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Andrew "Fletch" Fletcher, founding member of Depeche Mode has passed away at age 60.
comment posted at 3:27 AM on May-30-22

I was going to quit playing Scrabble competitively. Then something utterly nuts happened. [It was bushveld. Bushveld happened. -ed]
comment posted at 4:52 AM on Mar-24-22

Overview of how scapegoating can make the people doing it feel better and which children get chosen The rebel (in authoritarian families, this can take very little). The sensitive one The outlier--described as a child who has a personality very different than the parent, but this can also happen to children who are low status by ethnic appearance. A reminder of someone the parent hates.
comment posted at 4:06 AM on Jan-23-22

"We’d stop writing about the guy if he stopped giving us fresh crap to write about." "Why on earth would Australia let in a reckless, twice-infected, antivaxxer who is clearly not interested in following rules, and quite possibly played fast-and-loose with the exemption protocols so that he could hit a yellow ball with a racket?"
comment posted at 3:25 AM on Jan-16-22

Quiz: Where Should You Live? (SLNYT)
comment posted at 4:38 PM on Dec-12-21

Julie Green (NYT obituary) spent the last two decades working on a monumental art project, The Last Supper, which chronicles the last meals of people about to be executed by the state in the USA. Each installment is a plate painted with an image of the last meal in cobalt blue glaze. She planned to stop the project when the death penalty was outlawed or she finished the thousandth plate, whichever came first. She finished the thousandth plate in September and ended her own life via physician-assisted suicide a few weeks later, on October 12th. Her plates are currently on display at the Bellevue Art Museum in Bellevue, WA.
comment posted at 1:04 AM on Nov-22-21

This ode to the husk (Twitter thread) will take you back to a simpler time. The 90s - when young and old alike venerated the husk.
comment posted at 4:04 AM on Jul-20-21

Britney Spears Quietly Pushed for Years to End Her Conservatorship "Her father and others involved in the conservatorship maintained that it was a smooth-running machine that had rescued her from a low point and benefited Spears, and that she could move to end it whenever she wanted. All the while, she stayed largely silent on the subject in public. But now, confidential court records obtained by The New York Times reveal that Spears, 39, expressed serious opposition to the conservatorship earlier and more often than had previously been known, and said that it restricted everything from whom she dated to the color of her kitchen cabinets."
comment posted at 7:42 AM on Jun-23-21

NFL exposed to millions The NFL is busted for a racist notion that Black players are less intelligent cognitively than white or Hispanic players in a bombshell......... "PHILADELPHIA -- The NFL on Wednesday pledged to halt the use of "race-norming" -- which assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive functioning -- in the $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims and to review past scores for any potential race bias. The practice had made it harder for Black players to show a deficit and qualify for an award. The standards were designed in medicine in the 1990s in hopes of offering more appropriate treatment to dementia patients, but critics faulted the way they were used to assess legal damages in the NFL case."
comment posted at 4:30 PM on Jun-7-21

Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said in a news release Thursday that the remains were confirmed last weekend with the help of a ground-penetrating radar specialist. Casimir called the discovery an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.” Some of the children were as young as three.
comment posted at 2:34 AM on May-29-21

“Fending” is our household’s word for picking around the kitchen, seeing what’s there, and making a meal of it… I might have leftover chicken fried rice, some lox and cream cheese on Triscuits, and the end of a jar of pickles. He might use up the chicken salad, Tuesday’s chili, and the last of the roasted cauliflower, which, by the way, is still good.
Writing in The New Yorker, cartoonist Roz Chast describes how she asked around on Instagram about what other people call this practice and collected a moderately long list of vernacular.
Since people might not want to burn their clicks on this tiny li’l article, a list of many of the entries is inside.
comment posted at 4:33 PM on Apr-25-21

Neighbors are now putting theirs back up in solidarity. “No one really knows what is going on inside the house or why we didn’t take down the decorations,” said Pascucci, 31. “Our entire family was sick with covid starting December 24th. Within this timeframe, we lost 2 family members. One being my father,” she continued. “He loved decorating our house every year for the holidays ever since we were children and he took so much pride in doing so. He did it for us, especially for my 2 year old son who he loved so dearly.”
comment posted at 5:39 PM on Feb-11-21

After he dropped out of two high-profile projects – which Variety hears from multiple well-placed sources he was asked to leave – it’s not clear if his career can, or will, recover. “He’s not Tom Cruise,” a high-powered publicist says. “He keeps getting cast, but it’s never a hit at the box office. Who is going to fight in this day and age for a star who has this complicated of a story surrounding him?”
comment posted at 10:07 PM on Feb-4-21

