Rolandt

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  To visually show the differences in image-sharing by the city’s locals and visitors, we plot the locations of 200,000 images randomly selected from our dataset. See more images on the project web site, Inequaligram.net.

This October, a new exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art will display a number of Art Deco-era cars and motorcycles under the title ‘Rolling Sculptures’. We could think of no better person to explain their flourishing status as dynamic pieces of modern art than curator Ken Gross…

More >

[Thanks, Vesey]

Nexus or BlackBerry, these are the only phones with quick monthly Android security patches. Lenovo just started shipping their new flagship Moto Z with the May patch. That's a brand new phone with two months old security level, and apparently they have no plans for shipping monthly patches.

From now on, I will check the security patch level and report it. And then come back within a month when I see or do not see the next patch coming in. Security has to become the number 1 feature given the malware situation on Android right now. Remember the top of the line Yoga Tab 3 Pro? Patch level March 1. Lenovo passed April, May, June and the huge July patch.

Vote with your money and only buy secure devices.

Wind Mobile, now owned by Shaw, has over 1 million wireless subscribers across Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta. The carrier has been on a mission to build out its network and recently completed improvements in Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton.

Since the release of Pokémon Go in Canada, Wind subscribers have taken to Twitter and Reddit to complain about the telecom’s slow speeds. “When will WIND MOBILE be getting LTE data? 4g is really slow and it’s slowing me down from becoming the very best,” says one Twitter follower Josh.

Public Mobile, owned by Telus, jumped on the opportunity to encourage the Wind subscriber to switch to its LTE network stating he could “become the best with our 4G LTE network,” but Josh declined the invitation.

Wind followed up and teased that the frustration will be mitigated soon for Pokémon Go players on its network, revealing that its LTE network “is coming.”

.@PublicMobile what "sorry but I really like my @WINDmobile plan" don't you get? Tell'em, @joshuaivany! #LTEiscoming pic.twitter.com/G1Z5l1f2Eh

— WIND Mobile (@WINDmobile) July 22, 2016

On its roadmap, Wind is preparing to launch its LTE network, which CEO Alek Krstajic previously stated should go live late this year or early 2017. Our sources within the company have indicated the telecom is leaning towards a late 2016 launch.

Things of note for the week ending Sunday July 24th, 2016.

Good evening. It’s 21:30 on a Sunday night as I start this week’s belated edition FToF (hence the title change) and I am quite sleepy. Having spent the weekend on a narrow boat somewhere in and around Banbury to say I am the epitome of chilled out would perhaps be an understatement.

1. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE?

If you didn’t do it, you certainly know someone that did (I did it, obvs) and for one summer, it was all your Facebook feed would show you (YES it went viral and YES it was awesome but let’s all remember Facebook made an algorithm decision just at the right time eh?).

In September 2014, the BBC reported:

There have been in excess of 2.4 million ice bucket-related videos posted on Facebook, and 28 million people have uploaded, commented on or liked ice bucket-related posts. On image sharing website Instagram there have been 3.7 million videos uploaded with the hashtags #ALSicebucketchallenge and #icebucketchallenge. Justin Bieber’s has been the most popular – with about one million likes.

But did it actually do anything?

In the same year, ALS received $98.2m – compared with $2.7m donated during the same period last year. Pre-ice bucket, the MND Association would receive on average £200,000 a week in donations. From 22 to 29 August, it received £2.7m.

An immediate and undeniable impact. Hurrah and hurrah again.

Two years on, The New Yorker has taken a look to see if that impact has lasted.

Good reading.

__________________________________

2. KEYNOTE SPEAKER TIPS

Speaking of good reading. Stephen Waddington has been at it again. This time around, sharing his twenty tips on how to present like a keynote speaker.

There be gold in dem hills.

Go digging.

__________________________________

3. THROWING A BBQ?

Buy some bananas and some chocolate – and do this.

Then tweet @markofrespect and tell him I said to say thank you.

4. STRANGER THINGS

 

I’ll put this simply: if you have Netflix, watch STRANGER THINGS. If you don’t have Netflix, borrow someone’s log in and watch STRANGER THINGS.

Evocative of everything from GOONIES to D.A.R.Y.L. to POLTERGEIST to EVIL DEAD to THE TWILIGHT ZONE to even GARTH MARENGHI’S DARK PLACE. If you’ve ever loved any kind of 80s supernatural / sci-fi film or TV show then you must, must, must watch STRANGER THINGS.

If you’ve never watched or seen any of the above things then just watch it anyway; the music is fantastic.

__________________________________

5. BECKY WITH THE GOOD HAIR

What to say?

First, I lifted this from Matt Muir’s newsletter – Web Curios (go sub).

Second, I had no idea what ‘Beck with the good hair’ meant, let alone implied.

Third, as Matt mentions, to see a ‘legacy fashion’ magazine, such as ELLE (in this instance) take so much time to critique its own mistake(s) is heartening.

Read: What do you see when you look at this cover?

Enlightening.

