Sarah Laskow

Making Internet politics personal

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:57:49 -0400

“It’s not always easily to find a visualization of online activism that expresses the magnitude of steam that the cause has.”

The Keystone Fight's Labor Pains

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:22:45 -0400

The Keystone Fight's Labor Pains:

Back in 2009, it didn’t seem so strange LIUNA was playing with two natural enemies, getting closer with the greens while buddying up to the oil and natural-gas industry. Green groups like the Sierra Club were forming unlikely allegiances, too, convincing themselves that the natural-gas industry, with its carbon-light fuel and competition with oil, might just be a new best friend. Like a smart but athletic kid who can hang with both jocks and nerds, the Laborers had interests in common with both groups, and in the economic dung heap of 2009, no union could turn its nose up at an offer that might lead to jobs for its members.

“But this idea of nature as timeless—and this is one of...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:47:41 -0400

“But this idea of nature as timeless—and this is one of the reasons why it’s so deeply problematic—disguises that it in fact has a history. It has served both general social needs throughout American history, and specific social needs for every generation, and, I think, fulfilled very specific and very personal needs for Rachel Carson.”

The trouble with Aaron’s Law

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:37:56 -0400

The trouble with Aaron’s Law:

Shortly after Swartz’s death—which some speculated was caused by federal charges he faced after downloading large batches of documents from the digital library JSTOR—Lofgren announced that she was beginning work on a law that would protect other Internet users from experiencing the sort of prosecution that Swartz was facing—what Lofgren called “inappropriate efforts undertaken by the US government” and “abuse of power.”

The law would amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the statute that US prosecutors had used against him. When she posted a first draft of the bill—she called it Aaron’s Law—to Reddit in January, Lofgren wrote that it “could be an important tribute” to Swartz’s work. Friday’s award ceremony was the sort of occasion that would have served as a perfect forum for announcing that she was introducing this bill to Congress—if she was ready to take that step. But in the end, she couldn’t even attend.

The new copyright alert system is running

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:08:33 -0500

The new copyright alert system is running:

if you’re sloppy about downloading music or movies from a peer-to-peer network, like BitTorrent, μTorrent, Vuze or Frostwire—if you don’t mask your IP address with a VPN or similar shield—you might start hearing about it.

The alerts start with a message that a copyright owner (likely one represented by the Motion Picture Association of America or the Recording industry Association of America) has connected allegedly improper sharing or copying of content to your IP address. If you’re a Comcast customer, for instance, your first alert will look like this:

The smuggled hard drives of Timbuktu

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:26:00 -0500

The smuggled hard drives of Timbuktu:

When the Malian city of Timbuktu fell to Islamist rebels last April, the destruction of its immense cultural treasures did not begin at once. It wasn’t even clear, at first, who exactly was in charge of the city, or what they might do.

But by July, when a coalition of new leaders consolidated control and began tearing down some of the city’s most important burial shrines, the heads of Timbuktu’s libraries had already been working quietly for months to move and hide their collections—one of the most significant troves of unique medieval manuscripts in the world. And among the first materials that they smuggled out were something surprising: hard drives.

Why the original Cola-Cola (yes, with the cocaine) was the Four Loko of the early 20th century.

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:19:12 -0500

Why the original Cola-Cola (yes, with the cocaine) was the Four Loko of the early 20th century.:

laphamsquarterly:

The government almost got it off the shelves too.

By yours truly.

“A thousand-year-old tradition, the Inupiat whale hunt...

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:15:13 -0400

“A thousand-year-old tradition, the Inupiat whale hunt provides the community’s annual food supply, currently limited by international law to 22 whales a year. Each spring as the ocean thaws, ice breaks away from the mainland as a single massive chunk, which then floats out to sea, creating a canal of open water called the “lead”. It is through this lead that Bowhead whales migrate north to the Arctic Circle, where they spend summers, surfacing for air every 30-45 minutes en route. We saw hundreds of whales on the horizon, but most were too far away to attack. Finally on the fourth day two whales (each 36 feet long and weighing around 40 tons) were harpooned, hauled up onto the ice using a block and tackle system that resembles a giant tug of war between man and sea, and summarily butchered, the meat and blubber then distributed to the Barrow community.”

— The Whale Hunt

ginandgelato: On the way to Double Negative, Nevada. Source:...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:56:31 -0400

ginandgelato:

On the way to Double Negative, Nevada.

Source: gin+gelato

fennel, oranges, onions, feta, olives

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:42:44 -0400

fennel, oranges, onions, feta, olives

Why, when Rick Santorum argues that the existence of plants proves the innocence of carbon dioxide,...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:02:12 -0400

Why, when Rick Santorum argues that the existence of plants proves the innocence of carbon dioxide, my brain curdles:

Describing a bark beetle population taking over during a particularly warm year, deBuys writes,“You could walk among the piñons and hear a faint mechanical drone, as of a thousand tiny chisels rhythmically chipping away. It was hordes of beetles, tunneling and feeding.”

