century. Julia M. White, BAMPFA’s senior curator for Asian Art who curated this show, first saw Tongson’s work at an exhibition at San Francisco’s Chinese Culture Center in 2018, and its dynamism and wide range impressed her. “I was flummoxed by the way he moved from one type of painting to the next,” she said. “His splash paintings are so ethereal and beautiful.” White met Tongson’s sister, Cynthia Tongson, at that show, and invited her for a meeting at the museum with White and Lawrence Rinder, then BAMPFA’s director. They both hoped to expand the range of the collection, which has a wealth of Chinese classical work, but less modern ink art. Cynthia Tongson had decided to donate some of her brother’s art after the response she got to a show of his work, Ink Explorations: A Wesley Tongson Retrospective, which she organized in 2014, after his death. Installation view, Spiritual Mountains: The Art of Wesley Tongson at BAMPFA (courtesy Impart Photography) “I wanted people to know how Wesley had progressed as an artist,” she said about the show. “Even in Hong Kong no one knew how he’d progressed into finger painting. Everyone kept telling me how it was something they’d never seen before, and I realized I needed to share the work.” Because of its collection of historical Chinese painting, as well as its ties to the University of California, Berkeley, Cynthia Tongson decided to donate Tongson’s paintings to Berkeley. White says she organized Spiritual Mountains with an eye to showing Tongson’s connection to the past. “I wanted to focus on putting him in the context of greater Chinese historical perspective,” she said. “He learned from his mentors and there’s a respect and a linkage.” Some of Tongson’s teachers are included in the show, such as Hong Kong artist Harold Wong, known for his landscape painting, and Liu Guosong, a Taiwanese artist who taught a workshop in Hong Kong, and who was called “the father of modern Chinese ink painting.” Tongson’s “Spiritual Mountains 6” (2012) echoes Wong’s 1993 “Sound of the Waterfall,” with both landscapes invented. “We know it’s a mountain, and we know it’s a waterfall, but they clearly are imaginary,” White said. Wesley Tongson (image courtesy the Tongson family) Tongson’s monochromatic “Untitled” (1997) shows the influence of Shitao, the Qing-era master that Cynthia Tongson says her brother most respected. The show has his scroll of a lotus from 1704 and “Reminiscences of Nanking,” from the same year. Both artists look for the essence of the natural world, but don’t try to replicate it; White observed how Tongson’s mountains are only lightly defined by their shape. Tongson studied at the Ontario College of Art for a few years and became fond of Cubism. Pablo Picasso was his favorite Western artist, and you can see his influence in “Untitled” as well. BAMPFA’s Picasso etching, “L’Homme à la guitare” (1915), hangs in the exhibit. The show also has examples of Tongson’s calligraphy, done using his hands and fingers rather than a brush. This has precedence in traditional Chinese painting, as with Gao Qipei, whose 18th-century “Zhong Kui, the Demon Queller” hangs in the show. Tongson was bold and prolific, drawing on techniques of masters of Chinese painting to make his large-scale landscapes and intricate examinations of nature his own. “I think he had an open mind to a lot of different techniques,” White said. “He started painting with fingers and hands and gave up the intermediary that the brush provided and became almost a part of the work of art. Wesley was courageous in his willingness to experiment. In the way he expresses the natural world, for example, you see what Wesley did pushing the limits of ink and paper.” Wesley Tongson, “Untitled,” from the Spiritual Mountains series (2012), ink and paper, 96 x 49 inches (gift of Lilia and Kenneth Tongson) Spiritual Mountains: The Art of Wesley Tongson continues at BAMPFA (2155 Center St, Berkeley, Calif.) through June 12.

New Burger King posters feature meaty-looking vegetables

Burger King is no stranger to posters that make you look twice. Two years ago it famously debuted the Mouldy Whopper campaign, which intended to highlight that its product was so fresh that it would rot (unlike burgers that feature preservatives). The disgusting looking imagery caused wide debate, but was ultimately lauded across the ad industry, at least in award shows. The brand’s new campaign... Source

Tesla makes Supercharging free in multiple regions for those fleeing Ulkraine

submitted by /u/110110 [link] [comments]

It's Time to Stop Pre-Rinsing Your Dishes

I always pre-rinse my dishes. While I’m no nutcase—I don’t actually wash them before placing them in the dishwasher racks—leaving the remains of a runny egg, clingy sauce, or (gasp) oatmeal on my crockery simply feels wrong.But it turns out there’s good reason to avoid the temptation to rinse away lingering food particles before using your dishwasher. Most appliance and dishwasher soap manufacturers recommend against rinsing every remnant of food off your dishes, saying doing so can actually inhibit proper cleaning. Here’s why.Why your dishes need to be dirty to get cleanPerhaps the reason so many of us pre-rinse is because that’s how our mothers did it. But dishwashers have come a long way from the ones our parents used. According to Consumer Reports, “pre-rinsing isn’t necessary with modern dishwashers because they have sensors that adjust the wash cycle based on how dirty the dishes are.” They don’t need our help, and by pre-rinsing “you could be making matters worse by causing the built-in soil sensor to misread the amount of dirt in the water.”Additionally, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, many Whirlpool dishwashers have a “TargetClean” setting equipped with sensors to determine whether food remains on dishes; as many as 40 focused spray jets are set to attack baked-on food. Skip that step and your dishes won’t wind up as clean.And that’s just how water functions in your appliance. When it comes to detergent, the WSJ reports, “Cascade, made by Procter & Gamble Co., warns against pre-washing, except for removing large pieces of food. Enzymes in Cascade detergent are designed to attach themselves to food particles. Without food, the enzymes have nothing to latch on to.”Pre-rinsing wastes a lot of water (and energy) Consumer Reports estimates we use 2 to 6 gallons of water per minute we rinse our dishes. Cascade estimates pre-rinsing wastes up to 15 gallons of water per load. With the average household running 215 loads of dishes per year, that’s 3,225 gallons of water per year that could be saved.According to CNET, dishwashers built before 1994 use 10 gallons or more of water per cycle, while newer models are far more efficient. “In 2013, new standards were put in place that required dishwashers to use...5 gallons per load.” And an Energy Star certified model can use as little as 3 gallons.Not to mention the energy it takes to heat all those gallons. As CNET reports, “most newer dishwashers have heaters inside that warm up water more efficiently than your water heater. Overall, if it is Energy Star certified, it can use less than half the energy of washing dishes by hand.”In the words of the National Resource Defense Council, “if you have a dishwasher, put down the sponge.” Experts advise we should scrape large food scraps off our dishes rather than rinsing each one before loading.Don’t overload the machine (but make sure it’s full) Of course, getting the best functionality out of your dishwasher is predicated on proper use. All those high-tech sensors and spray jets need adequate space to do their job. After checking your owner’s manual for loading instructions specific to your washer, place cups, glasses, small bowls, and plastic items in the top rack, and plates, serving pieces, and larger bowls in the bottom rack. Make sure cutlery is mixed among the baskets to avoid “nesting.” Leave space for water and soap to flow properly, but be sure your washer is full enough to merit being run. According to the EPA, “Running the dishwasher only when it’s full can eliminate one load of dishes per week and save the average family nearly 320 gallons of water annually.”Of course, there are some more delicate items that should never go in the dishwasher. For these, we have little choice but to hand-wash. For everything else, you can safely stop pre-rinsing and let your dishwasher do the work from here on out.

Did collaboration kill creativity in advertising?

Mark Denton is back in an ad agency for the first time in 35 years — as an intern. He's found the atmosphere to be less competitive and more collaborative: but what does that mean for creativity?

Imagining our future bodies

How will new ways of designing our bodies and our health, including gene editing, affect our future selves? Lucy McRae explores these concepts in her art, presenting radical sci-fi ideas that are rooted in science fact

Psilocybin treatment for major depression effective for up to a year for most patients, study shows

Previous studies have shown that psychedelic treatment with psilocybin relieved major depressive disorder symptoms in adults for up to a month. Now, in a follow-up study of those participants, the researchers report that the substantial antidepressant effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy, given with supportive psychotherapy, may last at least a year for some patients.

