Good Reads

[JohnnySavage]

LOVE these sorts of stories. They absolutely fascinate me.

Anyone who also finds these sorts of things interesting might enjoy The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Darby Penny. Sad, but moving and beautiful too.

I used to drive past the entrance to this place nearly every day in the late 80s, but never knew what was going on there. It's hidden well back in the woods, adjoining Ft. Meade/NSA


There is an old street car station underneath DuPont Circle in DC. It's been abandoned for years and every decade or so someone puts together a group to try to redevelop/repourpose it. I was involved in one such group a few years ago.

http://www.dupontunderground.org/

 

[Laurel]

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2013/11/25/p233/131125_r24296_p233.jpg

Human beings make terrible drivers. They talk on the phone and run red lights, signal to the left and turn to the right. They drink too much beer and plow into trees or veer into traffic as they swat at their kids. They have blind spots, leg cramps, seizures, and heart attacks. They rubberneck, hotdog, and take pity on turtles, cause fender benders, pileups, and head-on collisions. They nod off at the wheel, wrestle with maps, fiddle with knobs, have marital spats, take the curve too late, take the curve too hard, spill coffee in their laps, and flip over their cars. Of the ten million accidents that Americans are in every year, nine and a half million are their own damn fault.

A case in point: The driver in the lane to my right. He’s twisted halfway around in his seat, taking a picture of the Lexus that I’m riding in with an engineer named Anthony Levandowski. Both cars are heading south on Highway 880 in Oakland, going more than seventy miles an hour, yet the man takes his time. He holds his phone up to the window with both hands until the car is framed just so. Then he snaps the picture, checks it onscreen, and taps out a lengthy text message with his thumbs. By the time he puts his hands back on the wheel and glances up at the road, half a minute has passed.

Levandowski shakes his head. He’s used to this sort of thing. His Lexus is what you might call a custom model. It’s surmounted by a spinning laser turret and knobbed with cameras, radar, antennas, and G.P.S. It looks a little like an ice-cream truck, lightly weaponized for inner-city work. Levandowski used to tell people that the car was designed to chase tornadoes or to track mosquitoes, or that he belonged to an élite team of ghost hunters. But nowadays the vehicle is clearly marked: “Self-Driving Car.”​

- read the full article Auto Correct: Has the self-driving car at last arrived? (from The New Yorker)​

 

[Laurel]

I used to drive past the entrance to this place nearly every day in the late 80s, but never knew what was going on there. It's hidden well back in the woods, adjoining Ft. Meade/NSA


There is an old street car station underneath DuPont Circle in DC. It's been abandoned for years and every decade or so someone puts together a group to try to redevelop/repourpose it. I was involved in one such group a few years ago.

http://www.dupontunderground.org/

Very cool!

 

[Laurel]

Young farm workers are falling ill from “green tobacco sickness” while the industry denies it and government lets it happen.

http://www.thenation.com/sites/default/files/user/20/img_1545_snapseed-1v2_img.jpg

The air was heavy and humid on the morning the three Cuello sisters joined their mother in the tobacco fields. The girls were dressed in jeans and long-sleeve shirts, carried burritos wrapped in aluminum foil, and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. “It was our first real job,” says Neftali, the youngest. She was 12 at the time. The middle sister, Kimberly, was 13. Yesenia was 14.

Their mother wasn’t happy for the company. After growing up in Mexico, she hadn’t crossed the border so that her kids could become farmworkers. But the girls knew their mom was struggling. She had left her husband and was supporting the family on the minimum wage. If her girls worked in the tobacco fields, it would quadruple the family’s summer earnings. “My mom tends to everybody,” Neftali says. This was a chance to repay that debt.

The sisters trudged into dense rows of bright green tobacco plants. Their task was to tear off flowers and remove small shoots from the stalks, a process called “topping and suckering.” They walked the rows, reaching deep into the wet leaves, and before long their clothes were soaked in the early morning dew. None of them knew that the dew represented a health hazard: when wet, tobacco leaves excrete nicotine, which is absorbed by the skin. One study estimated that on a humid day—and virtually every summer day in North Carolina is humid—a tobacco worker can be exposed to the nicotine equivalent of thirty-six cigarettes.