__________________________________

6. SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON HAPPENED

Historically this is where you get the best and newest trailers for some of the most embed them all here and let you click through to the ones you want. This time around, I made you a YouTube playlist of the best ones.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

__________________________________

7. FILM CRIT HULK ON THE FORCE AWAKENS

FILM CRIT HULK is one of my favourite film reviewers. The last time I featured his words here it was his STELLAR review of EX_MACHINA (there be spoilers there, so only read it if you’ve seen it). The thing about FCH is that he makes you think differently about the films you (think you) have seen.

This is a long read but a good one.

FCH – SMASH! – STAR WARS: TFA

Read it.

Then let’s talk.

__________________________________

Bonus items this week are as follows:

• There’s a super cut of all the time Game of Thrones alluded to Jon Snow’s destiny at this link. I really rather enjoyed it.
• Speaking of crows, when a crow dies other crows investigate the crime and report it to their friends and family. TRUTH.
• Need a gif? I got you a gif machine.

__________________________________

 

And that’s it.

Thank you to all of you who hit reply last week, it was so awesome to hear from you and what you’re working on / finding exciting. My task this week is to reply to you all!

It’s 22:20 and I’m going to find you a comedy gif and then I’ll hit send.

Whatley out.

 

View story at Medium.com

This new Tumblr Labs feature appeared: there’s a new icon at the bottom of posts in your dashboard,  which displays a network graph of reposts when you click it. And when you click on the nodes of the graph you can see who the reposts were made by.

Super-hard metal 'four times tougher than titanium' - BBC News:

algeroth:

The new materials needed to be made into powders to check their purity, but beta-Ti3Au, as it is known, was too tough to be ground in a diamond-coated mortar and pestle.

The material “showed the highest hardness of all Ti-Au [titanium-gold] alloys and compounds, but also compared to many other engineering alloys”, said Prof Morosan.

She said the hardness of the substance, together with its higher biocompatibility, made it a “next generation compound for substantively extending the lifetime of dental implants and replacement joints”.

The alloy is the hardest known metallic substance compatible with living tissues, say US physicists. The material is four times harder than pure titanium and has applications in making longer-lasting medical implants, they say.

Panel at HOPE 2016 where I talk about infrastructure as an alternative framing to network neutrality.

Vintage Bicycle Show 2016

Community Bicycle Network hosts annual bike event at Trinity Bellwoods Park

This year there were fewer bikes and fewer really, truly old bikes at CBN's Vintage Bicycle Show. Last year we spotted a healthy number of steel Schwinns and still-rideable Raleighs and the year before that, we even saw a real live boneshaker! This year, these were some of the oldest and most interesting bikes we saw.

This little rocket trike below was likely one of the older machines. It was on sale for $50 at the end of the day on Sunday, July 24 ...along with an offer for a double ride home!

Classic ape bars and banana seat set up. Rainbow streamers are a nice finishing touch.

Ridiculous mini motor bikes.

Speed Queen.

Speed Queen and an elderly friend.

This bike looked very old with its wobbly wooden rims and super deep V frame. Grips and pedals also looked to be original.

The chain guard is held on with thin rope (or thick string, depending on how you look at it.)

This robin's egg blue kids bike with fun fork detail caught our eye.

... As did this fat-tired bike of a similar hue.

But, ouch, that metal seat!

Near the end of the day in the park, near Queen Street, those who were looking for a deal were still milling about with some old and not-so-old bikes.

 

Our new issue of dandyhorse has arrived! dandyhorse is available for FREE at Urbane Cyclist, Bikes on Wheels, Cycle Couture, Sweet Pete's, Hoopdriver, Batemans, Velofix, and Steamwhistle.Our new issue of dandyhorse includes cover art by Kent Monkman, interviews with Catherine McKenna and the women behind Toronto's first feminist bike zine, lots of news and views on Bloor, Under Gardiner and the West Toronto Railpath and much, much more! Get dandy at your door or at better bike and book shops in Toronto.

Related on the dandyBLOG:

Toronto Vintage Bicycle Show 2016 promo

Toronto's Fourth Annual Vintage Bike Show

Old and Pretty: The Toronto Vintage Bicycle Show

Heritage Toronto Offers Bike Tours on the Toronto Islands and the Forts of Toronto

From the days of the dandyhorse: The skirt lifter

I never understood how to write a song. When I tried, I found myself trafficking in clichés: “I got up this morning…” and that sort of drivel. Most times, these song-attempts centered around my own self-involvement, and imaginary relationships gone bad. It was horrible shit, and I’m grateful no evidence of these embarrassments remain.

My tries at fiction were much the same. My primary frame of reference was in films with themes I knew little of (e.g., crime, betrayal, murder). As such, any fiction I ever tried to write turned out awfully silly. It was only an imitation of someone else’s overwrought tales.

I think this is how we end up with so much bad art. Most of us look at others’ creations, searching for an idea to spark our creativity. But it doesn’t work that way. If you mine the work of others, you end up producing work that’s derivative.

