They looked closer, and an inscription on the surface came into focus. What they saw astonished them. It was a memorial. In honor of Nazi spies. On U.S. government property.
posted to MetaFilter by Chrysostom at 11:54 PM on July 3, 2017 (58 comments)

The French left wing satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (currently blank, Wikipedia entry) was attacked by extremists this afternoon. At least 12 people were killed. Among those killed are the cartoonists Wolinski, Cabu, Charb and Tignous. Previously: the firebomb attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2011.
posted to MetaFilter by Berend at 7:26 AM on January 7, 2015 (1666 comments)

Why They Called It the Manhattan Project By nature, code names and cover stories are meant to give no indication of the secrets concealed. “Magic” was the name for intelligence gleaned from Japanese ciphers in World War II, and “Overlord” stood for the Allied plan to invade Europe.
posted to MetaFilter by Michele in California at 11:02 AM on October 2, 2014 (46 comments)

"Midway through the Confessions, St. Augustine recalls how he used to marvel at the way Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, read his manuscripts: 'His eyes traveled across the pages and his heart searched out the meaning, but his voice and tongue stayed still.' Scholars have sparred for decades over whether Augustine's offhand observation reveals something momentous: namely, that silent reading—that seemingly mundane act you're engaged in right now—was, in the Dark Ages, a genuine novelty...Could the earliest readers literally not shut up?"
posted to MetaFilter by Iridic at 8:18 AM on September 29, 2014 (51 comments)

My son and I have started running, and I'm looking for as much motivation and wisdom as I can get.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jbickers at 2:07 PM on September 16, 2014 (23 comments)

Here's a look back at sounds of summers past, with a review of EMI's series of Balearic compilations, and for a bit more mystery and diversity, mixes that focus and include Balearic styles from Test Pressing. If the whole "Balearic" thing is confusing, Boiler Room TV has a nice write-up with photos from the period to set the mood, where the music was a mix of mixture of soul, reggae, rock, pop, and Latin, mixed with chill out, lounge and dance music.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 2:40 PM on September 6, 2014 (14 comments)

In a scientific study of Chinese online state censorship, Harvard researchers not only gathered large amounts of social media in real time from within the country but created a large amount themselves to see what got through and what was removed. Through this method, they reverse-engineered what they describe as "the largest selective suppression of human communication in the recorded history of any country". The results, to use a popular term, will surprise you.
posted to MetaFilter by Devonian at 7:04 AM on August 28, 2014 (31 comments)

The Supreme Court holds closely held corporations cannot be required to provide contraception coverage with Justice Alito authoring the majority decision. Justice Ginsburg, in her dissent, calls it a "decision of startling breadth." SCOTUSBlog has a live blog of todays' decisions, which also includes Harris v. Quinn, on the ability of unions to require certain types of employees to contribute.
posted to MetaFilter by leotrotsky at 7:57 AM on June 30, 2014 (1131 comments)

When Falcon 9 attempted its soft water landing it recorded video, sadly not in the best condition. But SpaceX released the video to the public in the hope of recovering more. The NASA Space Flight forums released a description of how they restored the video.
posted to MetaFilter by ElliotH at 3:56 AM on June 27, 2014 (15 comments)

"The concept is a staple of the global culture of fantasy novels and video games, many of which feature a blue bar of magical energy called 'mana.' "But how did this happen? How did a concept from Pago Pago become part of global gaming culture? How did an Austronesian spiritual force come on board the Exodar, and become part of the life of my draenei shaman?" A lengthy look at the history of "mana," from Pacific Islanders to RPGs and trading card games.
posted to MetaFilter by jbickers at 1:49 PM on June 17, 2014 (66 comments)

I read news coverage about metafilter members helping to solve the "Decoding Cancer-addled Ramblings" and thought I should give it a shot for coded messages we found in my Grandfather's posessions after his passing. Although my Grandfather did not have cancer and was of sound mind at the time these documents were sent (circa 1921), he and his brother sent some coded messages to one another for some reason. My family has tried to figure out the messages, but to no avail. Some think the coding was simply used to save money on the cablegrams/telegraphs, others think it was because the text was being sent to Germany during WWII time frame, and others think it was because there was some suspicion about co-workers who may try to access or read the cablegrams/telegraphs.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by AffectionateBro at 9:35 PM on June 16, 2014 (24 comments)

"These people want to believe in a false reality, they want to believe in conspiracy theories, they want to believe that their government is evil, they want to believe that the biblical Anti-Christ sits in the White House and that the so-called End Times are upon us, they want to believe that the President is plotting their demise because that justifies their hatred and bigotry and their miserable unhappiness." Jim Wright, retired naval officer, occasional military intelligence consultant, craftsman and blogger, illustrates the process by which the media exploits lazy critical thinking to create a false narrative that alienates us from one another.
posted to MetaFilter by Lou Stuells at 7:24 PM on April 23, 2014 (53 comments)

