May 12
A Northland island has a very unusual (but good) problem...too many kiwi
A Northland island (in Aotearoa/New Zealand) has a very unusual (but good) problem...too many kiwi. Residents on Moturoa, in Ipipiri, have been forced to relocate the reclusive birds after their population swelled into the hundreds. (This was the result of a local program to control feral predators like cats and foxes - in most parts of New Zealand, kiwi are under threat.)
Finally, your checkers can nuke again!
Quadradius is back, baby! (Note that it is still in development mode and has not yet gathered many players, so arranging your own matches may be necessary).
Previously.
Who wouldn’t want to drink like an off-duty, world-renowned chef?
Lest you believe that interest in studying the habits of unstudied coolness was limited to the world of food and drink, recall the concurrent obsession with “off-duty” beauty and style, a concept that lost its novelty with the advent of Instagram. These days, fascination with figures in the culinary world seems to be very “on-duty”—the tools they use, the shoes and jackets they wear. Today, few may remember that copas de balón were first embraced by lauded chefs rather than marketers at beverage companies ... But the allure of a choice that’s more utilitarian than aesthetic has helped the copa de balón endure. It’s unexpected and delightful, like a fancy sandwich served on a quarter sheet tray. from The Balloon Effect
public domain [book cover] atrocities
[B]ooks in the public domain—books anyone with a digital file, a printer, and a dream can produce and sell—can be a sweet side hustle for people looking to make a quick buck, and they are free to make their own choices when it comes to the cover art they select, but this one cracked me up because it is not even close to representing the contents or the tone of the book. I decided to do a deep dive into the world of public domain publishing, to see what else was out there… (Karen T. Brissette) Bonus: 50 Very Bad Book Covers for Literary Classics (LitHub)
Cascading Style
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a ubiquitous markup language for describing the layout and design of a webpage separate from the content, typically specifying things like text formatting, background color, page alignment, etc.
But as with emoticons and ASCII art before it, CSS can be repurposed to become the content. Enter CSS drawing, an intricate art form that uses the conventions of the language to create illustrations and even animation using only standard design elements. Some standout examples from around the web: A Single Div, where every new illustration is contained within one <div> tag; designer Lynn Fisher also has a previous version along with a whole catalog of "weird websites, niche data projects, and CSS experiments" - Another collection of single-div projects - Start a digital bonfire - The Simpsons (animated!) in CSS - 173 CSS drawings on Dribble - How I started drawing CSS Images - css-doodle, a web component for drawing patterns with CSS - Creating Realistic Art with CSS - The CSS Zen Garden, a collection of beautiful CSS stylesheets - CSS previously on MeFi
3...2...1.... Fight!
Chatbot vs Chatbot The Chatbot Arena will randomly load two chatbots in answer to your prompt. You mark which one gives the better answer. The Arena uses these human responses to rank the top LLM chatbots on an ongoing basis. Over 1,000,000 prompts have been submitted and scored. [more inside]
Happy Mother's Day from Mr T (slyt)
"How long have you been doing that???"
YouTube is shoving animal videos at me, and so here are some animal videos! Here are 10 minutes of above-average cat videos; it's a compilation; it has annoying narration. Here are four minutes of owl videos with music that is not totally awful. Here is two minutes of an adorable rhinoceros calf getting acquainted with a zookeeper while mom looks on. And finally 3m30s of the most dramatic husky with their thoughts interpreted for the viewer.* [more inside]
"A Quiet Love" by Liza Minnelli
Liza sings a song while signing. This is new to me. A beautiful Charles Aznavour song. 1992 Radio City Music Hall.
Jesus Xing Musk
Musk is not a tech visionary with a side interest in politics these days, nor is he just another bored billionaire with a nativist streak; the political activism and the technological ambitions are inseparable. He believes his work is part of a civilizational struggle in which woke progressives pose an existential threat to humanity. And he spends most of his days inside a feedback loop that’s radicalizing him even more. from I Read Everything Elon Musk Posted for a Week. Send Help. [Mother Jones; ungated] [CW: Elon Musk]
I See Demon Faces Everywhere
Slate: [W]e spoke to Maggie McCart, an administrative assistant at an Illinois university, who suffers from an extremely rare disease called prosopometamorphopsia, which inflicts patients with a variety of wild hallucinations when they look at someone’s face. (archive)
May 11
Astronomers detect Milky Way black hole w mass 33 times that of the Sun
Astronomers detect Milky Way black hole with mass 33 times that of the Sun. Astronomers have discovered the second-largest black hole known to be in the Milky Way, and it's located just 2000 light-years from Earth.
Battle Beyond the Movies
Roger Corman has left us. The ‘Movies’ as we knew them wouldn’t have reached their heights without him. He jump/kick-started the careers of Coppola, Nicholson, Cameron, Demme, Scorsese and so, so many more. With his passing it feels as if cinema, as we knew it…and perhaps the analog 20th century has truly passed. He also directed Teenage Caveman.
