MetaFilter

The concept of McDonaldland (huge playlist, notable compilation from same) has a prominent place in public consciousness. Less well known is its rival, the Burger King Kingdom (compilation video). But before the current Jack-in-the-Verse (playlist) or even the Jack Pack, there was the Jack in the Box Bunch. (Two ads and three flexidisc-records-with-comics. Alt. vid of last one. And yes, at least those last three are voiced by Paul Winchell, Disney's original voice of Pooh and Tigger.) [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 7:39 PM PST - 11 comments

I Made A Joke About The White House Easter Bunnies, But Then I Learned The Moving Story Behind Them
posted by Etrigan at 3:45 PM PST - 12 comments

Florida bill SB 7044, signed into law today, ends meaningful tenure at the state’s public institutions of higher education. It imposes a new five year review cycle covering “assigned duties in research, teaching, and service” while simultaneously requiring public lists of assigned readings and syllabi, effectively imposing popular and political review of courses and professors. [more inside]
posted by Songdog at 3:02 PM PST - 31 comments

From the people who brought you "A Dark Room." The Qubit Game is a little game where you protect linnocent-looking qubits from villainous heat blobs. Along the way you measure and store information, dread cosmic rays, and learn about quantum coherence, entanglement, helium coolant, and laser cooling. Then things ratchet up. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 12:38 PM PST - 16 comments

Lucas Rizzotto used AI and the GPT-3 language model to bring to life his unusual childhood imaginary friend: the family microwave oven. You may be skeptical about previous clickbait AI stories about creating chatbots based on the texts of deceased loved ones (The Jessica Simulation from 2021 and When a Chatbot Becomes Your Best Friend from 2018). But while those chatbots held obviously bad conversations that didn't live up to the claims of the news article, this microwave oven AI became something different. Something sinister. Something violent. This was a microwave oven that wanted to kill. (Threadrolled version.) [more inside]
posted by AlSweigart at 11:56 AM PST - 29 comments

State Senator Mallory McMorrow, Democrat of the Michigan State Senate responds to Senator Lana Theis.

Her Office

Donate
posted by y2karl at 9:56 AM PST - 45 comments

The art of calligraphy on a dried leaf was practiced widely in Ottoman Turkey. This was difficult and delicate work. The leaf was dried, and the tissue removed to leave the skeletal membrane, with gold ink applied over it. For Ramadan, here are 20 exquisite examples… (sltwitter, or threadreader rollout)
posted by curious nu at 9:43 AM PST - 18 comments

Future Tape is a web3 music player for new tracks for offer (~1500 USD) on the blockchain. The focus is on independent artists who are pitching music NFTs on the Catalog, Sound and Nina NFT markets. Use the rather minimalist interface to check out the 9 mostly decent tracks on Fellowships 1.0 Collection. It's a new project from Anthony Volodkin who had a big role in the Web 2.0 as the founder of the very popular MP3 aggregator Hype Machine back in 2005 (previously).
posted by zenon at 8:28 AM PST - 113 comments

Today, the Florida Department of Health issued a memo of guidance for transgender teens and children, advocating for trans teenagers to be restricted from socially or medically transitioning (via Erin Reed on Twitter).

Although there have been some victories in defeating anti-trans bills in the US, other actions taken against anti-trans legislation have been met with dismissal and even more legislation (including laws in some states to forcibly out trans youth to their parents) is on the docket for this year. [more inside]
posted by fight or flight at 8:01 AM PST - 39 comments