Their mother told the girls to stick together, but Neftali soon fell behind. “I was seeing little circles, and the sky started to get blurry,” she says. “It felt like my head was turned sideways.” Her mother ordered her to rest in the shade, but Neftali sat down only briefly. “I wanted to show that I could work like an adult,” she recalls. She soldiered on through a splitting headache and waves of dizziness. Several times, about to faint, she sank to the ground between rows to rest.​

- read the full article Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields? (from The Nation)​

 

[Laurel]

Ask a North Korean: Are there any jokes North Koreans like to tell?

http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Mina_week5.png

I agree that in tough times laughter is the best cure, but in North Korea people do not make jokes as often as they do in South Korea or other developed countries. I think this is because North Korean people are too tied up with the hardships of life to relax and exchange jokes with other people.

When I was growing up my family did not have many things to laugh about. My mother was always financially stressed and as a result, I used to refrain from laughing in front of her because I knew it could make her upset. I was sixteen years old then and I’m sure you know what girls of that age are like. I could easily burst into laughter at silly things such as a dog barking next door, but I could not laugh in front of my mother – who was literally burnt out from dealing with all the stress and hardships of raising our family.
[...]
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. North Korean people make jokes, too. Despite being struck by poverty and depression, people cannot live their entire life being depressed. And sometimes jokes appear even in the weirdest situations…such as when I remember a goat and a pig that joined the army!

One of my distant relatives was an old man that lived in a countryside raising a goat and a pig. During the daytime, he would stay out cutting the grass to feed his pig and put the goat out to pasture. But one day when I visited his house in the afternoon, I was astonished to found him at home. I asked why he was at home instead of out taking care of his animals as he always did.

“All of a sudden – and at the same time – my goat and pig decided to join the army!!” he said. Of course, it did not make any sense. But he explained further.

The situation was like this: A few days back, a couple of soldiers sneaked into his barn and stole his animals. Searching for the animals, he found a note nearby the area his goat used to stay that said, “Protecting one’s country is the most sacred vocation on earth. Believing what the pig chose to do was a right thing, I am following him. – Sincerely, Your Goat.”​

- read the full article When a goat and pig decided to join the North Korean army (from NK News)​

 

[Laurel]

SAME!!!!

 

[Laurel]

I had no idea people did this. Does anyone here "burn in" their headphones/earphones?

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2013/11/131115_burning_headphones_01-660x440.jpg

OK, audiophiles: real talk. Earphone makers seem to be either too polite or scared to say anything. And the people in the industry who should know better are only actively encouraging a ritual. So let me say it for them: Earphone burn-in is a bunch of hokum.

For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, it basically amounts to pumping different kinds of sound into a new pair of headphones or earphones for a given period of time. This is to be done before any critical listening happens. Think of it as the sonic equivalent of breaking in a new pair of shoes — the idea being that the true character of your earphones will only surface after some robust exercise. The only problem? There’s zero evidence this does anything but defer your enjoyment of music and add more confusion to an already complex topic.

Audiophiles will often apply their own burn-in technique to any number of music-listening devices: earphones, headphones, amps, speakers, even cables. With larger headphones, mechanical burn-in is supposed to describe the gradual settling in of the design parameters of the cone diaphragms (the things that vibrate back and forth to create the air pressure changes that we interpret as sound in our ears) into their intended or optimal state. After this period, proponents claim they are able to vibrate more freely, thus allowing for better sound.

But wait, there’s more. Optimal burn-in times range from 40 to 400 hours, and the process itself can also take myriad forms. Manufacturers like Ultrasone offer specific burn-in times for their cans, but others are happy to leave the details to the true believers. Some of the latter will simply play music through their phones continuously for a day or two. Others go with a more comprehensive approach, making elaborate burn-in mixes and sharing them with others. These can include loops of pure tones, white noise, sine wave sweeps, and even pink noise. A cult burn-in favorite includes using Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, an album that’s been described as “the tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator.” Others simply prefer the soothing sound of rain sticks.​

- read the full article Please Stop ‘Burning In’ Your Earphones (from Wired Magazine)​

 

[Laurel]

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/esq-price-is-right-terry-kniess-071210-lg-52035066.jpg

Terry Kniess has prepared. Over the back of the living-room couch, he's draped the yellow T-shirts he and his wife, Linda, wore that fateful morning on The Price Is Right. Hers has a photograph of their beloved departed Maltese on the front: "This is my Krystal and she was spayed," it reads. "Is your pet spayed or neutered?" Host Drew Carey's signature is on the back. Terry's shirt is simpler, and it's unsigned: "Las Vegas loves The Price Is Right." On the coffee table, he's laid out the iconic name tags he and Linda were given, as well as their green seat assignments for the first of two tapings on September 22, 2008, in the Bob Barker Studio at CBS's Television City: 004 and 005 — right down in front, immediately to the left of the four podiums on Contestant's Row.