So, I was invited to a wedding reception, but not the wedding itself. Do I bring a card? A gift? Do I put money in the card? There's no registry that I'm aware of. Thanks!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Fister Roboto at 2:52 PM on April 19, 2014 (21 comments)

How many rappers have name-checked Tough Actin' Tinactin brand anti-fungal skin products? More than you would think.
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 9:27 PM on April 17, 2014 (25 comments)

I'm looking for some psychological horror, science fiction, or just plain interesting stories written in Spanish. I really enjoy Stephen King, and Junji Ito as horror writers go, and I love harder science fiction rather than softer. Philip K. Dick is one of my favorites as well.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Gargantuantoe at 11:02 PM on April 10, 2014 (10 comments)

Has pop music criticism really devolved into lifestyle reporting as alleged by this Daily Beast article? The response by Slate reviewing Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream".
posted to MetaFilter by lizarrd at 10:48 PM on March 25, 2014 (66 comments)

“The good news is that there are solutions. The weakness of mass surveillance is that it can very easily be made much more expensive through changes in technical standards: pervasive end-to-end encryption can quickly make indiscriminate surveillance impossible on a cost-effective basis. The result is that governments are likely to fall back to traditional, targeted surveillance founded upon an individualized suspicion. Governments cannot risk the discovery of their exploits by simply throwing attacks at every “endpoint,” or computer processor on the end of a network connection, in the world. Mass surveillance, passive surveillance, relies upon unencrypted or weakly encrypted communications at the global network level.”

Edward Snowden submits written testimony to an EU committee investigating mass surveillance, and answers questions. The testimony takes place 3 days ahead of his highly anticipated SXSW appearance, to take place later today. Snowden is expected to speak about privacy, security, mass surveillance programs, free speech and whistle-blowing in a rare remote video appearance before a live audience.
Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo finds this “deeply troubling” in a letter he's sent to the organizers of the conference.

Meanwhile, people who wish to #asksnowden questions can use the hashtag on Twitter. The talk is to take place at 12pm PT, today.
posted to MetaFilter by fantodstic at 3:32 AM on March 10, 2014 (88 comments)

First we had Simon & Simon, Hart to Hart, then Too Close for Comfort (!!), and finally, Bosom Buddies.
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 6:14 AM on January 25, 2014 (59 comments)

Photographer Victoria Will took some fantastic tintype portraits of celebrities at Sundance.
posted to MetaFilter by sacrifix at 10:22 PM on January 24, 2014 (48 comments)

I really love works of fiction that use the style, setup, or form of another media product as a means of storytelling and sometimes subversion. For example: TEDxSummerisle (complete with tweets and botched livestream) and The Theory of Narrative Causality, written primarily in the form of Livejournal posts by the Sherlock Homes fandom (inc comments and bits of fanfic) as well as GChats, TVTropes, and related media. What other similar works are out there?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by divabat at 10:07 PM on January 4, 2014 (22 comments)

The Wikidrummer How the sound of a drum kit changes depending on where you play it. (slyt)
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 6:50 AM on December 7, 2013 (11 comments)

Scott Chesworth has recently finished his epic-scope but bite-sized The Ancient World podcast.
posted to MetaFilter by GenjiandProust at 11:26 AM on November 27, 2013 (17 comments)

"The American homeland is the planet" Not content with a militarized southern border, the U.S. is now militarizing borders around the world (slsa)
posted to MetaFilter by allkindsoftime at 6:49 PM on November 19, 2013 (7 comments)

I'm looking for smart ways to consolidate, organize, and share tourism information for people who visit me and for places that my partner and I might visit.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by neushoorn at 2:04 AM on November 15, 2013 (8 comments)

Excerpts from the upcoming book "Double Down", Obama's tension-filled debate preparation following his poor performance in Denver
posted to MetaFilter by warm_planet at 7:03 PM on November 2, 2013 (107 comments)

"One of the greatest stories, true or fictional, in all literature is Gibbon’s account of the life and martyrdom of Boethius under the Ostrogoth Theodoric. Senator, poet, philosopher, man of reason, he was the last of his kind in all these categories. The story is an incomparable masterpiece of prose. From the opening sentence, "The Senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman," Gibbon builds a mighty organ toccata. He always seems to see ahead to every echo and resonance and inversion of rhythm, through the idyllic description of The Consolation of Philosophy to the terrible climax — the philosopher garroted and clubbed to death in the last gloomy hours of Theodoric, followed by the swift cadence, and the coda of the martyrdom of his fellow Senator Symmachus — four crowded pages of the most solemn music. Each man speaks in his own style. Gibbon speaks with such sublimity because, sitting in his quiet study, he was totally involved in the defense of reason against the triumph of barbarism and superstition and the ruin of all bright things."
posted to MetaFilter by Iridic at 7:41 PM on October 21, 2013 (21 comments)

