PicoBlog

Originally published at Entropy Magazine in 2015. 2015 is the 30th anniversary of the founding of Studio Ghibli and, according to Hayao Miyazaki, it may also be one of its final years as a studio. Because this is one of my favorite films studios and Miyazaki is one of my favorite artists, who’s made some of my favorite films, I’ve decided to go through the history of Studio Ghibli one film at a time.

Happy Sunday morning, What To Cook crew! If you’re feeling thrown off because I’m using proper capitalization here, same sister. But as What To Cook continues to grow, I am excited that I’ve brought on an editor to make these recipes even more *flawless.* And how can I ask an editor to edit a newsletter that is written without a shred of proper grammar? … ncG1vNJzZmivmJbBtbvCqKakZqOqr7TAwJyiZ5ufonyxe5JpZKahnqrBpnnPqKmkZZyawbXBwp5ksKqRpcBuw8itn2ZolJk%3D

A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.

Much has been written about Lori Vallow’s physical appearance over the past three years. In a way, it partially explains the widespread attention on her story because it suggested that Vallow contains a strange dichotomy: the cheerleader and the beauty queen/ the mom who now stands accused of conspiring to murder her children. This prompts endless fascination In 2020, when East Idaho News tracked Vallow and her new husband, Chad Daybell, down in Hawaii, the woman from the headlines came to life: the dreamy blonde curls, the flip-flops, the athleisure, the annoyed look on her face.

Hey pals, UTMB week is both a week of racing but also seemingly a B2B conference in one. I spent most of the week meeting a lot of you lot, talking to brand leads, media heads, and journalists, and they all too said they they were speaking to brand leads, media heads, journalists… you get the picture. The entire industry descends on Chamonix for that one week, yet conversations all happened in private hotel rooms, around booths and often featured a stop at Moody’s.

I recently spent a week in Singapore - a place that was home to me for thirteen years, seeing me through my elementary, pre-teen and young-adult years. I didn’t realise until after I had left for College how much the little country meant to me and how much I would miss the local foods. Nearly seven years later, I travelled back to visit some places that are core memories for me.

Greetings! It’s been a hectic few weeks for me, largely filled with long work days and a smattering of muddy fell runs. I look forward to the darker days for its festivities and slower weekends. A time to rejuvenate and reflect as we move towards the end of the year. And also to re-watch hours of Gilmore Girls (trust me on this, your autumn’s and winter’s will never be the same).

This newsletter is supported by Alegion. At Alegion, I work on a range of problems from online learning to diffusion models. Feel free to check out our data annotation platform or contact me about potential collaboration/opportunities! If you like this newsletter, please subscribe, share it, or follow me on twitter. Thank you for your support! Prior research in computer graphics and 3D computer vision has proposed numerous approaches for representing 3D shapes.

I just published a new investigation at ProPublica. It digs into OBN, a mysterious fraudster who says he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting Instagram’s security gaps. He’s eluded Meta and law enforcement, but we followed his trail to Las Vegas. Read all about this notorious Instascammer and the community of people like him here. And as always, feel free to get in touch. The previous edition of Digital Investigations offered advice for getting the most out of the Wayback Machine.