A short video about the the Hong Kong’s (ding-ding) trams and an inside look into the workshops where the trams are made and maintained. I loved riding these trams when I was visiting a friend in HK.
The following video essay on the “The Late Capitalism of K-Pop” by a Youtube channel called “Cuck Philosophy” gives some interesting historical insights on the development of K-Pop. And links this development with related critiques on consumerism such as the work of Baudrillard.
I discovered this video through a recent podcast from “Pretty Much Pop” on “The Korean Wave”.
Auguste Comte discusses the prerequisite of theory for observations1:
The most important of these reasons arises from the necessity that always exists for some theory to which to refer our facts, combined with the clear impossibility that, at the outset of human knowledge, men could have formed theories out of the observation of facts. All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon’s time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts. This is incontestable, in our present advanced stage; but, if we look back to the primitive stage of human knowledge, we shall see that it must have been otherwise then. If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them.
Comte, Auguste. 1830. Chapter 1 - Account of the Aim of This Work – View of The Nature and Importance of the Positive Philosophy. In Course of Positive Philosophy. http://historyguide.org/intellect/comte_cpp.html, accessed May 6, 2020. ↩︎
“Hedgehog in the fog,” is a beautiful animation short from 1975 by Yuri Norstei. Based on a Russian folk tale about a hedgehog who is on her way to meet bear, but gets lost in the mist. Via Klara
From an article by Slavoj Žižek at the blog “In the moment” from Critical Inquiry:
More than open barbarism, I fear barbarism with a human face – ruthless survivalist measures enforced with regret and even sympathy but legitimized by expert opinions. A careful observer easily noticed the change in tone in how those in power address us: they are not just trying to project calm and confidence, they also regularly utter dire predictions – the pandemic is likely to take about two years to run its course, and the virus will eventually infect 60-70 percent of the global population, with millions of dead. . . In short, their true message is that we’ll have to curtail the basic premise of our social ethics: the care for the old and weak.
Full article here.
The current measures taken to contain the coronavirus pandemic have included the temporary closer of most offices around the world. An unprecedented event, with so many people working from home. It is interesting to think about the long term consequences for office. Catherine Nixey at The Economist 1843 magazine has published an article about the “Death of the office”.
An article from No Tech Magazine by Arthur Grimonpont introduces “dachas” and community agriculture that is common in Russia as a way reslient and biodiverse food system. The systems apparently arised with food shortages during the Russian civil war:
Garden communities (…) appeared in 1917, following the increasing and worsening food shortages after the Russian state established a monopoly on food production. The gardens, informal by origin, were originally disapproved by Soviet powers. However, they quickly became managed by the state due to their undeniable efficiency in counteracting the shortages. The communities were controlled by state businesses that divided the property into equal plots and distributed them to employees.
The author also gives some good examples why such a system may be a good alternative to industrial agriculture:
The moderate size of the plots and the ban on the commercialisation of the produce separate them from the agro-industry (seeds, fertiliser, tools) and from professional selling avenues: swapping and using your own produce are the only legal practices. The datchniki don’t have to put up with fluctuations in the price of agricultural produce. Their harvest, little or not at all modified, doesn’t depend on any factories or mainstream infrastructure. The mixture of fruit trees, vegetable patch plants and ornamental crops creates a varied island of greenery. The gardens host great biodiversity, which decreases vulnerability to disease, pests and adverse weather conditions.
See the full article, “A “Dacha” for Everyone? Community Gardens and Food Security in Russia” here.
Caught this post on Hacker News by chance on how “With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake audio parodies off YouTube”. The article discusses a controversy regarding copyright of deepfake audio that are created by a Youtube channel. The videos itself are absolutely fascinating, a technological showcase mixed with humour and creativity.
All videos can also be seen here.
Vox made this important video where they “deconstruct one particularly popular chart of covid-19 cases around the world which uses a logarithmic scale, and explain how to avoid being misled by it.”.
Al Jazeera made a nice short documentary about the work of data journalist and artist Mona Chalabi: Journalism Through Art. Her hand drawn style is really interesting as it can challenge dominant narratives and styles of representing data. And the style itself shows how there is always some uncertainty in the data:
She believes that drawing can make data more accessible to people - and more transparent. “Part of the purpose of creating hand-drawn illustrations is that I want people to look at it and question the illustration that they see in front of them because the truth is that there is a high degree of imprecision in data,” she says. “I think there’s something to be said for an understanding that for every statistic that you see the truth lies somewhere in the parametres around that number.”