May 15, 2022 0
May 14, 2022 0
The Taiwanese ‘good luck’ snack
Give a Taiwanese machine a packet of crisps and see what happens:
No one is entirely sure exactly when or how the green bags of Kuai Kuai crisps became seen as symbolic tech whisperers whose mere presence could keep electronics in line. The Kuai Kuai company was established in 1968 by Liao Jing Gang and his son Spencer, a team who needed to find a way to keep their main business, a pharmaceutical importing and manufacturing company, busy during slow periods, so they began making snacks and confectionery.
“Kuai Kuai were specifically created to be sold to children. Back then, there was nothing like that on the market,” says Irene Liao, who is Spencer’s daughter and the firm’s current general manager. But that all changed when the crisps, whose name means ‘behave’ or ‘be good’ in both Mandarin and Taiwanese, caught the eye of a graduate student.
May 14, 2022 0
How the beating of Rodney King changed reporting of police brutality

Livia Gershon explored the first stories about Rodney King and his brutal assault by a group of LAPD officers, and how the focus shifted from racial injustice to “political feuding among city leaders”:
When the trial began, the papers reported on the defendants’ legal strategies. While the Post referred to the “chilling tape” of the defendants “savagely beating” King, the Times downplayed King’s injuries. Both mentioned the decision to move the trial to “a conservative, overwhelmingly white area,” as the Times put it, but neither paper paid close attention to the defense tactic of breaking the video down frame by frame.
Meanwhile, outside the courtroom, a Times reporter took part in a ride-along with an LAPD officer, reporting on the difficult situations officers dealt with on the job. The Times also interviewed members of the public in local Black and white communities, reporting that everyone agreed the police should be punished for their actions.
Unlike when the assault on King first took place, there was little focus on the broader issue of societal racism and the role of the police in Black communities. [William L.] Solomon notes that neither paper analyzed the way the defense drew on racist tropes to present King as “at once all-powerful, animalistic, dazed by drugs, and insensate to pain.”
(via JSTOR Daily)
May 14, 2022 0
Rongorongo: the lost language of Easter Island

This is rongorongo, the only indigenous writing system to develop in Oceania before the 20th century and, according to James Grant-Peterkin, author of A Companion to Easter Island, one of “the last remaining mysteries on Easter Island.”
(via Atlas Obscura)
May 10, 2022 0
The Literary Origins of Netflix’s ‘Lupin’

As adaptations go, Lupin is close to perfect. Rather than directly translate the character to television, the writer George Kay imagines Lupin as the inspiration for a 21st-century con artist named Assane (played by Omar Sy).
(via The Atlantic)
Mar 17, 2022 0
Ebony and Topaz

Ebony and Topaz was started in 1927, and featured essays, art, and poetry—nothing so dissimilar from Opportunity. It was likely because of the audience, argues art historian Caroline Goeser. While Opportunity explicitly tried to be a bridge toward racial equality, Ebony and Topaz was designed to “express a variety of creative responses to African American culture without the burden of appealing to a wide readership.” Johnson wanted to let the readers decide which pieces resonated and how. His hands-off approach to editing let “the writings and art of his contributors to evince a variety of themes.”
(via JSTOR Daily)
Nov 25, 2021 0
The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world

Designed by Eugen Langen and offered first to the cities of Berlin, Munich and Breslau who all turned it down, the installation with elevated stations was built in Barmen, Elberfeld and Vohwinkel between 1897 and 1903; the first track opened in 1901. The railway line is credited with growth of the original cities and their eventual merger into Wuppertal. The Schwebebahn is still in use as a normal means of local public transport, moving 25 million passengers annually, per the 2008 annual report. New rail cars were ordered in 2015, called Generation 15, and the first new car went into service in December 2016.
From Wikipedia
Nov 25, 2021 0
Revenge Bedtime Procrastination

[…] You’re revenge bedtime procrastinating.
That term originated in China, where it’s known as 報復性熬夜, and can alternately be translated as “retaliatory staying up late.” The BBC’s Lu-Hai Liang wrote an excellent article tracing how the term spread in China, partially sparked by a viral tweet by journalist Daphne K. Lee.