Of the biggest advances, three really did change our lives
Whereas two were far less consequential than people thought they would be
1ď¸âŁ Unlimited Information Is Transforming Society (Scientific American, 2020)
âWhen we look back on the past 175 years, the manipulation of matter and energy stands out as a central domain of both scientific and technical advances. Techno-scientific innovations have sometimes delivered on their promises and sometimes not. Of the biggest advances, three really did change our livesâprobably for the betterâwhereas two were far less consequential than people thought they would be. And one of the overarching impacts we now recognize in hindsight was only weakly anticipated: that by moving matter and energy, we would end up moving information and ideas.â
Itzhak Perlman â Beethoven: Violin Concerto (with Daniel Barenboim, Berliner Philharmoniker)
2ď¸âŁ Cathy Freemanâs Golden Run (ABC, 2020)
âClad head-to-toe in a distinctive one-piece costume, Catherine Freeman launches herself from the starting blocks in lane six.
Beaten only once in a final since 1997, sheâs the reigning back-to-back 400m world champion and the silver medallist at the last Olympics.
And her most persistent rival over recent years is out, having abandoned her title defence at the 11th hour.
But this determined Indigenous woman has also had to deal with the unbearable burden of favouritism and the relentless scrutiny that comes with that.
A final nagging moment of doubt gives way to a sense of tranquillity and certainty.
âI know how to do this, I can do this in my sleep,â she says, revisiting her thoughts on that Magic Monday 20 years ago. âI can win this, I will win this. Whoâs going to stop me? I go, I go and I go.â
Cathy Freeman Wins 400m Gold
3ď¸âŁ Web Design In 4 Minutes
âLet's say you have a product, a portfolio, or just an idea you want to share with everyone on your own website. Before you publish it on the internet, you want to make it look attractive, professional, or at least decent to look at. What is the first thing you need to work on?â
The Making of Swedish House Mafiaâs âOneâ
4ď¸âŁ Welcome To The âTurbulent Twentiesâ (Noema, 2020)
âAlmost three decades ago, one of us, Jack Goldstone, published a simple model to determine a countryâs vulnerability to political crisis. The model was based on how population changes shifted state, elite and popular behavior. Goldstone argued that, according to this Demographic-Structural Theory, in the twenty-first century, America was likely to get a populist, America-first leader who would sow a whirlwind of conflict.
Then ten years ago, the other of us, Peter Turchin, applied Goldstoneâs model to U.S. history, using current data. What emerged was alarming: The U.S. was heading toward the highest level of vulnerability to political crisis seen in this country in over a hundred years. Even before Trump was elected, Turchin published his prediction that the U.S. was headed for the âTurbulent Twenties,â forecasting a period of growing instability in the United States and western Europe.â
Tom Hanks vs Dr Dre - Sampology edit
5ď¸âŁ Gabriel GarcĂa MĂĄrquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69 (The Paris Review, 1982)
âIf I had to give a young writer some advice I would say to write about something that has happened to him; itâs always easy to tell whether a writer is writing about something that has happened to him or something he has read or been told. Pablo Neruda has a line in a poem that says âGod help me from inventing when I sing.â It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that thereâs not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.â
Miles Davis interview about Bill Evanâs contribution to Kind of Blue
6ď¸âŁ On Witness and Respair: A personal tragedy followed by pandemic (Vanity Fair, 2020)
âDays became weeks, and the weather was strange for south Mississippi, for the swampy, water-ridden part of the state I call home: low humidity, cool temperatures, clear, sun-lanced skies. My children and I awoke at noon to complete homeschooling lessons. As the spring days lengthened into summer, my children ran wild, exploring the forest around my house, picking blackberries, riding bikes and four-wheelers in their underwear. They clung to me, rubbed their faces into my stomach, and cried hysterically:Â I miss Daddy, they said. Their hair grew tangled and dense. I didnât eat, except when I did, and then it was tortillas, queso, and tequila.â
Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine (A capella)
7ď¸âŁ The Falling Man (GQ, 2016)
âDo you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.?â