A Funkaoshi Production

Legacy media isn’t mocking us because we aren’t a legitimate source of information; they’re mocking us because they’re terrified. Their legitimacy came from the fact that they have access to distribution channels and that they get to be in the White House press pool because of some long-ago established procedures that assumed they would use that power in the public interest. In reality, those things are becoming less and less important and less and less true. Distribution is free to anyone with a cell phone and the legitimacy of cable news sounds to me like an oxymoron. The median-aged CNN viewer is 60. For Fox, it’s 68.

A great post by YouTuber Hank Green on interviewing Obama, and the mainstream media’s negative reaction to the event.

“Pirates are now watching films at higher quality than the industry insiders voting on them.”

Life’s hard enough as it is. But life as a person of color in Oregon would prove to be like trying to play Oregon Trail in a roomful of Klansmen while the computer lab is on fire.

Sitting in a hotel room in London’s East End on Halloween, Björk, casually clad in a flamingo-pink kimono, red tights, and platform high tops, is as eager to talk about Vulnicura as she is reticent to talk about what inspired it.

Oh, Björk.

Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy recut into a single 4-hour film.

This game sounds pretty cool.

I think that remains to be seen, but it certainly was a surprise. It’ll be interesting to see what effect this has on Chinese investment in the country.

Apparently Talib Kweli is doing all sorts of writing on Medium.

Talib Kweli writes about the music industry.

Patrick Stuary of False Machine has lots of interesting posts on sculpture, and its intersection with miniature wargaming as well.

Ev Williams discusses the weakness of measuring success via simple metrics.

The Scarborough city councillors are so dumb, it’s crazy.

But how does one reincarnate music that no human voice has uttered for millennia? Conner says a key step was to really understand the language. She carefully studied historical analysis of the stresses and intonations of Babylonian and Sumerian for hints as to how it may have sounded, and researched how language is converted into music in similar Semitic languages.

The music is quite haunting. Well worth listening to.

What?

Oh man, that first picture is insane.

I am probably the last person to start listening to this show. I had put off doing so because this criticism of the show in the Awl was so damn hard. Anyway, this show is amazing.

The conventional narrative is this: enabled by smartphones, with their GPS chips and internet connections, enterprising young businesses are using technology to connect a vast market willing to pay for convenience with small businesses or people seeking flexible work. This narrative ignores another vital ingredient, without which this new economy would fall apart: inequality.