A new dystopian novel in the classic mode takes the form of a dictionary of madness. Sam Kriss reviews a recent book.
posted to MetaFilter by RogerB at 11:25 AM on October 19, 2013 (26 comments)

We're going to Puerto Rico for a week after Christmas. We have hostel-type places booked in Vieques and Old San Juan for the first part of our trip, but we don't have plans for the 31st and 1st yet. What is the most awesome thing to do in San Juan on New Year's Eve?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by goodbyewaffles at 7:17 PM on October 8, 2013 (1 comment)

Happy Political Clusterf*ck Day (U.S.)! In one corner: the first federal government shutdown since 1996, born of the House GOP/Tea Party faction's crusade to delay, defund, and destroy Obamacare (and the Democratic Senate and President's resolve to not do that). "Continuing resolutions" have ping-ponged between the two houses, fighting over language to cancel healthcare reform (plus a few other items, such as the implementation of Mitt Romney's entire economic agenda). National parks are closed, contractors are hamstrung, and 800,000 federal workers furloughed until Speaker Boehner drops the "Hastert Rule" and passes a bill the other branches can agree to. In the other corner, heedless of the chaos (though not without glitches of its own): the official rollout of the Affordable Care Act and its state insurance exchanges. The portal at Healthcare.gov is your one-stop shop for browsing, comparing, and purchasing standardized, regulated insurance coverage with premium rebates, guaranteed coverage, and expanded Medicaid for the poor (in some states). A crazy day, overall -- but peanuts compared to what might happen if the debt ceiling is breached in 16 days.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:07 PM on October 1, 2013 (2190 comments)

Box. A choreographed performance incorporating a live human, two industrial robots, and projection mapping onto moving surfaces. You've seen projection mapping onto static surfaces, typically buildings. This takes it several steps beyond… and the result is stunning and beautiful.
posted to MetaFilter by davidpriest.ca at 9:39 AM on September 24, 2013 (16 comments)

I am a 6'3" slender man (< 180 lbs) in my mid 30s. I am a grad student and I work in independent media. Don't jump to any conclusions but you're probably not too far off in your pigeonhole. I don't have workplace dress codes, but I would like to find some nice non-denim pants. I'm looking for something like casual-hip/casual-dressy. I generally like svelte-fitting pants, which may or may not be still in style.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Catchfire at 10:16 PM on September 27, 2013 (13 comments)

Is regular drugstore 3% hydrogen peroxide safe to use on the anus?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by john123357 at 4:14 AM on September 3, 2013 (21 comments)

How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
posted to MetaFilter by escape from the potato planet at 5:08 PM on August 27, 2013 (33 comments)

Sullivan’s book was a hit. It was the single best-selling book of 1947, ahead of de Beauvoir, ahead of Sartre, ahead of Camus. People wanted to meet him. The press wanted to talk to him. He was also the plaintiff in a civil suit that could carry a heavy fine or even lead to time in jail. He had to appear in court, which was tricky, because Vernon Sullivan didn’t exist. (SLTheAwl)

posted to MetaFilter by Rustic Etruscan at 4:35 PM on August 27, 2013 (17 comments)

"It would have been the Queen’s Speech to end them all. At midday on Friday 4 March 1983, the monarch was due to address the nation to announce that Britain was at war and – due to the “deadly power of abused technology” – a nuclear conflict was at hand." But it was only part of Wintex-Cimex 83, a large-scale annual NATO war game. This is just one example of speeches that were written in case of the worst, but never given.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 10:42 PM on August 1, 2013 (29 comments)

"Echo Point" is a chilling, sound-rich supernatural radio drama written by Australian author Louis Nowra. Originally aired on BBC Radio 4, it is now available on SoundCloud via producer/director Judith Kampfner.
posted to MetaFilter by mykescipark at 11:55 PM on July 31, 2013 (6 comments)

The story behind Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All.
posted to MetaFilter by ellieBOA at 12:49 PM on July 21, 2013 (39 comments)

Non-Americans! I'm beefing up my to-read pile (especially on my kindle), and I would like suggests of Great Classics of Your National Literature that would typically be assigned in secondary school.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Eyebrows McGee at 10:36 PM on July 21, 2013 (31 comments)

