The good songs on Dylan's latest record inflate with interest; the mediocre songs start to shrink and slink away. And there's a striking amount of upbeat rhythm & blues on the album.
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The Samsung 870 QVO (‘Q’ as in in 4-bit QLC), is our first look at a drive that will eventually ship with a whopping 8TB of NAND on board. Announced Tuesday, this is the new top capacity available, superseding a still-new flock of 4TB models. Samsung sent us the 2TB version for testing. It’s a great everyday performer; however, when you run out of cache (which shouldn’t be often), write pace falls off drastically.
Specs and pricing
A standard 2.5-inch SATA 6Gbps SSD, the 870 QVO is currently available in $130/1TB, $250/2TB (tested), and $500/4TB flavors. The 8TB model will be available in August for $900. That’s considerably cheaper than the high-capacity 4TB OWC Aura P12 and 8TB Sabrent Rocket Q NVMe drives we recently covered, and a far greater savings delta than we normally see between NVMe and SATA.
The very good movie version of Hamilton, filmed with the original cast at the height of the show's popularity, will perk up faithful cast album fans — and new viewers, too.
(Image credit: Disney)
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Should I buy a Chromebook or a Windows laptop? Whether you’re seeking out the best computer for your child or just weighing which inexpensive computer would make a great gift, we can help you choose the right one.
Who should buy a Windows PC?
A notebook PC powered by Microsoft Windows offers several advantages. Windows offers the most flexibility to run just about any app, as well as your choice of any browser. You can tweak and configure your PC as you choose.
That convenience demands more computing horsepower, and often a higher price compared to most Chromebooks. Prices can soar into the thousands of dollars, and if you need a powerful PC for gaming or video editing, Chromebooks really don’t offer that much competition. But you’ll find some great deals among our more affordably priced, top Windows picks.
Born in London, raised in Rome, and now living in Paris, Lucy Conticello is the director of photography at M, the celebrated weekend supplement of Le Monde, France’s most widely read daily newspaper. She joined for its relaunch in 2011, having started her career as a picture editor two decades ago on Liberal, a newsweekly in Rome, and later working on titles such as Businessweek, International Herald Tribune, and The New York Times Magazine.
“Twenty years later,” she says, “I still love how photography works on the psyche, how its immediacy lets readers access stories simply, and fosters – sometimes very casually – an emotional understanding about a story, its subjects and their circumstances.”
Here, Conticello shares her approach to commissioning photography for M, and why she prefers working with photographers who shoot on film.
Portrait courtesy of Le Monde.
BJP: What is M all about?
LC: Our stories aim for originality and rigour, with an irreverent streak. The magazine is a mix of genres: political and social tensions, culture and its broadening definition, fashion series, and stories about industry, design, and food are all recurring topics. In our portfolio section we have a mix of strong visuals, story- driven portfolios, acclaimed masters, and younger talents.
How has M evolved since you joined?
By leaps and bounds. We started out with no time to test-run issues, and all the top positions were covered by very experienced people, but almost everyone was covering that position for the first time. Today, I feel we really have a great mix of stories, all with a particular and diverse tone, as well as formidable art.
Does M have a distinct visual identity?
We have a penchant for natural light, warm hues, beautifully composed portraits. The images are never overly produced. The places we strive to shoot in are simple street scenes, the subjects’ neighbourhood coffee shops, their homes. We care about giving our readers an insight into the subjects’ daily life.
Is it true you prefer to commission photographers who shoot on film?
I enjoy working with photographers who have a clear vision, and less, in most cases, is more. Film encourages younger photographers to assert a greater control over their work. It’s about how you understand a situation, how you interpret it visually; it is about your voice and your edit. As the commissioner, I will ask to see all outtakes if the edit doesn’t align enough with the story, or a key opening scene was lost. However, time permitting, I always share the working layouts with photographers, as I want them to be involved in the process and see what we would like to do with their work. Collaboration works if it’s a two-way street.
How much do you collaborate with the magazine’s writers?
It’s important to nurture a respectful relationship with the reporters so that they can appreciate the photography’s contribution to their story, and also see how photography can effectively expand on it. We are all different, but in general, a ‘lone wolf’ reporter rarely engages with the photo department, and rarely has compelling art attached to a story. They alert us at the last minute, not giving us a chance to find a visual solution that could carry the story’s angle. Fortunately, in my experience, the lone reporters are a rare bird.
