Snapzu Entertainment: July 2016

Sunday, 31 July 2016

Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s

Anne Sebba’s account of the French women who dared to say no to the Nazis is compelling.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/31/les-parisiennes-anne-sebba-review?source=Snapzu

New Michael Crichton Novel Discovered by Widow

A newly discovered novel from late writer Michael Crichton is on the way. “Dragon Teeth” is set in the late 19th century American West. It focuses on the real-life rivalry between paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh — during a time known as the “Bone Wars” — as seen through the story of fictional character William Johnson. Sherri Crichton was searching her late husband’s files for material for the Michael Crichton Archives when she discovered the manuscript.
Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2016/07/29/new-michael-crichton-novel-discovered-by-widow/?source=Snapzu

A Cognitive Sciences Reading List for Designers

If you’ve ever done any contextual inquiry or usability testing, you’ve probably observed first hand the difference between what people say they will do and what they actually end up doing. This post is a quick roundup of the most enlightening books on the task of designing information systems for messy, irrational humans. By Andy Fitzgerald.
Read more: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/a-cognitive-sciences-reading-list-for-designers-5297c2934aa9#.sxlogfcoz?source=Snapzu

Review: ‘Mercy Street,’ a Civil War Hospital Drama on PBS

This six-episode Civil War series shares Downton Abbey's style: genteel melodrama, talky, sentimental and lightly comic, with the occasional action sequence (an escape, a bomb plot) to spice things up.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/arts/television/tv-review-mercy-street-pbs.html?source=Snapzu

Luke Aikins: Skydiver jumps out of plane at 7,600m, lands in net with no parachute or wingsuit

Mr Aikins -- who has done movie stunts -- spent a year-and-a-half preparing the death-defying feat, ...
Read more: https://www.veooz.com/news/ALJ6NRA.html?source=Snapzu

An Ode to the iPod Classic

Wow,” a man said to me recently on the subway, “I haven’t seen one of those things in years.” He gestured toward the scuffed-yet-still-sleek, aluminum-colored rectangle in my hand — a 160GB sixth generation iPod Classic. I blinked for a moment. We were not talking about, say, a quill pen, a monocle, or a bottle of Crystal Pepsi, but an electronic device I had purchased in 2010.
Read more: https://theringer.com/an-ode-to-the-ipod-classic-629e89681c6e#.pff9xe3q3?source=Snapzu

David Bald Eagle, Lakota Chief, Musician, Cowboy And Actor, Dies At 97

He was also a war hero and a ballroom dancer — Bald Eagle’s life is hard to fit in a headline. He parachuted into Normandy, acted in Westerns and starred in his first feature film at the age of 95. By Camila Domonoske.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/27/487651658/david-bald-eagle-lakota-chief-musician-cowboy-and-actor-dies-at-97?source=Snapzu

Saturday, 30 July 2016

John Oliver Loves "America's Step-Dad" Tim Kaine

"Forget the President," said Oliver, who watched all of the DNC speeches from his dressing room at The Late Show, "Tim Kaine is where it's at."
Read more: http://snapzu.com/mtnrg/john-oliver-loves-americas-step-dad-tim-kaine?source=Snapzu

Watch the Disco Dancing World Championships from 1979

Held at the Empire Ballroom in London, 32 competitors from around the world came together for the second annual competition. Each contestant represented a different country and showcased their unique style.
Read more: http://www.magneticmag.com/2016/02/disco-dancing-world-championships-from-1979/?source=Snapzu

Olympic flame extinguished by Rio protesters

The Olympic torch relay was disrupted by striking teachers after it entered Rio de Janeiro. Video footage of the demonstration suggests the flame was extinguished while the runner carrying the torch had to be bussed to safety. The incident forced a temporary halt and prompted some runners to quit the relay. Protesters stoned cars and police responded with tear gas and pepper spray. To avoid further problems, a stretch of the relay was missed out.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/28/olympic-flame-extinguished-rio-de-janeiro-protesters?source=Snapzu

The hidden adult themes in Beatrix Potter

Born 150 years ago on 28 July, the British children’s book author was far more subversive than you may have realised, writes Christian Blauvelt.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160728-the-hidden-adult-themes-in-beatrix-potter?source=Snapzu

The Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2016

The big books of the season.
Read more: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/71042-the-most-anticipated-books-of-fall-2016.html?source=Snapzu

