August 24, 2016

It's science, not mind-control!

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an Alaska-based research facility that studies an energetic and active region of the upper atmosphere. It is a group of high-frequency radio transmitters that send a focused beam of radio-wave energy into the aurora zone. Last year, instead of shutting it down, the US Military sold HAARP to the University of Alaska Fairbanks . But conspiracy theories abound: for example, HAARP caused the Haiti earthquake, or controls the weather” This weekend, HAARP's new owner will hold an open house to prove the facility 'is not capable of mind control’
posted by leahwrenn at 8:22 PM PST - 64 comments

A large pot of tea would have already been prepared

The light had to be wound up like a giant grandfather clock every 30 minutes. Every 20 minutes we pumped up the air pressure to the paraffin. This was a subtle ruse to keep us awake and alert, as was the little hammer that banged away on the brass every second through the night. At the highest level the light itself burned and the giant mirrors, the reflectors, turned like a slow-motion merry-go-round supported on a huge bath of mercury. To light the paraffin you had to cause a mini explosion in the light room, allowing a small cloud of paraffin vapour to form in the air, shielding your face while igniting the gas with a burning taper.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:06 PM PST - 37 comments

Company Hop Farms, Brew Tanks, Distributors Oh My!

What "Selling Out" Allows a Craft Brewery to Do (Serious Eats) Far be it from me to act as a propaganda arm for a $200 billion company headquartered in...uh, is it Belgium at the moment? But I thought it was time someone went to the original founders and employees of the numerous craft breweries that have been acquired, not just by ABI but by other corporate beverage behemoths, like Constellation Brands, Heineken, and Mahou San Miguel, to try to get the full story. What's been going on since these acquisitions—for better or for worse? Does anything actually improve when Big Beer buys you? [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 3:00 PM PST - 71 comments

It's a feel-good story

Rings is a movie that is a sequel to the movie Ring, a heart-warming tale about a little girl who falls in a well. Here, she gets out of the well again and gets to meet lots and lots of people, including everybody on a plane! I mean she kills them all, but those are the times we live in.
posted by angrycat at 2:06 PM PST - 77 comments

Read Like a Victorian

VictorianSerialNovels.org is a project by Dr. Robyn Warhol and her student Colleen Morrissey that helps you read Victorian novels in serial, as they would have been experienced by readers at the time. The site currently covers three time periods: 1846 - 1848, 1859-1861, and 1864-1866. Texts are sourced from project Gutenberg and Librivox (when available).
posted by Going To Maine at 2:06 PM PST - 5 comments

Green Homes, With a Dash of Hyperbole

Green Homes That Will Make You Want To Go Off The Grid And Live In A Forest If living in a tropical bamboo home nestled inside a green village on the island of Bali doesn't sound better than a skyrise apartment in a concrete jungle, then I just can't even.
posted by Michele in California at 1:51 PM PST - 34 comments

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor

After almost two weeks of speculation, it has been announced in Nature: At a distance of 1.295 parsecs, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri is the Sun’s closest stellar neighbor and one of the best-studied low-mass stars. Here we report observations that reveal the presence of a small planet with a minimum mass of about 1.3 Earth masses orbiting Proxima with a period of approximately 11.2 days at a semi-major-axis distance of around 0.05 astronomical units. Its equilibrium temperature is within the range where water could be liquid on its surface. (paywalled article w/ abstract) [more inside]
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:56 AM PST - 89 comments

El Paquete Semanal

The Cuban CDN El Paquete is a weekly service where someone (typically found through word of mouth) comes to your home with a disk (usually a 1TB external USB drive) containing a weekly download of the most recent films, soap operas, documentaries, sport, music, mobile apps, magazines, and even web sites. [more inside]
posted by srboisvert at 11:53 AM PST - 7 comments

(what the dormouse said)

"Welcome to Five Course Trivia! Five days a week, we’ll post five questions about something from the culinary world, from soup to nuts and all dishes in between."
posted by Iridic at 11:28 AM PST - 10 comments

A project of the Rational Dress Society

"Just as we reject the mini-mansion in favor of the city, refuse the automobile in favor of the train, JUMPSUIT offers a way to forego the insular logic of self-expression in favor of forming communal bonds." [more inside]
posted by enn at 11:13 AM PST - 113 comments

Have You Ever Tried to Buy an EpiPen?

Many adults and children with severe allergies rely on the EpiPen for emergencies. However, since 2008, the cost for a package of two has gone from $95 to $608, a price jump of more than 450%. This jump coincides with the purchase of the device by Mylan Pharmaceuticals. But why has the price of EpiPens skyrocketed? (NYT) [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 10:32 AM PST - 161 comments

#breakfast

"By elevating the otherwise ordinary experience of eating breakfast into a social event, even if that socializing is all digital, the solitude of many breakfasts becomes more bearable." Breakfast on Instagram Is Magical and Insanely Popular, by Alana Massey for Extra Crispy.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:13 AM PST - 22 comments

dragging around your case files vs. telling the truth with vulnerability

"...there's no lasting glory there, in the middle of a dude entourage. Sometimes you feel like the smartest of the lot, the funniest, the most insightful, the most interesting. But then you realize you're just the girlfriend. And after that, you're just the ex-girlfriend. You don't matter at all. Everyone pledged to be friends forever, but you were the one who didn't matter."
posted by amnesia and magnets at 9:50 AM PST - 25 comments

The good, the bad and the downright disgraceful.

