"Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute is an online community dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now." Examples: Cyberdelia, Eco-Beige, Paperback Chic, Corporate Grunge / Grunge™, Genericana, and Dollar Store Vernacular. Each category has a "Gallery" -- select "Show" to display examples of the aesthetic.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 11:33 AM on February 27, 2023 (36 comments)

This is a public thank you to chariot pulled by cassowaries for their frequent posts of good news from the natural world. It brightens my day to read about plants and animals recovering adversity, and people being not-terrible in helping them. Cheers to you.
posted to MetaTalk by seanmpuckett at 1:54 AM on April 6, 2024 (47 comments)

Most people would recognize it as the musical figure played by the piano in "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" at 00:06 in its use as the Looney Tunes theme. And I thought that's where it originated.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by the sobsister at 5:29 AM on April 2, 2024 (5 comments)

We Roleplayed the End of the World with 4000 Other People (People Make Games Youtube video) showcases Wasteland's fully immersive Mad Max inspired vibe. Start with Quintin's poor preparation and imminent heat stroke, stay for Chris "the most adorable and earnest war boy I've ever seen!" This is an exception to the rule, you should read the comments under the video.

comments my husband made on muckraker, fondly I will say:
"He looks like an adolescent war boy"
"He's not a war boy he's a newsboy"
"He's precious"
"He is a little war brother"
😂❤
posted to MetaFilter by spamandkimchi at 4:09 PM on March 19, 2024 (2 comments)

The aircraft they are following, the one they have been looking for, is not like the others in the group. She wears a paint scheme any other Liberator would think humiliating—white from chin turret to trailing edge, covered in a pox of bright red and blue polka dots about 18 inches in diameter. Aft of the trailing wing edge, she is army green, but the pox extends down her flanks in garish red and yellow dots. And she has a face... perhaps it was meant to be that of a shark, but it grins like a dim-witted dachshund. It seems to pant in the heat of the turbulent air. The spotted markings make her look like a massive flying bag of Wonderbread. from Polka Dot Warriors – The Assembly Ships of the Mighty Eighth
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 2:43 AM on March 14, 2024 (18 comments)

A conversation between environmental modeler Trevor House and journalist David Roberts. TLDR: did what it said on the tin Economic and environment models have come a long way and can now provide real- time assessment and predictions for proposed legislation.
posted to MetaFilter by Dashy at 1:54 PM on March 13, 2024 (14 comments)

The Getty museum has released a huge trove of images under a CC0 license (essentially waiving copyright). Images can be downloaded in high resolution.
posted to MetaFilter by adamrice at 1:00 PM on March 9, 2024 (16 comments)

My Cat Shoots Rubber Bands From Her Paws [6m16s] My black cat Serena has not only learned how to shoot rubber bands, she has mastered the art. I feel like a circus hawker, but YOU WON'T SEE THIS ANYWHERE ELSE BUT HERE! ... Serena is a 4 year old Domestic Short Hair. She has no top incisors, so her tongue sticks out ALL THE TIME!!!! 😺
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:59 AM on March 9, 2024 (20 comments)

"As soon as Senator Katie Britt started speaking, I knew exactly who she is. She is so many of the pastor's wives and Sunday School teachers I knew growing up in an Evangelical church. Be sweet. Obey."
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 11:37 AM on March 9, 2024 (93 comments)

What the hell is Peepy? "A peepy thrives in the shadows, using its wit to stun enemies. Its ability to steal may surprise you. It loves peanuts and will commit any heinous act to get them." In our sad real world, Peppy is a little plush animal that's vaguely peanut-shaped itself, with a beak and big eyes both round. In the lore, a Peepy has two loves in life: eating peanuts and committing crimes. The adventures of Peepy and "friends" on video are part of an elaborate ad campaign by itemLabel with a jolly but vaguely unsettling vibe. Most of it has strange and infectious music by Japanese musician Emamouse. Here's Peepy's Theme Song; a Nintendo DS-like console explains how to care for Peepy; and then there's the amazingly trippy animation Peepy's Secret (warning: bright lights and flashing).
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 9:34 AM on March 9, 2024 (14 comments)

Strands is a new word game from The New York Times, released in beta today.
posted to MetaFilter by box at 9:22 AM on March 4, 2024 (29 comments)

I play music covers using electric toothbrushes, credit card machines, typewriters, and other electric devices. I control the devices using a microcontroller, some wires, and my programming skills. Thanks to the ideas of my subscribers, my devices now have googly eyes, and some even wigs and pipe cleaner arms. Sometimes I also make the devices perform choreographies, by making the devices move each other. it's Device Orchestra
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 4:22 PM on March 1, 2024 (10 comments)

