Corvus.corax

Daft Punk, the world's most beloved DJs behind the most anticipated dance album of the year, aren't exactly anticipating that you fall in love with their new record, Random Access Memories. It doesn't sound like other Daft Punk records, which was deliberate, they say, because everything in electronic music sounds like knock-off Daft Punk right now.

"So our new album is supposed to really suck," Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, one half of the robotic French music duo, told GQ's Zach Baron in a feature for the magazine's May issue. This came after his other DJ half, Thomas Bangalter, tried in the same interview to set your expectations as low as possible for your first (legal) listen to the album, which comes out May 21:

"In Scream 2, they have this discussion about how sequels always suck," Bangalter says. In this scheme, Random Access Memories might as well be Scream 4. "The thing we can ask ourselves at some point is like: We're making music for twenty years. How many bands and acts do you have that are still making good music after twenty years? It always sucks—almost always, you know?"

Daft Punk's debut album, Homework, came out in 1997, but the group had a few successful singles before that. Random Access Memories is only their fourth major album together, excluding the score they did for Tron, and so it's their first real record in eight years. To call it the most anticipated album of the year — period — won't draw many counter arguments. The reason they're trying to downplay expectations so much is, well, it's because the new album doesn't sound like the Daft Punk everyone still thought they knew — or at least still knew they loved — during all those long years in waiting. 

No, the duo has moved away from that sound altogether, almost. Baron sums it up nicely in one of the best lines of his GQ piece: "It's a big and lush and opulent '70s-disco record, glamorous in places and almost mournful in others, like something a heartbroken vacuum cleaner might drive around to at night in Detroit." The change of direction is deliberate. With the explosion and bro-ification of electronic dance music — or EDM for short — there's no shortage of music that sounds like Daft Punk. So why, then, would Daft Punk come out after eight years to make a record that sounds like Daft Punk? "It's always this thing where we're constantly waiting for something that will come in electronic music that says, 'Daft Punk sucks!'" Bangalter tells Baron. That's why the duo made a light, poppy '70s disco record, evidence of which can be found on the brilliant and inescapable new single, "Get Lucky," with Pharrell, instead of the churning electro-wubs of previous efforts. Bangalter elaborates: "It's maybe not 'Kill the father'... but it's like: Things have to move on."

Daft Punk's problem with modern EDM is fairly simple: it's boring and derivative. They told Billboard's Kerri Mason about their complaints with the genre, detailed in outtakes released today. The band tried to make a new album using only computers before discovering they hated it. (Instead, they enlisted a who's-who of session musicians and collaborators, about whom you can learn a lot more over at Vice's Creators Project.) Daft Punk's problem with modern EDM, ultimately, rests in the constraints producers are putting on themselves by limiting their instrument to a laptop: "I think it’s mostly the tools; I think they might be missing the tools," Bengalter told Mason.

The problem with the way to make music today, these are turnkey systems; they come with preset banks and sounds... They’re making it as if it’s somehow easier to make the same music you hear on the radio. Then it creates a very vicious cycle: How can you challenge that when the system and the media are not challenging it in the first place? We really felt that the computers are not really music instruments, and we were not able to express ourselves using a laptop. We tried, but were not successful.

In other words: the only way to revive Daft Punk was to kill it. Viva Daft Punk. 

Daniel Dennett has no patience for the metaphysical mumbo jumbo of fellow philosophers. For him reality is quite clear: “I’m a robot, and you’re a robot”… more»

Making sense of a Yelp review is a tricky proposition that is not for the gullible or the stupid. It helps to have a flowchart that helps you separate the truly helpful from the unbearably awful. Hint: Avoid anything that rhymes.

This week, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm just invested millions in a hair dye startup. Because, you know, your hair is in need of a little disruption.

Ray Kurzweil is not a philosopher, psychologist, or neuroscientist, but he knows “the secret of human thought.” There is danger in such loose talk… more»

Highest bidder is chief executive of Chinese regenerative-medicine company.

