June 30, 2016
FiveThirtyEight launches 2016 U.S. election forecast
— don't miss the methodology, including lessons learned from forecasting the primaries #
Mother Jones' Shane Bauer's investigation as a private prison guard
— astounding work of journalism, four months of life in the prison system #
Felix Salmon on Brexit
— a "senseless, self-inflicted blow," "isolationist catastrophe," and a grim warning for the U.S. #
C-SPAN broadcasts Periscope from House members
— Republicans turned off the cameras during the sit-in on gun control #
Vi Hart on internet fame, violence against women, and dealing with tragedy
— in the context of Christina Grimmie and the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando #
The Atlantic on Ev Williams and the open web
— the open web's fading away in favor of consolidated convenience and algorithmic relevance #
Animated evolution of the NYT homepage during the Orlando shooting
— breaking crises are one of the few times a homepage still matters #
The Guardian looks back on lonelygirl15
— nicely timed, the channel posted its first new video in seven years #
Field Trip to Mars
— Lockheed-Martin's school bus motion ride with real-time imagery based on geolocation #
Bandcamp's feature on the cottage industry of indie game soundtracks
— interviews with Jim Guthrie, Chipzel, Toby Fox, Chris Remo, and Disasterpeace #
Interview with a woman who recently had an abortion at 32 weeks
— losing a child is tragic enough, but the pro-life right insists on compounding women's suffering #
Visually-indicated sounds predicted by AI
— algorithmically creating soundtracks for silent video; related: water sound synthesis #
2016 AICP Sponsor Reel
— mesmerizing motion capture and material rendering; this should be fun when the metaverse arrives #
Gawker files for bankruptcy, likely selling to Ziff Davis
— no heroes in this story, but I worry about other billionaires using this technique on smaller publications #
Cracking Broderbund's Gumball for the Apple II
— including an easter egg hidden for 33 years; now you can play it in the browser #
Mapping Silicon Valley characters to their real-life counterparts
— I can't watch the show without triggering flashbacks #
Fatal Migrations
— tracking where migrants died crossing from Mexico to Arizona; more on the project #
The Stanford victim's statement to her attacker
— incredibly powerful indictment of rape culture on campus and in the courts #
Frame-by-frame reconstruction of Blade Runner with a neural network
— like a computer's memory after "watching" it six times; of course, it got a DMCA takedown #
The Upcoming.org Archives
— 7.6 million event pages back from the dead from Upcoming's first ten years #