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NPR interviews Omri Ben Shahar, teacher of contract law at the University of Chicago and co-author of the book, "More Than You Wanted To Know: The Failure Of Mandated Disclosure." His advice: "You shouldn't bother reading those terms and conditions. Don't even try. You don't have enough time in the year. Don't feel guilty about it. What you should do is follow some of these watchdog and watch groups that circulate information about particularly annoying new practices."
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 9:30 PM PST - 40 comments

This a little story 'bout this one time, we got booked to play a show, right? It was down in the Keys, we wuz makin' our way - and we ran into the Tiki Bar

“Funk cruises through the Caribbean picking up Afro sounds from Cuba and Puerto Rico. Reggae meets rock in a head-on collision. Jazz and electro hook up for a sidewalk makeout session. Hip-hop seems to hum from the very pavement, and R&B drifts in on the night wind. Suenalo reaches to far-flung corners and retrieves all these, takes them and mashing them together, marrying them—disparate players melded into a somehow harmonious blend.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:06 PM PST - 5 comments

Whose tradition counts on the basketball courts? The Tall Blacks, New Zealand's basketball team did their new Haka before games with their Turkish opponents turning their backs and the American players looking just confused. Marc Hinton dares to suggest that the Haka, a New Zealand sports tradition for over a century, might not work internationally. The Haka is a Maori chant and dance given before battle to intimidate and challenge your opponents or as a way to mark important occasions. (Also, it's just plain awesome.)
posted by viggorlijah at 8:53 PM PST - 77 comments

How does a Dell laptop know what kind of power adapter is connected? The adapter tells it. Reverse-engineering: Hacking the Dell laptop power adapter 1, 2, 3, 4.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:18 PM PST - 50 comments

Wyoming Indian High is located in Ethete, a tiny town of about 1,500 residents, in central Wyoming. The school itself is composed of approximately 200 students, mainly from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes on the Wind River Reservation. Given the hoops mania, though, the gym is the largest in the state, capable of holding 3,000-plus rabid fans. That’s right. A bunch of Native American kids from the rez are the basketball kings of Wyoming. If you haven’t heard of this dominant team, you might know the area itself—the subject of consistently negative, reductive and often false representation(s) in the media, where life on the reservation is depicted as nothing but a sad, grim blight; and has served to reinforce all of the old prejudices about Native Americans."

posted by ChuraChura at 7:02 PM PST - 17 comments

I Was the Weirdest Person at BronyCon 2014 [more inside]
posted by flex at 6:46 PM PST - 57 comments

How to eat: burritos

"It may be categorised as 'street food', but eating a burrito while walking is hazardous. We've all been there: you take a bite from one side of the burrito, which leaves a quivering 'lip' of rice-loaded tortilla on the other, and, like a slow-motion shot in the world's most boring action film, it falls to the ground or down your shirt, before you can whip your head down and around to snaffle it to safety. Then there is the issue of leakage from the bottom of a too-loosely-twisted foil wrap, and also the delicate procedure of prising that, by now sopping wet, last mouthful from the final cup of foil – itself now overflowing with juices – and transferring it to your mouth without any spillage. It's a task that requires focus and concentration. You walk with a burrito once, twice maybe, before you either a) get knocked-down on a busy road or b) realise – standing outside the pub trying to wipe meat juices off your trainers with an old tissue – that eating and walking is a false economy, time-wise.

[more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:20 PM PST - 96 comments

Lost treasures of Baseball -The Dauvray Cup -Shoeless Joe's Confession -The McGreevy Collection of Baseball pictures -Eddie Grant's plaque from the Polo Grounds -Bill Mazeroski's home run ball from the 1960 World Series -An eight-foot tall statue of Babe Ruth
posted by dfm500 at 5:42 PM PST - 5 comments

One pound of Almons beat them small, in the beating put in the Row of a Pike 4 dates cut and the yolkes of 4 Eggs temper it with cold water Straine it through a Strainer & make a quart of it Season it with Suger Rosewater Salt pxxxxe beaten Mace When it is Baked scrape suger on
posted by Lord_Pall at 4:58 PM PST - 22 comments

The Dying Russians In the seventeen years between 1992 and 2009, the Russian population declined by almost seven million people, or nearly 5 percent—a rate of loss unheard of in Europe since World War II. Moreover, much of this appears to be caused by rising mortality. By the mid-1990s, the average St. Petersburg man lived for seven fewer years than he did at the end of the Communist period; in Moscow, the dip was even greater, with death coming nearly eight years sooner.
posted by Nevin at 4:52 PM PST - 48 comments

In a year that saw increasing awareness of how the wealthy are coming to Burning Man in catered and chaperoned camps (costing up to $25K a head), Grover Norquist at least sounds like he had a memorable time and even got his fingernails painted in dayglow colors.
posted by emmet at 4:31 PM PST - 76 comments

All Roads Lead to [still-living country music legend*] Willie Nelson: "In a time when America is more divided than ever, Nelson could be the one thing that everybody agrees on." [more inside]
posted by scody at 3:53 PM PST - 27 comments

