5 Intriguing Things
1. Inside a FedEx logistics center where they sort 1.5 million packages a night.
"When the packages hit Input, they're put onto one of three belts, the top, middle, or bottom. Most of the packages weigh less than 75 pounds and go on the middle belt, headed for the Matrix. Heavier boxes, or oddly shaped packages like skis or golf clubs go on the bottom belt. The top belt is reserved for small boxes and documents and they're sent toward the Small Package Sorting System (SPSS). As the packages come into the Matrix from Input, it's like a flood. Literally. If you've ever seen video of the Japanese tsunami of 2011, with villages full of debris speeding down rivers, watching the thousands of boxes head toward the Matrix is a bit like that, though obviously without the macabre connotations. They come in concentrated rushes -- a containerful, about 235 packages, at a time -- and seem ready to overwhelm the Matrix workers."
2. On the cartography of empty spaces, by Valeria Luiselli, who is startlingly good writer.
"Spaces survive the passage of time in the same way a person survives his death: in the close alliance between the memory and the imagination that others forge around it. They exist as long as we keep thinking of them, imagining in them; as long as we remember them, remember ourselves there, and, above all, as long as we remember what we imagined in them. A relingo—an emptiness, an absence—is a sort of depository for possibilities, a place that can be seized by the imagination and inhabited by our phantom-follies. Cities need those vacant lots, those silent gaps where the mind can wander freely."
3. What audio effects do to images, an exploration.
"You can trick Audacity in to opening an image file as a sound. Not only does this give you a sound wave which you can manipulate and bend to your will, but a lot of files sound pretty funky. A bit like if you put a Decepticon in a blender with a couple of R2 droids. The easiest way to manipulate a file in Audacity is to select a section of the file and apply one of the built in sound effects to it. Now I’m no computing whizz kid but the way I see it when you apply a sound effect to a sound file, the program takes that file and alters the file data in the manner which it’s been told will achieve that effect. So, for example, if you were to apply an echo effect then it would repeat parts of the file, diminishing the repetition after each iteration. The wonderful thing is that it will do this regardless of what the file actually is. Audacity doesn’t know or care whether the file is a sound or not, it will alter it in the manner instructed. When applied to an image… Well let me show you."
4. We probably don't want to contaminate Mars with human bacteria, but...
"Does this mean we shouldn't worry at all about the contamination of Mars and can do whatever we want? The answer is no, because this self-sterilizing effect only operates on the surface of Mars. Suppose there was a liquid water reservoir below the surface of Mars. This would be an important target for exploration both as a site for the search for life and as a resource for use at a human base. There would certainly be compelling interest in drilling into this water. Below the surface the sterilizing effect of UV is not present and contamination of the drill could spread and colonize that subsurface reservoir. The resulting growth would be irreversible."
5. You lucky dogs! There are now emoji stickers.
"POCKET-SIZED EMOJI YOU CAN STICK ANYWHERE.
From your mobile device to reality. The wait is finally over. You've reached the only spot on the internet to buy one off die cut Emoji stickers. Each Emoji sticker is an individual slice of awesome and a reflection of you."
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
caption, in the sense title or heading, is 'rare in Brit. use, & might well be rarer,' but is firmly established in US.
Who knew such an innocuous word would provide occasion for Brit. snobbery to rain down on the former colonies?
A Sort of Depository for Possibilities