Do you aim to strike a balance between new and established talent?
I, like all the photography staff at M – Hélène Bénard-Chizari, Françoise Dutech, Laurence Lagrange and Federica Rossi – are constantly looking at new work and researching photographers and illustrators whom we don’t know. For urgent or last-minute assignments, we will refer to photographers who are solid, reliable and who successfully push themselves, consistently coming up with unexpected yet great art. We try to meet with photographers as much as our work permits, and we keep notes on their passions and interests, in case a story comes along that they’d be interested in collaborating on.
What is your advice to photographers pitching for commissions?
Work hard on finding your personal voice, your own signature. I always assign shoots based on a photographer’s personal work. So the pictures and types of stories you choose to self-assign will be those that also generate assignments.
Updated June 29, 2020 to reflect the latest Android tools.
Few things in life are as annoying as finding that your Android handset refuses to install any more app updates because it’s run out of storage. Unlike many of life’s little annoyances, though, this one’s easy to fix. You can't do anything about your system files, but you can quickly clear out precious gigs by sweeping up stale downloads, rooting out offline maps and documents, clearing caches, and wiping unneeded music and video files. And if these tips don’t do the trick, check out our picks for the best Android phones for every need and budget.
A new iPhone rumor made the rounds this weekend, and it wasn’t about the notch or the flat edges, or the size of the displays. This one’s about what’s in the box. Or rather, what’s not in it.
Respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has seemingly confirmed an earlier report by Barclays that Apple won’t be supplying a charger in the iPhone 12 box. Like none at all. Not even the lame 5W adapter that takes more than an hour to provide a decent charge.
Not since Apple removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 has there been a rumor with more (as Apple might describe it) “courage.” It’s unclear whether Kuo is talking about the whole iPhone lineup or just the entry-level models, but his sources expect Apple to ship some iPhone 12 models without a charger.
On Monday Belkin launched the Thunderbolt Dock Core, which the company claims is the first Thunderbolt-certified dual-powered Thunderbolt 3 dock.
The $170 Thunderbolt Dock Core accepts your laptop’s power supply (assuming it charges via USB-C), which can plug into the USB-C (PD) port on the side of Belkin’s dock. The port then supplies up to 60W to the laptop, which is typically enough to power an ultralight laptop or similar model. Because the device is dual-powered, the opposite is true: also The dock can pull its own power directly from the laptop’s Thunderbolt cable if needed.
What’s the difference between a USB-C hub and a Thunderbolt dock? They use the same physical interface—a Thunderbolt port can sometimes be indicated by a small lightning bolt, though your laptop’s manual is sometimes the best indicator. Data throughput is the difference, along with the ability to connect multiple high-definition displays at once.
Updated June 29, 2020 to reflect the latest Android tools.
Few things in life are as annoying as finding that your Android handset refuses to install any more app updates because it’s run out of storage. Unlike many of life’s little annoyances, though, this one’s easy to fix. You can't do anything about your system files, but you can quickly clear out precious gigs by sweeping up stale downloads, rooting out offline maps and documents, clearing caches, and wiping unneeded music and video files. And if these tips don’t do the trick, check out our picks for the best Android phones for every need and budget.
For the past seven years, the Los Angeles-based artist has celebrated and mourned Black lives in his work. Smith's portraits are sometimes unfinished — a reflection of Black lives cut short.
(Image credit: Nikkolas Smith)
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Burning colours, golden light, and verdant scenery fill the backdrops of Josh Aronson’s Tropicana. Backdrops populated with Floridian youth — artists, activists, skaters; a cast of characters donning bright clothes — young and free.
“I grew up in a Florida, not unlike the one imagined here,” writes Monica Uszerowicz, in the book’s foreword — referencing the semi-fictional Florida city imagined on its pages. “A warm and lush haven of climbable trees and mulchy driveways, of coastal waters and grapefruit trees … And the perpetual light dancing on shower curtains, on tiles. Mesmeric and constant.”