Elon Musk endorsement sparks rush to find out-of-print history book

A forgotten, out-of-print history book from 1929 has sold out across the internet after it was praised by Elon Musk. The Tesla chief executive and billionaire told Bloomberg on Thursday that he was currently reading a book called Twelve Against the Gods by William Bolitho. “It’s really quite good,” Musk added, sending the price of the now obscure text up from $6.35 (£4.82) on Amazon.com for a secondhand paperback edition, to $99.99, before it sold out at the online retailer.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/29/elon-musk-endorsement-sparks-rush-to-find-out-of-print-history-book?source=Snapzu

10 of the Oldest Books in the World and Where to See Them

The beginnings of the book are hard to pinpoint, but between about 150 and 450 CE writing slowly moved away from scrolls and toward the codex, an early forerunner of the modern book. A print book is now generally defined as a series of folded leaves of parchment or paper that has been stitched and bound together between covers. The books below, some of which date back well over a thousand years, are among the oldest known to have survived intact to modern times—and many of them are regularly on display.
Read more: http://mentalfloss.com/article/83794/10-oldest-books-world-and-where-see-them?source=Snapzu

MTV Launches 'Classic' Channel Dedicated to 1990s

MTV plans to rebrand VH1 Classic as MTV Classic starting on August 1st. According to a statement from the company, the new channel will focus on "an eclectic mix of fan-favorite MTV series and music programming drawn from across its rich history, with a special focus on the 1990s and early 2000s." The August 1st switch date has special significance, commemorating the launch of MTV 35 years ago on August 1st, 1981. The debut hour of MTV Classic will replicate the first hour of programming in MTV's history. In a nod to modern technology, fans will also be able to watch "MTV Hour One" via Facebook Live on the channel's Facebook page.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/mtv-launches-classic-channel-dedicated-to-1990s-w431416?source=Snapzu

Friday, 29 July 2016

'Babylon 5' Star Jerry Doyle -- Dead at 60

Jerry Doyle -- best known for his role on "Babylon 5" -- died Wednesday ... TMZ has learned. Sources tell us ... a call was made to his Las Vegas home yesterday afternoon after he was found unresponsive. It's unclear how the political radio talk show host and actor died ... but we're told no foul play is suspected. An autopsy is pending. Jerry starred as security officer Michael Garibaldi from 1994 to 1998 and was married to co-star Andrea Thompson from 1995 to 1997. He worked on Wall Street before going into acting.
Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2016/07/28/jerry-doyle-babylon-5-dead/?source=Snapzu

Literary Beatdowns: or, Excerpts from Smollett's 'Critical Review'

"A very trivial, insipid, injudicious and defective performance, without plan, method, learning, accuracy, or elegance; an unmeaning composition of shreds, rags, and remnants…a patched, a pie-bald, linsey-woolsey nothing." Alas, such beatdowns are hard to find these days.
Read more: http://www.themillions.com/2016/07/literary-beatdowns-or.html?source=Snapzu

This Is What Musical Notes Actually Look Like

“To investigate these patterns, he rigged up a contraption involving a frequency generator on his laptop, a rebuilt amp with a speaker pointing upward into a plastic vitrine filled with ink-black water, and a guitar tuner…” By Heather Sparks.
Read more: http://nautil.us/blog/this-is-what-musical-notes-actually-look-like?source=Snapzu

10 Superheroes Whose Powers Would Suck To Have In Real Life

Olympians will ‘literally be swimming in human crap,’ scientists say

But Olympic swimmers, sailors and windsurfers will have to look out for more than that, because the city’s waters have what health experts are calling a “petri dish of pathogens,” including bacterias that cause diarrhea, vomiting and even death to those with weakened immune systems. “Foreign athletes will literally be swimming in human crap, and they risk getting sick from all those microorganisms,” Dr. Daniel Becker, a local pediatrician who works in poor neighborhoods, told the New York Times. “It’s sad but also worrisome.”
Read more: http://www.sunherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article92337342.html?source=Snapzu

Even Chekhov might have envied Geoff Dyer’s talent, says Jan Morris

Neither fact nor fiction, Dyer’s travel pieces — ranging from the New Mexican desert to the ‘frozen hell-hole’ of Norway — are hard to define. But they’re (mostly) quite brilliant.
Read more: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/even-chekhov-might-have-envied-geoff-dyers-talent-says-jan-morris-2/?source=Snapzu

Larry King on Getting Seduced | Blank on Blank | PBS Digital Studios

"I'm playing these records. The phone rings and I pick it up: 'WAHR'. And this lady's voice--I can still hear her voice--she goes: 'I want you.'" - Larry King
Read more: http://snapzu.com/sashinator/larry-king-on-getting-seduced-blank-on-blank-pbs-digital-studios?source=Snapzu

Confessor. Feminist. Adult. What the Hell Happened to Howard Stern?

