Friday Five: Sep 2, 2016
The spiritual successor to the Weapon of Choice music video you didn’t know you needed is here. Featuring Margaret Qualley (from The Leftovers) dancing like a maniac and some impressive camera trickery from Jonze and his team reminiscent of Lakai’s Fully Flared. Just watch it.
2. Like. Flirt. Ghost.
Mark H.K. Choi documents teen’s weird use of social media for Wired. From unspoken rules of how many selfies you should post on Instagram, to needlessly and pointlessly keeping a snap-streak going, the article and accompanying videos play out almost like a parody of itself and teen internet culture at large.
3. Is The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Maps The Most Influential Song of the 21st Century?
While a minor blip in 2003 alt-rock, this essay tracks the echoes of Maps from the memorable opening guitar riff, to the music video, and even a strange backwards tale of Ezra Koening riffing on the lyrics with Diplo which led to a Beyonce song.
There is another story surrounding Maps though. One that very rarely gets told.
The story of how — despite it only getting to №26 in the UK Charts; and barely even scraping its way onto the US Billboard Hot 100 — the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have recorded and released what may well be the single most influential song of the 21st century so far.
Its impact has been quiet but undeniable. Since it was released (first in 2003, on the album Fever To Tell; then as a single in its own right in early 2004) practically every last part of that song has been sampled, covered or copied in a number of other artists’ work.
4. Scammed by a Silicon Valley Startup
An essay that sent a wakeup call through the tech community this week, a tell all tale of fraud, lies, and startup culture all wrapped up in the perfect new job storm. While the original essay hid the identities of the co-founders and the startup itself, it didn’t take long for the folks over on Hacker News to do some sleuthing and reveal them under the auspices of protecting other startup employees, investors, and advisors.
5. Baltimore’s Eye In The Sky
Bloomberg sits down with Ross McNutt, the founder of Persistent Surveillance Systems, the company that has been taking live video tracking anything and everything moving around Baltimore. PSS developed from technology McNutt and his team developed for the US Army in Iraq, used to track combatants and their vehicles, or to rewind time to find out who planted an IED. As patterns can foretell, once the Army has something, the police departments of America want it too. McNutt started doing trial runs in Compton and popular sporting events, and for the low price of $4 million a year, he can give you near constant footage of any metropolitan area by flying a small plane outfitted with a hi-tech camera and streaming rig. If you were worried about the coming of Big Brother, he’s already arrived.
image url:
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*YZueD3Ii1khCsh0Wr826Bw.png