So, you need to instead find something that’s yours, and work from that. Whether you appreciate this fact or not, you possess a unique viewpoint. It’s just that your world is so familiar to you that you don’t realize how unique it is.

In college, I made a painting of Mona Lisa—after she dyed her hair red. I thought this made it somewhat novel, but it wasn’t my cheeky gimmick that most viewers noticed. The part folks paid attention to was the background. I painted a silhouette of pine and spruce trees—common to where I grew up. Others in the class found this notable, because they lived in a different climate (a rainforest). To me, those trees were just trees, but they turned out to be part of my unique visual vocabulary. So, don’t mistake that which seems mundane to you, for actually being so.

Can’t think of a story of your own to tell? That’s OK. There’s another approach: pick a theme/topic. You might choose peaches, battling robots, or even a tragedy at sea. You might not know what you want to say, but that’s not the point. What matters is that you pick an environment. Without doing so, you’ll limit yourself to generalizations. To go beyond the surface, you need to concentrate for a while. This is what a theme helps you do.

A common misconception with this approach is that your chosen theme is too small. In my experience, this is almost never the case. Most matters are richer and more involved that we initially believe. I often see this with blog posts. I frequently start with a simple idea and think it’s not enough for a whole post. By the time I’m finished, though, I tend to run long—and have ideas for later posts. (Sidebar: One of the best ways to get new ideas is to just start working with any idea.)

The same applies to a painting, essay, product, photography, film, game, or what-have-you. The problem with most ideas is that they’re only a degree away from what everyone else is doing. That’s why most pop songs sound so similar. Their makers are manufacturing a product, and mass production (at its best) only achieves efficiency. It almost never leads to a new creation. For that, you need to choose a sandbox—and give yourself time to play.

reviewinhaiku:

Star Trek Beyond

Ten years ago, Bluetooth tethering was a big thing and the only option to wirelessly tether a notebook via a phone to the Internet. How things have changed since then…

As I noted in a blog entry from back in 2007, Bluetooth 2.0 was just about fast enough to support the 3G data rates of the day but would not be near enough once higher data rates with HSPA+ would appear in devices and networks. Fortunately Wi-Fi tethering came around the corner with Android a little while later. But it didn’t take long and even the then prevalent Wifi 802.11g would again become too slow for advanced cellular networks of the day. 802.11n would help again and today’s flagship phones support 802.11ac for even higher data rates. On the other hand, many notebooks in use still do not, making USB connectivity the only connectivity option over which to get the maximum data transfer speeds offered by LTE today.

But once again we are close to hitting a limit of today’s USB-2 technology in smartphones once LTE 3-Carrier Aggregation (3-CA) is being rolled out. With LTE 3-CA and 3x 20 MHz, the maximum theoretical LTE data transfer speed with 64QAM modulation is 450 MBit/s. USB-2 on the other hand transfers around 40 MB per second if everything is optimized which is ‘only’ 320 Mbit/s. Time to move to USB-3 on mobile devices then. It doesn’t only make sense for higher cellular speeds but also to transfer large amounts of pictures, videos and music files faster than today. Fortunately, small USB type C connectors have arrived in the real world in the meantime so USB-3 connector size on smartphones won’t be an issue anymore.

Yes, and only 10 years ago, 2 Mbit/s of Bluetooth was the limit. Incredible…

Pressure’s on. I can tell from the silence in the meeting that something is up. There is no how’s-your-weekend chat-chit and everyone slowly looks at each other wondering about the source of the suspense. I write the agenda on the whiteboard knowing that we’re likely not doing anything on this agenda because….

… there’s a Situation.

At some point during the past 24 hours, someone discovered the Situation. It arrived unexpectedly during a random conversation. It was delivered by a human who didn’t even know they were describing a Situation, they were just the Situation carrier, but when Mateo heard it, he thought, “Smells like a Situation.”

Mateo immediately took the situation over to Erica for triage. “Situation, right?” he asked.

“Does this mean that?” probed Erica.

“Yes,” said Mateo definitively.

“World-class situation. Circle the wagons. You’re going to need a bigger boat situation. Alert the troops,” Erica confirmed.

Mateo triangulated the Situation with others to triple check its Situation-ness which is why when our staff meeting starts, no one is saying a thing. They all know about the Situation and they know when it’s a verified alert-the-troops Situation, you bring it to me because as a leader Situations are my job.

I sit in my chair. I count to three. I ask, “So, what’s up?”

Mateo glances at the agenda that will never be, shrugs, and says, “Before we start, I think we have a Situation.”

“Describe it,” I instruct.

Mateo walks through his findings and analysis. It takes seven and a half minutes and he stops to let everyone process. Beth, my second, offers a solution to the Situation and it’s pretty good, but Mateo quickly points out, “This… “ he pauses for effect “… means that.”

“Shit,” says Beth as she falls back in her chair. Beth never swears.

37 seconds pass before I ask three questions of Mateo. “If this means that, does that mean this?” Yes. “Every time?” Yes, that was the first thing I confirmed and I confirmed it three times. “Did that happen when we attempted this other thing?” No.