He has the giant white cue card that a stagehand held up — TERRY KNIESS — because most contestants can't hear announcer Rich Fields telling them to come on down above the sound of the crowd. (Terry couldn't.) He also has the operating instructions for the Big Green Egg, "The World's Best Smoker and Grill," which Terry won with a perfect bid of $1,175 from Contestant's Row. It's by the pool out back, and Terry agrees that it's awesome. He has Linda's passport out, just in case, and their marriage certificate, dated April 7, 1972. "I know I would ask to see it," he says.

He turns over the back of the giant white cue card to show the meticulous notes he jotted down after the show, including his final take — actual retail price, $56,437.41 — after he won both Showcases, the game's ultimate prize, with yet another perfect bid, the first in the show's thirty-eight-year-long daytime history: $23,743. And then, last, he lifts up a copy of a supermarket tabloid with the headline DREW CAUGHT UP IN PRICE IS RIGHT RIGGING SCANDAL and with a story about Terry on page 9, his name misspelled ("Terry Neese") but the numbers exactly right.

"If there's one thing I've learned through all this," Terry says, "it's that there's such a thing as being too perfect."​

- read the full article TV's Crowning Moment of Awesome (from Esquire)​

 

[Laurel]

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/11/131111_CBOX_WheresWaldoThere.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg

Illustrator Martin Handford published the first in his beloved series of Where’s Waldo books over 25 years ago.* The books challenge readers to find the titular cartoon man, clad in his trusty red-striped shirt and red-striped hat, as he hides in a landscape of red-striped red herrings. When attempting to find Waldo you can scan the page completely from top to bottom, or you can focus your search around certain landmarks where Waldo seems likely to be hiding (in a castle’s moat, riding a blimp). Neither approach is particularly efficient. Which got me to wondering: What if there’s a better way?

I knew that Handford had placed Waldo in each of these illustrations, and in my experience, all people—even people who make a living hiding cartoon men in cartoon landscapes—have tendencies, be they conscious and unconscious. True randomness is very difficult to achieve, even if you want to, and according to Handford he does not necessarily aim for unpredictability. “As I work my way through a picture, I add Wally when I come to what I feel is a good place to hide him,” he once told Scholastic. Knowing this, is it possible, I wondered, to master Where’s Waldo by mapping Handford’s patterns?

I sought to answer these questions the way any mathematician who has no qualms about appearing ridiculous in public would: I sat in a Barnes & Noble for three hours flipping through all seven Where’s Waldo books with a tape measure.
​

- read the full article Here’s Waldo (from Slate)​

 

[Laurel]

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2013/11/25/p233/131125_r24304_p233.jpg

Whenever a friend asks me if I have any interesting tales involving text-messaging, I think of Jeremy. Jeremy, a man I am no longer in touch with, was someone I once considered a friend. It started out very simply: one day I received a text message from a phone number I did not recognize. Intrigued, I replied, and thus began an intimate and illuminating correspondence. I wish to share with you now my record of this peculiar kinship.

UNKNOWN NUMBER 12/5 9:46 PM
sup you comnig to this thing?

MICHAEL 12/5 9:46 PM
hi oops I don’t know this number. I’m Michael, who is this?

UNKNOWN NUMBER 12/5 9:58 PM
oops my mistake

MICHAEL 12/5 9:58 PM
hahahaha no problem—happens. . .where are you anyway? Like what city? Los Angeles? or. . .

MICHAEL 12/5 10:06 PM
I’m in LA

MICHAEL 12/5 10:34 PM
haha. I don’t really recognize your area #

—



UNKNOWN NUMBER 12/6 11:39 AM
oh shit just saw yur messages yea I live north of la wish i lived down there tho

UNKNOWN NUMBER 12/6 11:40 AM
sorry for the wrong number. peace

MICHAEL 12/6 11:42 AM
hey listen I already said don’t worry about it and I meant it. it’s no problem.

MICHAEL 12/6 11:46 AM
?

