The Articles Thread

[ambermonk]

The World Wide Web is now 30 years old, and its founder, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, said we need to 'stop its downward plunge into a dysfunctional future':
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47524474

 

 

In his letter, Sir Tim outlined three specific areas of "dysfunction" that he said were harming the web today:

• malicious activity such as hacking and harassment
• problematic system design such as business models that reward clickbait
• unintended consequences, such as aggressive or polarised discussions

Seems like this issue should be a big deal, but I figured that if I posted this as a new, separate topic, that it would sink from the GenBan front page in less than a day.

Edited March 13, 2019 by ambermonk

[ghOsty]

Drugs worth $4.25M found in camper stopped on Interstate 94 in Minnesota

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/drugs-worth-4-25m-found-in-camper-stopped-on-interstate-94-in-minnesota?fbclid=IwAR13O-3rTFiIpgsjGGZkAd4V-xG9NyxJUFkIO-Ep-PrtwXfryfJ_g5f7Rak

A search of the truck revealed marijuana along with canisters, pipes and glass jars with concentrated marijuana THC. Then the trooper opened the doors to the camper and found plastic garbage bags stacked from floor to ceiling, with each bag labeling its contents. One of the labels read "24k" and named the brand of marijuana it was carrying. There was 900 pounds of marijuana, 406 packages each containing 1 gram of THC concentrate, 112 jars of THC wax and $15,500 in cash. Desroches admitted that he was transporting the controlled substances for a fee of $30,000. The trooper believes the $15,500 in their possession was half of that fee.
 

FFS, I wish they'd just legalize it here already

Edited March 13, 2019 by ghOsty

[iococoi]

http://markmaynard.com/2019/03/the-untold-history-of-zines-sean-tejaratchi-on-crap-hound/

[ManjuShri]

Restoration of the Sistine Chapel Frescoes: Before and After

 

https://www.davidbcalhoun.com/sistine-chapel-restorations/

 

Video: https://forum.watmm.com/topic/89546-favourite-youtube-videos-part-ii/?p=2711877

[prdctvsm]

The Three Mistakes That Led to the Collapse of the English-Speaking World

How America and Britain Became The Globe’s Laughingstocks and Idiots

[splbt]

A critical look at gentrification and manufactured authenticity in bourgeoisie design

[iococoi]

https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3446

[melancholera]

The hunt for the death valley Germans

[ManjuShri]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Sape

 

[Limo]

 

Phase transitions: the math behind the music

Quote

His research, published May 17 in the journal Science Advances, “aims to explain why basic ordered patterns emerge in music, using the same statistical mechanics framework that describes emergent order across phase transitions in physical systems.”

https://thedaily.case.edu/phase-transitions-the-math-behind-the-music/

[iococoi]

 

Quote

How can we properly describe, analyse and predict a fitting context for urban cycling? How can we describe urban cycling itself, in a way that both capture its local particularities and its generic features? What relationships exist between environmental characteristics and cycling and (how) can we shape them? Such are the questions that spur this paper.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23800127.2018.1505261

[ManjuShri]

The Rise, Fall, and Lonely Death of Benny Hill

Full article:
https://flashbak.com/the-rise-fall-and-lonely-death-of-benny-hill-371668/

Quote

"Live every day as though it's your last, 'cause one day, you'll be right."

 

On Easter Sunday morning in 1992, just two hours after he had been speaking to a television producer about yet another comeback, and five days after being released from hospital after a heart-scare, seventy-five- year-old Frankie Howerd collapsed and died. Benny Hill, seven years younger than Howerd, was quoted in the press as being ‘very upset’ and saying, ‘We were great, great friends.’ Indeed they had been friends, but Hill hadn’t given a quote about his fellow comedian, he hadn’t even been asked for one – he couldn’t have been – because he was already dead. The quote about Howerd had actually come from Hill’s friend, former producer and unofficial press agent Dennis Kirkland, who hadn’t been able to get in contact with Hill and was starting to worry.

It wasn’t until the 20th, the day after Howerd had died, that a neighbour noticed an unpleasant smell coming from Flat 7 of Fairwater House on the Twickenham Road in Teddington. The neighbour contacted Kirkland, who was a regular visitor to the Teddington apartment block, and it wasn’t long before the television producer was climbing a ladder and peering through the window of Hill’s second-floor flat. Inside he saw his friend surrounded by dirty plates, glasses, videotapes and piles of papers, slumped on the sofa in front of the TV. The body was blue, bloated and distended and there was a dried trickle of blood that had seeped from one of his ears. Hill had been dead for two days. He had only been seen in public a few days before when he had sat in the audience of Me & My Girl at London’s Adelphi Theatre. Benny had gone along to see Louise English, an ex-Hill’s Angel who was appearing with Les Dennis. On the same evening, having recovered from heart trouble himself just a few months earlier, Benny had sent Frankie a telegram: ‘Stop stealing my act – I do the heart attack jokes.’