Garfield (2004) was a game for the Playstation 2 and PC. It was a pretty lackluster 3D production where the idea was to help the cartoon cat clean Jon's house within eight hours (real time!) or else be put on a diet. The few places that reviewed it gave it extremely low scores (0/10!). Youtuber planet clue recently had a look at the game (20 minutes) and, while agreeing it's no great work of art, saw that there was still a bit of fun to be had, if it could be made to run on Windows 11, and if one could get over its issues. So, they went about hacking it to correct its more egregious flaws, and when they were done put their improved version online, as Garfield+ (Windows only).
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 3:38 PM on March 1, 2024 (4 comments)

20 Words // 20 Seconds is an addictive typing game by Kevin Hutchins where you have 20 seconds to type 20 words based on prompts that refresh every time you type a new word.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:21 AM on December 15, 2023 (79 comments)

just to tick me off. In the early 2000s, gaming magazine GameNOW spent two years sneaking the same screenshot of Final Fantasy VIII into every issue, just to needle a single irate reader.
posted to MetaFilter by signsofrain at 12:14 PM on February 27, 2024 (11 comments)

What is a rose, visually? A rose comprises its intrinsics, including the distribution of geometry, texture, and material specific to its object category. With knowledge of these intrinsic properties, we may render roses of different sizes and shapes, in different poses, and under different lighting conditions. In this work, we build a generative model that learns to capture such object intrinsics from a single image, such as a photo of a bouquet. Such an image includes multiple instances of an object type. These instances all share the same intrinsics, but appear different due to a combination of variance within these intrinsics and differences in extrinsic factors, such as pose and illumination. Experiments show that our model successfully learns object intrinsics (distribution of geometry, texture, and material) for a wide range of objects, each from a single Internet image. Our method achieves superior results on multiple downstream tasks, including intrinsic image decomposition, shape and image generation, view synthesis, and relighting. from Seeing a Rose in Five Thousand Ways
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 2:10 AM on February 18, 2024 (1 comment)

I FEEL AT TIMES that I still live in the never-ending 20th century, that I’m stuck here, that maybe everyone is stuck here, even people born too late to have seen it happen. True, there are smartphones now, and new types of ugly buildings. Images are sharper, even when you zoom in. You can tell that time has passed because unremarkable things like Sweetheart Jazz cups have acquired the status of fetish objects. But some part of the American mindset is still in 1999, which feels substantially closer to us now than 1979 did then. from Heritage 2000, a review of Time Bomb Y2K in N+1
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:54 AM on February 17, 2024 (30 comments)

Many an ancient road is a sunken road. They are formed by the passage of people, animals, and vehicles over time. Things of beauty, they are found hither and yon, including in Middle Earth. They should be considered as critical sites of the Anthropocene, signature human impacts on the land that are important, perhaps vital, and still not wholly understood. Also known as holloways, they have inspired literary and artistic reflection, conjuring images of fantastic landscapes. Note that, per Wikipedia, a holloway is not the same thing as a tree tunnel, an excavated road, or a gully.
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 4:46 AM on February 16, 2024 (13 comments)

The exclusive Satellaview-only broadcast tracks of Nintendo's classic SNES/Super Famicom racing game F-Zero have been recovered by fans, and are available in a romhack on the original F-Zero. The story of their recovery, and in some cases recreation, is told in an interview with the hack's main programmer on classic gaming blog Press The Buttons, which reveals that special tools were used to recreate some of the tracks from out of a VHS recording of the tracks being played when they were originally broadcast. DidYouKnowGaming (12 minutes) also has a video about the process of the tracks' recreation.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 9:15 PM on February 11, 2024 (6 comments)

After a not very successful campaign in 2023 Ukraine is facing some difficult obstacles and tough choices in 2024. Inside is a collection of status reports and commentary on where the war is now.
posted to MetaFilter by Harald74 at 1:16 PM on February 10, 2024 (130 comments)

mixtapegarden.com is a collaborative mixtape making site. Make an account, make a mixtape, & then you (or anyone else!) add 7 YouTube videos to it. Once the 7th one is added, it's converted to a single, crossfaded MP3 you can stream or download! (by @tobyalden)
posted to MetaFilter by simmering octagon at 10:57 AM on February 8, 2024 (37 comments)