Aronson also grew up in Miami, and several of the photographs were taken in the corners of his childhood home. It was both nostalgia and frustration that compelled him to conceptualise of the project: a desire to reflect on his childhood in Florida and challenge the often inaccurate representations of the state, which dominate popular culture — Miami Vice, the Florida Man meme, Spring Breakers. Counter to the crime, hedonism, and drugs promulgated by these depictions, Tropicana hones in on Florida’s wild landscape, untamable climate, and rich youth culture. “We need to create room for dialogue, and different visual narratives about life in the state,” Aronson says.
One image depicts several boys moving through a field of palm trees; shirtless, their harmonised white trousers catch the glorious sun. The boys are skaters and Aronson photographed them, in part, because of their relationship with the land: “These are people who are carving their own spaces in the urban landscape — people who are engaging with Florida in their own ways.” Indeed, all the individuals featured in Tropicana have strong connections to the place: “I could not rely on my experience alone; I had to draw on the experiences of others,” continues Aronson, who cast a wide net to find people to collaborate with.
The individuals depicted are not just the subjects of the images that frame them; they are, in the words of Uszerowicz, co-authors — shaping and defining the work. “Young people — many of them local activists and artists — kiss and dance in the waters along the coast, in the Everglades, in woods bedecked with Spanish moss. They settle in trees like birds, pick ladybugs off their ankles, lay prone under a shower of petals,” writes Uszerowicz.
The Everglades, the woods, the sea — the landscape — are also central facets of the series, which celebrates the unruly and verdurous environments of Florida, but also warns of its fragility; the vulnerability of the coastal state to its tumultuous climate — only exacerbated by the ensuing climate crisis. “We do not have control over nature in Florida, or anywhere really,” says Aronson, “as much as we want to control our environment, the climate catastrophe is happening.”
The first edition of Tropicana was published in May as Florida locked-down in the wake of Covid-19. The visceral images, brimming with movement and life, accrued new significance amid a pandemic emptying urban areas and evoking unease and anxiety. “When the book came out it immediately had this strange, nostalgic quality,” says Aronson — a time capsule of intimacy, and touch, of people and places.
However, the photographer also regards Tropicana as a portal to the future: a world in which nature is preserved, and in which people are free to live without the fear of prejudice and discrimination. “I wanted to bring more of the books into the world,” continues Aronson, “but if I did, I wanted to use the publication to support movements against racism and discrimination.” In light of this Aronson will donate 100 per cent of proceeds from the second edition to the Youth Concept Gallery — an organisation providing creative arts learning centres to incarcerated youth in the South Florida area.
Tropicana is available to purchasehere. 100 per cent of the proceeds from the second edition will be donated to theYouth Concept Gallery— an organisation providing creative arts learning centres to incarcerated youth in the South Florida area.
The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is one of the only Chromebooks I’ve ever used that knows what it is. Much like Apple’s iPad or Microsoft’s Surface, the Duet’s identity is in its detachable versatility. It embraces its role wholeheartedly, with a lightweight design, bright WUXGA display, and funky magnetic keyboard case that combine into an impressively portable and stylish package.
It’s as easy on the wallet as it is on the eyes. The Duet costs just $299 at Best Buy for 128GB of storage—and that’s with a detachable keyboard. But you don’t need to be in the market for a cheap Chromebook to want one. The Duet’s quirky personality more than makes up for its pokey processor, so while it might not stand up to even a middling Chromebook like the Pixelbook Go in speed tests, the Duet will absolutely stand out in the crowd.
Intel’s endless 10nm nightmare has cost it so, so much.
It all started on September 5, 2014. That’s the day Intel introduced 5th-gen Core M chips based on “Broadwell,” the company’s first processors built using the 14-nanometer manufacturing process. Despite some manufacturing woes that pushed Broadwell back from its expected 2013 release, Intel’s offering served as the vanguard of processor technology. AMD remained stuck on the 28nm process with its abysmal Bulldozer architecture. A mere month later, the Apple iPad Air 2 launched with a custom A8X chip that couldn’t quite hang with Intel’s older Haswell CPUs in Geekbench—but it was getting close.
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with comedian Hasan Minhaj, about the topics he's been tackling on the latest season of his show, Patriot Act, on Netflix.
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For his latest novel, Kevin Kwan decided to update one of his own favorite books, A Room With a View. The result is Sex and Vanity, a fun, decadent whirl that manages to take on some serious subjects.
(Image credit: Doubleday)
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Horror may not be readers' first choice in times like this, but Emma J. Gibbons' new collection, influenced by both punk rock and classic literature, is full of great characters and genuine scares.