“Ok, I’ve made a decision. This is what we’re going to do.”

Everyone sighed in relief, cool air suddenly filled the room, the angels sang. and I asked, “Ok, what’s next?”

Yeah… it never happens like this.

Capital S Situations

Ok, it happens like this in some situations, but never for capital-S Situations. For small situations that cross my desk, inbox, and Slack, I can dip into my experience, apply my judgment, and create a solid decision. Need justification for that decision? No problem, here’s the story I’ve told 14 times that explains the means by which I gathered the experience to create the judgment I use in this particular situation. I am happy to tell you this story because this is how we collectively get better at our jobs, we share our experiences because it’s way cheaper than everyone experiencing everything.

For Capital S Situations, there’s no easy answer. A Situation is a complicated never-seen-before beast and the reason that everyone in the room is energetically quiet is that they’ve never seen this before and they’re wondering what the hell is going to happen.

The following laborious workflow is how I make a decision regarding the Situation. Not every situation demands all steps. Some steps are repeated multiple times. The route through these steps varies as a function of both the Situation as well as the facts, opinions, and lies I discover as I take each step.

1. Am I the right person to handle this Situation? Is this truly my responsibility to solve? No? Ok, who is the right Situation handler? Have I triangulated the facts? Have I discovered multiple different perspectives regarding the Situation? What has happened to the facts as I’ve looked at them through different lenses? What has this triangulation told me about my sources of information?

2. Do I have complete context? For this given situation, do I have all the essential facts, opinions, and lies surrounding the situation? Have all relevant, affected, and interested parties who care about the Situation weighed in?

3. What is the track record of my sources of information? Do I trust the sources of information? If I have a track record with these humans, how does that color the information they provided? Do I understand the nature of the biases of those providing the information? Am I clear what they have to lose or gain by sharing this information? Do they volunteer these losses or gains as part of my discovery?

4. What inconsistencies in facts have been discovered and do I understand the nature of those inconsistencies? I’m not looking for resolution for inconsistencies, just the nature. He and she disagree on principle. He didn’t have all the essential facts so it kind’a looks like he’s lying.

5. Do I understand my biases relative to the Situation? If my role in this Situation is to make a decision, part of understanding involves understanding my bias¹. With this understanding of bias in hand, am I still the right person to make an informed call here?

6. Do I understand my emotional state relative to the issue at hand? A sure-fire way to bias my judgment is emotion. Like bias, it is nigh impossible to separate my emotions from an issue, whether those emotions are positive, negative ², or a bit of both. Am I clear how emotion is affecting me relative to this decision? If it’s affecting me negatively, will cool-down time help? No, ok, who is a better neutral party who can make a decision here?

7. A close to final test for me is: Can I coherently explain multiple perspectives of the Situation? What happens when I explain one perspective of the Situation to a neutral party? How about when I explain the competing perspective? If I can effectively explain the Situation and its complexity from both perspectives and with a distinct lack of emotion, I’m close.

Capital D Decisions

When a Situation shows up, it’s full of energy. The humans are enthusiastically swirling around it wondering “Where did it come from?”, “How’d we miss this?”, and “What are we going to do?” Don’t interpret this energy as momentum. The collective impression the prior seven laborious steps are designed to convey is “patience”. Because the Situation arrives with great urgency doesn’t always mean you must act with great urgency.

There are humans who are world class at real-time Situation-based decisions. They stare straight into the Situation and make a call right then. Their track record indicates either superior judgment or perhaps incredible luck.

I’d rather be good than lucky.

There’s a gap between the communities that die and those that thrive.

It’s filled with communities that lack a remarkable edge. They lack the ‘thing’ that’s going to get people to rave about it, invite others, and decide to associate their identity with it.

It’s filled with communities that are functional. People use them when they have to (i.e. to solve a problem), but they’re not going to grow much neither.

If your community feels static, if it’s not growing, if you feel stuck you need to find and push an edge.

Your edge is the remarkable part of your community. It’s the unique gift that only you, through your vision, creativity, and determination, can bring to the group.

There are no shortage of edges, here’s a few.

Practical Actions	Hypothetical Ideas
Serious	Fun
Cutting Edge	Proven
Expensive	Cheap
Compassionate	Professional
Newcomers	Experts
Hyperlocal	Global
Advanced	Beginner
Scientific	Street Savvy
Masculine	Feminine

You can add plenty of your own too I’m sure.

Spend 10 minutes with your team. Agree which edge(s) you’re pushing. Go through your upcoming plan of action. Align every item of content, every discussion, web copy, and events with that edge. Mentally prepare yourself to stick with it.

You need to go all in here.

If your edge is practical, remove anything theoretic. Ensure every discussion lists practical next steps. Demand event content lists how it applies to members. Remove discussion posts which don’t meet the criteria.

This is going to upset some people. Don’t worry about how many people you upset, worry about how many people you delight. The people that love the concept will participate a lot, they will bring in others that love the concept too. This is the very thing that gets you the kind of growth you need and want. Track your referral rates and online mentions.

