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To understand how risky it may be to board a flight now, start with how air circulates in a plane...
posted by Toddles at 7:26 PM PST - 143 comments

“Once I was in quarantine, I was just stuck in my own head with my own thoughts and I had to face it.” [more inside]
posted by catcafe at 5:08 PM PST - 4 comments

The flush toilet may be the world’s gold standard for sanitation, but the sewer infrastructure it demands is inefficient, costly and outdated. [more inside]
posted by aniola at 3:25 PM PST - 86 comments

“I felt hurt. And I felt alone – as a woman and as a European. Because it is not about seating arrangements or protocol,” Von der Leyen said. “This goes to the core of who we are. This is what our union stands for. And this shows how far we still have to go before women are treated as equals, always and everywhere.” ‘Sofagate’ snub would not have happened to a man [Grauniad] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 3:09 PM PST - 29 comments

“I mean, I didn’t try to deceive anyone over Samantha the Teenage Witch. I swear.” Felony embezzlement charges for 20-year-old overdue VHS tape rental. And you thought libraries were harsh.
posted by JanetLand at 1:08 PM PST - 46 comments

Investigators, family, and friends are still trying to close the case of Paul Fugate, a naturalist at Arizona’s Chiricahua National Monument who vanished without a trace in 1980. In the garage sat a Ford pickup, the tires flat, which Dody and her husband, Paul, had driven home from the dealership in 1971. No pictures of Paul were anywhere that I could see, but his presence was all around. There was the old nameplate from his desk: “Paul B. Fugate, Park Ranger.” And pinned to the wall was a bumper sticker, white letters on a forest green background. “Where is Paul Fugate,” it read. The absence of a question mark suggested less an inquiry than a demand. [more inside]
posted by jquinby at 11:40 AM PST - 13 comments

Somewhere in Japan, in a dimly-lit, sparsely-furnished efficiency apartment, an egg lies sleeping under a slice of bacon. You watch through the eye of a camera wandering aimlessly around the room. It takes in in the old-fashioned portable TV, balanced atop a cardboard box, showing a popularity ranking show being watched by nobody. And the empty bed, empty kitchenette, and empty sofa. And the boombox on the floor playing a mixtape of the sort of 'luuded-out lofi being streamed by hundreds of channels on Youtube. This is the Gudetama LiveCam & Chill Out BGM Radio stream and Sanrio wants you to suggest (in Japanese) what to furnish the apartment with next. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 11:32 AM PST - 3 comments

Here is the gorgeous video to his song Again. After 89 song posts, longtime mefi music contributor Seth Thomas aka Corduroy has a legit record out, and posted to mefi projects this video, which is a collaboration with Jon David Russell featuring impeccably rendered puppets and miniatures. [more inside]
posted by umbú at 11:18 AM PST - 13 comments

Maslow borrowed and misrepresented Siksika (Blackfeet Nation) teachings without providing due credit for their influence on his developmental model.
posted by COD at 10:17 AM PST - 18 comments

Delightful vine robots are happy to explore tight, pointy, unstable, and otherwise challenging spaces, and you can build your own simple version! [more inside]
posted by cnidaria at 9:25 AM PST - 10 comments

It’s Spring 2021, and here’s another roundup of weird audio dramas! They may help you spend time while self-isolating, waiting for vaccination, or doing chores to take you away from the endless online meetings. Notably, we can all take a moment to admire the completion of The Magnus Archives, the 200-episode horror extravaganza. Or, if you prefer, Alasdair Beckett-King’s not entirely unfair take down of the genre. As usual, I am focusing on paranormal ongoing stories as opposed to Science Fiction or Fantasy dramas or series of short stories, with or without framing elements. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:25 AM PST - 15 comments

[Aesthetics Wiki] is a comprehensive encyclopedia of online and offline aesthetics! We are an online community dedicated to the identification, observation, and documentation of visual schema. … Enjoy your stay!
posted by zamboni at 7:48 AM PST - 19 comments

At the time, O’Neill writes, it was ‘impossible to imagine’ just how unrealisable the idea of a dissident, fan-owned club sounded. Brady, a bricklayer and editor of the socialist United fanzine A Fine Lung, had no illusions about the graft required, writing that ‘the work ahead was going to break up marriages… Form a football club? Form a fucking football club? How? By going to the magic wand shop and wishing one?’

Even if you can't stand Manchester United, you have to love FC United of Manchester, as Marcus Barnett explains for The Tribune.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:29 AM PST - 11 comments

How do you better communicate with your Yaya? It's easy - you build a Yayagram.
posted by secretdark at 12:43 AM PST - 18 comments