Chinese parents are liars. If for instance, you do not like carrots, your parent will not say, “Eat...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:35:54 -0400

Chinese parents are liars. If for instance, you do not like carrots, your parent will not say, “Eat that carrot, maybe this time you’ll like it.” Instead you will hear: “That’s not a carrot.” Once, when a customs officer caught my father sneaking (an undeclared) wedge of pungent Camembert in his luggage, he said, without skipping a beat, “Oh, I had no idea that cheese was a food.” At the dinner table, every declaration he made was to be regarded with suspicion. “Of course that’s not spinach,” he’d say. Once, he said to me at a banquet, “Look! They’ve made that chicken look like a turtle.” (It was turtle, as I found out afterwards.)

On cilantro.

To glaze this donut, Gutman turns to science. He finds many studies but, apparently, few commas....

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:49:31 -0500

To glaze this donut, Gutman turns to science. He finds many studies but, apparently, few commas. Did you know, for instance, that “in two separate studies examining thousands of pictures taken from 1968 through 1993 and 1970 through 1999 researchers discovered that 55 percent to 60 percent of men and 80 percent of women smile in photos from pleasant public situations”? Me either.

I smiled more at David Dobbs’ cutting review of this book about smiling than I’d smiled at anything all day.

good: Nature Goes Missing from Kids’ Picture Books Children’s...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:30:44 -0500

good:

Nature Goes Missing from Kids’ Picture Books

Children’s books with an explicit environmental message have always been rare, but a new study shows that, over the past few decades, fewer children’s books have included any images of nature. While awareness of the environment’s importance has increased over time, picture books increasingly show a world that humans had shaped. The study also found that characters’ interactions with both domesticated and wild animals decreased.

Check out the story on GOOD→

This story is a little bit sad. The sociologist that I interviewed argued that children’s books shape the way children are socialized to perceive the world. But his work also suggested that children’s books reflect the world we live in: gender equality has increased, but more people live in built environments.

This being science, the researchers coding each image checked to make sure they agreed with each other, for the most part, on which pictures counted as nature and which as built environments. But I do wonder how they went about coding images like this one, from David Wiesner’s Flotsam.

Those shell cities weren’t made by people, but they’re a very human idea.

Baby turkeys, all at once

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:17:13 -0500

Baby turkeys, all at once

theconceptlibrarian: capitalnewyork: How the New York Public...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:18:58 -0500

theconceptlibrarian:

capitalnewyork:

How the New York Public Library keeps track of what New Yorkers want to read (and tries to meet the demand)

In January, four out of the library’s five most circulated works—the closest thing the library has to a best-sellers list—came from well-known authors of genre fiction. Kill Alex Cross follows James Patterson’s detective as he tries to track down the president’s kidnapped children. Janet Evanovich’s Explosive Eighteen has Trenton-based bail-bondswoman Stephanie Plum tangled up in an F.B.I. investigation…. Hotel Vendôme does not feature any recurring characters, but it is by Danielle Steel. In The Drop, journalist-turned-crime writer Michael Connelly unleashes detective Harry Bosch upon a trio of cases that just might be connected.

Same list in StL. Just the same.

In fact, the next one mentioned is The Help, which is just as popular here, and Steve Jobs and The Marriage Plot and The Hunger Games and on and on and on — I don’t mean to be surprised, but yet I’m taken aback by the uniform tastes. It’s like I forgot that popular works are…popular. Weird.

"Library sex began with high hopes. Long before the era of the public library, stories of sex among..."

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:22:35 -0500

“Library sex began with high hopes. Long before the era of the public library, stories of sex among books were set in private collections, in secluded humanist studies….Books inspire sex, sex creates books—and all within the four walls of the library.”

- Avi Steinberg, The Paris Review. Checking Out.

(via libraryjournal)

capitalnewyork: How the New York Public Library keeps track of...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:43:40 -0500

capitalnewyork:

How the New York Public Library keeps track of what New Yorkers want to read (and tries to meet the demand)

Why you won’t have to wait all that long for your turn to read Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Or any book, for that matter.

npr: (via This guy owns only 15 things | Grist) The Grist post...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:10:22 -0500

npr:

(via This guy owns only 15 things | Grist)

The Grist post that never says die.

“The president,” another very experienced Democratic politician told me, “is the only person in the...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:53:32 -0500

“The president,” another very experienced Democratic politician told me, “is the only person in the American system who represents all the people, and learning what you need to know to effectively represent all the people is really impossible to do with intellect alone. You have to understand, emotionally, what people are feeling and going through. You have to cut through whatever intellectual jargon is given you by your advisers and pollsters, and cut right to the core. We don’t see that in Obama. I have seen him try to synthesize it, but it comes across as synthetic.”

I’m going to go ahead and believe that this comes from Bill Clinton.

From this.