Greg Shahade, an International Master of chess, plays an impromptu blitz game with Samuel Sevian (age 10).
posted to MetaFilter by SpacemanStix at 8:16 PM on July 4, 2013 (50 comments)

An old Stanford study famously found that preschoolers who could leave a marshmallow alone for 15 minutes in order to gain a second one would go on to do better at life. A new study suggests that the important factor here may not be the self control of the child, but the child's level of trust that the second marshmallow would ever appear.
posted to MetaFilter by jacalata at 6:53 PM on July 2, 2013 (53 comments)

Stratus Dance Club mid-80s style - videos from a club in Spring Valley CA offer hours of dancing voyeurism.
posted to MetaFilter by madamjujujive at 5:15 PM on June 25, 2013 (36 comments)

London record label Black Butter have been spearheading a new wave of UK dance music.
posted to MetaFilter by ellieBOA at 4:51 AM on June 21, 2013 (32 comments)

“When I was doing my Post-Doc at UCL I used to go to the British Museum to relax, and work in the beautiful library there, so I chose the space for the mix. I wanted to capture the ambient atmosphere in the central courtyard, so I did some binaural recording to include in the mix. I also wanted to make the mix something of an exploration through history and ideas in line with the contents of the museum, so I brought in lots of disparate music spanning the centuries and continents. I also mixed it in a way to be like a journey though the museum, turning corners and regularly coming across something totally different and unexpected, with each track being like a different exhibit. Hence the name of the mix, in that, each piece of music almost has a visual content.” -- Max Cooper & The British Museum
posted to MetaFilter by empath at 6:59 AM on April 21, 2013 (11 comments)

If you were to consult the official play-by-play scoring for Friday's game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs, you would find nothing unremarkable about the bottom of the 8th inning. As the scoring tells it, Jean Segura of the Brewers hit an infield single, then stole second base. Ryan Braun walked and was thrown out on an attempted steal of second, Rickie Weeks struck out, and the inning ended when Segura was thrown out attempting to steal third base.
posted to MetaFilter by ubernostrum at 10:52 PM on April 20, 2013 (64 comments)

Psybient or psychill is an chillout genre that combines elements of ambient with psytrance and world music, along with some glitch and dub sounds. Excellent examples are Land Switcher (more), Solar Fields (site), Euphorica, and Entheogenic.
posted to MetaFilter by jeffburdges at 2:23 AM on April 18, 2013 (34 comments)

FanBased: Inside Lil B's Ecstatic Cult A look at hip-hop oddball Lil B's sprawling BasedWorld community, home to some of contemporary music's most fiercely loyal, spirited, interconnected fans.
posted to MetaFilter by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:29 PM on April 16, 2013 (37 comments)

Mozart in Turkey is film made of three distinct, but related, elements. First, it is a look into Mozart at the time of his courting Constanze, a bit on his new patron, the "enlightened monarch" Joseph II, and other influences, including the Turkish music and culture, along with thoughts on Mozart's opera as a work created in the Age of Enlightenment, all through the running commentary by opera director Elijah Moshinsky, who also interviews Alev Lytle Croutier, the author of Harem: The World Behind the Veil. Then there is the production of an opera in Turkey, specifically set in and around the Topkapi Palace (virtual tour; Wikipedia). And the last piece is the performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, or The Abduction from the Seraglio. You can watch the entire film online on Vimeo, thanks to Directors Cut Films.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 8:47 PM on April 15, 2013 (3 comments)

In the summer of 1965, riots broke out in the Watts neighborhood of southern Los Angeles. Over a six-day period, 34 people were killed, 1,032 injured and over 3,438 arrests were made. In 1966, LIFE magazine revisited the site of the worst riots America had ever seen in its history. The photo essay depicting the region’s ‘fearsome street gangs’ however, turned out more like a fashion shoot for dapper style…
posted to MetaFilter by Mezentian at 7:42 PM on April 1, 2013 (34 comments)

Kids In Vietnam Are Crazy Good At Programming - '11th graders in Vietnam are so good at programming that they could easily pass an interview at Google' (via)
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 10:49 PM on March 27, 2013 (62 comments)

I'm learning French, and am looking to increase my exposure to spoken French. Among other things, I've been listening to the Coffee Break French series of podcasts, which has been very helpful, but I'd like to add in some podcasts that aren't specifically about learning French -- podcasts that are by native French speakers and made for a French-speaking audience, but which ideally are fairly accessible or at least roughly comprehensible with some effort to someone who has only a patchy knowledge of the language. French news podcasts might be valuable to me, for instance. Bonus features: podcasts that are also broadcast in English, podcasts that are about scientific topics, and podcasts that are about or are produced in francophone Africa. Recommendations?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Scientist at 3:06 PM on March 14, 2013 (17 comments)