Apocalypse Early Warning System In the event of an imminent nuclear apocalypse, we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies and escape city centers. This site tracks this indicator in realtime.

Lab grown T-Rex Leather made into purse to be sent to auction. Carefully announced April 2nd.Via Reddit

BBC: Lego has unveiled Smart Bricks - tech-filled versions of its small building blocks - which it says will bring sets to life with sound, light and reaction to movement. However, the new product range is causing unease among play experts, who say it risks undermining what makes Lego special for children in an increasingly digital world. Wired: Smart Play revolves around Lego's patented sensor- and tech-packed brick. It's the same size as a standard 2 x 4 Lego brick, but it is capable of connecting to compatible Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags and interacting with them in real time. By pairing these components, kids big and small can create context-appropriate sounds and light effects as they play with the Danish company's toys.

Aphantasia - an interesting variant in human experience (New Yorker archive link) Nick knew that whenever Zeman talked about aphantasia he was at pains to emphasize that it was not a disorder, or even a bad thing... Some people he interviewed were unbothered—there was definitely a range of responses—but others saw it as a curse.Many could remember very little about their lives, and even with the events they did remember they could not muster the feeling of what they'd been like. They knew that some things had made them happy and others had made them sad, but that knowledge was factual—it didn't evoke any emotions in the present.

When I read the very 1st paragraph of this article, I had a series of mini revelations about how my mind works, and perhaps the minds of others. I'd appreciate it if you read it first (just the 1st paragraph), and then came back here to explore with me why I think it was interesting... Thanks for coming back!

So, my question is slightly loaded, because I have what is called 'aphantasia', and reading this paragraph made me wonder whether the way non-aphants think (around 96% of the population) was fairly represented by this writer.

When you pictured the scene, how specific was it? Did the follow-up descriptions the writer gives fairly mirror your own experience?

Because when I read it, I didn't get a visual 'picture' in my head, (there is nothing visual in my head, because I am an aphant) but I did imagine the scene conceptually. The thing is, for me the scene I imagined was absolutely abstracted. It was the idea of a person washing hands at a sink. There was little to no specificity. There was no bathroom or kitchen, circular or square sink in my inner imagination. There was no specific person, man or woman, black or white, no specific way their hands moved, no specific relationship between the redness of the liquid, and what it might be (i.e. blood or paint). I just imagined an abstracted set of related ideas: person, washing hands, sink, red. That was it.

So when the writer goes on to then assume everyone pictured something really specific, that made me wonder: is the abstractness of aphantasic thinking universal? Do aphants always imagine in a kind of realm of Platonic ideals? Do none aphants always picture specific things? How much of the writer's assumption here is fair, given that we ALL sit on the spectrum of mental visual imagination? What are the social implications of these different ways of thinking?

What happened in your mind when you read this paragraph? I am intrigued to know, and where you usually sit on the spectrum of visual imagination.

After unbearable levels of speculation and leaks, Japanese gaming giant Nintendo finally announced the Switch 2 today, surprising nobody. Most of the leaked features were verified by the trailer, but in traditional Nintendo fashion the mysterious 'C' button was rendered blank. What could this little anonymous square be for?

Ezra Edelman has made a nine-hour documentary about the complicated life and passing of the musician Prince, but disputes with the late artist's estate over his portrayal may mean it might never be seen.

In this text from 1966, Robert Smithson quotes Roland Barthes as saying the “undifferentiated mass of organic sensation.” But I can’t find the origin of the quote. A skewed translation? or possibly just made up by Smithson? Any ideas where it might come from appreciated.

Do you like Star Wars lore? Exactly how much do you like Star Wars lore? I ask because A Very Brief Analysis: The Phantom Menace is 12 hours long and is chock full of Star Wars lore. "This is not a defence of Episode 1, nor is it an attack. The idea is a detailed, fair, and informed analysis. We'll go over the entire movie, giving credit and blame as needed."

Apparently back in 1975, Graham Chapman of Monty Python and Douglas Adams not quite yet of Hitchhiker's Guide wrote a television show. It's an incomprehensible mess that's entirely worth watching. Out Of The Trees [32m]

Guardian: 'The annual CGC (Crap Games Competition) has been bringing Spectrum fans together for more than 25 years' ... "What makes the CGC entertaining is the self-deprecating, sardonic British humour," explains 43-year-old Paul Collins from Reading, who first entered the CGC in 2000 with Pear-Shaped ("a simple maze game where you try to collect as many pears as possible") and Crap Football, featuring a digitised Des Lynam. "There are ideas that can't possibly work, eg Sim City: The Text Adventure or Blind Flight Simulator. Or names that are just funny, like Whack a Nun II and European Sandwich Hunt."