...

Edited July 2, 2019 by ManjuShri

[iococoi]

Quote

Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/magazine/universal-music-fire-bands-list-umg.html

follow-up to

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html

Edited July 30, 2019 by iococoi

[iococoi]

Quote

Behind The Scenes: Renaat From R&S Records In Conversation

https://www.theransomnote.com/music/interviews/behind-the-scenes-renaat-from-rs-records-in-conversation/

[Guest]

Article from Johns Hopkins medical journal on the use of psilocybin mushrooms for smoking cessation. Apparently it has a 80% success rate after 6 months. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/stories/mushrooms_quit_smoking.html

[iococoi]

Quote

Picturing Pyrotechnics

Simon Werrett explores how artists through the ages have responded to the challenge of representing firework displays, from the highly politicised and allegorical renderings of the early modern period to Whistler’s impressionistic Nocturne in Black and Gold.

https://publicdomainreview.org/2014/06/25/picturing-pyrotechnics/

[Braintree]

The Mainstreaming Of EDM And The Precipitous Drop That Followed

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/13/778532395/the-mainstreaming-of-edm-and-the-precipitous-drop-that-followed

[Guest]

https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/01/18/new-pentagon-report-the-effects-of-a-changing-climate-are-a-national-security-issue/

[iococoi]

Quote

More to the floor: the decade the dancefloor was decolonised

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/22/decade-the-dancefloor-was-decolonised-decade-in-music

[Limo]

3 hours ago, iococoi said:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/22/decade-the-dancefloor-was-decolonised-decade-in-music

Thx. Interesting article. Did not, however, take the suspicion away that the only reason all this “decolonized” dance music has become popular is that white people have grown a bit bored with house and techno.

[iococoi]

Quote

From Lead Belly to Pussy Riot: branding lessons and inspiration from over a century of band names

https://www.zinzin.com/observations/2015/lead-belly-to-pussy-riot-branding-lessons-inspiration-from-over-a-century-of-band-names/#more-10371

[Braintree]

On 11/30/2019 at 4:41 AM, rhmilo said:

Thx. Interesting article. Did not, however, take the suspicion away that the only reason all this “decolonized” dance music has become popular is that white people have grown a bit bored with house and techno.

The premise of their argument is flawed. It isn't producers standing as a barrier to inclusion. What the article seems miffed about is the record labels that sell the music. It honestly sounds like they don't understand how scenes form or how they're sustained.

[dingformung]

www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/world/europe/finland-prime-minister-sanna-marin.amp.html

[chenGOD]

On 12/2/2019 at 2:41 AM, Braintree said:

The premise of their argument is flawed. It isn't producers standing as a barrier to inclusion. What the article seems miffed about is the record labels that sell the music. It honestly sounds like they don't understand how scenes form or how they're sustained.

That was my take too - I read it and I was like "white straight males made club music popular..uhh what?"

[dingformung]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12295956&fbclid=IwAR3VzrLrtWQlIhO1bL2C36uQsD3Zh_W1Dlmlts1NGbOLUkvAg0OTdSWD7Cs

'This is mass rape': China slammed over programme that 'appoints' men to sleep with Uighur women

Spoiler

 

Western coverage of one of China's worst human rights abuses – the mass detainment of over a million Muslim Uighurs – has increased over the past year.

Satellite images revealed the Government destroying scores of traditional burial grounds belonging to Uighurs in northwest Xinjiang; drone footage revealed hundreds of blindfolded and shackled men being transferred to detention camps; and just last month, secret Chinese Government documents revealed how the regime was instructed to deal with the ethnic minority.

But lesser reported on is a disturbing policy implemented in the northwest region – a forced-living arrangement between Han Chinese men and Uighur women that's been likened to "mass rape".

The Government claims it's designed to promote harmony between the different cultural groups. But activists tell a different story.

 

'MASS RAPE': CHINA'S SHOCKING 'PAIR UP' PROGRAMME

In November, various Western media outlets reported that Han Chinese men had been assigned to monitor the homes of Uighur women whose husbands had been detained in prison camps.

The reports came out after an anonymous Chinese official gave an interview with Radio Free Asia, confirming the program but denying there was anything sinister about it.

