Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

>Number One<

All Connected (for Better and Worse)

Of course it would happen that a remote Amazonian tribe of people gets consistent internet for the first time and instead of simply reporting this the news would turn it into sensationalist nonsense. To me, and the writer of this corrective article, the more interesting thing is how connected the world already is because this tribe did not wake up and get the internet but has had the intermittent access to it that existed pre-smart phone. As he says:

[M]any Amazonian tribes, in particular, have made the choice to intentionally interact with non-Indigenous society (or have felt, at times, that they have to interact with the non-Indigenous world and technology) in order to represent and advocate for themselves in political systems that seek to seize or exploit their land or otherwise marginalize them.

And certainly the New York Times originally article does nothing to actually focus on any the issues that this tribe encounters with or without the internet nor actually tell the story about indigenous tribes actually grapple with integrating their lives with the internet which to me, would just be a more interesting story. But I guess it doesn’t grab enough headlines.

>Number Two<

The Noise of Inner Noise

This is a kind of long and meandering article about art and sound and hearing loss but you know how doctors say tinnitus is just an imaginary noise that your brain is making? It turns out that might not/probably isn’t true but they recorded this ladies tinnitus for other people to hear. Between this article and movies like Metal it is nice to be getting a different perspective on hearing loss / hearing disruptions.

>Number Three<

Soft Power / Cool Japan

This video is often a little hyperbolic, a little in the weeds, and a few times it wasn’t exactly how I would have said things but it’s also over 2 hours so you take the good with the bad on these types of thing I guess. Plus I just kept getting linked it (I talk a LOT about soft power exerted by countries) and this video from Moon just happens to be about the type of soft power that Japan enacts on the world. If you’ve never heard of the Japanese government directive “Cool Japan”, this video will probably give you a lot to think about it.

>Number Four<

Censorship on the Inside

While libraries in a lot of American states are fighting for their life it’s also important to remember that people in prisons are, and always have been, restricted from reading material to help expand their minds and better their worlds too. This article deep dives on how prison libraries are used to build community but also how they are maintained, censored, and curtailed to restrict how people think and act.

>Number Five<

Crafty Patterns

To round out the month it’s just a very simple archive of scanned old timey patterns for everything from crochet and knitting to lacework and waxwork. I always love running across these types of libraries on the internet because they seem like they’d be extremely useful for a person looking for a specific old costume or historical clothing research. Some of these are as simple as 2-3 pages in a magazines but plenty of these are full scans of 100+ page books explaining the crafts in great detail with diagrams or pictures included as well.

That’s all for this month and hopefully I’ll see you back again next month with some more exciting and cool things!