[nonostantement #101] - pittsburgh parking chair / bots & politics / airbnb & psychopaths

Welcome to nonostantement: a random newsletter that gives you personal recommendations of cool stuff.

#TECH

• Why Does Time Slow Down and Speed Up?
  "The perception of time is intensely personal, not to mention effectively unmeasurable. But few if any internal clocks are synced to UTC—no one experiences time at an even, unvarying rate."

• Electric scooter injuries surge along with their popularity
  "Nearly 40,000 broken bones, head injuries, cuts and bruises resulting from scooter accidents were treated in U.S. emergency rooms from 2014 through 2018"

• For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
  "Tractors built in 1980 or earlier cause bidding wars at auctions." "[...] tractors from the 1970s and 1980s aren’t so dramatically different from tractors produced in the 2000s, other than the irksome software, and at a time when farmers are struggling financially, older tractors can make a lot of business sense."

#WEIRD

• [Video] - Pittsburgh's Weirdest Tradition
  "The tradition of the “Pittsburgh Parking Chair”. This is a chair of any kind that residents leave out in the street in front of their house, next to the curb. It is used as a signal to all that the parking spot is taken."

• [Video] - Dimensions of Dialogue (Jan Svankmajer)

• [Video] - Sega MegaDrive Synthesizer, Made From A Sega Mega Drive And GEN MDM
  "A #Synthesizer made from a #retro #sega #megadrive?"

#ART

• Images of 100,000 Artworks From Paris Museum Collections Now Freely Available to the Public
  "Paris Musées is offering digital downloads of masterpieces by artists including Rembrandt, Gustave Courbet, and Eugène Delacroix."

• [In Italian] - L’arte di scrivere stronzate sull’arte
  "L’«artspeak» è quel tipico linguaggio fumoso e pseudo-intellettuale con cui la critica d’arte cerca di accreditarsi come élite. Ma in che altro modo spiegare l’inspiegabile senza cedere al mercato e ai ricatti reputazionali?"

• [Video] - A Brief History of John Baldessari
  "The epic life of a world-class artist, jammed into six minutes. Narrated by Tom Waits."

#SOCIALMEDIA

• Michelle Obama Sets Launch of First Series on Instagram’s IGTV
  "Former First Lady Michelle Obama is partnering with the digital media company ATTN: to launch a video series on IGTV, Instagram's video platform."

#PEOPLE

• What do you do? I'm a podcaster-vlogger-model-DJ
  "The gig economy has given us multi-hyphenates: people who’ve made a lifestyle out of working more than one job."

#PHOTOGRAPHY

• THE YEAR IN PICTURES 2019 - The New York Times
  "This collection of images is a testament to a mere fraction of the conflicts and triumphs, catastrophes and achievements and simple but poignant moments of everyday life in the past 365 days."

• From 500,000 Photos to 116: How Our Editors Distill the Year in Pictures
  "A painstaking selection process ensures that The Times’s annual visual review highlights the biggest news events and strongest images."

• Doll Photographer Reimagines Barbie and Ken as Soviet Civilians Living in the USSR
  "The artist crafted a true-to-life miniature diorama of a Soviet-era apartment, complete with nostalgic details."

#THEDARKSIDE

• [In Italian] - Ces 2020, l'inquietante cena di Westworld dove sapevano tutto di noi
  "Siamo stati a un particolarissimo evento organizzato da Hbo a Las Vegas, che getta interrogativi allarmanti sul mondo del Grande Fratello digitale"

• Bots Are Destroying Political Discourse As We Know It
  "Artificial personas are the future of propaganda. And while they may not be effective in tilting debate to one side or another, they easily drown out debate entirely. We don’t know the effect of that noise on democracy, only that it’ll be pernicious, and that it’s inevitable."

• Airbnb has patented software that digs through social media to root out people who display 'narcissism or psychopathy'
  "If you've been rejected from booking an Airbnb rental, it may be because the app's artificial intelligence determined that you're a psychopath."

• The Mystery of Teen Vogue’s Disappearing Facebook Article
  "The online magazine deleted a glowing story about Facebook after questions were raised about whether it was an ad."

that's it for now.

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