Curious Fools

[curiousfools]

Today’s phantom public sphere has been fragmented and submerged into billions of individual capillaries.

https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-tech-turmoil-new-censorship/

[curiousfools]

The internet isn’t an adjunct to real life; it’s not another place. You don’t do things "on the internet," you just do things. The network is interwoven into every moment of our lives, and we should treat it that way.

https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/25/5431382/the-internet-is-fucked

[curiousfools]

All of us, to some extent, borrow from others, from the culture around us. Ideas are in the air, and we may appropriate, often without realizing, the phrases and language of the times. We borrow language itself; we did not invent it. We found it, we grew up into it, though we may use it, interpret it, in very individual ways. What is at issue is not the fact of “borrowing” or “imitating,” of being “derivative,” being “influenced,” but what one does with what is borrowed or imitated or derived; how deeply one assimilates it, takes it into oneself, compounds it with one’s own experiences and thoughts and feelings, places it in relation to oneself, and expresses it in a new way, one’s own.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/11/09/oliver-sacks-the-river-of-consciousness-the-creative-self/ 

[curiousfools]

It was at that time that I realized a new value of the hijab, that I'm wearing one to remind myself of my minority-ness. I'm an individual, different from other people, and I would like people to respect that. And since I'm different, I need to respect other 'different' people as well. I need to always make a space for difference whether it's in religion, gender, ethnicity, et-cetera. My hijab is a social one, not a religious one. It makes me more human.

https://www.vice.com/en_id/article/j55bmy/my-hijab-is-social-not-religious-it-makes-me-more-human

[curiousfools]

People who worry about the fate of democracy still write (and read) books. Those who are determining it prefer to tweet.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/who-owns-the-internet

[curiousfools]

people gravitate to new things with familiar roots. This is how culture evolves—in small steps that from afar might seem like giant leaps.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/what-makes-things-cool/508772/

[curiousfools]

Weekend Music Break No.110 — Abdullah Ibrahim’s ‘tawhid’

Cecil McBee’s thumping bassline complimented by the sporadic drums of Roy Brooks creates a melancholic setting for Abdullah Ibrahim’s exultation titled “Ishmael” (recorded 1976), named after the so…

[curiousfools]

The overall stumbles of building centralized hubs of internet culture mean that, going forward, content might soon be consumed not by one large audience on a single platform, but by thousands of smaller audiences across a variety of online spaces.

http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/06/theres-no-money-in-internet-culture.html

[curiousfools]

the truth is that running a platform for culture creation is, increasingly, a charity operation undertaken by larger companies.

http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/06/theres-no-money-in-internet-culture.html

[visual-poetry]

from »the lewis carroll picture book« (1899) (+)

[curiousfools]

The self is not merely chosen. It is created. Through wonder and beauty; suffering and loss; through heartbreak and grief; exultation and consolation; by roaring back at the whirlwind, and stepping off the edge of the abyss. Not merely by clicking, tapping, swiping; liking, favoriting, choosing; buying, having, using. But by dreaming, loving, forgiving, daring, exploring, suffering, knowing, defying, rebelling.

By Umair Haque over here. 

[curiousfools]

Photographer Captures Striking & Moving Portraits Of People In The Middle East - DesignTAXI.com

“What happened to your arm?” “I was walking down the stairs and looking at the stars.” (Amman, Jordan) Photographer Brandon Stanton...

No disrespect to the photographer, but I like the captions more. 

[dingdongdont]

Women are sharing their comebacks to instances of everyday sexism

and it’s amazing

but wait there’s more

omg and then 

from (x)

[misandry-mermaid]

"Why, is your nose bigger than your dick?" OMFG so good!

[curiousfools]

The word 'undisclosed'

Why does it even exist? This has baffled - actually, annoyed - me for quite some time. It's two prefixes that mean the same thing - negative. Two negatives make a positive so what the fuck is the point of both of them? 'Undisclosed', to me, is just the same as 'closed' plain and simple. 

[curiousfools]

This fish's head is transparent. How beautiful and weird? Nature never fails to amaze. 

[curiousfools]

iDiots. 

Poignant (and adorable) little short film about our obsession with smart devices. 

[Why is it that we find robots adorable?]

[nevver]

World Peace