Meta-analysis of 15 studies reports new findings on how many daily walking steps needed for longevity benefit

A meta-analysis of 15 studies involving nearly 50,000 people from four continents offers new insights into identifying the amount of daily walking steps that will optimally improve adults' health and longevity -- and whether the number of steps is different for people of different ages.

Exploitation in Ballet History: Prostitution at the Paris Opera Ballet

  As of 2018, 72% of ballet dancers identified as women, yet 72% of artistic directors identified as men. While women vastly outnumber men in ballet, men still hold the majority of positions of power within the field. Why? While this dynamic might feel new, surveying ballet history can provide an explanation for modern day power imbalances. Unequal power dynamics between men and women can be found throughout ballet’s global history—but most notably, in the Paris Opera Ballet’s foyer de la danse.    The foyer de la danse was a backstage room that essentially served as a brothel. While other international ballets at the time had similar practices, the 19th century Paris Opera Ballet is one of the most noted cases of sexual exploitation in ballet history.   Paris was an art hub during this era, and ballerinas were often the centerpieces of Impressionist artwork. Edgar Degas, for example, created artworks that centered on the Paris Opera ballerina. While his work is often viewed as fantastical to a modern audience, a 19th-century audience would have picked up the dark figures looming among the ballerinas. So—what was Degas depicting?   Paris: The Birthplace of Ballet History The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage by Edgar Degas, 1874, via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York   France’s own tumultuous history heavily influences ballet history and the history of the Paris Opera Ballet. The Paris Opera Ballet is legendary within ballet history, making its exploitation of ballerinas legendary as well.   In many ways, the decisions and practices of The Paris Opera Ballet ripple throughout ballet history to today; consequently, it is important to understand the historical context around such exploitation.   Le Grand Foyer by Eric Pouhier, via Luther College, Iowa   The Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest national ballet and arguably the most celebrated. From the 1500s to the early 1900s, the Paris Opera Ballet was the center of the ballet world. Even after Russia became the global ballet center in the 1900s, the Paris Opera Ballet still enjoyed a crucial position in the entire dance industry.   Although ballet originated in Italy, it became uniquely French after Catherine de Medici brought it to the French court. Afterward, ballet became a hallmark artform of French royalty. King Louis XIV himself was one of the most prominent patrons of ballet—so much so that he institutionalized it.   In 1669, Louis XIV founded the Paris Opera ballet, then called the Académie Royale de Danse. During the ornate era of the Sun King, ballet looked very different. Instead of a stage, the ballet was mainly performed in the French court; and very unlike today, it was only performed by men.   It wasn’t until events like the French Revolution and the unstable reign of Napoleon Bonaparte in the 1700s that social barriers started to weaken. During this time, women started to claim more agency in ballet. In the 1800s, Marie Taglioni went en pointe—forever marking the artform as feminine.   Marie Taglioni as Bayadere colored lithograph, 1831, via Victoria and Albert Museum, London   Taglioni also had remarkable agency over her body. Forever revolutionizing ballet fashion, Taglioni was able to shorten her tutu—an act that was scandalous in 19th-century France. However, while the superstars of the Romantic Era enjoyed slight autonomy, it was short-lived.   19th-Century Paris   In the late 19th century, Paris was influenced by rapid industrialization and cultural change. Homelessness and poverty skyrocketed, but at the same time, Paris’ upper class still held onto its many cultural habits. Additionally, the art world and its various artistic forms centered on femininity. To escape poverty and homelessness, many young women turned to ballet: an art form made for and consumed by the upper classes.   The Dance Class by Edgar Degas, 1874, via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York   While the Paris Opera Ballet seemed like it might offer security to young dancers, it was not the case. Instead, the Paris Opera Ballet created a highly competitive and unstable environment, where dancers would need to secure a highly elusive contract—by any means necessary. In the meantime, the women were often used for profit in the foyer de la danse.    The Paris Opera Ballet’s Foyer de la Danse   The foyer de la danse was a lavish room at the Paris Opera Ballet where wealthy patrons could pay to socialize with ballerinas. Because of many social and economic conditions, The Paris Opera Ballet struggled financially throughout the last half of the 19th century. Many thought that most of the ballet’s income in the 19th century came from the foyer de la danse, as men were willing to pay extra to socialize with the ballerinas.   La Répétition au Foyer de la Danse by Edgar Degas, 1870-1872, via the Phillips Collection, Washington DC   Male dancers were not allowed into this room, yet the Paris Opera Ballet encouraged young ballerinas to please the patrons. The Comte De Maugny thought that the foyer de la danse was a microcosm for sexuality in Parisian society. The Paris Opera Ballet dancer was a demi-mondaine—meaning an ambitious courtesan looking to move upwards in society. However, the reality is much bleaker. The women were often exploited by the Paris Opera Ballet, the patrons, and sometimes encouraged to pursue the patrons by their own families.   The Petit Rats   Although the petit rats, young ingenues training to be dancers, are still a part of the Paris Opera Ballet, many of their earlier counterparts faced harsher circumstances throughout ballet history. In the 19th century, the women that were recruited to join the Paris Opera Ballet were often impoverished, vulnerable young women. The dancers at the bottom of the company hierarchy, or the petit rats, were the most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.   After rigorous testing and apprenticeships, the ballerinas might finally be admitted to the company on a good contract. For many petit rats, a good contract never happened, and they were forced to work with continual manipulation and exploitation.   The petit rats were also the subject of many artworks. Most notably, the famous sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Degas is modeled after Marie van Goethem. To this day, she remains one of the most famous petit rats. However, little is known about her life after she left the Paris Opera Ballet. Although she is memorialized forever through Degas’ work, she was ultimately seen as disposable by Parisian society.   Marie Van Goethem   Marie van Goethem is an oft-forgotten figure in ballet history but has become the representative for the petit rats of the 19th century. Like many of the other petit rats, Marie lived a life of hardship. Her family lived in a district that was commonly associated with poverty and maisons closes. Her mother encouraged her and her younger sister to pursue ballet in order to escape from their impoverished living conditions. It is also speculated that Marie and her sister became call girls to make ends meet—both inside and outside the Paris Opera Ballet.   Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Edgar Degas, 1878–81, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York   While at the Paris Opera Ballet, Marie worked around 10-12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week under terrible conditions. The petit rats were notoriously malnourished and overworked. After she began art modeling, she could not keep up with the strenuous schedule of the ballet and was consequently fired. Like many other petit rats, Marie Van Goethem never secured a good contract and remained in a life of poverty until her unknown death.   The relationship between Degas and Marie has been the subject of much controversy. At a very young age, she was asked to model nude for Degas. As a result of her financial situation, she was hardly in a position to say no. Naturally, many wonder about the sexual implications of their relationship, but Degas was notoriously disgusted by women.   Regardless of the manner of their relationship, Marie did not benefit from it. Like many of the other petit rats, Marie died in poverty—despite being the centerpiece of one of the most famous artworks of all time. Degas himself has a history with the ballet before and after Marie and would go on to enjoy fame, reputation, and fortune. Later in life, Degas would even become a patron of the ballet himself—or an abonné.   The Abonnés   The Abonnés were a group of wealthy men that subscribed to the Paris Opera Ballet for special privileges. They would frequently harass the ballet dancers in their dressing rooms, in the Opera wings, and in the foyer de la danse. At any given moment, they could seek sexual favors from them.   In the Wings at the Opera House by Jean Beraud, 1889, via Utah University School of Dance, Salt Lake City   When an abonné claimed one girl, they would often sponsor her at the ballet so she might get a contract. In exchange, she was expected to become his mistress. So common was this phenomenon that it became a literary trope. In 1859, a writer for the newspaper Le Figaro stated: “There is not one Parisian novel which does not introduce a banker or man of fashion who keeps a ballet girl of the Opera.”   However, while the men weren’t judged, the women often were depicted as social climbers looking to escape their class. Despite the fact that these women had very little resources or support to say no to the abonnés, they were often held responsible for the power dynamic.   Most importantly, the sexual and labor exploitation they experienced was usually not enough to lift them from poverty. To the abonnés and the Paris Opera Ballet, petit rats were often disposable.   How the Paris Opera Ballet Defined Ballet History   The relationship between the abonnés and the petit rats was one of manipulation and exploitation. However, while it might seem like a long time ago, such a dynamic is a repetitive pattern in ballet history. From The Palais Garnier to the New York City ballet, this dynamic precedes and succeeds the 19th century.   As more public figures like Dusty Button are called out today for sexual exploitation, it is hard to argue that the past is in the past. Degas’ looming figures are very much still with us today. As we look through the lens of ballet history, hopefully, we become more equipped to recognize the present.