MICHAEL 12/6 12:14 PM
aaaannyway haha. how was da party?
:}

UNKNOWN NUMBER 12/6 12:59 PM
not bad. not like a hollywood party lol like where you live. thad be fun

MICHAEL 12/6 1:30 PM
you should come to town one night and I’ll take you to a party at my buddy Michael Cera’s house

MICHAEL 12/6 1:43 PM
the actor haha​

- read the full article My Man Jeremy, by Michael Cera (from The New Yorker)​

 

[JohnnySavage]

My phone number has an area code of 202. About once a week someone dials my number, trying to get a business in NYC with a 212 area code, but the same following seven digits. I usually have a very nice chat with them.

 

[unregistered]

 

[JohnnySavage]

That's just how I roll.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Well speak of the devil. I just got a wrong number call from someone wanting to speak to human resources.

"That would be me, how can I help you?"

"Do you provide a defined benefits plan to your employees?"

"No, I'm a single-member LLC and you are talking to the single member. Although, I do have some great benefits."

"Thank you for your time."


She didn't seem interested in chit chat.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

“Yes, much of the Internet is free. But it takes time and energy to develop the skills and habits necessary to successfully derive value from today’s media. Knowing how to tell a troll from a serious thinker, spotting linkbait, understanding a meme, cross checking articles against each other, even posting a comment to disagree with something–these are skills. They might not feel like it, but they are. And they’re easier to acquire the higher your tax bracket.”

Ryan Holiday, The New Digital Divide: Privilege, Misinformation and Outright B.S. in Modern Media, Betabeat.

Holiday writes of the extreme privilege often inherent in digital literacy and the fact that it’s expensive to be a core user of online media.

If I work as a security guard or at the counter of a Wendy’s, our media environment is significantly more difficult to track. Not everyone has their Internet time subsidized by an employer who asks them to sit in front of a computer all day. In fact, many people have jobs that forbid them from doing just that, with bosses who will write them up if caught checking their phone. These people–we often refer to them (derisively) as “average Americans”–are removed from the iterative, lightning-fast online media cycle for hours at a time and often for the entire day.

Before you joke about how lucky they are, think about how that would change someone’s relationship with culture. It means they end up getting their news from Facebook or from the “most emailed” stories of the day (of dubious validity). With only so much time left at the end of the day, they go to the one or two places that can give them the gist. Their reality is shaped by the things that tend to trickle about and from the Internet.

He raises the food/nutrition analogy to point out how dangerous the consequences of such a divide can be. American’s obesity epidemic, caused in large part by a culture of eating what’s cheap and convenient because of a lack of access and affordability, can and will replicate itself in unhealthy media consumption patterns. (Related: The Information Diet by Clay Johnson)

Culturally, a portion of the population will be stuffed with hormone-injected garbage (Huffington Post slideshows, Facebook linkbait and other Cheetos-like information) while the other portion lives in its own reality of tailor-made, high quality information that makes them increasingly wealthy and utterly detached. One side will be able to influence, direct and exploit the other side because one controls the media while the other is at its mercy.

 

[Laurel]

Hey, remember when we worried that cable news represented the death of intelligent political debate? That seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?

Imagine being Rob Ford right now. That’s probably pretty hard, because odds are, dear reader, you do not take stimulants which result in your deciding that a city council meeting is an excellent time to bowl over an old lady, like so:

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/196reggwtj403gif/ku-xlarge.gif

Nor are you usually inclined, probably, to mock someone else while they’re speaking when all of the cameras are trained on you, like so:

http://gamereax.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/fordcouncilmeeting.gif

But then, we can’t all be Rob Ford; he’s living in a world of his own. And that world is: giant social media hit.

After all, watch that last GIF again, and you start to wonder if there is a measure of sober calculation behind Rob Ford’s antics. Like I said, he knows the world is watching. He’s also well aware, I think, at this point, that his actions are going to be memorialized in these short clips. After all, this one here has been a classic on the Internet for well over a year now:

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/185xyvtzjjtssgif/k-bigpic.gif

[...]

The GIF-ification of political culture is certainly a lot of fun for those of us who would otherwise plunge into despair at a glimpse of the latest political headlines. It allows you to preserve those lifesaving moments of absurdity on an endless digital loop. But as in Ford’s case, it happens to underline very clearly that politics is not particularly well done when it’s conducted in memorable-imagery form.​

- read the full article Rob Ford Is — Unfortunately — the Ideal Politician for the GIF Age (from Flavorwire)​

 

[oggbashan]

...