“My sister and her friends had to give a series of lessons on the geological sciences to a class of primary school kids. So she asked me if I could make a spherical cake with all the layers of the Earth inside it. I told her I couldn’t do it. ‘How do you get a sphere inside a sphere inside a sphere?’ I recall saying. ‘Oh yeah,’ she replied, realising what it would involve. I kept mulling it over until I had a breakthrough.”
comment posted at 6:34 PM on Jan-22-21

Kate The Kate Bush Christmas Special is the antidote for those who are tired of the same maudlin, schmaltzy, saccharine, holiday specials on TV. The show (which aired December 28, 1979) has only one holiday song, December Will Be Magic Again, but Kate answers the age-old question: “what would happen if the BBC gave a Christmas special to an incredibly ambitious 21-year-old art rocker who also smokes a ton of weed?”
comment posted at 3:31 PM on Dec-20-20

One in four Britons don’t shower every day: “A Shower is where you get completely into the shower and also wash your hair. A man shower is where you get your hair wet but don’t wash it. And a shower (lower case, no stated gender) is where you just stand at the sink, splashing yourself ... If you spray deodorant on and call that a shower, that’s a Sure-er (you have to say it, not spell it). If you spray deodorant on and spray dry shampoo into your hair, you’ve had a Febreze. If you can’t be bothered to shower and instead get into the sea because you are near it, you’ve had a Sea Febreze.”
comment posted at 1:18 PM on Nov-27-20

“Sweetie, you got potential. You don’t have to worry about these girls, Fi. Come sit with me at my table.”—Shameika Stepney recounts the advice she gave a young Fiona Apple
comment posted at 4:49 PM on Nov-20-20

The Digital Nomads Did Not Prepare for This (NYT). Erin Griffith on those who moved to exotic locales to work through the pandemic in style, but now face tax trouble, breakups and Covid guilt.
comment posted at 2:39 PM on Nov-12-20

"He was a senior CIA official tasked with getting tough on Russia. Then, one night in Moscow, Marc Polymeropoulos's life changed forever. He says he was hit with a mysterious weapon, joining dozens of American diplomats and spies who believe they’ve been targeted with this secret device all over the world—and even at home, on U.S. soil. (GQ) Now, as a CIA investigation points the blame at Russia, the victims are left wondering why so little is being done by the Trump administration. (NYT)"
comment posted at 4:36 PM on Oct-29-20

OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!
comment posted at 3:16 AM on Oct-22-20

The familiar kangaroos are replaced with a green and gold ripple and a message - Give to Help Others. The Royal Australian Mint releases the Donation Dollar, a coin intended to be given away. 25 million will be minted, one for each Australian.
comment posted at 4:49 AM on Sep-3-20

Ice cream trucks will be playing a new tune this summer, composed by RZA of Wu Tang Clan. Good Humor Ice Cream's web page is blessedly straightforward about the rationale: The previous jingle, used for decades, was a traditional tune probably best known these days as "Turkey in the Straw" but has an incredibly problematic past, and Good Humor's press release is unusually frank about the song's racist heritage as being the reason for the change.
comment posted at 2:24 AM on Aug-15-20

Rob Delaney on the pain and pleasure of his vasectomy. Also: Previously (and very sadly).
comment posted at 4:24 PM on Aug-12-20

The New York Academy of Medicine Library, for the fifth year in a row, has released their #ColorOurCollections free coloring pages based on material from over 50 library/museum/archive organizations around the world.
comment posted at 12:18 AM on Aug-10-20

Alanis Morisette on the Tonight Show, with guest star Onyx, 4, a beautiful song: "🎶 My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze. 🎵"
comment posted at 1:44 AM on Aug-1-20

"... and rock-star self-care" Alanis and Liz were supposed to tour this summer. That's not happening. The LA Times (paywalled, limited articles) brought them together for a conversation about all kinds of things, but mostly about mental health through the pandemic, and songwriting, and the patriarchy within the music business. Article written by Liz Phair.
comment posted at 6:39 PM on Jul-30-20

Ever wanted your very own 1991 Macintosh Quadra running Mac OS 8? macintosh.js is here for you: a free Mac OS 8 virtual machine running in an Electron app for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Even better, it comes with games, apps, and demos preinstalled including Oregon Trail, Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Photoshop 3, Premiere 4, Illustrator 5.5, StuffIt Expander, the Apple Web Page Construction Kit, and more.
comment posted at 2:58 AM on Jul-30-20

Just a few weeks after turning 104, actress Olivia de Havilland - one of the last surviving performers from Hollywood's "Golden Age" - died yesterday in her home in Paris. She is most likely best known for her role as Melanie in Gone With The Wind, but personally preferred some of her other works - including pursuing the lawsuit that put the first crack in the old Hollywood studio system and granted greater freedom to screen actors in her wake.
comment posted at 11:47 PM on Jul-26-20