As part of the "Pair Up and Become Family" programme, Han Chinese men stay with and sleep in the same beds as Uighur women.

According to the Chinese Government, the programme is designed to "promote ethnic unity".

But to Rushan Abbas, a Uighur activist whose family members have been detained in the Xinjiang camps for more than a year, it's nothing more than systemised rape – part of the Government's brutal ongoing crackdown against the country's ethnic minority.

"This is mass rape," she told news.com.au. "The Government is offering money, housing and jobs to Han people to come and marry Uighur people.

"Neither the girls nor their families can reject such a marriage because they will be viewed (by Chinese authorities) as Islamic extremists for not wanting to marry atheist Han Chinese. They have no choice but to marry them.

"(The Han Chinese) have been raping Uighur women in the name of marriage for years. It took more than a year for the media to pick that up."

 

While the Chinese Government claims the program is about promoting unity, it also allows officials to keep a close eye on the Uighurs who have spent decades living under increased surveillance.

Human rights organisations have slammed the program, saying there is "no evidence that families can refuse such visits" and describing it as "deeply invasive forced assimilation practices".

Last month, a Chinese official told Radio Free Asia the purpose of the program was to "help the families with their ideology, bringing new ideas … they talk to them about life, during which time they develop feelings for one another".

"Normally one or two people sleep in one bed, and if the weather is cold, three people sleep together," he said, adding "it is now considered normal for females to sleep on the same platform with their paired male 'relatives'".

They claimed the "relatives" and their female hosts sleep at least a metre apart at all times and that male Communist Party officials have never tried to take advantage of women.

Ms Abbas says this is all lies. "Tons of pregnancies are coming up," she said. "Tons of forced abortions. This is mass rape disguised as 'marriage'. Uighur girls are forced to marry Han Chinese men with government gratifications."

WHY IS THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT TARGETING XINJIANG?

Hostility towards the Uighur people stems back decades but has increased sharply under China's current leader Xi Jinping.

The crackdown on Xinjiang is partly fuelled by Islamophobia. Mr Xi's government is increasingly cracking down on religious worship across the country, but Muslims have been especially targeted.

The crackdown is also economic. Mr Xi has a grand plan in motion to put his country at the economic and political centre of the world.

These ambitions are best summed up by the Belt and Road Initiative, a trillion-dollar project that seeks to connect countries across continents on trade, with China at its centre.

Geographically, Urumqi – the capital of Xinjiang – is a crucial intersection point in the "Belt" part of the project.

It also shares several international borders: Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The last thing the Chinese Government wants for such a crucial region in this plan is unrest or the loss of control. And that's where the intense security crackdown comes in.

This explains why the crackdown escalated around five years ago, in line with the Belt and Road Initiative taking off.

'MY FAMILY DISAPPEARED'

Ms Abbas has long spoken out against the human rights abuses in Xinjiang – a move that has had disastrous consequences for her family in China.

In September last year, she spoke about the conditions in the camps while seated on a panel hosted by a Washington think tank.

Six days later, her aunt and sister both disappeared at the same time – despite living 1400 kilometres away from each other.

"My sister is a medical doctor. Their 'vocational training' shouldn't apply to her. My aunt is a retired schoolteacher. Both of them went to Chinese school and speak fluent Chinese. They shouldn't have been targets," Ms Abbas said.

Even from her home in Virginia, US, Ms Abbas says she feels unsafe. "There's always that concern. But we all live once and we all die someday. If I only think about my own safety and my own life, who will do the right thing and speak up about this atrocity? If my sister is sitting in some cell block facing torture and abuse, I'm sure she is hoping that I will be doing something to save her and other millions of Uighurs, so I have to keep doing what I'm doing."

'MASS EXTERMINATION IS NEXT'

The camps in Xinijang are given various names in the media. Some refer to them as "mass internment camps". Others call them "surveillance facilities", "re-education camps" or simply "detention centres".

But Ms Abbas repeatedly refers to them as "concentration camps" and warns if the Western world doesn't intervene, the mass detention will turn into mass murder.

"Our children are unable to speak our language and understand our culture," she said. "They are taken to state-run orphanages and are completely indoctrinated.

"I'm afraid this will turn into mass extermination. There's nothing better to describe what's happening in Xinjiang than concentration camps. What are we waiting for? Mass executions and gas chambers before we take action? What is it going to take to have the leaders of world communities – particularly Western democratic countries like Australia and New Zealand – to act? Executions? Is that what it's going to come down to?"