Stuff I like by Benita
I'm awesome.
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House votes to cut off federal funds for NPR
Oh man.
Washington (AP) — The House has voted to end federal funding to National Public Radio. Republican supporters say it made good fiscal sense, and Democratic opponents calling it an ideological attack that would deprive local stations of access to programs such as “Car Talk” and “All Things Considered.” The bill, passed along partisan lines, bars federal funding of NPR and prohibits local public stations from using federal money to pay NPR dues and buy its programs. The prospects of support in the Senate are slim. Bill sponsor Republican Doug Lamborn of Colorado, said that, with the current budgetary crisis, it was time for NPR to stand on its own. But the White House, in opposing the bill, said it could force some local stations that rely on NPR programs to shut down.
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Music For Your Monday: NPR Music is streaming Peter Bjorn and John’s Gimme Some in its entirety. Enjoy!
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The Songs Behind The Start Of LCD Soundsystem : NPR
This is a fantastic mix to make your Tuesday better.
As LCD Soundsystem heads into retirement — its last show takes place Saturday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden — we decided to pay homage to a band that helped define the sound of new music. With artists name-checked directly in “Losing My Edge,” we created a music stream that pays tribute to where LCD Soundsystem came from and where the band was first inspired.
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'Robot Journalist' Out-Writes Human Sports Reporter : NPR
I don’t like this.
“University of Virginia player Will Roberts had pitched a perfect game against George Washington University. The story on GWSports.com neglected to mention that fact until the second-to-last paragraph.“That was shocking,” Carmichael says. “This was the first time this had happened in the NCAA since 2002. And when it happens, you expect to see it in the headline and you expect to see everyone talking about that aspect of the game.”
The writer of that story — it turns out — was a living, breathing human being. But the creators of Narrative Science, a news-writing software program, took Deadspin’s assumption as fighting words. They set out to prove that their system could produce a better story.
“We actually got hold of the information director of the school, we got the raw material, the numbers around the story,” said Kris Hammond, Chief Technology Officer of Narrative Science. “And we fed it to our system, which wrote the story, where the headline and the lead were focused on the fact that it was a no-hitter. Because how could you write a baseball story and not notice that it was a no hitter? I mean what kind of writer or machine would you be?”
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Exclusive Previews: Danger Mouse, Le Butcherettes, More : NPR
You can hear Danger Mouse’s “The Rose With a Broken Neck,” featuring vocals from Jack White, on this week’s show.
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Linda Holmes on The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything
“Culling is the choosing you do for yourself. It’s the sorting of what’s worth your time and what’s not worth your time. It’s saying, ‘I deem Keeping Up With The Kardashians a poor use of my time, and therefore, I choose not to watch it.’ It’s saying, ‘I read the last Jonathan Franzen book and fell asleep six times, so I’m not going to read this one.’
Surrender, on the other hand, is the realization that you do not have time for everything that would be worth the time you invested in it if you had the time, and that this fact doesn’t have to threaten your sense that you are well-read. Surrender is the moment when you say, ‘I bet every single one of those 1,000 books I’m supposed to read before I die is very, very good, but I cannot read them all, and they will have to go on the list of things I didn’t get to.’”
If “well-read” means “not missing anything,” then nobody has a chance. If “well-read” means “making a genuine effort to explore thoughtfully,” then yes, we can all be well-read. But what we’ve seen is always going to be a very small cup dipped out of a very big ocean, and turning your back on the ocean to stare into the cup can’t change that.
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Everything You Know About This Band Is Wrong : The Record : NPR
“One person asked me, ‘Will you feel bad if someone goes to this show or buys this record based on the fact that you wrote this fictional piece? And then you’re kind of ripping them off in a way.’ I’ll be honest — I don’t feel bad. Because to me, I’ve probably helped that person to learn that you should not make consumer decisions based on some random media message that someone just fabricated for no reason.”
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The Best Beats Of Summer 2011 : NPR
Summer in the northern hemisphere officially arrived on June 21, and that means the debate has begun: What will be the dance hit of summer 2011?
We won’t know for sure until August, but there’s a good chance the answer lies in our latest installment of The Mix. This week’s limited-edition stream compiles more than 150 club and dance tracks, all of which were released since last September. We picked songs from across multiple genres — hip-hop, dancehall, pop, electro, disco, house, even indie rock — with just one stipulation: a beat you can dance to.
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Love of language, it turns out, is a complicated minefield of things you care about and things you don’t, and one person’s explosive issues are obviously no more valid than anyone else’s. Some people hate Capitalization For Cutesy Point-Making in exactly the same way I hate “irregardless,” but I use it happily.
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Five Reasons To Pay Attention To Detroit Hip-Hop Now
It’s always a good thing when Detroit gets national attention for something other than abandoned buildings. I’m not really into hip-hop, though I can appreciate it and I’ve seen Danny Brown perform, but I read this long piece and it was really interesting.
(Source: nprmusic)
I like a lot of stuff, including but not limited to words, sarcasm, news, pop culture, bright colors, music, design, baking, books, Detroit, DIY.