As Russia Invades Ukraine, TikTokers Are Documenting the War

If the war in Vietnam was labeled the “first television war” and if the Arab Spring represented the first revolutionary social movement organized on social media, Russia’s aggression into Ukraine is quickly earning its own epithet: the “first TikTok war.” With some 1 billion active users, the platform has rapidly been flooded with documentary eyewitness accounts cataloging the initial impacts of the Russian invasion, broadcasting on-the-ground realities of warfare from urban bomb sirens in Kyiv to long lines outside gas stations as Ukrainians attempt to flee. TikTok, which gained popularity for offering windows into domains of everyday life like cooking, DIY, fitness, and fashion, is providing a bottom-up view of what happens when everyday life is upended by violence and war for a whole nation of people in real time. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even made a special appeal to TikTokers in a televised address to the Russian people on Wednesday, citing the shared humanity of Russians and Ukrainians despite the divisions that are being stoked. @viceworldnews “All over the city bomb sirens are going off.” @matthewcassel reports from Kyiv. #Ukraine #Russia ♬ original sound – VICE World News Some of the videos feature journalists reporting live using the front-facing camera on their phones, such as one posted by Vice World News recorded by Matthew Cassel. Cassel explains that Russia had bombed several areas in Ukraine starting at 5 am on the morning of February 24, splicing footage of a public square in Kyiv with his account. A bomb siren can be heard blaring in the background. Besides the fact that Cassel is filming himself and using the same unsophisticated post-production editing toolkit that everyone else has available at their fingertips, his video is not dissimilar from reports that wartime foreign correspondents have been making for decades.  More novel, however, are the many videos shot by people with no professional affiliation to news agencies or training in documentary journalism. A TikTok by @martavasyuta shows missiles showering over Kyiv’s skyline at 4:23 am in the morning, accompanied by MGMT’s synth-pop song “Little Dark Age.” “It looks like a firework, until you realize it’s hell on earth,” a commenter wrote, liked by over 10,000 users.  @martavasyuta #Ukraine Spread awareness! ♬ bringing the era back yall – chuuyas gf One TikToker, @moneykristina, whose previous content included videos on investing and crypto predictions, posted a video of herself driving past a single-file line of over 40 cars waiting for gas in the outskirts of Kyiv. In another video, she explained why she was choosing to stay in Ukraine: “It’s because it’s honestly near impossible to leave the city or country at this point. The roads are blocked and so backed up that even if we attempted to leave, it could take us days to get out of the city.” @moneykristina Ukraine update #prayforukraine #essentials #war #invasion #ukraine #kiev ♬ Cornfield Chase – Piano – Dorian Marko Another video is a profile in courage, documenting a woman confronting a Russian soldier in Henychesk in southern Ukraine. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she demands. “Take these seeds and put them in your pockets, so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here,” she says, handing them the seeds. The sunflower is the Ukrainian national flower. @thejfc Don’t mess with Ukrainian #women . #politics #meme #ukraine #russia #micdrop #womenpower #democrat #liberal #leftist #usa #politicalhumor #goat ♬ original sound – The JFC A video posted by a Ukrainian soldier jarringly mashes together TikTok’s most distinctive visual trend — the quirky dances that it’s spawned — with the oncoming war. A group of five soldiers, dressed head-to-toe in military gear and outfitted with spears and assault rifles, jam out to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the teen angst anthem whose opening lyric is “Load up on guns, bring your friends / It’s fun to lose and to pretend.”  These more recent videos follow weeks of documentation of increased troop presence in Ukraine. Through the early weeks of February, eyewitnesses recorded abnormal sightings of armored vehicles, ballistic missile launchers, warplanes, and other weaponry in Ukraine. In one video, a man walking his dog in a Russian town a few hours away from the Ukrainian border captured the transport of missile launchers through his wooded, snowy environment. @aleksandrsmoke ♬ На поле танки грохотали – Чиж & Co Still, viewers should be discerning before sharing videos of sensational developments — a few viral videos have already been flagged for originally being footage from video games, old recordings of attacks on Palestine, and clips of earlier military exercises. These videos give viewers thousands of miles away from the physical site of the conflict a whole new feel of the lived reality of war. But they also serve as potentially highly valuable sources of intelligence. The size and location of Russia’s troops and their equipment can now be assessed from videos posted online. But the ease and speed of sharing content on TikTok also means that Russia, notorious for its deployment of armies of bots and false flag operations, can launch sophisticated campaigns to spread harmful disinformation. For years, Russia has relied on sowing disinformation to create false pretexts for its incursions into Ukraine. During the Munich Security Conference this past weekend, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff said, “It is deeply concerning that pro-Russia disinformation is reported to have more than doubled in the region in recent weeks.”

One of the Most Famous Images of the 20th Century Is Going Up For Auction

Man Ray’s “Le Violon d’Ingres” (1924), one of the most reproduced images of the last century, could also become the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction. The black and white photograph, depicting the nude torso of a woman as a violin, is expected to fetch between $5-7 million in a live sale at Christie’s New York in May. The original print of the photograph is offered as the top lot in a dedicated sale of items from the collection of Rosalind Gersten Jacobs & Melvin Jacobs, two American retail executives and art collectors who had close friendships with Ray and other Surrealist artists. (Later prints of “Le Violon” have previously appeared on the market, such as one dating from the 1950s which sold at Christie’s for $475,000 last year.) Other items in the auction include paintings, posters, jewelry, and ephemera. Born in Philadelphia in 1890 under the name Emmanuel Radnitzky, Ray moved to Paris in 1921, where he lived in Montparnasse among DADA and Surrealist artists including his close collaborator Marcel Duchamp. There he also met Alice Prin, better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, who would become his lover, muse, and the sitter for “Le Violon d’Ingres,” among other works. “The work is striking and, because of some darkroom magic, completely unique,” Darius Himes, Christie’s international head of photographs, told Hyperallergic in an email. “Man Ray printed the portrait of Kiki, as one would, placing the negative in the enlarger, and then, before processing the print, exposed the paper to pure white light through the f-holes which he had cut from thick cardstock,” Himes explained. “The results were inspired and perfectly evoked the kind of playful and sexual innuendo the Surrealists were known for.” Himes went on to quote from Ray’s autobiography, in which the artist mused over his work process with his lover and sitter. “Kiki undressed behind a screen … and came out, modestly holding her hand in front of her, exactly like Ingres’s painting of La Source,” Ray recalled. “Her body would have inspired any academic painter.”  According to Himes, Ray held onto the original print until 1962, when he sold it to the collector couple. Melvin Jacobs, a former chairman and CEO of Saks Fifth Avenue, and his wife Rosalind, a Macy’s executive, first met the artist in 1954 via a mutual acquaintance, artist William Copley. “This fateful meeting would mark not only the beginning of Rosalind’s lifelong journey of collecting, but it would chart her on a new path of artistic discovery, and launch a number of close-knit friendships with artists including Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, and more,” Christie’s said in a statement. The couple’s daughter and estate executor, Peggy Jacobs Bader, added in a statement that the items in the collection represent “unique and intimate” stories and the “joyful spirit” of her parents’ relationships with the artists they’ve collected. Other highlights in the sale include Vija Celmins’ “Mars,” estimated at $1.8-2.5 million, and Marcel Duchamps’ “Feuille de vigne femelle” (1950), priced between $500,000–$800,000. The current record for a photograph sold at auction is held by Andreas Gursky’s “Rhine II” (1990), which sold at Christie’s for $4.3 million in 2011. It may soon be shattered by the sale of Ray’s work, which Himes described as coming close to being “the Mona Lisa of the 20th century.” “As a leading figure in the DADA and Surrealist movements, Man Ray’s inventiveness and deft handling of all manner of materials, including photography, cleared the way for conceptual art practice as it developed during the rest of the 20th century,” the photography expert said. “All subsequent prints and editions are from a copy negative of this work, the Jacobs’ print.” Editor’s note 2/25/22 3pm EST: A previous version of this article misstated the artist’s birth place. The article has been corrected.