(Image credit: Trepidatio Publishing)
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Nikole Hannah-Jones says reparations might narrow the wealth gap. Ken Tucker reviews new albums by Lady Gaga and Carly Rae Jepsen. Dr. Julie Holland discusses the psychiatric uses of psychedelics.
(Image credit: The New York Times)
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In A Most Beautiful Thing, Arshay Cooper shares the story of how he, and others from rival gang neighborhoods on Chicago's West Side, found their way to crew — and each other.
(Image credit: Flatiron Books)
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Yu Miri's novel, about a homeless man who dies and finds the afterlife much bleaker than he expected, is both mournful and angry, emphasizing the unfairness of poverty with painful contrasts.
(Image credit: Riverhead Books)
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Lived Experience: Reflections on LGBTQ Life, presents a generation of people who have witnessed both tragedy and triumph. Photographed by Delphine Diallo, many of these people, all over the age of 50, have lived through trauma — of being rejected by their families, facing violence in public, and losing loved ones to the AIDS epidemic. But they have also witnessed an extraordinary period of progress in LGBTQ rights, highlighting the importance of continuing the fight for equality laid out by generations before us.
Revealing the stories of over 60 people in America, the book, which was designed by Emerson, Wajdowicz Studios (EWS), is the latest in a series of photobooks about global LGBTQ communities. “The journeys of the people in this book showed the beauty of life, from overcoming loneliness, pain, sadness, and loss to accepting who they really are and acknowledging their strength and determination when it comes to the way they have chosen to live,” says Delphine Diallo, in a statement provided by the publisher. “I feel so honoured to have had the opportunity to hear these voices. Their words are a reminder of how acceptance and forgiveness, without judgment, can raise the consciousness of society.”
Below are some of Diallo’s portraits, and excerpts from the stories featured in the book, available to pre-order for August 2020.
Kim Watson
Co-founder of Community Kinship Life, a Non-Profit service for the Trans community in New York
“My greatest joy is my daughter… My advice to her and her generation is to always be open-minded. Make your own choices. Don’t let anybody choose for you. And pass no judgment on others… Continue pouring love, doesn’t matter how much, because blessings will come, and however they come, they will come to you.”
Frederick A. Davie
Executive Vice President of the Union Theological Seminary, and Presbyterian minister in the Presbytery of New York City
“I had a girlfriend, then I had a boyfriend, then I had a girlfriend. It was a struggle. I did a sermon once on what it meant to come out, and I talked about the ways in which I had to deconstruct each of the internalised oppressive notions of identity and then rebuild a life based on who I am authentically. And then just go out, and just live.”
Alexis De Veaux and Sokari Ekine
Alexis (left) is a writer, speaker, and activist, and Sokari (right) is a visual scholar, writer, activist, and educator
“To people coming up behind me, I would say that it’s important for them to live their best life. Do anything you want to do, and do it with a knowledge of history, of whose shoulders you’re standing on. There were generations of people who were in the closet, or living double lives, triple lives, and unable to be who they were, so we can be who we are.”
— Alexis De Veaux
“I married a man, which was a complete disaster. I had three children, three sons, and in late 1983, 1984, I moved to London with the children. It was this wonderful revolutionary place. Being in London at that period of time was my coming out in multiple ways, as a queer person and as a person away from the oppressive environment that I had been in. I also think it was liberating for my kids.”
— Sokari Ekine
Howard L. White
Collage Artist
“I served in the military from 1963 to 1966. That was my right of passage. There was a sergeant that did not particularly like me. Redneck, from Kentucky, but boy, he was a dead ringer for Burt Lancaster. I said, you know what, that’s some action I’m going to tackle before I get out of this army, and my last day in the army, we got together. Shit happens. I got out of the military and went to art school. Art has been my saviour.”
Evelyn Whitaker and Sonja Jackson
Educators
“Love is the most wonderful feeling, there’s nothing like it, because it just takes over my whole body when I feel it. I’m not talking about sex. I still experience the warmth and completeness of being loved with my current partner, Sonja. With her I feel so loved. I am truly blessed.”
— Evelyn Whitaker (left)
“I met a wonderful woman in Evelyn, and I couldn’t be happier. I was working for The City University of New York. I was an academic dean… I started a centre for teaching and learning. Met Evelyn there. I worked for her actually, at one point. We did a joint project together, the student development centre. Then we started doing presentations all over and travelling together.”