Near the end of his interview with Bill Murray, Howard Stern turned an already somber discussion about missed career opportunities into an existential grilling. “Is there something that you question in your own life,” Mr. Stern asked, “like why haven’t I found that great love of my life?” Mr. Murray audibly exhaled and let a pensive moment of silence pass. “Well, I think about that, I do think about that, that um, you know. I’m not sure what my — what I’m getting done here,” he said, sounding like a man questioning his ultimate purpose.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/arts/howard-stern-sirius.html?source=Snapzu

America's first Olympics were a total mess and also quite racist

History is wild.
Read more: http://mashable.com/2016/07/28/olympics-1904-st-louis/#J_5yUXT03Eq6?source=Snapzu

Why poetry is good for the rational mind

Poetry shows us that the world is more varied and unpredictable than we might otherwise imagine. By Fiona Sampson.
Read more: https://newhumanist.org.uk/5052/why-poetry-is-good-for-the-rational-mind?source=Snapzu

Syria's secret library

When a place has been besieged for years and hunger stalks the streets, you might have thought people would have little interest in books. But enthusiasts have stocked an underground library in Syria with volumes rescued from bombed buildings - and users dodge shells and bullets to reach it.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36893303?source=Snapzu

The Office Politics of Workplace Fiction by Women

The works reflect the particular challenges and preoccupations that women face in the workplace and at home.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-office-politics-of-workplace-fiction-by-women?source=Snapzu

How Exhaustion Became a Status Symbol

From sloth to burnout, each age remakes exhaustion in its own image. By Hannah Rosefield.
Read more: https://newrepublic.com/article/135468/exhaustion-became-status-symbol?source=Snapzu

The Accountant – Main Trailer - Official Warner Bros. UK

Christian Wolff (Affleck) is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King (J.K. Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.
Read more: http://snapzu.com/mtnrg/the-accountant-main-trailer-official-warner-bros-uk?source=Snapzu

Thursday, 28 July 2016

Technology killed bookstore chains. Can technology save indie bookstores?

It’s great when the received narrative gets disrupted, and Oren Teicher, the CEO of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), has heard more than his share during his long tenure at the independent bookstore trade group, where he’s been the boss since 2009 and in other positions before that. The story that is told, news cycle after news cycle, is that indies were always just about to be wiped off the face of the country because of a new challenge. By Glenn Fleishman
Read more: http://www.seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2016/07/26/technology-killed-bookstore-chains-can-technology-save-indie-bookstores/?source=Snapzu

HBO Cancels Project Greenlight, Matt Damon Says He’ll Shop It Elsewhere

Say goodbye to Project Greenlight. For now. HBO says it will not renew the docuseries, which was executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Deadline reports. “When we picked up a new season in 2014, we imagined a one-season revival and decided in early 2016 another season did not make sense for us,” HBO said in a statement. “We are proud of the show and were pleased with its run throughout the years.” Damon told the Associated Press that he was surprised at the network’s decision, but understands it.
Read more: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/07/project-greenlight-hbo?source=Snapzu

Inside the 2016 Man Booker Longlist

The authors in the running for Britain's most prestigious literary award include four debut novelists.
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/inside-the-2016-man-booker-longlist/493259/?source=Snapzu

Getting Closer to Vermeer with Three New Books on the Artist

Vermeer died twice. The first time was in 1675, after the Dutch art market collapsed. The second time was when history forgot him: shortly after his death, he disappeared from cultural memory.
Read more: http://hyperallergic.com/302360/getting-closer-to-vermeer-with-three-new-books-on-the-artist/?source=Snapzu

Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast

Curl up and fall asleep to the world’s greatest short stories, the known treasures and the once-forgotten, purred to you as only Miette can.
Read more: http://www.miettecast.com/?source=Snapzu

'Arrested Development' boss: 'We're ready to go' on season 5

Arrested Development is “very close” to getting a fifth season on Netflix, executive producer Mitch Hurwitz said at the Television Critics Association press tour on Wednesday. Seven years after being canceled, the Fox comedy was resurrected on Netflix for a 15-episode fourth season, which reunited the whole Bluth family in 2013 – Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, and Jeffrey Tambor, among them. After the fourth season earned critical acclaim and three Emmy nominations, the question remained when the Bluths would be back for a fifth round.
Read more: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/27/arrested-development-netflix-season-5?source=Snapzu

Rio Olympics 2016: 37 Russian athletes banned from the Games

Nineteen more Russian rowers have been banned from competing at next month's Olympics, taking the number of Russian athletes suspended this week to 37. Earlier on Tuesday, eight athletes across canoeing, modern pentathlon and sailing were banned, as seven swimmers and three rowers were on Monday. Governing bodies are making the rulings following the damning World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report into state-sponsored doping in the country. The Rio Games begin on 5 August.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/36894519?source=Snapzu