However, this is the easy part. The hard part is sticking with the edge when the going gets tough.

What will you do when your boss’ boss suggests you broaden the focus?

Will you remove members who don’t have enough experience for your edge?

Will you remove posts and upset members to prevent blunting that edge?

What will you do when people get upset you’re not letting them talk about what they want?

If your community is about what your brand sells (e.g. a customer service community), you might be fine without an edge. There’s not much competition there. If you’re the biggest community in your field, your focus is on appealing to the masses, you can probably skip the edges too.

If you’re neither, you need to identify the edge you’re trying to push.

An edge is what’s going to attract the people you need. It’s going to attract the people who are dissatisfied with the status quo, the people who aren’t highly engaged in existing communities. The people most open to joining and being a part of something new.

In Zeiten der Krise kann man erkennen, was guter Qualitätsjournalismus leistet. Statt atemlos Gerüchte, Meinungen und Stimmungen zu verstärken, einfach die Fakten zusammentragen. Nein, einfach ist das falsche Wort. Was einfach aussieht, bedarf jahrelanger Übung und Disziplin. Meine Favoriten: Die Zeit und Deutsche Welle. Sehr gute Arbeit, vielen Dank.

Ganz schlimm, einige Journalistendarsteller auf Twitter.

Hey SUMO Nation!

During the Work Week in London we had the utmost pleasure of hanging out with some of you (we’re still a bit sad about not everyone making it… and that we couldn’t organize a meetup for everyone contributing to everything around Mozilla).

Among the numerous sessions, working groups, presentations, and demos we also had a SUMO Show & Tell – a story-telling session where everyone could showcase one cool thing they think everyone should know about.

I have asked those who presented to help me share their awesome stories with everyone else – and here you go, with the second one presented by Andrew, a jack-of-all-trades and Bugzilla tamer.

Take a look below and relive the origin story of a great Mozillian – someone just like you!

It all started… with an issue that I had with Firefox on my desktop computer running Windows XP, back in 2011. Firefox wouldn’t stop crashing! I then discovered the support site for Firefox. There I found help with my issue through support articles, and at the same time, I was also intrigued by the ability to help other users through the very same site as well.

As I looked into the available opportunities to contribute to the support team, I landed upon live chat. Live chat was a 1-on-1 chat to help out users with the issues they had. Unfortunately, after I joined the team, the live chat was placed on a hiatus. It was recommended that I move on to the forums and knowledge base, because rather than just helping one user and only them benefiting, on the forums I could help many more people through a single suggestion. For some, this floated well and with others it didn’t, because we weren’t taking care of the user personally (like on the chat).

It definitely took some time for me to adjust to this new setting, as things were (and are) handled differently on the forum and on the knowledge base. Users on the forum sometimes do respond immediately, but most of the time they respond later, and some actually don’t respond at all. This is one of the differences between helping out through live chat and through the forums.

The knowledge base on the other hand, can be really complex. There is markup being used to present text in a different way to different users. We must be as clear and precise as possible when writing the article, since although we may know really well what we are talking about, the article reader (usually a user in need of helpful information) may not. It is definitely challenging for some Mozillians to get involved with writing, but once you do, you get the hang of it and truly enjoy it.

From there on, I kept contributing to the forum and knowledge base, but I also went to find out how I could contribute to other areas of Mozilla. I landed upon triaging bugs within Mozilla sites thanks to the help of Liz Henry and Tyler Downer. Furthermore, as Firefox OS rolled out, I started to provide support to the users, write more articles and file bugs in regards to the OS.

As things moved forward so did life – at the moment I am contributing through the Social Support team. Contributing through Social helps our users on social media realise that we are listening to them and that their comments and woes are not falling on deaf ears. We respond to all types of concerns, be they praises or complaints. Helping users on Twitter while being restricted to 140 characters is difficult, whereas on Facebook we can provide a more detailed explanation and response. With Social Support, a single response from us sometimes reaches only a single person – other times it can reach thousands through re-sharing.

Social media makes it easy to identify issues, crises, and hot topics – it is where people nowadays now go to seek assistance, rant, and share their experiences. Also, as posts and tweets can spread easily on social media, it is a double-edged sword: if something positive is spreading, we hope it spreads more. However, if something negative is spreading, we must contain it, identify, and address the root cause of the issue. The bottom line is: we must help our users while keeping everything in the balance and being constantly vigilant.

In 2013, I was very thankful that I was able to attend the Summit that was held in 3 places across the world. I was invited to Toronto, where I held a session called “What does ‘Mozillian’ mean?” In that session, we defined what the term “Mozillian” meant, who was included, not included, and what roles and capabilities were necessary to classify an individual to be a Mozillian. At the end of the session, we touched base via email to finalize our thoughts and gather the necessary information to pass along to others. Although we made some progress, defining who a Mozillian is, who can (or can’t) be one, and setting a specific criteria is somewhat impossible. We must be accepting of those who come and go, those with different backgrounds, personal preferences regarding getting things done, and (sometimes highly) different opinions. All that said, we are a huge family – a huge Mozilla family.