Nature News doi: 10.1038/nature.2013.12790

Call it the Full Fukuyama. Since he declared the end of history, big thinkers can’t get enough: Now we’ve reached the end of power, men, sex, nature, truth, marriage, faith, reason… more»

Free time, time not dedicated to work, is dangerous because it forces us to decide what to do with it. When leisure is robot-enabled, the danger is double… more»

Lew Wallace disgraced himself on the battlefield, put a bounty on Billy the Kid, and wrote one of history’s best-selling novels… more»

Google has finally announced its note-taking "Evernote" killer, Google Keep, which looks great and useful from this little video preview, but there is a lingering worry that like other beloved products (ahem: Reader) Google might go ahead and kill this one off someday, too. Asides from their maker, the two services don't have much to do with one another: one is a note-taking service that stores information, while the other is for making it easier to consume media. But with G-Reader's impending death still smarting, RSS fans can't help but think of the time they fell in love with a Google service only for the evil Internet giant to take it away. "You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t rush to embrace Google’s latest, greatest app," writes BetaBeat's Kelly Faircloth. But, it's not just poor timing, Reader's death is a very good reason not sign up for a free Google service: It could very well die one day by virtue of its freeness.

It's kind of a silly fear to have in general: Any beloved service, paid or free, could shut down forever one day, right? But, the death of Reader has suggested the beginning of the end of free things (that don't make money on their own or with advertising). Like Google Drive, Keep has no visible revenue streams. One could imagine Google running ads against Keep notes the same way it does against messages in Gmail. And others have suggested that, with some social feature additions, it might one day work more like Pinterest, which has the not-quite-yet-realized massive potential to make a lucrative connection with the shopping world. But, as of right now, it's just a zero-cost idea storage service. And as we've learned with Reader and Instagram and Facebook and every free software service out there: Free isn't really free. It either finds another uncomfortable way to make money or charges a subscription fee. As of now, Keep does none of that. 

But the adventurous types out there not feeling too suspicious of Google's dissolution of a free thing might want to try Keep, which is only available right now on Android and looks like a great way to store digital notes. Gizmodo has already dubbed it "wonderful." Keep alternative, Everynote, by the way, is also free, but provides a "premium" option for $45 per year. 

Here's a headline you've probably seen before: "IBM creates brain-like computer chip." Here's a more exciting one: "New IBM circuit works in three dimensions, flips switches with atoms." Heck, both are exciting. The latter's just, for lack of a more appropriate cliché, a bit more mind-boggling. 

IBM scientists described a new kind of circuit in a paper published in Science on Thursday. There is no chip involve, per se. It's being described accurately as a "post-silicon transistor" and potentially paves the way for the most powerful and efficient computers the world has ever seen. This is possible largely because it mimics the behavior of another hyper-efficient computational marvel: the human brain.

The new so-called nanofluidic circuit works a little bit like a network of streams. A charged fluid moves over the surface of the circuit changing its properties (e.g. flipping a switch "on" or "off") with the positively and negatively charged atoms in the fluid. Like the synapses of the brain, the ions operate in three dimensions, a game changer in terms of efficiency and uncharted territory in terms of computing. "We could form or disrupt connections just in the same way a synaptic connection in the brain could be remade, or the strength of that connection could be adjusted," Stuart Parkin, a physicist and IBM Fellow, told The New York Times. It's a little bit easier to visualize. Below, the green represents the ionic fluid and the orange is the surface. 

 

While there have been other efforts that attempt to build a brain-like computer — many of them from IBM — this nanofluidic circuit is a game changer. It pulls us out of the current evolutionary cycle of computers that commonly follows Moore's Law. (That's the one about computers becoming twice as powerful and half as big every two years or so.) "This is an alternative to a slowdown in Moore's Law," Parkin added. "Our inspiration is the brain and how it operates. It is full of liquids and ionic currents. We could build more brain-like devices."

More brain-like devices? Sounds intriguing. We can't wait until scientists start dropping installing them behind the eyes of automatons.