"Ruin Jam is a game jam celebrating the nonexistent demise of video games, inspired by a lot of current events and a certain blog post. It's open to anyone and everyone who has been, is being, or plans to be accused of ruining the games industry. All Ruiners are welcome to contribute to the death of video games, provided that they adhere to the spirit of the jam." [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 2:29 PM PST - 117 comments

"In reconsidering the metrosexual, we must first distinguish between the metrosexual’s imagined and actual properties. Like hipsterism, metrosexuality is an insult more readily slung than substantiated. According to canon, David Beckham is the ur-metro. Although Beckham initially goes unmentioned in the word’s first printing (in 1994), the word’s progenitor, Mark Simpson, introduced American readers to metrosexuality through the British football star in 2002, when he called Beckham a "screaming, shrieking, flaming, freaking metrosexual…famous for wearing sarongs and pink nail polish and panties…and posing naked and oiled up on the cover of Esquire." " - Johannah King-Slutzky for The Awl on the 'Metrosexual' situation a decade later
posted by The Whelk at 1:56 PM PST - 55 comments

Politico: "Young called his creed 'the religion of nature' and 'the religion of nature’s God.' And he made abundantly clear that, in his own mind, this radical philosophical religion was the axis on which the Revolution turned. For him, the project to free the American people from the yoke of King George III was part of a grander project to liberate the world from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion." [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 1:18 PM PST - 26 comments

Chase Holfelder covers Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun in a minor key.
(previously, previouslier, previousliest)
posted by schmod at 1:10 PM PST - 38 comments

Vernon Dalhart (1881-1948), born Marion Try Slaughter, was the first star of country music. He sold so many records in the early 1920s he owned two Cadillacs. Gather round and have a listen to some of Vernon Dalhart's greatest hits. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 12:15 PM PST - 8 comments

Credit card skimming was something of a myth in the early 2000s, until someone was caught skimming in 2002 in San Mateo, California. The next year, a skimmer was found on an ATM in a New York deli, and skimmers have been improving every year, following additional protective measures on a range of credit card reading devices, as detailed in Gizmodo's article on the evolution of skimmers. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:53 AM PST - 43 comments

W-ORD Channel 7 News With John Oliver & Cookie Monster. In support of "Sesame Street's" newest vocabulary resource, "Words are Here, There and Everywhere," Mashable has teamed up with Sesame Workshop to encourage families to explore the wonderful world of words.
posted by Pendragon at 10:13 AM PST - 45 comments

I have been struggling with how to do the work many of us call “Social Justice”. I understand the why - at least I believe I do. I am on a journey to understand my role in changing the world, which is no doubt a privilege. It has taken some time to get over the fear of doing the work correctly and instead operate from the heart - continuously challenging my perspective. As I began to engage this work in a healthier manner, I noticed patterns of bad habits that educators exhibit while being change agents. These habits, in the name of justice and equity, get in the way of making authentic, strategic, and sustaining change. Below are ten counterproductive behaviors of Social Justice educators, all explored from the unique intersections of my privileged and oppressed lens.
posted by josher71 at 9:06 AM PST - 144 comments

When it comes to mental illness you must absolutely pay meticulous attention to detail. Misconceptions and preconceptions are the reason funding is inadequate, why people who suffer from mental illness do not wish to come forward, why people with gender dysphoria suffer minority stress, why the mentally ill are targets of physical and verbal violence.

Mental Illness: a prome for speculative fiction creators. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 8:37 AM PST - 13 comments

The health benefits of drinking. "The U.S. public health establishment buries overwhelming evidence that abstinence is a cause of heart disease and early death. People deserve to know that alcohol gives most of us a higher life expectancy—even if consumed above recommended limits."
posted by LarryC at 8:21 AM PST - 174 comments

Cellphones make people flaky as #%@* From Alex Cornell: Why it's impossible to make plans anymore.
posted by Mchelly at 7:34 AM PST - 204 comments

When the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case, they often receive dozens of amicus briefs, or "friend of the court" briefs; SCOTUS "opinions are increasingly studded with citations of facts they learned from amicus briefs." "The trouble with amicus facts... is that today anyone can claim to be a factual expert."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:17 AM PST - 20 comments

Here are three short clips of Woody Guthrie singing. There are not many extant:
Woody from 1945, singing Ranger's Command.
Woody, Brownie McGee, & Sonny Terry singing John Henry.
Woody singing Greenback Dollar in a 1947 film from Pete Seeger. (The John Henry clip repeats here.)
Pete Seeger talking about Woody Guthrie.
posted by OmieWise at 7:10 AM PST - 5 comments

Jenny Kutner wrote an article about her upcoming abortion; after her abortion, her doctor wrote her back.
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 4:09 AM PST - 46 comments

Close Your Heart
A long-form article from Slate about the Central African Republic’s sectarian civil war.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:49 AM PST - 7 comments