Thank you Andrew for sharing your story with us. I personally appreciate your relaxed and flexible perspective on (sometimes inevitable) changes and challenges we all face when trying to make Mozilla work for the users of the web.

Here’s to many more great chances for you to rock the (helpful, but not only) web with Mozilla and others!

At a mere $492 USD*, Apple is offering its latest iPhone at a much more palatable price for its fans in mainland China than previous iterations. Nevertheless, the term “kidney machine” (肾机, our translation) is still used to refer to Apple’s smartphones.

A Kidney For An iPhone

Four years ago, a 17-year-old boy from Anhui province sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPhone. Through Tencent’s QQ messaging app, he connected with several black market kidney agents who found a buyer for his kidney and made arrangements for the surgery. After the operation was over, the 17-year-old received 22,000 RMB for his kidney (link in Chinese). Subsequently, his health began to deteriorate.

Thus, the term “kidney machine” was born. It’s worth noting that at the time, iPhones weren’t exclusive just because they were insanely expensive. Even if you had the money – in those days, an iPhone ran for about 10,000 RMB or almost 1,500 USD – you might not be able to buy one due to a limited stock of iPhones in mainland China. Hardcore Apple fans from China, as well as enterprising Apple resellers, would sometimes travel all the way to New York City to line up for an iPhone (or several).

Though iPhones are much easier to get a hold of nowadays, the term “kidney machine” has stuck. Even with the rise of higher end Chinese phones, such as Huawei’s Mate series, iPhones are still the most expensive smartphone in China. For now, the “kidney machine” label belongs to Apple.

‘Lost In Translation’ is a weekly column that covers netizen-speak from China’s Interwebs. China’s internet slang is a fast-moving linguistic phenomenon and staying fresh has never been harder. Here, you’ll find new words or phrases every week with a breakdown of what they mean, how they’re used, and how they came to be.

*This price refers to the 16 GB iPhone 5SE. The 64GB version is sold for about $612 USD in mainland China.

Andy Warhol, Portrait of Antonio, 1986. Estate of Antonio Lopez & Juan Ramos. All images courtesy El Museo del Barrio

Antonio Lopez is best know for his vibrantly animated fashion illustrations, but he did so much more than just draw leggy models in pretty dresses. As New York’s El Museo del Barrio's new exhibit Future Funk Fashion demonstrates, Lopez's work reflected his diverse range of influences, from high art to street style, and he sketched his subjects with an empathy not often shown to models of color. In his illustrations, fashion is rescued from its worst tendencies— elitism, cultural scavenging— and revels in its best—innovation, collaboration, and an exploration of identity.

Born in 1943 on a Puerto Rican horse farm, Lopez moved with his family to East Harlem in 1950. He met his life-long creative partner, Juan Ramos, as a student at FIT. They shared a a similar aesthetic vision and a similar biography— like Lopez, Ramos was born in Puerto Rico and emigrated to New York as a child. Ramos would serve as creative director of Antonio’s work for decades.

Lopez created illustrations for publications like Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. Fashion illustration was was already yielding to photography by the 60s, but Lopez and Ramos injected life into a fading form. “When I came into fashion illustration, it was a dead art,” Lopez would later say. “Real boring, catalog-y, very WASPy. I gave it a transfusion."

Antonio Lopez, Illustration for Karl Lagerfield in Vanity Fair, Musical Dress, 1980s

Lopez and Ramos’s collaborations with designers, models, artists, and street culture pioneers led to illustrations that leap off the page. To create the exhibit, El Museo curator Rocio Aranda Alvarado teamed up with Chicana/o scholar Amelia Malagamba-Ansótegui to pour through the archives of Lopez and Ramos’s work. “Amelia spent a lot of time reading [Lopez’s] diaries, says Rocio. “We mined through photographs and all kinds of ephemeral materials."

Antonio Lopez, Juan Ramos & Model, Carnegie Hall Studio, NYC. Courtesy of the Estate of Antonio Lopez & Juan Ramos

The resulting exhibit features many pieces that were never previously published or publicly shown, creating a fully-realized account of Lopez’s artistic vision. El Museo’s exhibit forefronts Lopez’s perspective as a gay Latino, and many of the works speak to his appreciation of the male form, a figure usually sidelined in the world of fashion illustration. Impossibly chiseled Tom of Finland-esque musclemen round out the world of female beauties that occupy his traditional fashion illustrations.

Antonio Lopez, Shoe Metamorphosis, Alvina Bridges/Charles James, 1978.  Courtesy Estate of Antonio Lopez & Juan Ramos

The exhibit also highlights the importance of models of color to the duo's work. Rocio says that Lopez “saw beauty in the black body before other publications were interested in it.” Working with models like Grace Jones and Tina Chow, Lopez forced diversity into otherwise lily-white fashion magazines. A favorite technique of his was submitting his work at the last possible minute, leaving no time for censorship or editing because the publication had to go to print.

