Helen Money, Vanished Star
Hard to imagine a better way to cap off the week than with Helen Money's Become Zero. Out today on Thrill Jockey, it's already one of the best albums of the year. (Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify)
Nine-year-old rugby star
How we intend to go into this weekend: like a a nine-year-old Polynesian rugby player who is bigger, stronger, and faster than everyone else on the field.
Melisma and autotune in morocco
"Listening habits from the dawn of Islam helped Auto-Tune mean so much here." Melisma—moving across several notes while singing one syllable—characterizes the best of African-American R&B, such as the heart-stopping introduction to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love
Command and Control
Nuclear-armed militaries rely on getting every detail right; Command and Control is the story of a day when they didn't. "What followed this initial “human error” was a desperate attempt by Air Force personnel at all levels, weapons designers, and first-responders (most of them in
White Strips plus Gondry
Is it just us, or does the new White Stripes video, directed by Michel Gondry, look a bit like someone filmed Christoph Niemann taking his morning shower?
Fastest skateboarder ever
Speed record for person on a skateboard reaches 89.41 mph—and our feet sweat just thinking about that fact, let alone watching it happen.
LA's Grand Central Market
LA's famed Grand Central Market, as seen above in lovely archival footage from 1963, is today incredibly gentrified and incredibly in debt, writes Jesse Katz in Los Angeles magazine.
Drone surfing
Oh good, drone surfing is a thing (for $17,000). Perhaps to be enjoyed by those who can afford architectural porn on the hills of Jackson Hole. On a more serious note: "Can drones protect India's women from rapists?"
Stingray Manual
The Intercept recently obtained hundreds of unredacted pages of long-secret manuals for StingRay devices, which are frequently used by the FBI, Army, Secret Service, Border Patrol, IRS, NSA, and law enforcemenet agencies in at least 23 states to spy on and bug the personal phones of activists, low-level
Your Monday Public Health Nightmare
Scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have created a simple way to see how bacteria evolve as they become impervious to drugs—and it will cause you to lose sleep tonight, sorry/not sorry.