May 4, 2023
2L Pepsi Blue with every Tummy Fill Cheese Order
Palaeontologists uncover mystery of marsupial lion bones
Palaeontologists uncover mystery of marsupial lion bones in Wellington Caves excavation. Weighing up to 164 kilograms, the marsupial lion was the largest mammal predator ever found in Australia and preyed on other megafauna such as the diprotodons between 2 million and 46,000 years ago.
Small Wonders Magazine
Small Wonders Magazine [via mefi projects] is a new online speculative fiction and poetry magazine. Their inaugural issue contains fiction by Saswati Chatterjee, Premee Mohamed, Wendy Nikel, Charles Payseur, Moses Ose Utomi, and John Wiswell, and poetry by Beth Cato, Mary Soon Lee, and Ali Trotta.
Getting to know Julia
Despite the countless series I've seen her in, or the variety of profiles I've read about her across the decades, I've never really felt like I had any peg on Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a person. But she sat down for a 2-hour conversation with Pete Holmes for his podcast You Made It Weird, and across the first half-hour you can watch Pete peel away her defenses and by the end a more fully rounded portrait of her emerged. I really enjoyed this, much more than I expected going in.
Nothing Xbox does matters if the games aren't good.
Xbox Is Running Out Of Time To Get It Right by Ethan Gach [Kotaku] “But if Hi-Fi Rush showed the promise of Game Pass, where more focused and stylized games can find an audience without sanding themselves down into dust to appeal to a mass market, Redfall has done just the opposite. Arkane’s vampire shooter feels incomplete and plays like mush, a far cry from the striking, precisely drawn contours of immersive sims like Prey and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. [...] For years now, Xbox fans and players have been waiting for Microsoft to begin delivering a steady stream of hit exclusives that can rise to the level of those found on PlayStation and Switch, and it simply hasn’t. The results of an acquisition spree of new studios that began in 2018 are mixed at best, with each bright spot—Psychonauts 2, Pentiment—overshadowed by delays, missteps, and radio silence around major projects teased years ago in a premature effort to drum up hype for the Xbox Series X/S.” [more inside]
Sedition Conspiracy Convictions in Proud Boys Case
Enriquie Tarrio and three other members of the terrorist Proud Boys were convicted today of seditious conspiracy in Washington, D.C. for their role in the January 6th insurrection. (SL Associated Press)
Star Wars by Wes Anderson
Wow.
Christmas Convictions for Trespassing Press Members
Last month, an Asheville, North Carolina, judge convicted two journalists of trespassing for doing nothing more than recording police conducting a homeless encampment sweep at a public park on Dec. 25, 2021. The journalists, Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit, are entitled under North Carolina law to a second trial, this time with a jury.
“This prosecution is both unconstitutional and pointless. The First Amendment prohibits using trespassing laws as a pretext to retaliate against journalists for doing their jobs. And nobody in Asheville stands to benefit from government resources being wasted to criminalize journalism,” said FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern. [more inside]
The Internet Isn’t Meant To Be So Small
It is worth remembering that the internet wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be six boring men with too much money creating spaces that no one likes but everyone is forced to use because those men have driven every other form of online existence into the ground. From Kelsey McKinney, writing for Defector.
Empire Strikes Back
Republican States Are Racing Toward Authoritarianism [ungated] - "Regardless of how Abbott proceeds, the governor's urge to pardon a killer for no discernible reason other than that the killer belongs to Team Red and the victim is claimed by Team Blue tells us how deep into the authoritarian jungle the Republican Party has penetrated." [more inside]
It is a Simple Work, Made Entirely of Music and Images
"he’s really quite good-looking for a guy in his 40s."
Someone sent Slate's 'How to Do It' column a barely disguised Star Trek: DS9 plot synopsis:
The Wife I’m a Surrogate for Wants Me to Spend More Time With Her Husband. That’s a Very Bad Idea.
I’m a 21-year-old woman, and I’m seven months pregnant at the time of writing this. My boyfriend is on deployment, and while he was away, I decided to surrogate for a couple that lives in the area. The money is better than anything I could make otherwise, and part of the contract I signed meant that I moved in with “Miles” and his wife, rent-free and for much nicer accommodations than I could find on the market.
The couple I’m carrying for is super sweet and some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, which is starting to turn into a problem. I’m sure it’s just a combination of pregnancy hormones, my boyfriend being away, and having a little too much free time, but I’ve found myself fantasizing about Miles. It doesn’t help that his wife, “Keiko,” keeps pushing us to spend more time together when she’s not hanging out with me. Nothing overtly sexual has happened, but sometimes he does this thing where he rubs my ankles (the swelling’s bad), and it just feels so unbelievably good. In my more rational moments, I can tell that this is very definitely a Bad Idea. But I’m living in his house, and he’s really quite good-looking for a guy in his 40s. And a few times I’ve “let my hands slip” to rub at his shoulders or chest. He always gently asks me to stop after a moment, but I know I’m on the verge of losing control here. How do I stop thinking about this guy?
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