Showing all posts in the links category
Rocket science may be rocket science but Twitter is something else
5 November 2022
American author Robin Sloan’s thoughts — written in April of this year — couldn’t describe the Musk acquisition of Twitter any more succinctly:
An industrialist might soon purchase Twitter, Inc. His substantial success launching reusable spaceships does nothing to prepare him for the challenge of building social spaces. The latter calls on every liberal art at once, while the former is just rocket science.
I don’t know that rocket science is just rocket science, especially reusable rocket science, but running a social network, particularly one the size of Twitter, has to be another matter all together.
Via Clive Thompson.
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Robin Sloan, social media, Twitter
Archibald winning Australian artist Nicholas Harding dies
3 November 2022
British born Australian artist Nicholas Harding died yesterday, aged 66. Harding won the Archibald Prize for portraiture in 2001 with a painting of Australian actor and theatre director John Bell as King Lear. In addition, Harding was named an Archibald finalist a staggering nineteen times, between 1994 and 2020.
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Archibald Prize, art, Australian art, Nicholas Harding
Bad news sells but negative lyrics also sell songs
24 October 2022
In a study published in 2019 by Cambridge University Press, researchers found the lyrics of pop songs have become increasingly negative in the last thirty years. They reached this conclusion after analysing the emotional content of more than 160,000 songs released between 1965 and 2015.
One major trend in popular music, as well as other cultural products such as literary fiction, is an increase over time in negatively valenced emotional content, and a decrease in positively valenced emotional content.
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Karine Aigner wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022
17 October 2022
Washington, DC. based American photographer Karine Aigner has been named Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2022, with a stunning image of male bees tussling it out to mate with a female bee.
Convened by the British Natural History Museum, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award celebrates the best in nature photography, and is considered one of the world’s most prestigious photography competitions. A selection of other entries can be seen here.
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Can you imagine a web without GIFs when they are gone?
13 October 2022
Once the mainstay of motion design during the early days of the web, GIFs appear to be on the way out, and may soon be non-existent. I shall miss them. Some of them that is.
GIFs are old and arguably outdated. They’ve been around since the days of CompuServe’s bulletin-board system, and they first thrived during the garish heyday of GeoCities, a moment in history that is preserved by the Internet Archive on a page called, appropriately, GifCities.
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Today is World Homeless Day
10 October 2022
Today is World Homeless Day.
The purpose of World Homeless Day is to draw attention to the needs of people who experience homelessness locally and provide opportunities for the community to get involved in responding to homelessness, while taking advantage of the stage an ‘international day’ provides — to end homelessness through improved policy and funding.
Homelessness is an issue that seems to have been placed in the too-hard basket by many nations, Australia included. Yet solving the problem may not be as difficult as is believed. Finland, for example, has found an effective way to combat homelessness.
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Anthony Douglas barista of the year World Coffee Championships
6 October 2022
The 2022 World Coffee Championships were held in Melbourne, Australia, during the last week of September, and local coffee-brewer Anthony Douglas was named Barista of the Year.
Here’s some video footage of Douglas in action. But whoever thought that coffee making could be a spectator event?
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Useful resources for creatives working in day jobs
4 October 2022
A collection of useful resources for people juggling day jobs or other work with creative endeavours, put together by Canadian art magazine booooooom.
A couple of standouts include balancing full-time work with your creative side hustle, and advice on turning down ridiculous rates for your work, by Jano le Roux.
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A timeline of electric guitar invention and innovation
19 September 2022
A timeline of electric guitar invention and innovation, by Dutch guitarist and tutor Paul Davids. Starting from 1950, when the Fender Telecaster guitar arrived — originally called Broadcaster — followed soon after of course by the Gibson Les Paul, and then right on through.
Almost all guitars currently on the market are either a direct descendant of, or very similar to, a handful of instruments that came to life during the span of one decade: the fifties.
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Relive the good old days of Daft Punk at the Daft Punk cafe
14 September 2022
The Daft Punk cafe, by Ukrainian developer, and fan of the erstwhile French electronic music duo, Vadim Demedes.
With daftpunk.cafe, I wanted to create a fun corner on the internet for Daft Punk fans around the world. Listen to the radio, play some tetris or test your knowledge of track names and just have a good time!
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