Brain scans on a dying man suggest his life flashed before his eyes, researchers say

A highlight reel of life's memories may flash before your eyes when you die, a first-of-its kind study suggests. The research, published Tuesday in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, describes a man who was connected to brain scans when he suffered a heart attack and died.The scans, which had never been captured on a dying human before, showed the man experienced the types of brain waves associated with memories, meditation , and dreaming right before — and even about 15 seconds after — his heart stopped beating. The findings raise questions about when life really ends, and may provide comfort to loved ones of the deceased, lead study author Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon now at the University of Louisville, told Insider.  Researchers captured the dying man's brain activity by rare chanceThe paper traces back to 2016, when an 87-year-old man with bleeding between his skull and brain sought treatment at a Canadian hospital. The doctors, including Zemmar, removed the clot, but three days later, the man developed seizures. As is standard, Zemmar said, the medical team monitored the patient with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, to determine the root of the seizures. But before they could determine the appropriate treatment, the man went into cardiac arrest and died. "This is why it's so rare, because you can't plan this. No healthy human is gonna go and have an EEG before they die, and in no sick patient are we going to know when they're gonna die to record these signals," Zemmar said. The EEG showed that, 15 seconds before the patient's heart stopped beating, he experienced high-frequency brainwaves called gamma oscillations, as well as some slower oscillations including theta, delta, alpha, and beta. These patterns are associated with concentration, dreaming, meditating, memory retrieval, and flashbacks, ZME Science reported.  "And surprisingly, after the heart stops pumping blood into the brain, these oscillations keep going," Zemmar told Insider. "So that was extremely surprising for us to see."  Dr. Ajmal Zemmar Courtesy of the University of Louisville It took his team of colleagues from around the world five and a half years to publish the study in part because they were waiting to see if any other similar cases cropped up. They only found one similar study on rats in which scientists induced cardiac arrest in the animals while measuring their brain activity. "It is very hard to make claims with one case, especially when the case has bleeding, seizures, and swelling," Zemmar said, or other complications that could account for the findings. "But what we can claim is that we have signals just before death and just after the heart stops like those that happen in the healthy human when they dream or memorize or meditate." The findings square with some anecdotal reports of near-death experiences, in which people say life's most intensely emotional moments replay before their eyes. When someone almost dies, Zemmar said, "the brain may still trigger those responses so that these patients perceive that near-death experience with the replay and everything, but then come back." Previous studies found signs of 'heightened consciousness' at the end of lifeDr. Sam Parnia, an associate professor at NYU Langone Health and author of "What Happens When We Die?," told Insider other studies have shown that when people start to die, "they have paradoxical lucidity with heightened consciousness. This includes a meaningful, purposeful review of their entire lives, which encompasses all their actions, intentions and thoughts — in essence their humanity — towards others." "This study appears to confirm this by identifying a potential brain marker of lucidity at the end of life," Parnia, who was not involved in Zemmar's study, added. "It may be that as multiple parts of the brain are shutting down with death, this leads to disinhibition of other areas that help humans gain insights into other dimensions of reality, that are otherwise less accessible." The findings might prompt the medical community to rethink when to declare death When the heart stops beating, clinicians declare death and proceed with arrangements like organ donation. But this study calls those standards into question, Zemmar said. "A matter of 15 seconds may not sound all that much, but in medicine, it's not that little," he said. "So if we declare the patient dead when the heart stops and perform organ donation, then do we do it 15 seconds after to let them replay memories? I don't know. This is a question that our study has opened up."  Zemmar said he's already heard from people around the world taking comfort in the findings, even though there's no way to know if the memories that may be recalled are positive or negative or both. "As a neurosurgeon, we see unfortunately at times, patients that we can't help and we have to be the bearer of bad news to the families, which is very difficult," Zemmar said. "So if I can go and tell them this may be happening in your loved one's brain at this moment, and they're having pleasant memories throughout life with you, that I think is something nice for me personally." 

Stephen Hawking's Blackboard

Dating to 1980, this blackboard is part of the Hawking at Work exhibit at London's science museum.Visit Uncrate for the full post.

Mental speed hardly changes over a lifespan

Mental speed -- the speed at which we can deal with issues requiring rapid decision-making -- does not change substantially over decades. Psychologists have come to this conclusion. They evaluated data from a large-scale online experiment with over a million participants. The findings of the new study suggest that the speed of cognitive information processing remains largely stable between the ages of 20 and 60, and only deteriorates at higher ages.

More evidence suggests self-awareness is also for some fish

Researchers address criticisms to previous work by providing additional evidence to suggest the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus has Mirror Self-Recognition.

Optimistic Nihilism

The philosophy of Kurzgesagt. Support us on Patreon so we can make more videos (and get cool stuff in return): https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt?ty=h Steady: https://steadyhq.com/de/kurzgesagt Merchandise:  https://shop.kurzgesagt.org Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cRUQxz Facebook: http://bit.ly/1NB6U5O Twitter: http://bit.ly/2DDeT83 Instagram: http://bit.ly/2DEN7r3 Discord: https://discord.gg/cB7ycdv The Voice of Kurzgesagt: Steve Taylor: http://voice-pool.com/en/english/ Music by Epic Mountain Music: Soundcloud: http://bit.ly/2vZRSnI Bandcamp: http://bit.ly/2tYuKUY Facebook: http://bit.ly/2qW6bY4 Help us caption & translate this video! http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q&tab=2 Optimistic Nihilism

How picking up your smartphone could reveal your identity

The time a person spends on different smartphone apps is enough to identify them from a larger group in more than one in three cases say researchers, who warn of the implications for security and privacy. They fed 4,680 days of app usage data into statistical models. Each of these days was paired with one of the 780 users, such that the models learnt people's daily app use patterns. The researchers then tested whether models could identify an individual when provided with only a single day of smartphone activity that was anonymous and not yet paired with a user. Software granted access to a smartphone's standard activity logging could render a reasonable prediction about a user's identity even when they were logged out of their account. An identification is possible with no monitoring of conversations or behaviors within apps themselves.

