August 27, 2014

xylem never looked so good

V Martineau Illustration: The Miracle of Trees, Sciencia Illustrations, Levels Of Complexity, Plants, The Paper Birch Tree, Why The Sky Is Far Away [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:15 PM PST - 4 comments

“It’s a matter of indifference to you?”

What's better than reading a judge ruthlessly dismantling arguments against marriage equality? Hearing the judge's own voice as he makes lawyers arguing for Indiana's and Wisconsin's bans on same-sex marriage look like fools. Previously.
posted by ogooglebar at 6:25 PM PST - 98 comments

Women as Background Decoration: Part 2 (Tropes vs Women in Video Games)

Women as Background Decoration: Part 2 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games (28 min 33 sec; here's a pointer to the identical video at YouTube). Warning: contains graphic sexual and violent game footage. Presented by Anita Sarkeesian of the video blog, Feminist Frequency. The website version (first link) is annotated to include links and resources, an "about the series" section, games referenced in this episode, and a transcript. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:11 PM PST - 402 comments

The Cat Is A Lie

Christine R. Yano is an anthropologist from the University of Hawaii (and currently a visiting professor at Harvard) who has spent years studying the phenomenon that is Hello Kitty. When Yano was preparing her written texts for the exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum, she says she described Hello Kitty as a cat. "I was corrected — very firmly," she says. [more inside]
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 5:53 PM PST - 82 comments

Eppur si muove

The sliding rocks of Racetrack Playa [previously, previously] have finally been observed in motion!
posted by moonmilk at 5:33 PM PST - 28 comments

Axé Orixá

The origins, the story and the purposes of the Orixa traditions and practices of Brazil have made Candomblé very careful about what it openly reveals and how it shows itself.
Candomblé has had a fundamental role in preserving and nurturing Afro-Brazilian traditions (Video 7 mins) throughout the history of colonial and modern Brazil.
The Believers are stepping out of the shadows and remembering their past with it's distinctive spirtuality and ritual which is at the root of modern samba.
Candomblé rituals in Brazil were illegal until believers fused their religion with some Catholic beliefs and traditions. Social exclusion, to which the black population was subjected in Rio de Janeiro led to intensification in the development and practice of Afro-Brazilian religion and Samba as it is known today. Here exemplified by Gilberto Gil and Clara Nunes
posted by adamvasco at 5:12 PM PST - 4 comments

Have we reached peak peak?

(SLTheGuardian) "This is an exhilarating time to be alive. All our efforts, all our resources, our consumption and tastes are maxing out in unison. Everything is hitting its peak."
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:44 PM PST - 35 comments

Easily agitated protuberances and the thing you shouldn't call a flower

Talking to women about their vaginas and men about their dicks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:27 PM PST - 38 comments

Child abuse in Rotherham UK

(Trigger warning) Systemic child sex abuse over at least a decade in Rotherham, involving an estimated 1400 victims. Timeline from the BBC. More news from the Guardian.. Most of the victims were white girls, many of the perpetrators were Asian men. Independent report published this week.
posted by mgrrl at 3:36 PM PST - 73 comments

Drought in the American West

The drought in California and the American West is bad. Really bad. And it could get worse. The rich have their own plans.
posted by gwint at 3:20 PM PST - 84 comments

Blue Suede Jew?

In Memphis in the early 1950s, young Elvis Presley would sometimes help out the upstairs neighbors, Rabbi Fruchter and his family, by acting as a "Shabbos goy," -- that is, by doing tasks that Jews may not do on the Sabbath. (The rabbi's son Harold, then a toddler, recalls the arrangement in an audio interview.) Yet Elvis knew he had some Jewish forebears. Tablet Magazine notes that his "great great maternal grandmother was Jewish and had a daughter who had a daughter who had a daughter that was Elvis’s mother." Though he embraced Christianity, he often used to wear a Chai necklace (sometimes paired with a cross), saying "I don't want to miss out on going to heaven on a technicality." In that spirit, a Hasidic Elvis impersonator named Dan Hartal, aka "Schmelvis," recently recited Kaddish at Graceland and traveled to Israel to plant a tree in Elvis's memory.
posted by GrammarMoses at 2:34 PM PST - 13 comments

Nude Portraits: SFW

"These are nude portraits in the sense that I, the photographer, am nude, while the subject is not."
posted by DarlingBri at 2:20 PM PST - 21 comments

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I'm just a caveman.

His nickname was "The Glue." Coinciding with the unveiling of his star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, Grantland takes a closer look at one of the most celebrated comedic actors of the 80s and 90s known primarily for supporting roles: Phil Hartman. [more inside]
posted by joechip at 12:52 PM PST - 46 comments

TL;DW - Biology first, THEN physics.