Antonio Lopez, Divine, Kodak Instamatic prints. Courtesy of the Estate of Antonio Lopez & Juan Ramos

And Lopez didn’t just admire brown bodies—he drew great inspiration from the works of fellow artists and innovators of color. Breakdancers were particularly influential. Lopez befriended the legendary b-boys of the Bronx’s Rock Steady Crew, even inviting them to be part of his lectures at FIT. Their dance moves and fashions were woven into Lopez’s illustrations, says Rocio. While the models may be wearing high-fashion ensembles, “details reveal the influence of breaking culture and street style,” whether through hand gestures that imitate the popping moves of break dance, or studded leather trousers that recall the breaker’s style.

Antonio Lopez, Antonio Self Portrait, Italian Vanity, 1981. Courtesy of the Estate of Antonio Lopez & Juan Ramos

Lopez tragically died from AIDS-related complications in 1987, as Ramos would seven years later. But during their far too brief careers, their expansive vision of beauty and style helped move fashion towards more diversity and away from its sometimes vulture-like relationship with street culture.

The only surprise is that it took this long for El Museo to create an exhibit of their work—Lopez is a hometown hero, and grew up in the same East Harlem neighborhood in which the museum is located. “The stars were aligned this year," says Rocio, "And it seemed like a perfect opportunity to do something that we've been thinking about for a long time."

Antonio Lopez, Iman for American Vogue, 1982. Private Collection

Antonio Lopez, Dennis, Broadway Studio, NYC, 1976. Courtesy of the Estate of Antonio Lopez & Juan Ramos

Antonio Lopez, Carole Labrie 2, Paris, 1971. Estate of Antonio Lopez & Juan Ramos

Antonio Lopez: Future Funk Fashion will be exhibited at El Museo del Barrio until November 26th. For more information, click here. 

Related:

Collage Artist Combines Catholicism and Pop Culture

A Film Brings Life to an Undocumented Transgender Latina Sex Worker

Fashion Polaroids Marry High-Concept Couture and Cinematic

Images courtesy the artist and Rye Creative Centre

Watercolor paintings using strains of fiery red tones marry a celebration of the human body with feminist freedom. Returning from her 2015 show which used a galactic aesthetic to depict humanity’s outward and internal cyclical behaviors, painter Jenny Edbrooke delivers a haunting series of sensual watercolors and resin paintings of tiny blossoms. Edbrooke is fearless in depicting the human body in the series, Solstice Blooms, creating vibrant and whimsical visuals, rather than explicit imagery, to depict the female genitalia.

The visual artist has long focused on translating ideas of metaphysics and feminist values into her art. She spoke with The Creators Project about her work: “Some of my earlier work was quite confrontational and overtly feminist and activist but [it] has now calmed to what feels like a healthier approach to addressing the gender imbalances of society.”

“I want my audiences to feel empowered and informed by my work.” Edbrooke says, explaining a viewer’s emotional connectivity to her art. “I want them to know they are allowed to celebrate their bodies instead of being apologetic for them. I want to connect with female and male energies in both genders irrespective of their genitalia in order to create harmony.”

Edbrooke’s artwork exhibits a progression from exploring the unknowable frontier of space to her recent works’ more supple and natural bent, all the while filtering her art through a feminist persepctive. What remains recognizable is the pattern of the circle, a shape expressive of constantly moving cycles, transformation, and the female body.

View a collection of Edbrooke’s works from her Solstice Blooms series, her previous exhibit Floratopia, and a few recent works below:

Solstice Blooms, full, gallery view

Solstice Blooms

Solstice Blooms

Flora Supernova, 2015, Floratopia

Euflora, 2015, Floratopia

The Maiden

The Mother

Solstice Blooms  showed at The Gallery at Rye Creative Centre until July 2, 2016. Find more works by Jenny Edbrooke, including Solstice Blooms and other past exhibits, on her website, here.

Related:

Erotic Art in Shocks of Color

Evocative Illustrations Show What Women Do When No One’s Watching

[NSFW] Erotic Feminist Art Gets a Second Look

Adam Gessaman @adamrg
@yo_stellar your plaid favicon was my first click every morning for years. Thanks for everything and all the best in the future!

Micro Machines is a stellar reimagining of the classic video game franchise based on the popular toy that shares its name from the late 80s and early 90s.

Like many mobile titles, however, I wish Codemasters — the series’ original developer — and its new partner Chillingo, opted for a less in-your-face monetization strategy.

Gameplay-wise, Micro Machines is great, and does a commendable job of encapsulating what made early entries in the top-down racing series so compelling. Players race online against real-world opponents while dodging tiny paper clips, bounding over dressers and shooting one another with various weapons. Micro Machines 3D visuals are also smooth and great ooking.

Where the title falters however, is in the monetization department. which is strange given the game’s lengthy beta testing period. Unlike the Micro Machines toys, vehicles in this game need to be constructed first. Parts are found in packs that are purchased with purple diamonds, which can either be earned by winning races or through in-app purchases.

Buying individual parts is also possible and something I had to opt to do quite frequently, especially if I wanted to complete a specific vehicle. Again, these parts can sometimes be purchased with in-game money, but more often than not, getting your hands on that wheel base will require shelling out real-world dollars.