The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown

Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share. Get TED Talks recommended just for you! Learn more at https://www.ted.com/signup. The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. Follow TED on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TEDTalks Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/TED

Cancel Culture Is a Moral Panic

Michael Hobbes, late of You’re Wrong About, has made a video essay arguing that “cancel culture” is a moral panic and not some huge new problem in our society. He says you can tell it’s a moral panic because of the shifting definitions of the term, the stories are often exaggerated or untrue, the stakes are often low, and it’s fueling a reactionary backlash. Even if you think that cancel culture really is a nationwide problem, I don’t see why we should focus on random college students and salty Twitter users rather than elected officials and actual legislation. Look, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend there haven’t been genuinely ugly internet pile-ons. Social media makes it easy to gang up on random people and ruin their lives over dumb jokes and honest mistakes. But for two years now, right-wing grifters and the liberal rubes who launder them into the mainstream have cast cancel culture as a problem for the American left and a sign of creeping authoritarianism. They’re wrong. Internet mobs are not a left-wing phenomenon and historically speaking, the threat of authoritarianism usually comes from political parties that try to overturn elections, make it harder to vote, and censor ideas they don’t like. All of this is obvious, but that’s what moral panics do: they distract you from an obvious truth and make you believe in a stupid lie. Back in October, Hobbes wrote a piece on The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism that pairs well with this video. Tags: journalism   language   Michael Hobbes   politics   video

How Bosch Experienced his Own Kind of Hell

Around the turn of the 14th century, for reasons still not completely clear, the average annual temperature underwent a precipitous drop for the next half millennia during what scientists have termed a “Little Ice Age.” Planting seasons were reduced throughout France and the Holy Roman Empire; lush vineyards in the Low Countries and England were blighted; the River Thames regularly froze over (until well into the Industrial Revolution). For two years starting in 1315 massive crop failures throughout Europe led to thousands of deaths. A generation later, and a population already sickly from famine was far more at risk from the bubonic plague, which in the infamous pandemic of 1347 (the Black Death) may have killed a third of Europeans. These years of pandemic and climate change were well attested to in later artwork, especially in Germany and the Netherlands. The frozen lake and low winter light in Pieter Brueghel the Elders’ 1565 “The Hunters in the Snow,” the pustule-covered Christ in Mathias Grünewald’s 1523 “Crucifixion,” those grinning and corpuscular demonic skeletons from Hans Holbein’s 1526 “Danse Macabre,” and the eschatological mania of Albrecht Dürer’s 1496 woodcut “The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.” Before all of them, however, was the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, born sometime around 1450, who was at the height of his artistic skill during the decades on either side of 1500, and died in 1516, only a year before all that northern European gothic mania would culminate in Martin Luther’s “95 Theses.” Alice K. Turner described Bosch in The History of Hell as “one of the handful of truly original creators of hell.” I would argue that more than even that, Bosch was both the inventor of the modern Western imagining of the demonic while transcending that very same tradition — all because of bad weather and moldy bread.   Since he was a psychedelic visionary, it’s been hypothesized that the deranged piety of the painter was inspired by ergot poisoning. Claviceps purpurea, the most common variety of the fungus ergot, produces an alkaloid known as ergotamine, which in chemical composition is closely related to lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. Because of the damp growing seasons, ergot rot was endemic throughout northern Europe, and infected rye often found its way into bread. John Waller explains in The Dancing Plague: The Strange, True Story of an Extraordinary Illness that the mold could “induce delusions, twitching, and violent jerking,” mentioning how Alsatian millers had fitted their wooden pipes which transported flour with intricate carvings of distinctly Boschian faces as a reminder of hallucinatory risks.  Art historians have long looked for some explanation of Bosch’s imagery: a shrieking insectoid demon with globular, coal-black eyes wearing a Flemish matron’s chaperon; an avian devil with a chamber pot as a crown stuffing a nude man into its gaping beak; a pig in a nun’s habit forcefully embracing a screaming man. Those are just details from the dense tableaux of his most celebrated work – “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” painted between 1495 and 1505. Jeffrey Burton Russell argues in Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World that part of Bosch’s impact isn’t only because he “introduced a complex and varied symbolism open to interpretation,” but also because he “shifted the focus of evil from the demonic to the human.” Part of what strikes viewers of Bosch’s work is that regardless of how grotesque his demons are, they are also individuals.          Detail view of Hieronymus Bosch, “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (circa 1480–1490) oil on panel, 153.2 x 86.6 inches, located in Madrid, Museo del Prado (image courtesy Wikimedia Commons) Laurinda S. Dixon makes the most connoisseurial case for Bosch’s ergotism in an essay from Art Journal, but ultimately any diagnosis must only be conjecture. We feel the need to explain Bosch’s macabre obsessions in some way, the singular, fantastical, unprecedented nature of his paintings. Bosch can be partially explained by the context of the High Middle Ages: The distinctly Teutonic religious malaise and mania which he shares with Brueghel and Dürer and which reached its apotheosis with the coming Reformation, and the melancholy which marked a region that had gotten colder, sicker, and hungrier. While the Italian Renaissance has its share of demonic imagery, nothing was produced that quite matched Bosch for horrific import. For that matter, nothing else was produced anywhere that quite equaled his hellish vision. Both allusive and illusive, because a central attraction to Bosch has been the sense that he possesses some ability to divine cursed verisimilitude, that if his images seem too remarkable that it’s because he actually knew what hell looked like. I venture such a claim only to emphasize just how otherworldly and sui generis Bosch happens to be, a necromancer who was able to pull hell upward to earth and to preserve it in oil and wood. As Turner argues, Bosch’s “demons and tortures are more varied and imaginative than anything we have seen yet.” No other artist in Western painting has ever captured such an enduring demonic imaginary like Bosch has. He single-handedly perfected the visual idiom of perdition, and the result has been five centuries of nightmares, the progeny of the Netherlandish painter visible in contemporary Satanic imagery from horror movies to heavy metal music. There is an eternal quality about Bosch, not just that he influences modern culture, but that his multitude of horrors somehow exists outside of any simple framework of past, present, and future. He’s endlessly interpretable, and what exactly any occult revelation he presents might evoke or connotate must by necessity shift. In our own years of pandemic and climate change, in my book Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology, I return to another segment of “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” describing what looks like, if anything, a “fiery cityscape, collapsed and burning skyscrapers, twisted steel I-beams and crumbling concrete, the haze of nuclear fallout across the skyline of a once-mighty and modern metropolis.” Whether Bosch is in hell or we are remains as unanswered as the origins of his strange and terrible visions. 

Art Problems: Is My Art Good Enough?

“I feel like I don’t belong—that my art isn’t good enough, or if it is, I’m fundamentally flawed in some way that will prevent me from ever succeeding. I apply for open calls and residencies but I don’t get many. What can I do?”  —Down and Figuring it Out Let’s begin by establishing what belonging means and why you feel you don’t fit in.   Belonging is community acceptance. In creative fields, this might mean inclusion in shows, press mentions, and invitations to exclusive events — fairly standard markers of success in a marketplace that relies heavily on a model of exclusivity. For all the camaraderie we may feel when we connect to people who share our passion, the industry perpetuates a sense of exclusion amongst most of its members.  In other words, it’s not an accident that you feel like shit. The art industry is literally designed to make you feel that way.  And this isn’t just in the field of fine art or relegated to artists — it applies to curators, dealers, illustrators, designers, commercial photographers, and just about any other creative profession you can name. Almost nobody gets paid what they’re worth, and there’s far more art out there than people to support it. When you don’t get paid for your labor, you begin to think you did something to deserve it. You begin to believe that is your worth.  (And to acknowledge those who will remind me that art’s function exists beyond its monetary value — yes, but it still extracts a cost to produce.)   Needless to say, your question about whether your art and career have value is one of the most common I hear as a coach. But your answer is the only one that matters. I can tell you your art is great, but if you don’t believe it, you won’t believe me either.  Self-doubt is easy to come by, in part, because so much of our success feels subjective and beyond our control. We’re not running a race where fitness and finish time determine the winner. Adept craftsmanship, smart concepts, or any other traditional skills art schools teach, do not amount to merit. Your art’s eloquence in expressing your voice and perspective creates value, and nobody has a metric for that success but you. Most artists spend a lifetime honing their voice to meet that internal logic.  Now, I doubt that telling any artist to buck up because they’re in control of their happiness will impact their state of mind after receiving a sea of rejections. One of the problems with working in the art world is that rejection happens all the time and there aren’t enough ways to feel successful.  But let me ask you this: What would you need to feel a sense of belonging?  For many, the answer will be tactical. You might describe specific shows or awards you want. You have to set goals to achieve them, but only using these types of guideposts won’t clear your emotional cache. For one, if your only goals rely on someone else’s subjective opinion, you’re going to feel bad more often. For another, most of us will update milestones once we know we will achieve them. That’s natural and important, but it often doesn’t allow us to savor success.  I find that arts workers who identify their core beliefs first and set their goals to match often find greater satisfaction in what they do. Your vision of the world and how you participate will endure longer than any short- term goal, allowing you to revisit your successes more often.  So, maybe you didn’t get an award, but you gained visibility for your perspective in the process. Not only does this give you more flexibility in how you view your success, but it gives you more flexibility in your problem solving process.  Unfortunately, self-actualization is not a panacea for self doubt. Most people I talk to describe feeling more anxiety as they gain success, not less. So, how can you feel more confident and less anxious regardless of circumstance? The answer is twofold. One, find supportive communities where people talk about this stuff so you’re not alone. Two, practice.  What happens when you practice making art? You get better.  What happens when you practice doing things you are scared to do? You get better.  What happens when you practice being nice to yourself? You. Get. Better.   This isn’t a sexy answer — but if it works, who cares? Confidence is a muscle you can build, just like any other. It’s not easy, and the art world is not an ideal training environment. But if you work at it, you’ll grow healthier and happier.  * * * Editor’s Note: Paddy Johnson is the founder of VVrkshop, a platform that helps artists get the shows, residencies and grants of their dreams. Paddy will be offering practical advice for the studio, careers, money, and life-work balance. If you have a problem you’d like advice on, send your questions to paddy@vvrkshop.art. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited.

