A weekly collection of links lovingly curated by Colin Wright.
Note: This upcoming week I’ll be merging Never Not Curious into Aspiring Generalist—the idea is to give folks who subscribe to one the benefits of both (including more fun stuff for less money, as those who currently pay for one or the other will now receive both for the same price).
If you just want one set of emails and not the other, it’ll be easy to turn off mail from the one you don’t want, and if you’re currently a paid subscriber to NNC I’ll be refunding you the balance of your subscription and giving you a comped paid subscription over at Aspiring Generalist (where the merged projects will live) and you can decide when that ends whether you want to re-up or not.
Please let me know if you have any questions about any of this, and I hope you enjoy the updated Aspiring Generalist, which beginning next week will include Curiosity Weekly emails every Sunday :)
Virtual Avatars Have Real Jobs in Indonesia
“Nadira, one of tvOne’s newest anchors, delivers the latest news on Thailand’s election in perfect, measured English. Two days earlier, she had reported on the South East Asian Games sports spectacle in flawless Bahasa Indonesia. Her knowing expression never changes, and her flowing hijab is always perfectly set. She’s a virtual television anchor, one of three introduced in April by tvOne, one of Indonesia’s most-watched broadcast channels.”
The Night 17 Million Precious Military Records Went Up in Smoke
“Before the flames raced down the 700-foot-long aisles of the sixth floor, before the columns of smoke rose from the roof like Jack’s beanstalk, before the wind scattered military records around the neighborhoods northwest of St. Louis, before 42 local fire departments battled for days to save one of the largest federal office buildings in the United States, before the government spent 50-plus years sorting through the charred remains, Kathy Trieschmann sensed a faint haze. Trieschmann, who has asthma, had always been hyper-attuned to tiny changes in air quality. Growing up, she would often sleep in the basement because she could smell her father’s cigarette smoke through her bedroom door. So shortly after midnight on July 12, 1973, as she walked up the stairs of the massive National Personnel Records Center to clock out, she was one of the first to know something was wrong.”
Out Of Balance
“Chimps had long encroached on Kagnèka, her farming community of about 350, but there was a time when residents could beat on gongs to scare them away. That changed about six years ago when a mining expansion drained streams and razed trees, driving the displaced primates into a desperate struggle with the village over food and water. Kagnèka’s crops became an open buffet. And the chimps began guarding the river so aggressively that Bah no longer felt safe bringing her two small children, or washing her clothes on the bank, or even going alone.”
Last Week at Marienbad
“The idea to visit a fading grand Central European spa town was Thom’s; I suggested Marienbad because its literary reputation for an atmosphere of romantic melancholy and attractiveness to great neurasthenic historical figures appealed. Though others, like Karlsbad or Baden-Baden, are reachable by train from Berlin – a key element of the semi-ironic Central European nostalgia tourist experience – Marienbad overpowers, significance-wise. If I’d known anything about the film, I might have thought the trip too on the nose. But it’s hard to make decisions, and if there’s some arbitrary theme or parameter you can set, it’s easier. We would go to Marienbad and watch the movie, which, as it turns out, is kind of about how it’s hard to make decisions.”
On the Great Poets’ Brawl of ‘68
“One Saturday evening in 1968, the poets battled on Long Island. Drinks spilled into the grass. Punches were flung; some landed. Chilean and French poets stood on a porch and laughed while the Americans brawled. A glass table shattered. Bloody-nosed poets staggered into the coming darkness. Allen Ginsberg fell to his knees and prayed. The World Poetry Conference at Stony Brook University was almost over.”
Heists Worth Billions
“Nine months after TD’s tip, agents started rounding up conspirators, eventually arresting nine of them for crimes that netted more than $1.7 million in stolen checks. They all pleaded guilty to financial crimes except for Seck, who was convicted in February for bank fraud, accepting a bribe and other crimes. He was sentenced in June 2023 to three years in prison.”
First Map of Wireless Nerve Signals Unveiled in Worms
“The idea that the nervous system passes messages from one nerve cell to another only through synapses — the points where the cells link up end to end — is changing. Two studies show how messages can pass between cells over longer distances, through a ‘wireless’ nerve network in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.”
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