A dozen more paintings by former President George W. Bush have been revealed, meaning we're getting closer to seeing his entire dog-painting oeuvre. Bush's art teacher says he's painted more than 50 dogs. After careful study of Bush's work, we are forced to consider the theory that Bush is the dogs.

Someone calling him- or herself Guccifer hacked into Bush's email, and, starting in February, has sent the stolen images to reporters in batches. Gawker's Max Read, in the week of the tenth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, has published two more sets. None depict the Iraq war or his presidency. At least not explicitly.

Only two of Bush's paintings, so far, appear to be self-portraits. He's in the bath in both, and his face is hidden. But maybe we can see Bush in the dog's faces. Dogs -- thinking, feeling, social creatures -- are unable to talk. Bush struggled to express himself. After the 2008 election, Bush told CNN, "I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said." Like what? "Like 'dead or alive,' 'bring 'em on.' … My wife reminded me that, Hey you're president of the United States. You'd better be careful what you say. I mean I was trying to convey a message. I probably could have conveyed it more artfully."

Take, for example, what appears to be a young golden lab/ beagle mix at right. Look at his eyes. He's trying to tell us something. He's feeling something very deeply. He's looking into the distance -- maybe into history? Bush has long said he thinks history will be the judge of his presidency. 

There are other Bush paintings -- landscapes, still lifes. He seems to have really nailed purple grapes.

But it's the dog pictures that really speak to Bush's personality. (Note the political matroyshka dolls and a "JESUS" wood carving in the background.)

In no painting is is it more obvious that Bush is the dogs than in this one, in which a terrier contemplates the White House from outside the gates. Bush is now cut off from the job and the home that defined him. 

“I think the greatest, most astonishing fact that I am aware of in social science right now is that women have been able to hear the labor market screaming out ‘You need more education’ and have been able to respond to that, and men have not,” said Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economics professor who was not involved in Professor Autor’s work. “And it’s very, very scary for economists because people should be responding to price signals. And men are not. It’s a fact in need of an explanation.”

Most economists agree that men have suffered disproportionately from economic changes like the decline of manufacturing. But careful analyses have found that such changes explain only a small part of the shrinking wage gap.

That is from a very excellent article by Binyamin Applebaum, on why men are (along some but not all margins) losing economic ground, especially below the ranks of the top earners.  I liked this sentence at the end:

Instead of making marriage more attractive, he [Christopher Jencks] said, it might be better for society to help make men more attractive.

As I once asked Bryan Caplan, “How many marriageable men do you think there are?  And what are the other women supposed to do?”

I have just been cured of a major mental illness. The cure was cheap, effective and instant.  And the original diagnosis did not involve any ‘road to Damascus’ experience after hours on the couch, years of painful soul searching in therapy, or complex cognitive behavioural therapy. No drugs or surgery either — NHS executives take [...]

The post An instant cure appeared first on Aeon Magazine.

Over the weekend overpriced yoga pants peddler Lululemon announced that it wouldn't be able to sell an entire batch of bottoms, after some manufacturing glitch made them too thin (read: see-through). It's easy to make light of the situation, especially if you've ever seen anyone wearing too-thin yoga pants — also known as too-much-information yoga pants. But the Canadian athletic apparel company's executives aren't laughing about this one. They stand to lose a lot of money over this little incident. And the resulting yoga pants shortage? It's going to be awful, people.

It's actually already happening. Lululemon pulled the suspect batch of yoga pants over the weekend, issuing a basically hilarious press release explaining the trouble in far too technical terms. "The ingredients, weight and longevity qualities of the pants remain the same but the coverage does not, resulting in a level of sheerness in some of our women's black Luon bottoms that falls short of our very high standards," the company said, adding that "the affected items represented approximately 17% of all women's bottoms in our stores and for the near term there will be a shortage." Lululemon also said that it will offer refunds for anyone who bought too-thin yoga pants after March 1. Bear in mind, this is one of the largest yoga apparel makers out there, so nearly a fifth of their inventory is a lot of yoga pants.