Beware, Mosquitoes Are Most Attracted to These 4 Colors

A new study suggests that whether a mosquito bites you might have a lot to do with the colors that you’re wearing. The study, conducted by a team of researchers led by University of Washington biologists Diego Alonso San Alberto and Claire Rusch, examined what colors attract mosquitos the most. Using a wind tunnel, they carefully controlled the visual and olfactory environment that mosquitoes were released into and used 3D tracking technology to monitor their movements in the presence of a color dot. The research findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. The study found that when exposed to carbon dioxide, a gas humans constantly produce via exhalation, yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) developed heightened sensitivity to particular colors like red, orange, black, and cyan — predominantly long-wavelength visual cues. As a result, they flew faster and dwelled longer around those colors. Meanwhile, they remained indifferent to other colors on the spectrum such as green, purple, blue, and white. The mosquitoes’ attraction to longer wavelength colors makes sense from an evolutionary perspective: Human skin of all shades emanates red-orange light, so it benefits mosquitoes to flock to similar visual stimuli. It also seems reasonable that mosquitoes don’t respond to these same visual signals in the absence of carbon dioxide in their immediate atmosphere; no CO2 means no fresh blood to prey on. “Imagine you’re on a sidewalk and you smell pie crust and cinnamon,” Jeffrey Riffell, one of the researchers on the team, told Sci-News. “That’s probably a sign that there’s a bakery nearby, and you might start looking around for it.” Researchers also found that the visual preferences of mosquitoes were genetically coded. Mosquitoes with a mutant copy of a gene that allowed mosquitoes to smell carbon dioxide, along with mosquitoes with a mutant copy of a gene that allowed them to see longer wavelengths of light, expressed muted color preferences. The researchers repeated the experiment with mosquitoes of other species, and found that the same pattern held: In the presence of CO2, they exhibited special attention to certain colors. However, they found that those colors differed between species. While the orange to red range was a consistent hit across all species, violet, a shorter wavelength, proved to also be eye candy to the mosquito species An. stephensi and Cx. quinquefasciatus. The study’s results confirm wisdom clothiers have long abided by. In the early 1900s, khaki pants were urged for tropical environments in part because they were unseductive to mosquitoes, and the US military modified its uniform from dark to light blue dress shirts to lessen the attraction of mosquitoes.

Can a planet have a mind of its own? Thought experiment

Astrophysicists combine current scientific understanding about the Earth with broader questions about how life alters a planet to ask: if a planet with life has a life of its own, can it also have a mind of its own? The research raises new ideas about the ways in which humans might tackle global issues such as climate change.

Why the Word “Forgotten” Isn’t Helping Women Artists

We’re living through an unprecedented age for women, where women artists — both historical and contemporary — are receiving more high profile, mainstream attention than ever before. But if there’s one thing we have to get right when we talk about these historical women artists, it’s that their exclusion from art history is no mistake. Unfortunately, much of the language that surrounds their retroactive inclusion — through museum retrospectives, new biographies, and increasing market interest — makes it seem as if their systematic erasure has been a fluke of history, rather than an intentional sidelining. Few words frustrate me more on this subject than the use of the word “forgotten” when applied to an artist’s legacy, as the word expresses a passivity that obscures the reality of these women’s stories. I prefer the more accurate “erased,” which denotes an effort to rub out what was there. (Robert Rauschenberg’s “Erased De Kooning Drawing” (1953), after all, was a deliberately symbolic action intended to declare the old guard dead.) Over the past five centuries there have been countless women artists who were well known in their moment, only to be erased when it came time to write the history books. One of these is Edmonia Lewis. The recent announcement of a new USPS stamp featuring a portrait of the American sculptor inspired a spate of headlines — from The Guardian to the Oberlin Review — which made use of the term “forgotten” to describe this remarkable artist’s life. So who was Edmonia Lewis? And how did we “forget” her? A half Black, half Ojibwe woman, she built an international reputation as a sculptor in the Neoclassical style. Lewis eventually established herself in Rome after enduring several incidents of racism and discrimination in the United States, particularly while enrolled at Oberlin College. People lined up to see her sculptures, and her studio was a place of pilgrimage for Americans abroad. Edmonia Lewis “The Death of Cleopatra” (1876) marble 63 x 31 1/4 x 46 inches (photograph by Gene Young in 2010, image via Wikimedia Commons) So how could Lewis go from drawing crowds at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial International Exhibition to being buried in an unmarked grave in London 30 years later? Could an internationally recognized artist (whose marble works displaying an exceptional range of human emotion would’ve been hard to ignore), simply be “forgotten” like a footnote someone left out of a historical text? Could it be that after her death her novelty wore off, and the revanchist sociopolitical reality of a post-Reconstruction US had no use for a successful woman of her heritage? Sometimes the public forgets, but at other times institutions use language to distance themselves from the past. I was disappointed to see advertisements for the Museum of Modern Art’s current retrospective of Dadaist Sophie Taeuber-Arp, which entices its audience by calling her “a shapeshifting artist you probably don’t know … yet.” Public advertisement for the Museum of Modern Art’s current exhibition Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) The appeal of this campaign, of course, is the shock that so intriguing an artist could be unknown. The “yet” offers a correction — you don’t know this artist, but we’ll show her to you. “You’re welcome!” it seems to shout. But lurking behind this ad campaign is the role MoMA has played in the public’s ignorance. To understand this fully, we must revisit the museum’s storied first director Alfred H. Barr, famous for his flowcharts of art movements progressing inevitably toward abstraction, which was the museum’s foundational understanding of modern art and, therefore, its own programming. Dada has pride of place in this chart, evidenced by the influential 1936 MoMA show, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, which displayed over 700 objects across four floors. Its press release claimed the show would “present in an objective and historical manner the principal movements of modern art.” If Taeuber-Arp is worthy of a retrospective today, then where was she in 1936? The literature on the earlier show is telling: Taeuber-Arp has only two pieces in the catalog and her name is listed in the index as a “member of Zurich Dada group … [who] did murals and decorations … [is the] wife of Hans Arp.” Arp on the other hand is listed as a “founder of Zurich Dada” and cited frequently in the movement’s timeline. He is never mentioned as her husband. Through the lens of MoMA’s early history, its self-congratulatory advertising which corrects an error the institution made 85 years ago, rings hollow. Not unlike a retrospective, a biography is a monumental undertaking, capable of shifting public appreciation of an individual or movement. As there is a paltry number of biographies on women artists and an even smaller number of scholarly books on the work of women artists of color, their addition to the literature of art history fills glaring gaps in the historical record, though the language surrounding these, too, can feel begrudging. For example, Irene Gammel’s 2002 biography of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, the (disputed) inventor of the readymade, received this muted praise from the New York Times’s Holland Cotter: “The Baroness,” he wrote, “could not have asked for a more thoughtful and engaged monument.” I wonder: do the individuals who shape history need to ask to be included in its writing? Leonora Carrington, “How Doth the Little Crocodile” (1998) bronze, located in a pond at Chapultepec Park, Mexico City (photograph by Gary Todd via Flickr) And lest you think language like this is isolated to the early 21st century, Leonora Carrington’s biography, written by her great-niece Joanna Moorhead, elicited an equally condescending blurb in 2017: “She is lucky to have found such a memorialist,” wrote Peter Conrad in The Guardian. Whether in print or a museum text, the message is clear: Women have to ask permission to be a part of art history and are lucky when they are included. Their revival is now met with a pat on the back for certain institutions while the erasure of their legacies is treated like a clerical error. Language like this does nothing to implicate the system that created the current state of affairs. It lets everyone off the hook at a moment when we need to understand how and why we got here. If we don’t, the crimes of the past will undoubtedly be repeated in the present.