So, we all love the latest Zelda game (Tears of the Kingdom - TOTK), and so do the critics. But now that we and the game journalists all have hundreds of hours of playtime under our belts, have any thoughtful, well written critical takes on Nintendo's latest masterpiece been written? I know at the beginning there were a few knee jerk reviews that tried to stand out. I am looking for well written, thoughtful, but ultimately critical takes on TOTK. People who have more to say than just gushing about Ultrahand. People who have perhaps done a thoughtful comparison with BOTW at a design level, and come out with some negative feedback on the game overall.

This is not because I don't like the game - far from it - but I would love to read some balanced analysis before I venture my own (potentially critical) takes on the game.

Thanks

I am interested in innovative, creative uses and/or abuses of the Twitch streaming platform. Streamers who have used the platform as a creative medium, regardless of its (main) intention as a place for game streaming. Art and performance are what come to mind, but I am open to anything, either a single use case or a particular streamer who uses Twitch in an ongoing 'weird' way. My knowledge of Twitch is small, so I am limited on examples of what I mean... but the streamer 'Sushi Dragon' is doing super amazing things. Using the Twitch platform as a way for viewers to kind of 'programme' his dancing routines. Users respond in live chat, and the responses determine what music is played, filters drafted, and how Sushi Dragon is supposed to respond (and dance). The results are often hilarious.

I am looking for examples of (pop) cultural events/releases that were delayed or cancelled because an unforeseeable event eerily echoed their content in some way.

For instance, I just discovered that Kylie Minogue's 6th album 'Impossible Princess' was delayed by almost a year because Princess Diana died just before its planned release in 1997 (obviously because of the proposed title).

What other cultural creations suffered similar setbacks because of absolutely unpredictable circumstances (so-called 'Black Swan' events)? Three others that came to mind were:

• Nintendo's recent delay of 'Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp' for the Switch because of the war in Ukraine.

• The infamous summer 2001 trailer for Spiderman depicted a helicopter suspended between the World Trade Towers. This scene then, quite possibly because of the events of 9/11, never made it into the final movie.

• And a more obscure one... the recall and reissue of UK Indie band The Bluetones' single 'Cut Some Rug', because the artwork depicted a classroom emptying... an image that then eerily echoed the tragic school shooting at Dunblane school in 1996.

All four of these examples are because of a serious, tragic event taking place that strangely echoed their proposed content. These are the kind of things I am thinking about, though they need not necessary be considered 'tragic' to count.

People kept talking about a "vibe shift," but what had shifted was that all people seemed to talk about were vibes... the vibe was ambient grift, with an undercurrent of paranoia.

I made another weird little comic thing, hopeful and a little bittersweet, about conservation after the apocalypse. A topic near and dear to my heart, Lord knows.Your favourite and mine Wombat/Kingfisher Ursula Vernon has released a short comic about the post-apocalypse on Twitter, using AI generated art.

Boundary violation in Minecraft "Today my 7 year-old came into the room crying. I asked him what happened and he said that his 5 year-old brother put 80 cows in his house in Minecraft while he was offline and that it was "entirely too many cows" and honest to christ I have no idea how to parent any of this."

"Datamoshing is a technique of damaging video clips to create a glitch effect wherein frames that should change don't. It's most noticeable between cuts and across motion. Datamoshing is the process of corrupting, removing or replacing I-frames, causing P-frames to be applied to the wrong picture."

The figure of 'The Edgelord' has been gaining traction in recent years. But I haven't read anything directed specifically at (theorising) this phenomena. Do you have any recommendations? Books, essays, YouTube polemics, podcasts etc. are all very welcome. OR The Edgelord's perceived relation to other concepts, frameworks, cultures, or pop notions.

Susan Stewart (Public Domain Review, 02/09/2022), "A Paper Archaeology: Piranesi's Ruinous Fantasias": "the grotteschi--their broken statues, columns, tombs, roundels, reliefs, herms, cornucopias, shells, fasces, cameos, trumpets, bones, skulls, chains, mooring rings, and urns; their half-erased or faint inscriptions, rosettes, portraits, egg-and-dart moldings; their hazy skies, intimations of the sea, pines and palms, cascades, broken sticks and weeds, entwined with snakes and vines." Piranesi: Opere varie di architettura, prospettiva, groteschi, antichità; Vedute di Roma; Le Antichità Romane - Tomo Primo, Secondo, Terzo, Quarto; Vasi, candelabri, ... ; Le rovine del castello dell'Acqva Givlia; Carceri d'invenzione; etc.. Previously.