Dystopias, utopias, architectures of horror, myths, cynicism, Futurama, and how the Floppotron works. All that and much more in this selection of links we call Recommended Links of the Week, which continues below, if you dare to keep reading…
Dystopias, a critique of the present from an undesirable future: "Dystopias appeared in the first half of the twentieth century and aimed to warn us about the future that could be brought upon us, for example: capitalist 'developmentalism' with consumer society and the alienation of labor that the assembly line entailed, the dangers of the nuclear arms race, the uncritical faith in technology, or the manipulation of media and advertising, giving more value to image and spectacle than to analyzing content."
The City of Boys, the death of a utopia: "Orphans, refugees, arrived from all over the world. Inside it, decisions were made in a parliament, pacifism was proclaimed, and there was a circus that traveled the world and served as a method of promotion and training for life. There was also academic education, one of the first audiovisual schools, and it even had a TV channel. All of that foundered in recent years amid confrontations, debts, and lawsuits, and it did not survive the death of its founder. Nothing of his work, which after all had been his life, would remain free from suspicion in history."
Dystopian beaches and architectures of horror: "Almost buried in the sand of the beach or on top of a cliff. The photographs that Paul Virilio, Claude Parent, and Jane and Louise Wilson took of the defensive structures built by the Germans along the French Atlantic coast and on the Channel Islands during the Second World War are disturbing and recall a past of war and threat."
Six myths about addiction, debunked by experts: "An addiction is a vice. There are more and more mobile phone addicts. And if you try marijuana, you'll get hooked. Do you agree with these statements? The scientific community doesn't. Although you probably know the story of an addicted person, what you probably don't know as well are the internal mechanisms that have caused that addiction."
Hipparchia, the Cynic: "It's not that there were no women before Hipparchia who dedicated themselves to this noble work, but rather that they were not considered philosophers in a formal sense, because women were supposed to have the oikos (home) as their main responsibility and interest. With Hipparchia this was not the case. To follow Crates on his Cynic journey, she renounced her possessions and inheritance, that is, she shed the oikos that, as the basic unit of society, provided citizenship with identity; she dressed in the simplest rags and devoted herself to philosophical questions to the point of producing works that have, sadly, been lost."
World map: the cheapest (and most expensive) countries to live in: "The world map of the cost of living by country has been prepared by the moving website Move Hub based on the ranking that Numbeo compiles annually. The cost of living index is calculated from the following factors: rent, shopping, restaurants, and local purchasing power. An index of 100 represents the cost of living in New York, so the rest of the prices are calculated based on the Big Apple."
Analyzing the Floppotron: "In the era when no self-respecting computer was without a 3.5-inch floppy drive, PCs were true orchestras. (…) But every self-respecting orchestra needs a conductor to turn this cacophony into music for the ears. And that conductor is none other than Paweł Zadrożniak. Zadrożniak is a Polish engineer with a somewhat peculiar hobby: conducting his collection of obsolete hardware to play some of the most notable musical compositions, others… not so much. And the orchestra is called the Floppotron."
An impregnable fortress of zombies during World War I: "The use of poison gas was a characteristic military innovation of this conflict. The gases used ranged from tear gas to incapacitating agents such as mustard gas and lethal agents such as phosgene. Although the lethal capacity of the gases was limited, only 3% of combat deaths, the consequences of exposure to these chemical agents (burns, blindness, respiratory problems…) caused panic among soldiers. This is the story of the battle for the Osowiec Fortress, where the Germans fought against Russian zombies."
Be careful saying your cat is crazy, it might just be imitating you: "You've probably heard or said it more than once. The idea that pets resemble their owners is something we've repeated over and over, but now a new study goes further. And you'll have to restrain yourself before talking about your pet's psychological state, especially if you have cats, because maybe it's not that anything is wrong with it, but that it's reflecting your emotional state."
Public opinion isn't worth a damn (and that's why we should deceive you): "I can no longer count the studies that show that homeopathy cures nothing, but most of the public repeats, as if crazy, 'well, it works for me' or the bit about 'it won't do me any harm' (although it can) and ends up moving a market of 10,000 million euros. Even the most educated people, according to the latest FECYT survey, are the ones who believe in it the most, despite there being no scientific evidence (which suggests, perhaps, that having an education doesn't make you a more critical person)."
The thousand faces of Tetris and its endless story: "The history of Tetris is linked to the last years of the Soviet Union. "The speed with which the Soviet state disintegrated took almost everyone by surprise," said Archie Brown, professor emeritus at the University of Oxford, in statements to BBC World. The factors that precipitated the end of the communist regime were diverse, but the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev opened the doors to reforms: on the one hand, perestroika sought to reduce the intervention of Soviet bodies in the economy; on the other, glasnost sought to put an end to some remnants of Stalinist repression." A nice story, which I already wrote about many years ago on NeoTeo.
20 years of 'Futurama', its legacy in today's series: "Two decades after its television premiere, the acclaimed futuristic series created by Matt Groening is more alive than ever. The adventures of Fry, Leela, and Bender in space have marked a before and after in fiction storytelling, and many current series have incorporated some of the techniques that catapulted the Planet Express workers to success. We analyze which ones have become established over time."
Videos
Videos: All the "Dudes" from "Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey", a frozen swimming pool, RoboCop selling fried chicken, 900 meters deep, "Idle, Torrent", crashes in old car races (brutal), a trailer for the entire Star Wars saga, punching machine winner, poor thing, it broke my heart, he was embarrassed on the surf simulator, parrots addicted to opium, intense rescue of an eight-year-old boy, giant carrot, the intelligence of the octopus, excavator machine going down a hillside, confused dogs, owl sneezes, floating screwdriver, puppy blows out birthday cake candle, Queen (Live Aid) reality vs movie, sculpting hyperrealism, how to build a wooden bike, and the moving short film "Forget-me-not".
Galleries
Galleries: Race tracks from space, skeletons with jewels, old movie posters, what old people are embarrassed about, the horror of Mozza, round little animals, colored photos of Russian soldiers from World War I, dogs at the vet, the art of Yun Ling, the art of corpses from 1345, the manipulations of Louis Kellner, sports clothing from 1970, the fox photography of Rhiannon Buckle, the incredible illustrations of Antonio J. Manzanedo, the pulp art of Mort Kunstler, the amazing animated pixel art from Vertibirdo, and we end with the Animated Dump and the brilliant Weekly Visual Dump.
