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Sunday, October 18, 2020

Handwriting shown to be better for memory than typing, at any age


Each night the old gypsy

Gets a little tipsy.

He falls asleep and dreams

Of all that more than seems.

Beside him lays his oud,

Vibrating strings and wood,

His bottle of red wine — 

Essence of the Divine.

He tightly grips his cane

To bash away the rain,

Or bat the falling star,

Erasing its bright scar.

A lion, maybe real,

Could make of him a meal.


NBC Chicago, Woman Takes Bar Exam While in Labor, Gives Birth, Then Finishes Test


Why Have Tony Nominations Now?

“In theater, timing is everything, and the timing of these nominations is just plain embarrassing.” – Los Angeles Times





Tech Companies Are Destroying Democracy and the Free Press Matt Stoller, NYT


Billionaire Robert Brockman charged in $2bn tax evasion case FT


Kill Your Gas Stove The Atlantic


UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Why Anna Kendrick Is The ‘Most Dangerous Celebrity On The Internet.’


THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Hackers leaked tons of webcam and home security footage on porn sites. “The popularity of internet-connected home security cameras and other web-based camera systems has skyrocketed in the recent past, despite growing concerns about whether or not those systems might be more dangerous than they are helpful. These hackers have given us some pretty compelling evidence that the latter is the case.”


This Graph Shows How Car Paint Colors Have Gotten More Boring Over the Years The Drive


This past weekend Google honored 18th Century philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo — with a Google Doodle (via Patrick Connolly)

Kafka in Pieces The Baffler


. I found several references, but this one on Time Gents (Australian Pub Project) blog is particularly good. The post starts by saying:

Jimmy Woodser is a name given to a man who drinks alone, or a drink consumed alone. The name is thought to come from a poem by Barcroft Boake, published in The Bulletin on May 7 1892, about a fictional Jimmy Wood from Britian [sic] who is determined to end the practice of ‘shouting’ (buying rounds of drinks for a group of mates), by drinking alone.

“One man one liquor! though I have to die
A martyr to my faith, that′s Jimmy Wood, sir.”

Jimmy Wood, sir” to “Jimmy Woodser”!



BigThink: A new study collected 500 data points per second. Handwriting won out. “While tablets are excellent for scrolling through the day’s news, the value of digital versus print has long been debated. Physical books are tactile, which bring readers great pleasure, including ease of annotation, better navigation, and a sense of accomplishment—pages are landmarks, not the infinite scroll of e-books. Your brain maps better with such visual cues. Then there’s memory. Print book readers retain more information. As a new study from the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology argues, the same goes for writing. Handwriting helps children and adults remember information better. Typing is a shortcut…”

Is Earning A Living From The Arts No Longer Possible?

It has always been hard to make a living in the arts; what is new, William Deresiewicz contends, is that even moderately successful artists — who publish, show, or perform frequently — often struggle to lead a middle-class life. – Los Angeles Review of Books