— Sonja Jackson (right)
Ken Kidd
Activist
“People need to come out, and not just about their sexuality. If they feel a certain way about immigration, if they feel a certain way about women’s health, about human rights, about healthcare, about gun violence, come out!”
Lola Flash
Photographer and Activist
“I got to New York around 1987, 1988, and before I knew it I was in ACT UP. My projects were shooting the demonstrations and stuff like that. It was a really tough time in all of our lives. So far as our community is concerned, love — and of course death — was what galvanised us as a unified voice… Love seemed like the simple solution to it all, but I can’t see the LGBTQIA+ community advancing further without people loving each other a little bit more.”
Lived Experience: Reflections on LGBTQ Life by Delphine Diallo is published by The New Press, available topre-order for August 2020.
—
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Major Internet service providers are scheduled to end their quarantine benefits soon, once again subjecting Americans to data caps and removing protections if they are unable to pay their bills.
The FCC’s Keep Americans Connected Pledge is set to expire on June 30. Companies initially agreed to the pledge and rushed to add benefits. ISPs like CenturyLink, T-Mobile, Verizon, and many others said they would not discontinue service or charge late fees for those unable to pay because of the coronavirus. They also agreed to open their Wi-Fi access points for free. So far, the FCC has not publicly said that it would extend the pledge.
With the MSI Creator 17, we have seen the light. As the name implies, the laptop features a 17.3-inch, 16:9 screen with a UHD 4K resolution panel. But it’s not the size, nor the resolution, that matters here. As the first laptop in the world with a miniLED screen, it's crisper and brighter (can you say 1,000 nits?!) than anything we've seen before.
Typical laptops use standard LEDs that are larger and limit the density in a laptop screen. A typical display LED might be 2mm in size.
A miniLED could be a tenth the size of that conventional LED. Being able to pack LEDs closer together inside of a display means the potential for more zones, which gives you blacker blacks, and increased contrast, too.
Comedian Patton Oswalt helped finish his late wife Michelle McNamara's true-crime book about the Golden State Killer, I'll Be Gone in the Dark. Now, it's being adapted into a six-part series for HBO.
(Image credit: Robyn Von Swank/HBO)
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Ottessa Moshfegh's latest isn't exactly a murder mystery, though there seems to be a mysterious murder. It's more a portrait of a woman gradually losing her mind, using the mystery to try to hang on.
(Image credit: Penguin Press)
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My Queer Blackness, My Black Queerness (MQBMBQ) is a three-week independent initiative highlighting, supporting, and celebrating the intersection of Black Queerness in society: “It is a protest; a celebration that frames Blackness as a polyphony, a genre or melody with a vast variety of notes and textures, denouncing both white Queer racism and Black anti-Queer antagonism, by way of art, film, and literature.”
MQBMBQ includes a print sale, which will run for three weeks, of limited edition prints from 12 image-makers: Campbell Addy, Kennedi Carter, David Uzochukwu, Michael Bailey Gates, Sackitey Tesa, Emmanuel Sanchez-Monsalve, Florian Joahn, Myles Loftin, Tim Walker, Hao Zeng, Daniel Obasi, and Justin French.
100 per cent of the proceeds after printing and shipping will be donated to TransWave JA & ForTheGworls — charities in aid of Black Trans individuals. Each image is available in a limited edition of 20 copies, 15 of which are offered in a smaller size for £100 and five of which are available in a larger size for £400. Prints from guest photographer Tim Walker are available for £1000.
“Last year, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) called the rise in violence against the transgender community a ‘national epidemic,’ and this by only referring to known cases — activists believe the actual numbers are much higher since not all abuses are reported and victims are often misgendered,” comment TransWave JA and ForTheGworls. “More than 80 per cent of those killed are women of colour. This is why we’ve chosen to create a print sale specifically geared to support organisations with Black Trans Women at their core.”
MQBMBQ also includes a journal, which will be updated weekly with quotes from the stories of Trans/Non-Binary people of colour from across the world, photographed and interviewed remotely by Damien Frost. Each week MQBMBQ will showcase film screenings by the late Marlon Riggs, providing insight into the history of Black Queer experience. The full programme can be viewed here.