There is an old street car station underneath DuPont Circle in DC. It's been abandoned for years and every decade or so someone puts together a group to try to redevelop/repourpose it. I was involved in one such group a few years ago.

http://www.dupontunderground.org/

London's Underground subway system has a considerable number of disused stations: http://underground-history.co.uk/front.php

I visited the Aldwych/Strand Station, frequently used as a movie set, on an open day a couple of years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldwych_tube_station

http://www.smashinglists.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/aldwych.jpg

 

[Laurel]

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2013/1108/20131108__1109burnfolo~5.JPG

Until two years ago, Luke "Sasha" Fleischman was a shy teen, a loner with odd hobbies and a bright mind, but far from a civil rights activist.

But between Fleischman's freshman and senior year something changed: Fleischman decided to identify as agender or "nonbinary" gender, neither male nor female. Sasha asked to be referred to by the pronouns "they," "them," and "their."

Family members say that very personal decision helped the teen blossom. But police believe it also led another teenager to light Fleischman's skirt on fire as the student slept on a local bus, causing severe injuries that could take months to heal.

Since the incident, public support for the injured 18-year-old has been overwhelming, with more than $20,000 raised to help with medical expenses and civil rights leaders expressing outrage about the case. And understanding seems to be growing about the issues of gender identity that Fleischman hoped to call attention to.

On Friday, about half the 100 students at Maybeck High School in Berkeley, where Fleischman attended, wore skirts for Skirts for Sasha Day and carried signs reading, "Get well, Sasha, we miss you."

No one knows what the future holds for the once quiet student who suffered second- and third-degree burns and remains in stable condition at St. Francis Memorial Hospital's Bothin Burn Center in San Francisco.

But those who know the teen believe this hate crime, a violation of Fleischman's civil rights under the law, might stir the student to continue and even step up advocacy for like-minded people.​

- read the full article Students at Maybeck High School in Berkeley wear dresses and skirts during Skirt for Sasha Day Friday (from Mercury News)​

 

[Laurel]

Before infographics were even a thing, Fritz Kahn turned scientific facts into stunning, surreal illustrations.

http://f.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/slideshow_large/slideshow/2013/11/3021584-slide-2vafritzkahnp104.jpg

We’re in the golden age of infographics. Everything from the death toll in Breaking Bad to the sinking of the Titanic to trends in men’s jewelry has been rendered in fancy little charts, graphs, and maps. Infographics transform dense and dry facts into eye candy, and the Internet can’t get enough. But where did this data-viz craze begin?

Born in 1888, German scientist, doctor, and author Fritz Kahn was one of the grandfathers of modern data visualization. A new 390-page monograph of Kahn’s work, published by Taschen, takes readers into an illustrated world that features winged fish, insect-size parachutists, and blood cells used as boats. Surreal as these scenes seem, they're actually meant to visualize scientific facts.

“The first time my brother Thilo and I saw Kahn’s illustrations in spring 2008, we felt really hooked," the book’s co-editor, Uta von Debschitz, tells Co.Design. "We made jokes about the ‘Kahn virus’ being severely contagious, since everyone whom we showed the images seemed to have caught it, too.” The siblings, both designers, began collecting Kahn’s books from secondhand shops and sifting through his estates in German, Swiss, and U.S. archives.​

- read the full article The Best Of Fritz Kahn, Grandfather Of Data Visualization (from Fast Company)​

 

[oggbashan]

Don't you wish that your weather report was presented like this?

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs...cup-wager-stripping-naked-122122276.html?vp=1

 

[trysail]

Before infographics were even a thing, Fritz Kahn turned scientific facts into stunning, surreal illustrations.

Don't you wish that your weather report was presented like this?

Always, always, always read the fine print. The devil is in the details.






​

 

[Laurel]

Don't you wish that your weather report was presented like this?

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs...cup-wager-stripping-naked-122122276.html?vp=1

Yes!!

 

[Laurel]

http://f.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-small/inline/2013/11/3022022-inline-i-2-the-incredible-story-of-marion-stokes-who-single-handedly-recorded-35-years.jpg

In a storage unit somewhere in Philadelphia, 140,000 VHS tapes sit packed into four shipping containers. Most are hand-labeled with a date between 1977 and 2012, and if you pop one into a VCR you might see scenes from the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Reagan Administration, or Hurricane Katrina.

It's 35 years of history through the lens of TV news, captured on a dwindling format.

It's also the life work of Marion Stokes, who built an archive of network, local, and cable news, in her home, one tape at a time, recording every major (and trivial) news event until the day she died in 2012 at the age of 83 of lung disease.

