The Anarchist's Cookbook guy, our comet lander, storm chasing hordes, the earliest worm, Russian glitch
Latest1. What happened to the guy who wrote the Anarchist’s Cookbook?
“Powell is now a sixty-five-year-old grandfather. He still speaks with a slight English accent from a young childhood spent in London and has the professorial habit, before answering a question, of raising his eyeglasses to his forehead and pausing a beat to think. In 1979, he left the United States and has made his home in outposts throughout the world: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has become a respected leader within the field of international schooling, heading several schools before launching an organization called Education Across Frontiers, which seeks to support international students with special needs. A recent book of Powell’s is entitled Becoming an Emotionally Intelligent Teacher. Much of his work has been funded by the U.S. Department of State.”
“The lander has been sleeping in a shaded spot on the comet’s surface after its dramatic touchdown (actually, three touchdowns) four months ago on Nov. 12, 2014 when it flew, landed, bounced and then repeated that process for more than two hours across the surface. Scientists estimated it could have bounced as high as 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) before becoming wedged in a spot that –- at that time — didn’t get much sunlight. The solar-powered lander quickly ran out of power, just hours after landing.”
“This was my girlfriend Rose’s first tornado, which made things exciting despite concerns about our proximity to the city. The tornado took on a multivortex character, where multiple areas of near surface vorticity (spinnyness) are stretching by the strong convergence and updraft of the mesocyclone, and moisture condenses within the low pressure of the vortex. These vortices danced around a central point of convergence and caused the appearance of the tornado to vary greatly. The wind again began to howl over us, and seeing that the tornado was approaching quickly, I elected to race us east to avoid the hordes of people chasing the storm. When we crossed US-Route 81 at 6:16, images I have seen show the tornado perhaps a mile to our west, more than close enough for me.”
4. The earliest worm distributed through the Internet.
“It disabled 10 percent of the computers connected to the Internet at the time. The worm worked by infecting computers with malware—and once the malware took hold, it would continue to replicate itself like a virus until the machines slowed and eventually shut down. Robert T. Morris released 99 lines of code on 2 November 1988 from computers at MIT to disguise the fact that the worm originated at Cornell. The now-infamous Morris Worm infected roughly 6,000 computers, rendering them useless. The worm, which infected computer systems at U.S. universities, research centers, and military bases, caused an estimated US $10 million worth of damage (equivalent to about twice that amount in today’s dollars).”
“Despite the abstract nature of their music, Love Cult has always been curious about the world around them and the way contemporary Russia influences their creative process (in one of their earlier videos they’ve used found footage from a Russian village in the 1990s). They found a perfect collaborator in director Alina Filippova who shares their interest in the dark stories hidden behind the everyday. In this video, Wonderland, Love Cult’s net of beats and samples is layered over footage of Filippova’s feature film Holy Days, a story of teenagers spending their summer vacation in a small Russian village. The film is due to be released in 2016.”
On Fusion: Rob Wile fills you in on the daily life of Jessica, the content creator of 2025.
Today’s 1957 American English Usage Tip:
discontent. For ‘the winter of our discontent,’ see IRRELEVANT ALLUSION.
The Credits
1.harpers.org / @sarahrlrnd 2. universetoday / @fcain 3. blogs.ei.columbia.edu 4. theinstitute.ieee.org 5. calvertjournal.com / @katypearce
Net of Beats and Samples