Rynling R&D

What happened to Kanye?
https://pod.link/1740187810/episode/d3296dfdc71b51c6bf8143bb88ebe497

Akilah Hughes joins the podcast to discuss whether Kanye West has always been a mirror to the American zeitgeist, and what's wrong with all of us.

Panic World is a podcast about how internet culture has affected mainstream society, and I’ve been enjoying it so far. The quality of the episodes is variable depending on the guests, but I like this one. Hughes makes an argument that I agree with, which is basically that the “everyone has a voice” quality of the internet was great up until around 2016 or so, when many of us realized that the “silent majority” (of people with unfortunate political opinions) perhaps should have remained silent.

Along the same lines, the recent “What happened to JK Rowling” episode (here) is quite good as well. This episode isn’t saying anything that people who spend a lot of time on Tumblr don’t already know, but it’s good to hear the story presented as a cohesive narrative in the context of the broader conservative shift in people who formerly identified as progressives.

Black Earth Rising
https://artbma.org/exhibition/black-earth-rising

See nature’s beauty and power through the eyes of today’s leading artists. Organized by guest curator and renowned author Ekow Eshun, this exhibition explores today’s climate crisis from a new perspective and celebrates our shared connections to the natural world.

Not a lot of people know this, but the Baltimore Museum of Art is cool as hell. I will always show up for diaspora art and environmental justice. And plants!! Here's one of the installations:

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deltarune mettaton doesn’t get the amount of love he deserves
https://planetamarte.tumblr.com/post/786897660910125056/for-being-such-a-beloved-character-in-undertale-i

This is an interesting post about reading Mettaton as trans (among other things). I remember that this was a popular interpretation of the character in Undertale, and it's always good to see people finding trans joy in stories that speak to them.

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Anyway I think he and Tenna should kiss.

Collards Only
https://collardsonly.com/

These North Carolina Collard Farmers & Farmettes think they've got the grit — and the greens — to claim the title of North Carolina's Sexiest Collard Farmer, but the truth is, it’s all up to you! Do they have what it takes to charm your vote with their collard-growing prowess, mud-caked boots, & undeniable farm-fresh appeal? Cast your vote and let’s find out who’s got the true grit to be crowned the absolute hottest in Collard Farmer in all of North Carolina!

They're all very special, but I'm partial to the gentleman in the bathtub filled with collard leaves.

Fam, be careful with your time online.
https://greenjudy.tumblr.com/post/771760180357742592/weird-cultural-shift-detected

If reading longform, offline, makes you feel bored or anxious, be gentle and patient with yourself. Start with stories you remember well, reliable sources of well-being. But please know you will need to put some backbone into it in the long run.

I think we are going to need to rebuild our ability to think, to process experience. This will be an unsupported activity. In fact, most of the really powerful cultural forces are making it very hard for us to notice, feel, perceive, or think clearly.

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My post-pandemic experiences in higher education have led me to believe that a lot of us are, in a very real way, at the point of Long Covid where being able to read a book from cover to cover has become a distinct and useful cognitive skill that can almost visibly put you a head above your peers in terms of performance. Literally: reading makes you smarter.

Anyway, I want to shout out to all the writers who are still using their own human minds to create books worth reading. I love you.

25% of the people have a 4th cone and see colors as they are
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/25-people-have-4th-cone-see-colors-p-prof-diana-derval

You see between 20 and 32 color nuances: you are a trichromat, you have 3 types of cones (in the purple/blue, green and red area). You enjoy different colors as you can appreciate them. 50% of the population is trichromat.

You see between 33 and 39 colors: you are a tetrachromat, like bees, and have 4 types of cones (in the purple/blue, green, red plus yellow area). You are irritated by yellow, so this color will be nowhere to be found in your wardrobe. 25% of the population is tetrachromat.

I counted three times on three different screens, and there are exactly 40 colors. Idk where they're getting that there are only 39. I also don't understand the idea of being irritated by yellow. I love yellow! And "there is no yellow in your wardrobe" feels like a very silly thing to say. Yellow and its handsome cousin saffron are often on the palette of floral prints, which more people would wear if they weren't cowards. Also let me introduce you to one of my favorite t-shirts (here), which is 100% OSHA certified.

City of Glass
https://www.biographic.com/city-of-glass/

This article is about how Chicago is slowly adapting its architecture to be less lethal for migrating birds. Glass-fronted buildings are ubiquitous in the city, which lies on an established migratory path. Every spring, tens of thousands of migrating birds collide with glass and die. Buildings can be made safer by turning off the lights at night and removing trees from lobbies, and architectural firms have begun to create bird-friendly designs by incorporating visual "noise."

Why Maui Burned
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/06/maui-wildfire-response-recovery

This article is about how local citizen's groups in Maui have begun to remedy outdated agricultural practices that cause wildfires. The August 2023 wildfire in Hawai'i was the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century. Water is plentiful on the island, but that fire was caused by a drought, which was itself a result of twenty-century agricultural land division. People in Maui have therefore been campaigning to buy unused farmland and restore it to its natural state.

What Plants Are Saying About Us
https://nautil.us/what-plants-are-saying-about-us-264593/

This article introduces "Ecological Psychology," which studies how plants intelligently respond to their environment. Plants appear stationary to human perception because they move slowly, but they're able to respond to stimuli, anticipate change, and grow to avoid obstacles. The vascular system in plants plays a similar role to the nervous system in animals, and the emerging discipline of Ecological Psychology studies their adaptive intelligence.

Hayao Miyazaki teaches Hideaki Anno how to say "Arigato"
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5wha4e

No comment, just: I love them both so much.

Vermis: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods RPG artbook review
https://bdsmrpg.blogspot.com/2023/06/vermis-lost-dungeons-and-forbidden.html?m=1

In those days, a guide book would sometimes contain a world unto itself, with the world lore, character options, and select item and enemy types to accompany the experience. [...] Implication was the name of the game, making you want to fill in those gaps and see the sprites in motion, to experience the endings to the quests introduced in the little tome.

The Guide to a Game That Doesn’t Exist: On Plastiboo’s “Vermis”
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-guide-to-a-game-that-doesnt-exist-on-plastiboos-vermis/

As a strategy guide — precisely insofar as it is a strategy guide — Vermis makes good on the promise that such volumes once made to their readers: that there is a world beyond these pages waiting to be explored. [...] Vermis also builds the speculative world of its own existence: a world where this bygone form of secondary literature, the strategy guide, never disappeared, never dissolved into the slush of the content economy, but instead flourished as an aesthetic form unto itself.