A huge slab discovered offshore in Israel has revealed the name of the ancient prefect who ruled Judea just before the Bar Kokhba revolt.
Author: Chris Aldrich
I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history.
I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.
Watched Barry on Netflix
A young Barack Obama forges his identity while dealing with race, divergent cultures and ordinary life as a New York City college student.
I wish I could say I liked this more, but there was no real drama or tension in the picture at all. The characters were all flat and seemingly one dimensional. I can’t even say it worked as an art-house film. Perhaps if I hadn’t known it was Barack Obama being portrayed and his signing the letter “Barack” at the end was the kicker, then perhaps it may have had some impact, but the whole affair was just flat.
William F. Buckley Jr., conservative icon, dies | The Boston Globe
William F. Buckley Jr., who as author, journalist, and polysyllabic television personality did more to popularize conservatism in post-New Deal America than anyone other than Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, died yesterday at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82.
Why did William F. Buckley Jr. talk like that? | Slate
He was an upper-class prep. English was not Buckley's first language: His nanny taught him Spanish, and he attended university in Mexico for some time. But there's little evidence of any Spanish influence in his Connecticut lockjaw sound. Instead, his aristocratic drawl, quasi-British pronunciations, and fondness for Latinate vocabulary seem to have originated at the schools he attended as a boy: St. John's Beaumont in England, when he was 13, followed by the Millbrook School in upstate New York. According to Buckley biographer Sam Tanenhaus, few of the writer's siblings shared his peculiar way of speaking. Tanenhaus also points out that Buckley picked up elements of a Southern drawl from his parents, both of whom were from the South.
Best of Enemies | Documentary about Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. Debates | Independent Lens | PBS
Best of Enemies captures the legendary 1968 debates between two ideological opposites: leftist Gore Vidal and neoconservative William F. Buckley.
What a great view into where much of our current politics and media coverage of it have sprung. I highly recommend this to everyone.
The 45th President | 60 Minutes (CBS News)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks to a divided country on 60 Minutes; and, Bill Whitaker reads mail received about a story Dr. Jon LaPook reported on legalizing recreational pot. First aired 11/13/16
Interesting to see the drastic change in rhetoric with respect to that of the campiagn, though it hasn’t seemed to have held with respect to the media he’s either putting out (or not putting out).
EFF’s full-page Wired ad: Dear tech, delete your logs before it’s too late | Boing Boing
EFF has run a full-page ad in this month's Wired, addressed to the technology industry, under the banner "Your threat model just changed," warning them that the incoming administration has vowed to spy on and deport millions of their fellow Americans on the basis of religion and race, and that they are in grave risk of having their services conscripted to help with this effort. (Trump is also an avowed opponent of net neutrality)
In memoriam: The brands that we lost in 2016 | Digiday
R.I.P Vine. So long, Meerkat. Rest in power, Sports Authority. This was a rough year all the way around.
This is what happens to the bodies of the women you know. | Medium
On Monday, December 5 at 6:30 a.m., I was kneeling on the floor in front of my toilet, hand plunged into the nearly opaque dark red water, fishing for the warm clumps that had sunk to the bottom. I had cleaned the toilet the night before in preparation, and the sterile specimen jar from the doctor’s office was waiting by the sink. I carefully sorted through the mess in my hand, looking for something to stand out. A small grayish oval with a black dot on the side emerged, no larger than my pinky nail. So that was the head, then. I put it in the jar and my hand back in the water, halfway up my forearm, to search for the body. Another grayish lump, nothing discernible, but then I wasn’t looking too closely because the dizziness was overtaking me.
This was my third miscarriage.
This is what a miscarriage looks like.
Trump’s Electoral College Victory Ranks 46th in 58 Elections | The New York Times
Putting the president-elect’s win in context.
A Historic Number of Electors Defected, and Most Were Supposed to Vote for Clinton | The New York Times
Results of the U.S. electoral vote.
Trump private security force ‘playing with fire’ | POLITICO
The president-elect continues to employ a battalion of retired cops and FBI agents to protect him and clamp down on protesters.
Vanity Fair reporter on Trump’s response: ‘I was kind of shocked’ | Columbia Journalism Review
Choking down “flaccid, gray Szechuan dumplings” and dealing with bathrooms that “transport diners to the experience of desperately searching for toilet paper at a Venezuelan grocery store” were uncomfortable enough. But Vanity Fair reporter Tina Nguyen feared a...
Science and technology: what happened in 2016 | Daniel Lemire’s blog
This year, you are able to buy CRISPR-based gene editing toolkits for $150 on the Internet as well as autonomous drones, and you can ask your Amazon Echo to play your favorite music or give you a traffic report. You can buy a fully functional Android tablet for $40 on Amazon. If you have made it to a Walmart near you lately, you know that kids are going to receive dirt cheap remote-controlled flying drones for Christmas this year. Amazon now delivers packages by drone with its Prime Air service. There are 2.6 billion smartphones in the world.
So what else happened in 2016?
🎵 I’m Not in Love by 10cc
Written by band members Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, the song is notable for its innovative and distinctive backing track, composed mostly of the band's multitracked vocals. Released in the UK in May 1975 as the second single from the band's third album The Original Soundtrack, it became the second of the group's three number-one singles in the UK between 1973 and 1978, topping the UK singles chart for two weeks. The song was also the band's breakthrough hit worldwide, reaching number one in Ireland and Canada and number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, as well as reaching the top ten in Australia, New Zealand and several European countries.