March 21

Paperclip hole included

Making the ultimate Hackintosh: the Brewintosh
posted by They sucked his brains out! on Mar 21 at 12:07 AM - 10 comments

Sperm whales drop bubble of poo off WA to prevent orca attack

Sperm whales drop bubble of poo off WA to prevent orca attack in rarely recorded encounter. Observers look on in amazement as sperm whales off Western Australia's southern coast successfully defend themselves from a pod of attacking Orca by defecating at will, creating a cloud of diarrhoea.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Mar 20 at 8:58 PM - 19 comments

Shohei Ohtani's interpreter accused of massive theft

Shohei Ohtani, singular baseball talent and recent recipient of the largest contract in sport history, has always been close with his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. On Wednesday Ohtani's lawyers have accused Mizuhara of a massive theft to pay off gambling debts. The day before Mizuhara and Ohtani's camp had a different story: Ohtani knew about the gambling debts and had agreed to pay them off. Was Ohtani just covering for a friend, or was he taken advantage of? Did he knowingly pay off a bookie despite MLB rules against such interactions?
posted by thecjm on Mar 20 at 4:55 PM - 44 comments

—You got the wrong guy, pal.

If Minute 9 is the first time we hear the names Deckard and Blade Runner, it’s also the first time we meet the plainclothes cop who will play a key role in LAPD surveillance of Deckard — and in the changed emphasis of four subsequent versions of Blade Runner released over the next twenty-five years. from Minute 9: Blade Runner [3 am magazine] [more inside]
posted by chavenet on Mar 20 at 3:59 PM - 30 comments

Andrew Crispo, Disgraced Manhattan Gallery Owner, Dies at 78

TRIGGER WARNING His fall from the pinnacle of the New York art world involved murder, torture, tax evasion, extortion and two terms in prison. Clay Risen NYT
posted by bq on Mar 20 at 3:35 PM - 12 comments

When artificial intelligence goes wrong

Well isn't this a fine kettle of fish. Is the orchestra the audience? What's in her lap?lap? Is it the latest Birkin bag, or a camera case...Queensland Orchestra said they wanted to use artificial intelligence to be "innovative".
posted by Czjewel on Mar 20 at 2:32 PM - 35 comments

It doesn’t have those "standard validity and reliability things"

An Expert Who Has Testified in Foster Care Cases Across Colorado Admits Her Evaluations Are Unscientific Diane Baird labeled her method for assessing families the "Kempe Protocol" after the renowned University of Colorado institute where she worked for decades. The school has yet to publicly disavow it. [ProPublica]
posted by readinghippo on Mar 20 at 1:18 PM - 29 comments

Still vast, no longer trunkless

Massive Missing Head of Ancient Ramesses II Statue Uncovered. "Egyptian and American researchers recently uncovered the top half of an ancient statue depicting the pharaoh Ramesses II, completing a puzzle that has remained unsolved since 1930, when German archaeologist Günther Roeder initially uncovered the bottom half." [more inside]
posted by moonmilk on Mar 20 at 12:16 PM - 19 comments

To mise or not to mise

There are two kinds of people As MetaFilter well knows, there are infinite varieties of "two kinds of people" in the world: Askers and Guessers, those who Face the Spray vs. those who Face Away, Standers vs. Sitters. Welcome to the fray, mise en place!
posted by epj on Mar 20 at 11:45 AM - 60 comments

Default fonts and quantum dingbats

Elle Cordova is a poet, singer, comedian, filker, science geek and more. She recently published three hilarious brief skits where she embodies 20 fonts hanging out and gossiping. Compiled with open captions 4:12 at this single YouTube link. With her former Raina del Cid persona previously and previouserly
posted by Jesse the K on Mar 20 at 11:05 AM - 12 comments

“After hydrogen, there’s nothing.”

Meet the divers trying to figure out how deep humans can go (Samantha Schuyler in MIT Technology Review)
"They weren’t there to exceed 245 meters—a depth they’d reached three years earlier. Nor were they there to set a depth record—that would mean going past 308 meters. They were there to test what they saw as a possible key to unlocking depths beyond even 310 meters: breathing hydrogen."
posted by thatwhichfalls on Mar 20 at 10:51 AM - 20 comments

"There is only one highest place on Earth"

Mountaineer and Cinematographer David Breashears dies at 68 [more inside]
posted by Kangaroo on Mar 20 at 10:16 AM - 10 comments

"nobody has really considered what they might look like to an outsider"

More in my series curating work by finance expert Daniel Davies, this time focusing on academia and on the cultures and norms of research in general. In "why i am (still after all) an economist" (2023), he asks, "Is there anything that is actually definitional, something that you have to believe or you’re not an economist?" and offers his answer, which is that (I'd summarize) economics treats historical facts as descriptive but not necessarily prescriptive. [more inside]
posted by brainwane on Mar 20 at 9:23 AM - 5 comments

You should upgrade to the paid subscription of your library card

This is just a few TiKToks celebrating the fun of having a library card, that is all.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Mar 20 at 8:17 AM - 44 comments

Recycling ceramic waste into new ceramics

IKEA's recently introduced SILVERSIDA line of blue-speckled white ceramic dinnerware are made with ~60% post-firing ceramic waste. Broken pottery is ground up into powder then mixed with a portion of raw clay and water and used to make these new pieces. [more inside]
posted by seanmpuckett on Mar 20 at 7:35 AM - 20 comments

Context Collapse and Face-Work

"...[W]hile both context collusion and context collision are examples of collapsed contexts, they are conceptually and consequentially distinct from each other. The intentionality of the individual and their role in either allowing new information to come forth—as in the case of context collusion—or if it is unbeknownst that this information will be introduced—as in the case of context collision—is crucial. We also contend that context collapse is linked to an individual’s perception of face." [more inside]
posted by cupcakeninja on Mar 20 at 5:27 AM - 13 comments

Generations ain't nothing but a number

The youngest Baby Boomers are turning 60 this year, but they have more in common with their Gen X counterparts. (slVancouverSun)
posted by Kitteh on Mar 20 at 5:05 AM - 121 comments

Dame Edna gets tossed from the royal box

Poor Dame Edna got caught out, and tossed from the royal box during the 2013 Royal Variety performance.
posted by Czjewel on Mar 20 at 3:11 AM - 4 comments

Make TrueType fonts for free on the web

Long ago, back in 2008, Dave Faris posted a link to FontStruct, a simple, yet deceptively versatile, free system for constructing fonts on the web, which you can then download as TrueType fonts for yourself, or even allow others to use. This is to inform you that FontStruct is still operational after 16 years at a different address! And it hasn't stood still during that time, it has steadily been updated with new features! [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Mar 20 at 2:52 AM - 6 comments

Relentlessly material

To get at the matter of the Cloud we must unravel the coils of coaxial cables, fiber optic tubes, cellular towers, air conditioners, power distribution units, transformers, water pipes, computer servers, and more. We must attend to its material flows of electricity, water, air, heat, metals, minerals, and rare earth elements that undergird our digital lives. In this way, the Cloud is not only material, but is also an ecological force. As it continues to expand, its environmental impact increases, even as the engineers, technicians, and executives behind its infrastructures strive to balance profitability with sustainability. Nowhere is this dilemma more visible than in the walls of the infrastructures where the content of the Cloud lives: the factory-libraries where data is stored and computational power is pooled to keep our cloud applications afloat. from The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud [MIT]
posted by chavenet on Mar 20 at 1:44 AM - 14 comments

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