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Subscribers Pay 61 Cents Per Hour of Cable, But Only 20 Cents Per Hour of Netflix

Netflix is cheaper than cable, but that alone doesn’t mean much. After all, a service is only worthwhile when you use it. So rather than asking how much Netflix costs relative to cable, we should instead ask: how much does Netflix cost per hour of content viewed, and how does that compare with cable’s figures? That’s math is pretty simple – so we went ahead and did it. We know from Netflix’s own numbers that Netflix’s more than 75 million users stream 125 million hours of content every day.
Read more: https://www.allflicks.net/subscribers-pay-61-cents-per-hour-of-cable-but-only-20-cents-per-hour-of-netflix/?source=Snapzu

Stranger Things Season Two Will Be a Sequel

More than a few of you probably spent your time last weekend binge-watching Netflix’s latest series Stranger Things. Matt and Ross Duffer‘s sci-fi show was embraced so quickly by the streaming service’s customers that a season two is already confirmed. The Duffer Brothers have shared a few details about what to expect from the next season of their hit show.
Read more: http://www.slashfilm.com/stranger-things-season-two/?source=Snapzu

Physical Book Sales Rocket As Digital Dips

Book shops are attracting more and more customers by offering cafes and running events.
Read more: http://news.sky.com/story/physical-book-sales-rocket-as-digital-dips-10510980?platform=hootsuite?source=Snapzu

Pokémon Go players urged not to venture into Fukushima disaster zone

Japan is asking for the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone to be classified as a no-go area for Pokémon after the discovery of at least one of the game’s characters on a power station’s site. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) has requested that Pokémon Go developer Niantic and the Pokémon Company prevent Pokémon appearing in and around areas affected by the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima to help prevent encouraging players to enter dangerous areas.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/26/pokemon-go-players-fukushima-disaster-zone-nuclear?source=Snapzu

Harrison Ford could have died in Star Wars set incident, court hears

Harrison Ford could have been killed when he was crushed by a hydraulic door on the set of the Millennium Falcon spaceship while filming the most recent Star Wars film, a court has heard. Ford was reprising his role as Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens in June 2014 when he was knocked to the ground and crushed beneath the heavy door of the Millennium Falcon while filming at Pinewood Studios in London. The company responsible, Foodles Production, pleaded guilty to two breaches under health and safety legislation.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/26/star-wars-production-company-admits-health-and-safety-breaches-harrison-ford?source=Snapzu

Tuesday, 26 July 2016

‘Stranger Things’ Is Terrifyingly Good 80s Nostalgia (Spoilers Ahead!)

Human beings inhabit at least three parallel worlds in the course of a lifetime. There's childhood, the teenage hellscape, and the confused territory of adulthood. The child makes unique sense of its environment, taking cues from movies and television; the teen apes its peers; and the adult improvises with the remnants of both, which we call nostalgia. In the early 1980s, when the excellent, desperately nostalgic Netflix series Stranger Things is set, children watched E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial; teenagers flocked to see Tom Cruise in All the Right Moves; and adults had the good-humored horror picture Poltergeist.
Read more: http://www.vice.com/read/stranger-things-is-terrifyingly-good-80s-nostalgia?source=Snapzu

Vizio acquired by Chinese tech company LeEco for $2 billion

Chinese electronics firm LeEco is buying American TV manufacturer Vizio for $2 billion. The acquisition was announced during a press event this morning in Los Angeles, giving LeEco an instant foothold in the US television market. Under the deal, Vizio will be operated as an independent subsidiary, with the company's current management team staying in place and working out of its offices in Southern California.
Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/26/12286756/leeco-buys-vizio-tv-company-2-billion-acquisition?source=Snapzu

Paired to fantastic effect, a series of arch-forming shelving units and a black-mirrored floor create a wraparound tunnel in a Chinese bookstore, punctuated by a fracture leading visitors through the resulting passageway.
Read more: http://weburbanist.com/2016/07/24/tunnel-of-books-curved-shelves-wrap-bookstore-walls-ceiling/?source=Snapzu

Exquisite Masochism

On Sex and the Novel. By Claire Jarvis.
Read more: http://www.themillions.com/2016/07/exquisite-masochism.html?source=Snapzu

Pokemon Go players allegedly shot at; Ont. woman charged

An Ontario woman is facing weapons-related charges after police said Pokemon Go players were shot at with a pellet gun over the weekend.
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/pokemon-go-players-allegedly-shot-at-ont-woman-charged-1.3001419?source=Snapzu