Soundgarden's Reunion Tour 2012
I don't know why YouTube is serving me all these concerts right now, but I'm not complaining. Here's Soundgarden - Hyde Park - Hard Rock Calling 7-13-2012 - Pro Shot (HQ) Full Show [1h54m], arguably the band at the height of their career after taking a break and reforming. This concert is shortly before the release of their final album King Animal. [more inside]
The Walking House collection comes home
30 years ago, a set of paintings for a showing in Sweden painted by Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi went missing. They have been found and returned to her.
From an online biography:
"In her work, Mmakgabo Sebidi traverses mental and physical landscapes with an eye trained on the dangerous, the discomfiting, the traumatic and the ecstatic in human experience. She is deeply grounded in her rural upbringing and traditions but also finely attuned to the rhythms of the city in which she has spent much of her adult life. Sebidi brings together these two worlds in works of great visionary and prophetic power. Her themes are wide-ranging: her cultural roots, the wisdom of the ancestors, the ravages of the modern world on the human psyche, the loss of tradition, the potential of human creativity to build relationships and restore the past."
Helen Sebidi to exhibit rediscovered work after 30 years. (SLYT)
You done messed up, A-A-Ron!
Thomas Jefferson University apologizes after commencement presenter flubs names. Unfortunately for the hapless presenter, the name cards used the International Phonetic Alphabet, a technical rendering used mainly by linguists. kænt rid ðɪs? Don't let it happen to you! Learn how to pronounce IPA spelling today, test your skills, or just entertain yourself with the world's most unintentionally hilarious soundboards.
“We were told by his assistant he doesn’t do paintings like that"
WaPo gift link: Inside the surreal world of $20,000 pet portraits THIS GETS EXTREMELY WEIRD, features Alan Tudyk getting ESPECIALLY weird with his choice of pet portraits. (Disclaimer: gory descriptions within.) [more inside]
Ouch
TATS
Fake Deep Fake
The Guardian (2021): "Mother charged with deepfake plot against daughter's cheerleading rivals". The Guardian (2024):
"She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all"
Peregrine Falcon babies on Alcatraz
This is a live feed (complete with screechy babies) of the successful return of Peregrins to Alcatraz. The mom is Larry (Lawrencium) from a nest on the UC Berkeley Campanile tower in 2018.
Celebrate Madonna, Again!
Since this post has been taken down because the video has been taken down, I have since found three versions of Madonna - Live From Copacabana, Río de Janeiro, Brasil (The Celebration Tour 2024) [2h15m], of which this is the most recent. This is essentially a game of whack-a-mole, but it keeps getting reposted. Just search for "Madonna Celebration Rio" to find the newest version. Enjoy!
Chana Tower has frogs, snails, mushrooms and adventure
Wet Work
In a state with prolonged bouts of drought and unquenching thirst, stolen water is an indelible part of California lore. But this was not Los Angeles’ brazen gambit to take water from the Owens Valley. Or San Francisco’s ploy to flood part of Yosemite National Park for a reservoir. The water grab described in a federal indictment allegedly happened cat burglar-style, siphoned through a secret pipe, often after hours, to avoid detection. from Feds say he masterminded an epic California water heist. Some farmers say he’s their Robin Hood [LA Times; ungated]
the winner takes it all
Good morning Europe! The Grand Final of the 68th Eurovision Song Contest 2024 will take place today in Malmö, Sweden (detailed previously on the Blue).
At least, it's supposed to. [more inside]
May 10
This Is What Being in Your Twenties Was Like in 18th-Century London
This Is What Being in Your Twenties Was Like in 18th-Century London. A newly restored collection of letters describes a 27-year-old’s office job, social life and financial concerns beginning in 1719.
Jeff Daniels Loves His Guitar, And Talks About Other Things
So, Jeff Daniels recently visited the Kelly Clarkson Show [13m]. It was an entirely lovely and kind visit full of humanity. But the real surprise is his confession of the love of playing guitar, having written a zillion original songs, and his performance of a song about how the guitar is his best friend and he moves Clarkson to tears with his performance. It's entirely unexpected, and I'm sorry to have spoiled it for you, but how else could I have gotten you to watch this interview? [more inside]
Postmodern TVbox
AI has fostered a lot of mash-ups in various styles. Some guy named demonflyingfox has been turning popular animated and live-action series into colorized versions from the fifties. I'm not really doing it justice so check out Friends, The Simpsons, and SpongBob SquarePants among many others. [more inside]
We’re the men, and here’s the map.
Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones, an English comedian with an interest in geography and a former geography teacher who's also very funny, are the Map Men ("...Map Men, Map Map Map Men Men" 🎵 ), whose highly entertaining YouTube channel is chock full of educational cartographic goodness. Try any of their (27) videos at random, or all of them—even the ads are worth watching. Their recent episodes on undersea internet cables and country codes wouldn't be a bad place to start for the extremely online. [more inside]
Climax Blue
Context: Cheese Award Controversy. Cheese Professor: “In the US food-selling world, there is a term called Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS). For our store, and most natural foods stores, buyers won’t buy foods with ingredients that are not GRAS I looked at the Climax Blue ingredient list and there was something I didn’t recognize: kokum butter. I looked it up and, while approved for cosmetics and for one specific confection, it was not on the GRAS list. So we rejected it.” Elsewhere: Reddit, Plant based News, AgFunderNews.
Snark Tank
At the Habsburg convention in Plano
Floral Notes
Haidee Chu writes about Manhattan's Flower District for The City - its history, its shop cats, and its remaining vendors' opinions on which is the better holiday for florists, Mothers Day or Valentines Day.
With photos by Ben Fractenberg. [more inside]
"Teacher Spice."
Green sky at night
On Thursday, May 9, 2024, the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch -- its first since January 2005.
Coinciding with a new moon, aurorae should be visible (weather permitting) much further than typical. The Northern/Western-specific current predictions from NOAO show the view line extending below 40 degrees Northern latitude. [more inside]
Do the jitterbug at a muskrat land
The Waning Reign of the Wetland Architect We Barely Know (Hint: Not a Beaver) Little-appreciated, semiaquatic, and cute-as-hell, muskrats can survive almost anywhere. So where are they? (Brandon Keim for Hakai Magazine) [more inside]
Say there is a young writer
In the dreamworld of the arts, every inanimate thing is animate, every object contains the entire world, millions of years of history and future and feeling. As she writes her story, which is ultimately her life, it can look like anything she wants. The more she thinks about it, the greater the possibilities. The more she’s cast out, the more she must innovate. The more she will be unique, the more her voice will be untamed. Whatever she is, whoever. She has lived for literature from the beginning and so literature will be her; her indomitable will shall make it so. Our young writer, still unpublished, is the essence of the word itself. Any of her books that may, that will come, be published, read—a footnote. from Every Ship Is a Passenger Too: On Publishing Today by Chris Molnar [LARB]
Rare handfish population returned to wild
Rare handfish population returned to wild after riding out marine heatwave in tank.
They've been gently coaxed out of the plastic bag and into the big, bad underwater world where they are exposed to the elements. Now, researchers have big hopes this small group of red handfish will not only survive, but thrive — the species is depending on it.
May 9
25
Meet AdVon, the AI-Powered Content Monster Infecting the Media Industry
Maggie Harrison Dupré, writing for Futurism, goes on a deep, deep dive into AdVon, a fine purveyor of content slurry.
Fear, Cynicism, Nihilism, and Apathy
Even in a state where surveillance is almost total, the experience of tyranny and injustice can radicalize people. Anger at arbitrary power will always lead someone to start thinking about another system, a better way to run society. [...] If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned. [...] Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers, who have multiplied since the days when this was solely a Russian project. Tucker Carlson has even promoted the fear of a color revolution in America, lifting the phrase directly from Russian propaganda.The New Propaganda War: Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world. [SLAtlantic]
Zoom in on God's Hand
Where's the Beef? The Greatest Diss Tracks in Hip Hop
The Ringer- Greatest Diss Tracks of All Time, Ranked As the Kendrick Lamar/ Drake feud continues (apparently won by Kendrick at this point), the Ringer looks over their listing of great diss tracks in hip-hop. At the Root, Noah McGee provides a different list. Alex Petridis also weighs in on the subject at the Grauniad.
David Bowie Serious Moonlight Tour Full Show
David Bowie Live | 1983 | Sydney | Serious Moonlight Tour | Pro shot | Complete Concert [1h50m] "On the 20th November 1983, David Bowie performed his final Australian concert of the Serious Moonlight tour. This Betamax recording was taken from a sight screen feed made at that time. The first couple of numbers, plus the end have some artefacts but, as it hasn't been viewed in nearly 40 years, the quality overall has held up well. The audio was in mono and has been remastered to bring it out more." [more inside]
The Last Thing My Mother Wanted
Healthy at age 74, she decided there was nothing on earth still keeping her here, not even us. [more inside]
Katju
They said the quiet part out loud
We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read
This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. The first time you get our message, you only will only find one thread. Short fiction by Caroline M Yoachim.
Retraction Isn’t Enough
“the conclusions of this paper were disseminated to over 5 million people and less than 0.02% of them actually read the full text or the retraction notice. The result is roughly 5 million misinformed people”. What is ‘evidence-based’? [more inside]
Tim Hortons: Canadian icon but also a bellwether for politics
"Tims is always going to be able to lean on the ordinary Canadians thing in their advertising. It is a habit.” [more inside]