How migraine pain signals are generated, and blocked

An international team of researchers has discovered that Schwann cells -- which are abundant in the peripheral nervous system and create a protective sheath around nerve fibers -- play an essential role in migraine pain. Their study illustrates how pain is signaled from within Schwann cells and finds several ways to block this signaling, providing potential targets for new migraine treatments.

Impact of COVID-19 social isolation measures on early development

Researchers from 13 countries investigated the impact of COVID-19 related social isolation measures on 2,200 young infants and toddlers between 8 and 36 months of age. Their findings provide insights into the effects of lockdown on language acquisition and screen time in the generation of youngsters growing up during this extraordinary period.

Genetic study suggests more sensitive people respond better to couple’s therapy

How well someone responds to couple's therapy could be determined by their genes, according to a new study led by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Denver.

“Only a God Can Save Us”: Heidegger on Technology

  What does technology become when we stop thinking about it as a means to an end? Heidegger thought that the answer to this question — which, put another way, asks what technology is when we stop thinking about it technologically — explains the essence of technology. Non-technological thinking is at least as important for Heidegger as actually understanding what the essence of technology is.   Heidegger theorized in parts of his work — most explicitly stated in a series of lectures, including “The Question Concerning Technology” — that technology is not just a category that describes certain trains of scientific thought, or types of devices. Technology is also not the exclusive province of modernity. Rather, Heidegger proposed that technology is a “mode of revealing”, a framework in which things reveal themselves in their capacity as instrumental objects — as resources. This process of revealing, for Heidegger, is just as important for twentieth-century technology as it was for the simplest tools from early human history.   There is, however, a significant difference between ancient and modern technology for Heidegger. While the windmill “brings forth” energy from natural phenomena, it is essentially at the mercy of those phenomena: it allows them to reveal their own instrumental potential. By contrast, and here we see the source of Heidegger’s prominence in contemporary ecological thought, Heidegger sees modern technology as challenging nature: demanding “that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored as such”. For Heidegger, the defining behavior of modern technology is extraction, its tendency to challenge the land to reveal itself as a particular kind of useful resource. In Heidegger’s parlance, technology is a mode of revealing things that “sets upon” nature and restructures it according to human demands for resources.   Heidegger and Technology The Heidegger Museum in Meßkirch, via bodensee.eu   Although extraction is certainly a human-directed form of progress, Heidegger is keen to stress that our apparent mastery over technology should not be confused with an escape from an increasingly ubiquitous technological mode of being. Indeed, the very defense which says that technology is only a tool — an instrument for predicting things, for shaping the planet, or for other, pre-existing human purposes — misunderstands the nature of technology. When we speak of instrumentality, of achieving our ends, or of using something to do so, we are already speaking technologically. The difficulty of getting out of this way of speaking is, for Heidegger, indicative of the essentially technological plight of modernity: the impossibility of conceiving of the world apart from as a tool, resource, and energy store.   For Heidegger, poetry is also a mode of revealing. Unlike many other writers on aesthetics, Heidegger conceived of art and poetry as means by which objects divulge things about themselves. Heidegger calls on us to consider the Rhine River in two very different capacities. On the one hand, there is the Rhine of Hölderlin’s hymn Der Rhein, “noblest of all rivers/The free-born Rhine” with its “jubilant” voice. On the other, there is the Rhine which drives the turbines of its hydroelectric plant. The hydroelectric Rhine is only now a site of energetic potential; a potential that can be harnessed, stored, and distributed. To the imaginary objector who says that the landscape-feature Hölderlin was marveling at still flows, Heidegger retorts: “But how? In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a tour group ordered there by the vacation industry.” (The Question Concerning Technology)   The hydroelectric dam on the Rhine, photo by Maarten Sepp, via Wikimedia Commons   This latter Rhine is not the same river, for Heidegger, as the one that goes “thirstily winding” and “plunges away”. That river — Hölderlin’s river — is a casualty of technology, insofar as technology obscures all that the Rhine might be beyond its capacity to supply energy. The poetic, and perhaps more generally aesthetic, reverie is a mode of revealing at once effaced by technology and potentially able to uncover technology’s essence.   The river’s being is, perhaps unsurprisingly, essential to Heidegger’s account of technology and what it occludes. Heidegger understands technology as a mode of revealing in which we cannot see things as they are — that is, as objects in the truest sense. Giving the example of a plane waiting on a runway, Heidegger suggests that technology reveals things only as a “standing reserve”: a useful action awaiting manifestation. Sure, Heidegger concedes, the plane on the runway is hypothetically an object simply being in a place, but this is not what the plane is for us. “Revealed, it stands on the taxi strip only as standing-reserve, inasmuch as it is ordered to ensure the possibility of transportation.” (The Question Concerning Technology). Technology lets us see things only as these standing reserves — the river as a store of electrical energy or guided tours, the plane as only the possibility of useful transport — but never as things in themselves.   Heidegger and Ecology  View of the Rhine at Reineck, by Herman Saftleven, 1654, oil on canvas, via the Rijksmuseum   Heidegger’s suggestion that humans should begin to reconsider their instrumental attitudes towards objects, and his criticism of the extractive practices which follow from these attitudes, have made him popular among contemporary ecological thinkers. In particular, Heidegger’s interest in inanimate objects and non-human organisms as beings with the capacity to reveal themselves in ways other than those that are purely instrumental has prompted his uptake among proponents of “deep ecology”, a school of thought that argues for the value of non-human organisms, and even objects, as separate from their use-value to humans. Heidegger presents a critique of anthropocentric thinking, a critique that focuses not so much on the specific environmental harm caused by human technology but on the near-ubiquitous structures of thought which robs natural objects of their existential autonomy.   It should be noted that Heidegger does not straightforwardly blame humanity for transforming objects into standing reserves. The origin of this kind of “unconcealment” is more mystical for Heidegger than for most contemporary ecological theorists. Though Heidegger is unambiguous in recommending that we strive against the rapid ascendancy of the technological, human agency is — as in many other parts of Heidegger’s philosophy — called into question as the instigator of instrumental thinking. This gesture, too, serves as a rejection of dominant anthropocentrism: it throws off the presumed primacy of the human will and human power in favor of a world-picture of complex joint agency between people and things. Though humans certainly manufacture tools, mine the earth, and build hydroelectric plants, Heidegger identifies this process with an extra-human temptation, a revelation of the stuff of the world as the means by which to build the world.   Primitivism and Eco-Fascism Plane in Fiji, photograph by John Todd, 1963, the plane on the runway is Heidegger clearest example of how the standing reserve transforms objects, via the British Museum   Heidegger’s legacy today is a fraught one, and not only due to his famous connections to, and advocacy for, Nazism. Mark Blitz’s extensive article on Heidegger and technology unpicks the ways in which — contrary to some strident defenders of the disjunction between Heidegger’s philosophy and his political affiliations — Heidegger’s writing on technology, nature, and “dwelling” dovetail with fascist rhetoric, both historical and contemporary. Blitz notes, for instance, that Nazi ideology’s emphasis on the mystical intermingling of “blood and soil” finds theoretical backing in Heidegger’s thinking, while disavowals of modernity in contrast with a traditional ideal always curry favor among reactionary political movements.   To ask the question, “what useful suggestions can we glean from Heidegger’s writings on technology and nature?” is perhaps to fall into the trap of technological thinking which he warns us of. Nonetheless, Heidegger’s thought contains suggestions for how we should begin to relate to natural resources non-technologically. Understanding these suggestions is difficult in part because of Heidegger’s dense and winding texts, laden with etymologies and looping diversions, but it is also difficult because we are so used to arguments which present themselves instrumentally — that only make suggestions as a means to an end. The problem, in the face of serious environmental problems demanding urgent solutions, is that it is difficult to suspend our disbelief in the idea that anything will get better if we simply stop thinking about the river as a source of electrical energy, or the ore-deposit as a reserve of construction materials.   Photograph of Heidegger, by Digne Meller Marcovicz, 1968, via frieze.com   At best, we can perhaps get on board with the primitivist’s call to renegotiate our relationship with the ease and speed of technological life. There are, however, good reasons to be suspicious of this call, not least because anthropogenic climate change presents us with problems that will not be solved or dissolved by suddenly stopping large-scale extractive practices. The human cost of primitivism is necessarily vast, and with the exception of those who are truly uninvested in their own, and humanity’s general, prospects of survival, few proponents of it imagine that the cost shall be felt by them — that they will starve, or be killed, or fall ill. It is for this reason that the kind of ecological primitivism with which Heidegger has been aligned has also overlapped substantially with fascist thought. There is the disquieting prospect that, lurking behind the imperative to let natural things be, is a belief in naturally justified hierarchies.   Only a God Can Save Us The English translation of Heidegger’s Der Spiegel interview, published a few days after the philosopher’s death, via pdcnet.org   We can, perhaps, envision alternative ways in which to heed Heidegger’s critique of technological thinking, at least as individuals. Questions of policy are necessarily bound up in ideas of means and ends, desirable outcomes, and the expenditure of resources, but as solitary agents, we can opt to escape from the hegemony of the standing reserve. We should, Heidegger seems to suggest, become more like the poet and less like the physicist in our interactions with objects in the world, allowing things to reveal themselves to us according to their essence rather than their place in a rigidly ordered system of forces and potential energies. In the final passages of “The Question Concerning Technology” Heidegger writes the curious declaration: “the essence of technology is nothing technological”. Meaningful reflections upon the essence of technology occur, Heidegger says, in the realm of art.   Heidegger was not, however, optimistic about modernity or the possibility of extricating ourselves as humans from the constrictive structures and blinding technologies we have come to rely on. Speaking of the atom bomb, Heidegger argued that rather than presenting us with a new development which we have the opportunity to direct for good or ill, the atom bomb is merely the culmination of centuries of scientific thought. Indeed, nuclear power affects the most literal manifestation of technology’s tendency to re-order objects as energy; the atomic bomb fractures matter into its potential as an act of destruction.   Model of the ‘Fat Man’ atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, via the National Museum of the United States Airforce   Humanity also risks confounding itself by using technology to an ever greater extent to solve problems that are themselves exacerbated by instrumental thinking. Heidegger’s famous proclamation that “all distances in time and space are shrinking” refers to the ways in which transport and communication technologies facilitate easier access to images, places, people, objects, cultural artifacts, and so on. “Yet the frantic abolition of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in shortness of distance.” (Heidegger, The Thing). What we ignore in the frenzied effort to attain nearness through technological means is that those technological means have obscured things in themselves; they have distanced us further from objects revealed as they are. Being, Heidegger proposes, is overlooked in all its semi-mystical wonder, despite its immediate nearness to us.   In a remark which has been taken both as a plea for forgiveness over his Nazism, and a lamentation of the trap which humanity finds itself entangled in, Heidegger once remarked in an interview — one he gave on the condition it would not be published until after his death — that “only a god can save us”. Divergences in the use of technology are of little concern in Heidegger’s writing — the nuclear bomb and the hydroelectric plant commit the same obfuscation of being. Only a god can save us, but only stripping away the mask of means and ends will allow God to appear.