There’s even a “VIP monthly subscription club included in Micro Machines that allows players to pay a reoccurring fee ranging between $5.49 for three days and $17.99 for 30 days, giving access to special perks and in-game bonuses. Oh and in-game ads too.

While I accepted long ago that free-to-play is currently the dominant model when it comes to monetization in the mobile space, the constant pushing of in-app purchases in Micro Machines will be too much for some players.

On the plus side for those aware of older Micro Machines titles, familiar characters like Spider and Cherry make an appearance in the game’s strangely convoluted menu system, offering advice and amusing jokes.

For me, Micro Machines is a divisive title. I would have much rather spent $20 to remove the in-app purchases in the game, but this unfortunately isn’t an option. Anyone who is able to look past this issue, however, will find a refreshingly playful top-down racer that’s a great throwback to the original unlicensed Nintendo Entertainment System title.

Micro Machines is available on iOS and will reportedly come to Android soon.

Stopped in at Tartine on Davie for treats, and saw this:

historical-nonfiction:

Emperor Claudius applied his scholarly interests to reforming the Latin alphabet. He introduced three new letters, known as the “Claudian letter” whose purpose was to represent sounds in the Latin alphabet which did not have a specific letter of their own. The anisigma, like a backwards C, replaced BS and PS. The digamma, Ⅎ, a turned F denoted the consonant v. (The v we use today, then denoted the vowel u.) The sonus medius, Ⱶ, marked the sound which fell between a u and an i before a labial consonant. For instance, maximus would now be written maxⱵmus. Following Cladius’ death, however, his carefully thought-out reforms fell into disuse. Even though they were entirely non-political.

ultarviolet:

The X Files (1993-2002)

This afternoon I was putting away a physical copy of Civilization V when I spied (with my little eye) some competing video games from a publisher that I shall not name.

Said publisher is local to me, and I've long wanted to support them, but unfortunately the only way I can run their products is via WINE / Crossover Linux. And unfortunately the experience is sub-optimal (in the sense that the game will up and crash after about 10 or so minutes of game-play). Which takes away from the enjoyment as these games take hours / days to play and random crashes can ruin the fun.

I also seemed to recall that their CEO was rather outspoken about gaming-movements-that-shall-not-be-named . So I went to the internet and managed to find his Twitter feed.

After a post equating SJWs with lazy bums who won't do their part to succeed I decided that some decluttering was in order.

Fortunately their packaging was such that my Staples Mailmate shredder was more than sufficient to render the contents into a more pleasing and usable format.

Sure this is a bit late (they already have money for two purchases) but at least I can make more room for things that I actually care about, and for people that I care about enough to listen.

Great with sweet “Enterprise” callbacks.

“Nonetheless, my sense is that underlying all of this is the basic gap that now exists between people who can imagine a viable future for themselves in a networked world, and those who cannot.”

- David Runciman, A win for ‘proper people’? Brexit as a rejection of the networked world

Water. All images courtesy the artist

Led by Henri Matisse and André Derain, the 20th century Fauvism movement burst onto the art scene with a strong mix of neo-Impressionism and a penchant for a painterly aesthetic. Fauvism lasted for only a few short years from 1904-1908, but the movement is rich with historic works that many contemporary artists look to for guidance and inspiration. The artist Josh Byer is no different, reinterpreting the movement’s signature non-realist approach to create a series of Faux Fauvism paintings. Filled with mesmerizing swirls and hidden Easter-egg images, Byers’ pieces are loud, energetic, and addictive to view. Each work tumbles before the eyes like an electric maze.

The Canadian artist chooses to splash and twist snake-like characters through all kinds of environments, from the typical urban street scenes to the less recognizable surfaces of the moon. Byer weaves his Faux Fauvism through both real and unreal places, but he consistently pays keen attention to space and canvas breadth. His works cover every surface completely, never missing a chance to fill a painting with as much complex design.

Byer shares with The Creators Project his artistic pursuit behind the series: “The goal of Faux Fauvism is to pinpoint the moment in cognition when pattern recognition occurs. When Faux Fauvism is succeeding, it triggers a ‘cloud gazing’ effect: a state when the viewer is unable to determine whether they are projecting an image into reality, or if reality is projecting its image into them.”

View some of Byer’s dizzying works below:

The Man Who Was a Lighter and a Duck and a Snake

Afterparty

The Cub and the Calf

The Gumball Express

The Liberation of Orotona

Moon Rising Over Saturna Island

Moon Buggy

To check out more of Josh Byer’s artwork, visit his official site, here.

Related:

The Proto-Modernist Art Movement You Haven’t Heard of

Flower Mandalas Become Electric Artworks That Can Heal

See NYC Landscapes As Pointillist-Inspired Photo Paintings

Denim & Steel @DenimAndSteel
The conversation model in @Kognito's games looks successful. Interesting back-story, too. polygon.com/2016/6/27/1203… pic.twitter.com/GQxASRT9zK