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100 Best Sitcoms of All Time - "From family stories to band-of-misfits hangouts, classic rom-coms to workplace mockumentaries, cringe comedies to antihero showcases, and some shows that defy definition, these are the hundred series that have made us laugh, think, occasionally cry, and laugh all over again."
posted by kliuless at 11:49 PM PST - 125 comments

Airborne transmission is driving Covid, not droplet transmission, which means that certain precautions (avoiding indoor spaces, wearing a mask, ventilation) matter much more than others (staying six feet apart, cleaning surfaces). The WHO and CDC just updated their websites this week to reflect the importance of airborne transmission. Zeynep Tufekci: Why did it take so long for scientists to accept that Covid is airborne? Twitter thread. One part of the answer: in 1910, Dr. Charles Chapin attributed the efficacy of social distancing to droplet transmission. This became the conventional wisdom. And there's often "a higher standard of proof for theories that challenge conventional wisdom than for those that support it." [more inside]
posted by russilwvong at 10:20 PM PST - 150 comments

The oldest trousers in the world. Scholars painstakingly recreate wool trousers found in a 3000-year-old grave site in Central Asia.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:11 PM PST - 65 comments

You probably didn’t expect that watching the NL West would be like putting on Godzilla vs. Kong only to see Mothra kick everyone’s ass. With all due respect to the Dodgers and Padres, this fledgling season has belonged to the less-than-ballyhooed San Francisco Giants—who not only lead the NL West over teams that Baseball Prospectus projected would win 103 and 96 games, respectively, but in fact are tied for the best record in the National League. It is bizarre. It is wonderful. What in the world is going on? from The NL West Has Only One Superteam, and That Team Has Buster Posey [The Ringer, by Claire McNear]
posted by chavenet at 2:25 PM PST - 14 comments

A 20 minute documentary about the Reykjavík downtown library by Jiaqian Chen, who interviews staff and patrons, including a child, a musician, and a homeless person, and films various activities taking place on the first day the library opened after the latest Covid lockdown in Iceland. The interviews are in English, the narration is in Chinese, and everything is subtitled in English and Chinese.
posted by Kattullus at 1:18 PM PST - 7 comments

Start The Steal [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 12:47 PM PST - 109 comments