Memory formation influenced by how brain networks develop during youth

In a new, rare study of direct brain recordings in children and adolescents, scientists have discovered as brains mature, the precise ways by which two key memory regions in the brain communicate make us better at forming lasting memories. The findings also suggest how brains learn to multitask with age. Historically, a lack of high-resolution data from children's brains have led to gaps in our understanding of how the developing brain forms memories. The study innovated the use of intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) on pediatric patients to examine how brain development supports memory development.

📍NYC 📆 2/21 🎟: seetickets.us/event/JEEN-YUH… Event will feature screening previews of episodes 2 & 3 + bonus rare archival footage not found on the documentary.

TeamKanyeDaily @TeamKanyeDaily 📍NYC 📆 2/21 🎟: seetickets.us/event/JEEN-YUH… Event will feature screening previews of episodes 2 & 3 + bonus rare archival footage not found on the documentary.

Auction House Sells Glass Negatives As NFTs And Tells Buyers To “Smash” the Originals

“Charles Frederick Goldie at His Easel” by Rupert Farnall Studios (c. 1910-1920), one of two photos sold by the New Zealand auction house Webb’s as NFTs (via Wikimedia Commons) A New Zealand auction house sold two glass plate negatives as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and encouraged the buyers to destroy the originals. Webb’s, headquartered in Auckland, listed two NFTs based on photographs of the polemical artist Charles Goldie, known for his portraits of Māori elders. Each token was accompanied by “a framed contact print of the image and the original glass plate negative” presented in a custom-built pine box. Also included with each lot, according to a description in OpenSea, where the NFTs were minted, was “a small brass hammer.” The tool appears meant to give purchasers of the tokens the option of shattering the glass plates, eradicating the physical object in order to — presumably — elevate the digital asset. “Perhaps you might want to make it permanently digital,” Webb’s Head of Art Charles Ninow told Newshub. “Smash it? Smash it.” The NFTs of “Charles Frederick Goldie at His Easel” and “Charles Frederick Goldie in His Studio” sold this week for $51,250 and $76,250, respectively. The story was tweeted by Molly White of Web3 Is Going Just Great, a blog that she describes as highlighting “only a small number of all the hacks, scams, and bad ideas that are so prevalent in crypto and web3 projects.” Some responded to the auction house’s strange sales pitch with sarcasm, mocking the strategy as a gimmick that exemplifies the ways in which the crypto space profits from controversy. “I suspect the whole thing was a calculated move by the auction house. They knew that offering a hammer and suggesting the buyers smash a historical artifact to make the project ‘permanently digital’ would be provocative and generate interest,” White told Hyperallergic. “They seem to have been successful, too — both auctions closed at prices far above the estimates — but certainly at the cost of being able to claim to be motivated by their love of art rather than money.” Webb’s has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.

Time crystals leave the lab

Cutting-edge research has observed time crystals in a system that is not isolated from its ambient environment. This major achievement brings scientists one step closer to developing time crystals for use in real-world applications.

Elon Musk Donated $5.7 Billion of Tesla Shares to Charity

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Titanic with a Cat

What if Titanic, but with a cat in a leading role alongside Leonardo DiCaprio? This is pitch-perfect, right down to the post-credits scene. See also Paddington in Film. (via waxy) Tags: movies   remix   Titanic   video