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
comment posted at 10:57 PM on Jul-14-20

“I surprised my two cats with a huge ball pit filled with 500 multi-colored balls!”
comment posted at 6:17 AM on Jul-11-20

Can Anna Wintour survive fashion's reckoning with racism?
comment posted at 4:27 PM on Jun-17-20

Global deaths due to various causes and COVID-19 - a sobering data visualization that puts the pandemic in greater context
comment posted at 12:54 AM on May-30-20

Nina Renata Aron on Being in Love With an Addict "If there isn’t coffee or milk at home, I simply wait. The day might take on a different shape, a detour to stop at a café or a trip to the market... This isn’t like that. The necessity of getting drugs and the wolfish entitlement to be high arrive anew each morning with the rosy light of daybreak, and he sets about, diversionless, feeding that urge."
comment posted at 6:00 PM on Apr-29-20
comment posted at 6:21 PM on Apr-29-20

As bad as things are, at least you're not the guy who had to go all the way to the Quebec Court of Appeal to void a $517,000 bet on three games of rock paper scissors.
comment posted at 12:32 PM on Apr-27-20

Curt Smith of Tears for Fears and his daughter duet on “Mad World” while in quarantine. (SLYT)
comment posted at 10:41 PM on Apr-9-20

"Our kids were bored after four weeks of social isolation. My wife and I cleaned the basement and wondered what we should do with our old Simpsons Halloween costumes. One of these problems solved the other. The end result was this video." [SLYT]
comment posted at 7:09 PM on Apr-9-20

i wrote this album from my own perspective of relationships I've had in winter, as well as what I've gone through and grown through emotionally as an adult. i recently had broken up with my ex-girlfriend and was going through a lonely period of time, even when i was with her - i thought id channel a lot of what i was feeling about lost love as well as seasonal depression

the story about a night of a rainy party in a small apartment living room <3 memories and moments unfold... xx. in a way this album is a follow up to rainworld from 2017.
comment posted at 12:55 AM on Mar-30-20

Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexually assaulting two women in New York From WaPo link: [Mimi Haleyi] choked up while discussing the torture of testifying: “I showed up not as a perfect victim but as a human being.”
comment posted at 7:28 PM on Mar-11-20

Feb 25, 1985, Tears For Fears' second album Songs From The Big Chair was released. The album was a giant international success, both in its own sales and the success of its many singles. Perhaps you haven't listened in a while, or perhaps never listened before! 80s pop with a confrontational, deeper vein! Side A: Shout [video], The Working Hour, Everybody Wants To Rule The World [video], Mothers Talk [video]
comment posted at 2:34 PM on Feb-26-20

If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor. The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together.
comment posted at 8:13 PM on Feb-20-20

Was Leonardo DiCaprio Actually a Star Before Titanic? An intra-Slate Gen X debate.
comment posted at 10:22 PM on Feb-20-20

The first thing people usually want to know is what getting stabbed feels like. The answer is that it feels like getting punched really hard. Or at least, I assume it’s what getting hit feels like. I’ve never been punched. I have been stabbed six times. (content warning: pictures of blood and stitched-up wounds)
comment posted at 5:40 PM on Feb-14-20

Practice Fusion , an electronic health record vendor will pay a $145 million fine as a result of receiving kickbacks for modifying their software to increase the prescription of opioids. Pharma Co. X, not yet identified in the DOJ agreement agreed to give Practice Fusion one million dollars to put a series of alerts in their software that would prompt doctors to ask patients about their pain levels more frequently and to favor opioids as a pain treatment option.
comment posted at 5:42 AM on Jan-29-20

What happens when "relatable" YouTubers quit their day jobs to influence full time?
comment posted at 6:45 PM on Jan-27-20

Gen Z arrives in the work force. Millennials have long held the oft-craved title of youngest and laziest members of the workforce. But there’s a new sheriff in town. Gen Z.
comment posted at 9:44 PM on Jan-8-20

Prince Harry and Meghan quit the Firm - couple step back as senior members of Royal Family: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex released an announcement saying, "We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen."
comment posted at 3:24 PM on Jan-8-20
comment posted at 3:25 PM on Jan-8-20

“We had an office fist fight over some particularly smelly cheese." Earlier this month, Alison Green of Ask a Manager invited readers to share their most amusing holiday office party stories. Here are ten of her favorites plus links to others.
comment posted at 5:26 PM on Dec-28-19

What did authenticity in food mean in 2019? In the foodie world, there's a constant mad dash to eat the most authentic cuisines possible. What does that mean when recipes are ever changing?
comment posted at 1:05 PM on Dec-16-19