Why are Stars Star-Shaped? A SLYT of one of the innumerable little educational youtube channels explaining something that always fascinated me. [more inside]
posted by DigDoug at 10:38 AM PST - 16 comments

For Kate I wait: BBC documentary and first live show in 35 years

Last night, Kate Bush performed her first concert in 35 years at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. She last toured in 1979, following the release of Lionheart. "Not since the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited for a one-off show in 2007 has there been such hype over a comeback." - The Guardian. Last week, BBC 4 released an hour-long documentary called The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill that reflects on Bush’s long and enigmatic career. It features appearances from Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Tori Amos, Annie Clark, Big Boi, Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Kahn, and more. Vimeo link. Guardian review.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:47 AM PST - 58 comments

*Shrug*

Galt's Gulch Chile is (was) meant to be a modern and real-world replica of Ayn Rand's objectivist hide-out in Atlas Shrugged. Wealthy investors (or at least folks with a lot of bitcoin) envisioned a protected libertarian community where they could ride out the impending social and financial downfall of American society. Unfortunately for those taken in by the project, it appears now that the whole enterprise was a greed-driven scam.
posted by stinkfoot at 9:39 AM PST - 185 comments

When he answered the "Did Tony die" question, he was laconic.

David Chase finally answers the question he wants fans to quit asking. (Agita warning: spoilers. Whaddya, nuts? ) [more inside]
posted by scody at 9:25 AM PST - 134 comments

Medium Egg Custard with Marshmallow

"You may think you know what a snowball is. That conical treat of chunky ice where all of the flavor drips out of the bottom of a paper triangle? Nope, that's a snowcone. That fruity, pureed ice that you have to scrape with a wooden spoon? Nope, that's Italian ice. Or maybe the fluffy bowl of ice with condensed milk on top? Wrong again—that's Hawaiian shave ice ... A classic Baltimore snowball arrives in a Styrofoam cup: shaved ice sloshed with sweet syrup—mostly artificial flavoring and not any of that "real fruit" stuff—and typically topped with marshmallow cream. While the ice is shaved, it's not fine enough to dissolve, leaving the snowball chunky and intact enough to survive humid Baltimore summers." SeriousEats covers Baltimore's delicious regional treat, the snowball. Summertime snowballs have been a staple of the city for many, many years. A little bit of ambient snowball stand audio.
posted by codacorolla at 9:12 AM PST - 24 comments

The oral history of looking like a dork

Virtual Reality: an oral history.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:08 AM PST - 4 comments

SRLP and Laverne Cox

Last week, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project uploaded a YouTube video of Laverne Cox reading a letter written by a New York State inmate named Synthia China Blast, who described living in solitary confinement for the last decade. However, that video has since, at Cox's request, been taken down. (TW: descriptions of murder, sexual violence) [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:25 AM PST - 68 comments

"And I’m going to keep doing it, unless you pay me to stop."

Don’t Want Me to Recline My Airline Seat? You Can Pay Me [New York Times]
"...airline seats are an excellent case study for the Coase Theorem. This is an economic theory holding that it doesn’t matter very much who is initially given a property right; so long as you clearly define it and transaction costs are low, people will trade the right so that it ends up in the hands of whoever values it most. That is, I own the right to recline, and if my reclining bothers you, you can pay me to stop."
posted by Fizz at 8:12 AM PST - 549 comments

And the answer is...

Flowchart: Should you catcall her? From playboy.com. Flowchart designed by @sheastrauss. Link is NSFW (images) if you scroll all the way to the footer, or drawn silhouettes of women in the flowchart are problematic. Slightly NSFW text.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:58 AM PST - 34 comments

It's not easy getting out of your one-horse town.

How rural poverty is changing: Your fate is increasingly tied to your town. (slWaPo)
posted by Kitteh at 7:17 AM PST - 27 comments

Hello my lovely Sloggers!

"Using contractors it calls "brand ambassadors," Uber requests rides from Lyft and other competitors, recruits their drivers, and takes multiple precautions to avoid detection. The effort, which Uber appears to be rolling out nationally, has already resulted in thousands of canceled Lyft rides and made it more difficult for its rival to gain a foothold in new markets. Uber calls the program "SLOG," and it’s a previously unreported aspect of the company’s ruthless efforts to undermine its competitors."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:15 AM PST - 94 comments

America's Mental Health Crisis

Brave and afraid and heading down the longest road [Part 1/3] The cars made a wet rushing sound as they swept past him, close enough that he could feel their motion in the air. He was certain if he tried, he could reach out and touch them. Mike Bourne stretched out both arms, fingertips extended. He was walking in the middle of the busy street. The yellow line on the pavement told him where to go. He thought of it as the yellow brick road. It would take him somewhere, he knew, somewhere beautiful. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 3:33 AM PST - 16 comments

Go Ahead And Tase Me, Bro

The Taser Photoshoot: Portraits of People's Faces When Hit With A Stun Gun by Patrick Hall [Possibly NSFW]
posted by chavenet at 1:31 AM PST - 33 comments

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