A web development extravaganza & feel good song, Antonymph will wow you if you're a web dev and might even make your cold, numb, unfeeling heart thaw just a smidgen. (Desktop browser and HD monitor highly recommended - not really for mobile!)
posted to MetaFilter by signsofrain at 12:30 PM on February 5, 2024 (23 comments)

and the dark patterns you should try to avoid. From their description: A game review website devoted to helping you find mobile games that aren't riddled with in-app purchases, and don't use psychological tricks to manipulate you into becoming an addicted gamer. Learn about the dark patterns that game designers use to waste your precious time and money.
posted to MetaFilter by wowenthusiast at 10:48 AM on February 5, 2024 (57 comments)

'Exhibiting Forgiveness', directed by artist Titus Kaphar, premiered at Sundance last weeekend (Variety review by Owen Gleiberman, Q&A at ABCNews by Lindsay Bahr). This is the artist's second film to appear at Sundance, after last year's documentary 'Shut Up And Paint' (Oscar Contender ‘Shut Up And Paint’ Reveals Dilemma Of Artist Titus Kaphar, Whose Work Is Valued, But His Message Not, Matthew Carey in Deadline).
posted to MetaFilter by bq at 9:18 AM on January 25, 2024 (5 comments)

"An unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morphed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies--sometimes realities--of violence" (from the book jacket, via Bookshop.org)
posted to FanFare by MonkeyToes at 2:06 PM on September 21, 2023 (6 comments)

The Trump movement is turning America fascist w/Jeff Sharlet The Chris Hedges Report on The Real News Network An interview based on Jeff Sharlet's new book: Undertow; Scenes From a Slow Civil War.
posted to MetaFilter by mumimor at 5:36 AM on January 22, 2024 (235 comments)

Inventor of NTP protocol that keeps time on billions of devices dies at age 85. Dave Mills created NTP, the protocol that holds the temporal Internet together, in 1985.
posted to MetaFilter by lewiseason at 7:27 AM on January 20, 2024 (52 comments)

Old'aVista: The most powerful guide to the old Internet (via, h/t)
posted to MetaFilter by May Kasahara at 7:00 AM on January 19, 2024 (27 comments)

"It turns out that regular cells—not just highly specialized brain cells such as neurons—have the ability to store information and act on it. Now Levin has shown that the cells do so by using subtle changes in electric fields as a type of memory. These revelations have put the biologist at the vanguard of a new field called basal cognition. Researchers in this burgeoning area have spotted hallmarks of intelligence—learning, memory, problem-solving—outside brains as well as within them."
posted to MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 2:52 PM on January 18, 2024 (58 comments)

People lose millions of items at airports each year. Follow the journey of the stuff from found in Seattle to sold in Alabama or auctioned in Pittsburgh. Inside Airport: Lost & Found [NatGeo, 45m] is a fascinating look at just how hard so many people work to try to reunite lost objects with the travelers who left them behind. Also, what happens to objects that can't be returned?
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:45 AM on January 15, 2024 (25 comments)

He spent his life building a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable. Ken Fritz turned his home into an audiophile’s dream — the world’s greatest hi-fi. What would it mean in the end?
posted to MetaFilter by bq at 9:24 AM on January 13, 2024 (107 comments)

How Not to Speak to Someone With ADHD If you, your child, or your spouse/partner has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), you may encounter naysayers who simply do not understand the condition and its impact on everyday life.
posted to MetaFilter by Faintdreams at 6:16 AM on January 10, 2024 (141 comments)

This week.... Kamala Harris appeared to call for a cease fire in Gaza... but then qualified it by adding "for the next six weeks." Trump endorses North Carolina Republican candidate for Governor Mark Robinson by calling him, inexplicably, "Martin Luther King on steroids." And Now: C-SPAN Callers Show Once Again Why They're America At Its Best. Main story: state medical boards, the organizations whose job it is to issue, suspend and revoke licenses to practice medicine in each state. These boards tend to be underfunded, but also are often composed entirely of doctors, who can be biased in their judgements on behalf of their colleagues, a phenomenon called "the white coat code of silence." On Youtube (23 minutes). And Now: People On TV Love To Talk About Their Big Fuckin' Heads.
posted to FanFare by JHarris at 11:20 AM on March 14, 2024 (5 comments)

"Rick hires an Observer to verify Morty's homemade punch cards, but the cosmic all-seeing entity won't stop playing clips from their lives out of spite." -- IMDb
posted to FanFare by johnofjack at 3:47 PM on March 3, 2024 (4 comments)

[TRAILER] In the not so distant future, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system (Scarlett Johansson).
posted to FanFare by DirtyOldTown at 10:16 AM on February 29, 2024 (5 comments)