From a business point of view, this is obviously bad news. Lululemon's stock plummeted in response to the news early Monday evening and continued to fall in after hours trading. Shares were down about 6 percent at the time of this writing, and while the stock could easily recover, the damage to Lululemon's revenue is likely already done. The company says that the "sheerness" incident will bring its first quarter sales down from an expected $350 million to $355 million to a more humble $333 million to $343 million. In other words, the company stands to lose over $20 million in sales, all because a bunch of see-through yoga pants. 

There is still hope — and we're winging it with this idea. It doesn't take too much Internet searching to realize that too-thin yoga pants are kind of a thing. Maybe Lululemon could just sell the whole batch to the "Girls in Yoga Pants" subreddit (slightly NSFW) and call it a draw.

Rumors and whispers of Richard Nixon's 'treason' -- sabotaging Vietnam peace talks to help his Presidential campaign -- have floated around for years, but newly released tapes from Lyndon Johnson's Presidency confirm that LBJ knew about Nixon's behaviour and didn't bother to report it. 

In previously released tapes from Johnson's Presidency, we had heard about Johnson having a substantial body of evidence showing Nixon schemed to keep the South Vietnamese away from the negotiating table at the 1968 Paris peace talks. Johnson recorded all of his conversations held inside the White House while he was President. (Where do you think Nixon got the idea?) Nixon was accused or dispatching Anna Chennault, a senior advisor, to convince the South Vietnamese they would get a better deal if they didn't agree to peace, effectively ending the Vietnam war, until after the U.S. Presidential election. Chennault confirmed she spoke with the Vietnamese in her autobiography, The Education of Anna, but nothing more than that. If true, the charge would likely amount to treason.

Which brings us to today. The BBC's David Taylor reports newly unclassified Johnson tapes, combined with unreleased interviews carried out by the BBC's former Washington correspondent Charles Wheeler with senior Johnson administration officials (before Wheeler's death), reveals new, amazing information about the scandal. In October 1968, there was a breakthrough in the Paris peace talks that would end the Vietname war. At the same time, Nixon's campaign was relying heavily on the war continuing. If a deal was reached, Johnson would halt the bombing of North Vietnam. But Nixon had Chennault convince South Vietnam that they "should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal," Taylor writes. They did on the day before Johnson was going to announce the end of the Vietnam war.  

And Johnson knew about it all. In the recently released tapes, we can hear Johnson being told about Nixon's interference by Defence Secretary Clark Clifford. The FBI had bugged the South Vietnamese ambassadors phone. They had Chennault lobbying the ambassador on tape. Johnson was justifiably furious -- he ordered Nixon's campaign be placed under FBI surveillance. Johnson passed along a note to Nixon that he knew about the move. Nixon played like he had no idea why the South backed out, and offered to travel to Saigon to get them back to the negotiating table.

Johnson also passed along a note to Nixon's opponent, Democrat Hubert Humphrey. The Democratic campaign found out just days before the election, though, and decided they were close enough in the polls to not release the information. A treason accusation could potentially damage the country's security, they thought, before Humphrey lost a narrow election. Hindsight is 20/20, others say. 

But even before Nixon won, Johnson had his own issues to deal with. The South pulling out of the Paris talks meant the war would continue. Johnson could independently release the information if he wanted, destroy Nixon, and ensure a win for his Democratic ally Humphrey. But he opted not to for the country's greater security concerns: 

Johnson felt it was the ultimate expression of political hypocrisy but in calls recorded with Clifford they express the fear that going public would require revealing the FBI were bugging the ambassador's phone and the National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting his communications with Saigon.

So they decided to say nothing.

Definitive Johnson historian Robert Caro, the author of four of a planned five books chronicling Lyndon Johnson's time in American politics, declined to talk about the confusion surrounding Vietnam in this May 2012 interview with NPR's Leonard Lopate. "That's coming in the next book," Caro said. 

Nixon went on to win the Presidency in 1968. In 1973, after escalating the Vietnam War in his first term, a peace deal was finally agreed upon. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Today on Toothpaste For Dinner: animated gif atheism

Can we bring the extinct passenger pigeon back to life? These scientists have a plan.