Links for June 19, 2022

💗 A Jazz Drummer’s Fight to Keep His Own Heart Beating — NY Times

Milford Graves was a groundbreaking percussionist who combined his craft with the study of how music impacts the heart. In a tragic twist of fate, he was diagnosed with amyloid cardiomyopathy ("stiff heart syndrome") in 2018. So in addition to traditional treatment for it, he began applying his alternative techniques to himself.

Graves has passed away since Corey Kilgannon's article was published in 2020, but    far surpassed his doctor's initial estimate of having 6 months to live.

Since the 1970s, Mr. Graves has studied the heartbeat as a source of rhythm and has maintained that recording musicians’ most prevalent heart rhythms and pitches, and then incorporating those sounds into their playing, would help them produce more personal music.

He also believes that heart problems can be helped by recording a patient’s unhealthy heart and musically tweaking it into a healthier rhythm to use as biofeedback.

In recent months, Mr. Graves has been listening constantly to his own heart with a stethoscope and monitoring it with an ultrasound device he bought on eBay.

“It turns out, I was studying the heart to prepare for treating myself,” he said.

A Jazz Drummer’s Fight to Keep His Own Heart Beating (Published 2020)

Milford Graves devoted himself to studying the rhythms of the heart. It turns out he was creating a technique to treat himself.

NYTimesBy

See also: Theatre Synchronizes Audiences Heartbeats

☢️ Disney World Could Have Gone Nuclear — Forbes

James Conca shares the wild story of the era when Disney had ambitions to build a nuclear power plant and explains how it retains the authority to do so to this day:

Disney could not realize his vision unless he had permission from the Florida government to be autonomous. He really needed his own private municipality. So Florida created Disney’s private government and gave it the power to build roads and drains, levy taxes, issue bonds and have emergency services, powers usually reserved for a county government. […]

The nuclear angle was key to the futuristic plan for Epcot. Disney wanted this city to be self-reliant, and nuclear is the best way to do that. It was during an era more supportive of nuclear, more in need of big power and big dreams, and it wasn’t that long after Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative.

Disney World Could Have Gone Nuclear

In 1967, the State of Florida passed a law allowing Disney World to build a nuclear power plant. As bizarre as that sounds, it is more of a testament to the political power of the Mouse than anything nuclear. But they should explore an SMR to really go green in the vision of Walt himself.

ForbesJames Conca

💬 Internet ‘algospeak’ is changing our language in real time, from ‘nip nops’ to ‘le dollar bean’ — Washington Post

Like our environment, we shape our technology, and it shapes us in return. And since language is malleable, our vocabulary changes too:

“Algospeak” is becoming increasingly common across the Internet as people seek to bypass content moderation filters on social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch.

Algospeak refers to code words or turns of phrase users have adopted in an effort to create a brand-safe lexicon that will avoid getting their posts removed or down-ranked by content moderation systems. For instance, in many online videos, it’s common to say “unalive” rather than “dead,” “SA” instead of “sexual assault,” or “spicy eggplant” instead of “vibrator.”

Internet ‘algospeak’ is changing our language in real time, from ‘nip nops’ to ‘le dollar bean’

To avoid angering the almighty algorithm, creators on TikTok and other platforms are creating a new vocabulary.

The Washington PostTaylor Lorenz

Tweets of the Week

And speaking of our technology shaping us in return: