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“Ecstasy On Maple Mountain” by Nathan Micay. Previously
posted by Going To Maine at 9:53 PM PST - 5 comments

Swarthmore Students Occupy Frat House After Documents Leak With Reference to “Rape Attic” Students at Swarthmore College, a private liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, have occupied a fraternity house on campus after leaked documents allegedly recounted multiple instances of sexual assault by past members. The student protesters have succeeded in getting the fraternity suspended from campus, but they plan to remain at the house until the university shuts down the fraternity altogether. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:07 PM PST - 50 comments

In the 1994 NYT article Capturing The Pounding Pulse Of New York City, Michael Beckerman dissects the 60 seconds of music and visuals of the opening credits for N.Y.P.D. Blue [here from season 3]. The shows creators (Stephen Bochco and David Milch) and composer (Mike Post) discuss the theme in this 1m45s video. Post also created a single-length version of the theme that offers more textures. But still, that original, man boy howdy!
posted by hippybear at 8:38 PM PST - 13 comments

The Wari civilization (Ancient.eu) flourished in Peru between c. 450 and c. 1000 CE., before the Inca. Their superior management of the land also helped them resist the 30-year drought period which during the end of the 6th century CE contributed to the decline of the neighbouring Nazca and Moche civilizations. They held together their territory with military might, and alcoholic festivals. Archaeologists have been trying to recreate that Schinus molle-based recipe from their brewery-busting bash (Science Friday, 2016; audio with brief text summary), after studying Schinus Molle L. (Anacardiaceae) Chicha Production in the Central Andes (BioOne Complete, 2004; paywalled). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:55 PM PST - 5 comments

This article is about how to decode a JPEG image. [more inside]
posted by zamboni at 7:44 PM PST - 25 comments

The year was 2009, and Internet Explorer 6 remained a plague on the web. Already nearly a decade old, it was hopelessly outdated, riddled with bugs and security holes, and long since superseded. Yet with nearly 20% market share, web developers everywhere were still under pressure to support its infuriating quirks. The tide finally turned when, out of the blue, YouTube added a banner announcing it would soon be dropping support for the obsolete browser. Ten years on, it turns out that banner was never approved by management. Chris Zacharias reveals how a rogue team of frustrated developers launched the last major offensive of the Browser Wars, and got away with it.
posted by automatronic at 2:51 PM PST - 45 comments

King Alfred and India: an Anglo-Saxon embassy to southern India in the ninth century AD. From the fascinating blog of Dr Caitlin Green.
In the year 883, Alfred sent Sighelm and Athelstan to Rome, and likewise to the shrine of Saints Thomas and Bartholomew, in India, with the alms which he had vowed.
Along the Pepper trail.
posted by adamvasco at 2:46 PM PST - 7 comments

A tweet from a Spanish far-right political party intending to demonize LGBTQ+ people has backfired spectacularly because, in the words of one mefite, they designed an anti-gay ghost that's hella cute. [more inside]
posted by tocts at 1:47 PM PST - 21 comments

A US Army War College instructor analyses the Battle of Winterfell. [more inside]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:19 PM PST - 47 comments

Conner O'Malley is unhealthy invested in Howard Schultz's political run. And by "unhealthy", I mean really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really invested. I mean the guy is sick. (He's also a fan of Beto O'Rourke, for what it's worth.) [not recommended unless you're a fan of grotesque horror-comedy]
posted by rorgy at 12:37 PM PST - 14 comments

Want to see what one digital future for newspapers looks like? Look at The Guardian, which isn’t losing money anymore.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 12:23 PM PST - 18 comments

How Bullet Hell Games Helped Me Work Through Anxiety [Fanbyte] “As appointments with my therapist continued, I realized that the type of games I gravitated towards began reflecting my mental struggle. The pixel-perfect precision bullet hell games demanded of players gave me something to hyper-fixate on besides my anxiety. I wasn’t running away from my real-life issues, either — I was practicing patience, control of a task, and completion, slowly chipping away at my anxiety. [...] Take a deep breath, and somehow figure out how exactly you’re going to finish this paper due next week, how to weave through this bullet pattern, how to beat this boss, how to leave the house after a whole week of staying inside. It takes failure, trying again, and failing, failing, until you get it right.” [YouTube][PBS][Can Bullet Hell Games Be Meditative?]
posted by Fizz at 12:06 PM PST - 17 comments

The Marshall Project Police employ lethal violence in response to perceived threats at vastly different rates across the [USA].
posted by readinghippo at 11:27 AM PST - 45 comments

Earlier this spring, North Bergen High School in North Bergen, New Jersey, USA put on a stage play adaptation of the movie Alien. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:21 AM PST - 21 comments

Although the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC usually have nesting ducks in their courtyard (who often lay their eggs too early to survive), this year a pair of Canada geese laid their eggs on a 3rd floor ledge on their campus. When the goslings were too high off the ground to safely get to ground, they were escorted through the National Geographic building, including the elevator! (twitter thread)
posted by ChuraChura at 11:13 AM PST - 31 comments

Tracking the journey of a uranium cube - how did a cube of uranium from a prototype WW2 reactor end up in a lab in Maryland?
Physicists Timothy Koeth and Miriam Hiebert in Physics Today.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:13 AM PST - 8 comments

A month after we were definitely, certainly, no two ways about it leaving the EU, here we still are. Chris Grayling is carrying on in the manner to which he has become accustomed, Ian Dunt sounds ever more exasperated, and the Guardian reminds us that, like any number of horror movie villains, Brexit's not dead yet. [more inside]
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:08 AM PST - 276 comments

An ethnomusicologist analyzes the origins and the craft of air guitar. From "shadow conducting," to vaudeville, to Joe Cocker, to the rise of heavy metal, air guitar has a century of history you might not know about... along with an international competitive scene.
posted by SansPoint at 9:21 AM PST - 4 comments

"Avengers: Endgame" is not just the culmination of the 22-movie Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also represents the decisive defeat of "cinema" by "content."
posted by sapagan at 8:49 AM PST - 76 comments

Library Extension, a free extension for Chrome and Firefox, shows you which books on Amazon, Audible, Goodreads, Google Books, and Librarything are also available at your local library. 3200 catalogs from Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States are supported.
posted by Iridic at 8:20 AM PST - 18 comments

Donald J. Sobol endeared himself to generations of nerdy kids with the creation of his enduring character Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown, who starred in 29 books from 1963 to 2012. But this World War II veteran and father of four shunned the spotlight and preferred to remain mysterious himself.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:47 AM PST - 80 comments

Reds Of Future Past [via mefi projects] On May Day, the American holiday that Americans forgot is our holiday, our own Whelk looks at artifacts of the first Red Scare, when the Espionage Act of WWI was used to suppress dissent.
posted by maxsparber at 6:02 AM PST - 18 comments

Twenty years after a disastrous dalliance with lasers and fifteen years after his last LP, Alan Parsons has released a new album called The Secret. [more inside]
posted by zaixfeep at 4:09 AM PST - 32 comments

A history of pad Thai: how the stir-fried noodle dish was invented by the Thai government.
posted by smoke at 1:59 AM PST - 57 comments