Stokes was a former librarian who for two years co-produced a local television show with her then-future husband, John Stokes Jr. She also was engaged in civil rights issues, helping organize buses to the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, among other efforts. She began casually recording television in 1977. She taped lots of things, but she thought news was especially important, and when cable transformed it into a 24-hour affair, she began recording MSNBC, Fox, CNN, CSNBC, and CSPAN around the clock by running as many as eight television recorders at a time.

She'd feed a six-hour tape into the recorders late at night. She'd wake up early the next day to change them (or conscript family members to do the same if she wasn't home). She'd cut short meals at restaurants to rush home before tapes ended. And when she got too old to keep up, she trained a younger helper named Frank to run the various recording equipment.​

- read the full article The Incredible Story Of Marion Stokes, Who Single-Handedly Taped 35 Years Of TV News (from Fast Company)​

 

[Laurel]

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20131116_STP002_5.jpg

The story starts in 1959, in Novosibirsk, Russia. That was when Dmitry Belyaev, a geneticist, began an experiment which continues to this day. He tried to breed silver foxes (a melanic colour variant, beloved of furriers, of the familiar red fox) to make them tamer and thus easier for farmers to handle. He found he could, but the process also had other effects: the animals’ coats developed patches of colour; their ears became floppy; their skulls became rounded and foreshortened; their faces flattened; their noses got stubbier; and their jaws shortened, thus crowding their teeth.

All told, then, these animals became, to wild foxes, the equivalent of what dogs are to wild wolves. And this was solely the result of selection for what Belyaev called “friendly” behaviour—neither fearful nor aggressive, but calm and eager to interact with people.
[...]
Crucially for Dr Elia’s hypothesis, they do indeed indicate such a propensity. Even as children, according to 33 separate studies, the attractive are better adjusted and more popular than the ugly (they also have higher intelligence, which assists social skills). And of course, they have less difficulty finding a mate—and as a result have more children themselves. One study found that the most beautiful women in it had up to 16% more offspring than their less-favoured sisters. Conversely, the least attractive men had 13% fewer than their more handsome confrères.​

- read the full article Face the facts (from The Economist)​

 

[Laurel]

http://assets-s3.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/charles-manson-today-the-final-confessions-of-a-psychopath-20131121/1000x600/20131119-manson-x600-1384889435.jpg

He doesn't look how he used to look, of course, all resplendent in buckskin fringe, sometimes sporting an ascot or the Technicolor patchwork vest sewn by his girls, with his suave goatee and his mad Rasputin eyes and his fantastical ability to lunge out of his seat at the judge presiding over his trial, pencil at the ready to jam into the old guy's throat, before being subdued and thereby helping to cement a guilty verdict. Those days are gone. He's 79 years old. He's an old man with a nice head of gray hair but bad hearing, bad lungs, and chipped-and-fractured, prison-dispensed bad dentures. He walks with a cane and lifts it now, in greeting to his visitors, one of whom is a slender, dark-haired woman he calls Star.

"Star!" he says. "She's not a woman. She's a star in the Milky Way!"

He shuffles toward her, opening his arms, grinning, and she kind of drifts in his direction.

From a raised platform in the room's center, two guards armed with pepper spray and truncheons keep an eye on the couple. Star is 25 years old, comes from a town on the Mississippi River, was raised a Baptist, keeps a tidy home, is a prim dresser, has a fun sense of humor. Charlie is probably the most infamous convicted killer of all time. He's been called the devil for the way he influenced friends to murder on his behalf. He's spent the past 44 years in prison and nearly 60 years incarcerated altogether, meaning he has spent less than two decades of his life as a free man. He will never get out. For her part, Star has been living in Corcoran for the past seven years, since she was 19. It wasn't Charlie's murderous reputation that drew her here but his pro-Earth environmental stance, known as ATWA, standing for air, trees, water and animals. She has stuck around to become his most ardent defender, to run various give-Charlie-a-chance websites (mansondirect.com, atwaearth.com, a Facebook page, a Tumblr page) and to visit him every Saturday and Sunday, up to five hours a day, assuming he's not in solitary or otherwise being hassled by the Man. "Yeah, well, people can think I'm crazy," she likes to say. "But they don't know. This is what's right for me. This is what I was born for."​

- read the full article Charles Manson Today: The Final Confessions of a Psychopath (from Rolling Stone)​