The Best and Worst of Olympics Reporting on Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas
The international media is aflutter with assessments of the Olympic Games, but how did the media themselves fare in reporting on the city of Rio and its favelas?
posted by adamvasco at 9:01 AM PST - 4 comments

This post is under 24 hour video surveillance

Brockville, Ontario is the newest place to add an Internet Purchase Exchange location to their municipality -- this one in a video surveilled section of the police parking lot. The idea seems to be relatively recent, but catching on, starting with one of the first in Mobile, Alabama and now with locations in Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Utah, and across Canada. With over 100 murders now linked to Craigslist, is this an idea whose time has come?
posted by Shepherd at 8:26 AM PST - 25 comments

Sega Digitizes What Nintendon't

The Sega Digitizer System, a tool used by graphic designers in late 80s/early 90s.
posted by griphus at 7:49 AM PST - 12 comments

The sky over Baltimore city was the color of a dull nickel...

‘OK, this is it,’ ” Stanley recalls. “I said to myself, ‘This is where the rubber hits the road. The technology has finally arrived, and Big Brother, which everyone has always talked about, is finally here.’
Monte Reel at Bloomberg in his article "Secret Cameras Record Baltimore's Every Move from Above" about how Persistent Surveillance Systems Inc. brought an air force surveillance system from Fallujah to Balitmore.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:54 AM PST - 31 comments

Bandcamp Daily

According to the NYT, Bandcamp has "hired a smart staff to create about 20 times the amount of editorial content that had been there previously, writing about music that had just been posted as well as parts of its deep and woolly catalog, in a feature called “Bandcamp Daily.”" [more inside]
posted by rebent at 6:29 AM PST - 24 comments

Rio Olympics : Did the IOC's gamble pay off

BBC: Awarding the Olympic Games to the Brazilian city of Rio in 2009 was viewed as a gamble by some critics. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) saw it as the perfect opportunity to re-emphasise its core message of taking the spirit of sport to as many people as possible. IOC president Thomas Bach maintains it was a risk worth taking. "The Brazilians were great hosts and really united behind these Games," he said. "They turned this great competition into a party for everybody."
posted by marienbad at 6:02 AM PST - 56 comments

“It’s time to rethink this system.”

The 50 Most Segregating School Borders In America [NPR.org] “The grass is greener ... if you're a student in Detroit, looking across your school district's boundary with the neighboring Grosse Pointe public schools. Nearly half of Detroit's students live in poverty; that means a family of four lives on roughly $24,000 a year — or less. In Grosse Pointe, a narrow stretch of real estate nestled between Detroit and Lake St. Clair, just 7 percent of students live at or below the poverty line. To recap, that's 49 percent vs. 7 percent. Neighbors. Which is why a new report from the nonprofit EdBuild [Fault Lines] [.pdf] ranks the Detroit-Grosse Pointe boundary as "the most segregating school district border in the country."”
posted by Fizz at 5:32 AM PST - 56 comments

An apartment roughly the same size as the coffin you'll be buried in

IKEA's 2017 Catalog Is A Terrifying Glimpse Into The Tiny Apartments Of The Future
posted by acb at 1:32 AM PST - 174 comments

Awwwww Cute meets Ewwww Puns

For four years now, artist Piper Thibodeau has created a charmingly cute painting every day and posted it to her Deviant Art gallery and her Tumblr, as well as a Twitter account showing 'work in progress'. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:25 AM PST - 5 comments

Bauhaus Online

Harvard Art Museums has made available a searchable digitized collection of over 32,000 Bauhaus artifacts: including paintings, photographs, drawings, textiles, sculptures, periodicals. [more inside]
posted by cwest at 12:33 AM PST - 3 comments

“How am I the bad guy in that situation?” she asked.

 In March of 2011, 12-year-old Cristian Fernandez was taken into an interview room at a Jacksonville, Florida, police station and interrogated by Michelle Soehlig, a ponytailed female officer. Before Soehlig began questioning him, she told the child, “These are your constitutional rights,” and slid over a document listing the Miranda warnings, familiar to anyone who’s seen an episode of Law & Order. [more inside]
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 12:09 AM PST - 38 comments

6.2 Earthquake rocks central Italy

At 3.36AM local time a 6.2 quake hit between the Rieti and Ascoli Piceno provinces. [more inside]
posted by romakimmy at 12:01 AM PST - 18 comments

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