Hempuli, the brilliant designer behind the rule-modification puzzle game Baba Is You ($15 for Windows, Mac and Linux, previously, again), hasn't rested since that came out. (Everything mentioned is free and for Windows unless otherwise noted.) Baba Is You was so successful that now we have to help Baba File Taxes! Covemount (Web) is a simple Sokoban clone with an interesting numeric gimmick. Baba Is You XTREME adds an extra feature to Baba for reasons of "fun." And there's a collection of 16 Solitaire games! And a little Neko-like Baba friend/desktop toy! And... Mobile Suit Baba, a mashup of Baba Is You and Into The Breach?! ($4, Windows) There's lots more i left out only for brevity's sake: the rest is on Hempuli's itch.io page.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 2:15 AM on January 7, 2024 (16 comments)

Five Facts About the Cassowary.
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:14 PM on January 6, 2024 (34 comments)

Silly, and highly addictive. Tap anywhere to turn Pacman. [Warning music is loud]
posted to MetaFilter by Faintdreams at 3:52 AM on January 3, 2024 (21 comments)

as someone who is Extremely Online™️ and a self proclaimed meme connoisseur here is a ranking of my top internet moments / memes of 2023 by Annie Wu [X; nitter]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 12:24 PM on December 31, 2023 (21 comments)

100 Little Ideas that Explain how the Human World works. "Bizarreness Effect: Crazy things are easier to remember than common things, providing a distorted sense of “normal.” Nonlinearity: Outputs aren’t always proportional to inputs, so the world is a barrage of massive wins and horrible losses that surprise people. Moderating Relationship: The correlation between two variables depends on a third, seemingly unrelated variable. The quality of a marriage may be dependent on a spouse’s work project that’s causing stress. Denomination Effect: One hundred $1 bills feels like less money than one $100 bill. Also explains stock splits – buying 10 shares for $10 each feels cheaper than one share for $100. Woozle Effect: “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.” - Daniel Kahneman."
posted to MetaFilter by storybored at 11:53 AM on December 31, 2023 (35 comments)

The website fatherhood.gov maintains a database of Dad Jokes.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 3:36 PM on December 29, 2023 (84 comments)

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, like Breath of the Wild, has a secret experience system that doesn't make your character stronger, it makes the enemies harder. Here's 102 ways to kill a bokoblin in that game. If you got it for the holidays and want some tips, here's 10. How to send Link waaaaay up into the sky with just a fan and a plank, using Oriented Carryable Objects (OCOs). And here's TerminalMontage's speedrun cartoon, featuring Cucuí Ganon.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 4:04 PM on December 26, 2023 (15 comments)

There’s no better way to emphasize this general feeling than to break down the most important events of 2023 to their molecular level. (Although, as you’re about to see, “important” is a relative term; the word “most” is far more key here.) To recap the language that this year gave us—the seemingly ranch, the rizz, the ice cream yes yes yes—so that we can truly see just how constant, how compelling, and how bizarre our current existence is. Without further ado, these are the 84 sentences that defined 2023. [CW: almost entirely US-focused]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 12:38 PM on December 26, 2023 (63 comments)

It’s the Ides of March! You know what that means - everybody should totally just stab Caes- I mean, link to your favorite Ides of March memes.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by panther of the pyrenees at 9:00 AM on March 15, 2024 (13 comments)

I've realised I love fiction where a labyrinth or other extremely complicated and large structure is an integral part of the story. Think the House in Piranesi, the castle of Gormenghast, or the ship in Rendezvous with Rama. What other books might I enjoy?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by underclocked at 3:28 AM on February 4, 2024 (42 comments)

Months later...
posted to FanFare by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 12:31 PM on January 12, 2024 (18 comments)

New Zealand musician Aldous Harding has released a new song The Barrel, from the forthcoming album 'Designer', due on 26th April. The accompanying video (directed by Martin Sagadin & Aldous Harding) is typically off-kilter. Interview on NPR.
posted to MetaFilter by pipeski at 4:09 PM on March 31, 2019 (14 comments)

Hello MetaFilter!

We are thrilled to announce the latest addition to our team, a hire that has been highly anticipated - Kirkaracha!

posted to MetaTalk by loup at 12:32 PM on February 9, 2024 (60 comments)

66 Good News Stories You Didn't Hear About in 2023 [FutureCrunch]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 3:28 PM on December 20, 2023 (31 comments)

Justice by Means of Democracy [archive|transcript] - "[T]he work of democracy is to continuously resist capture. There is no end of history. There is no state of rest for democracy. Democracy is the work of resisting capture by powerful interests and restoring power-sharing just over and over and over again. So we have to do work to introduce new governance mechanisms in the place of those that are not working."[1,2; link-heavy post!]
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 12:12 AM on December 12, 2023 (20 comments)