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Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm. A consulting architect on UCSB’s Design Review Committee has quit his post in protest over the university’s proposed Munger Hall project, calling the massive, mostly-windowless dormitory plan “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being.” 97-year-old billionaire and amateur architect Charles Munger donated $200 million toward the project - an 11-story, 1.68-million-square-foot structure that would house up to 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms - with the condition that his blueprints be followed exactly.
comment posted at 12:15 PM on Oct-29-21

Facebook renames itself Meta
comment posted at 12:15 PM on Oct-28-21

The Chicago Blackhawks chose chasing a tarnished Cup instead of doing what’s right. (CW: sexual assault) In the wake of an independent investigation that determined that the Chicago Blackhawks covered up allegations of sexual assault by one of their coaches in 2010, president of hockey operations Stan Bowman resigned. Other executives who knew about the allegations are employed with other teams.
comment posted at 6:58 PM on Oct-27-21

shh. (puts a soft finger on your lips) just watch this movie trailer without knowing the title and let the feeling move you
comment posted at 1:03 PM on Oct-15-21

Question: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in the name of science? "Administered enemas made of raspberries to mice." (Twitter thread found via Nature Index)
comment posted at 9:42 PM on Aug-14-21

What Do You Do With A Billion Grams Of Surplus Weed? Cannabis legalization was supposed to be a licence to print money. Three years on, nobody is turning a profit
comment posted at 7:04 PM on Aug-7-21

and👏 are👏 not👏 in👏 Xanadu👏 do👏 not👏 a👏 stately👏 pleasure👏 dome👏 decree!👏
comment posted at 10:54 PM on Jul-30-21

The Associated Press said Tuesday it will no longer run the names of people charged with minor crimes, out of concern that such stories can have a long, damaging afterlife on the internet that can make it hard for individuals to move on with their lives.
comment posted at 12:34 PM on Jun-17-21

The NHL Says ‘Hockey Is For Everyone.’ Black Players Aren’t So Sure. This is about how overwhelmingly white professional hockey is and whether Black Canadians and Black Americans feel safe playing hockey while adapting in a very conformist culture that does not support the same level of activism like NFL and NBA....several coaches like John Tortorella who changed their anthem kneeling stance reluctantly......
comment posted at 8:28 PM on Jun-6-21

A twitter thread by @hanalyst, who continues: “I leaned my head back to wet my hair in the shower and pulled a muscle in my neck.” @maureenchuck1 responds: “I threw my hip out dancing to Groove Is In The Heart and had to go to hospital”, while @JlhNeuro replies: “Raised my arm to reach for something and got frozen shoulder for two years” and @RenDan81 responds: “I burned the word Pyrex onto my arm trying to take the dish out of the oven.” There's more, including...
comment posted at 11:38 AM on May-19-21

I'm a part time employee halfway through a two week notice [SLTwitter video]
comment posted at 3:39 PM on Apr-22-21

September 1990. Judas Priest, the world's biggest heavy metal band, had released some patchy albums since their peak years of 1976-84, with a turn to pop metal and a follow-up anchored by a drum machine. The previous month, they'd been embroiled in a trial claiming that subliminal messages on an old album had driven two youths to suicide. A week after the judge threw out that case, the band released one of their finest albums, and in its title track, arguably their finest song: Painkiller. Now, thirty years later, it's the subject of a delightful YouTube reaction video by vocal coach and opera singer Elizabeth Zharoff, who says, "This will be my very first time hearing Judas Priest and Rob Halford, so I'm quite excited." If you haven't heard either yet, why not make it yours?
comment posted at 1:00 PM on Apr-13-21
comment posted at 3:20 PM on Apr-13-21
comment posted at 8:37 AM on Apr-14-21

I was dancing to the ringtone. (YouTube)
comment posted at 2:30 PM on Mar-5-21

It's been a tough few weeks up in Canada. Not just delays with covid-19 vaccinations, but the revelation that maybe Canadian butter is being boosted with palm oil. Now there's a full-on debate as to whether Buttergate is real. Even if palm oil is a normal feed supplement, do we want it to be? The icing on the cake is the (unrelated) scandal of the NY Times publishing a photo of Nanaimo Bars with TOTALLY WRONG proportions.
comment posted at 9:11 PM on Mar-4-21

A colorized, 1440p60 compilation of several of the Lumière Brothers films, starting with La petite fille et son chat ("The Little Girl and Her Cat", 1899). Don't mind the stock sound effects.
comment posted at 11:42 AM on Feb-4-21

CBC journalist Aaron Wherry looks at Canadian politics through the lens of Somewheres and Anywheres.
comment posted at 2:07 PM on Dec-4-20

Wildlife bridges — AKA animal crossings, animal passings, ecoducts, etc. — can be pricey (costing US$2-4 million each, but one crossing can save thousands of animals lives every year. Common in Europe since the 1950s, they have become much widespread around the world.
comment posted at 10:08 PM on Nov-27-20

Tributes have been pouring in for Joey Moss, long-time locker room attendant for the Edmonton Oilers. Wayne Gretzky, who brought him to the club, talked about him for 20 minutes. People who knew him are remembering his singing of the national anthem, his "smartass attitude", his legendary wrestling matches, his dancing, his empathy, his work ethic, and the way he flirted even after getting dementia and breaking his hip. There's general agreement that he deserves a permanent tribute that's significant, substantial, and soon.
comment posted at 1:50 PM on Nov-2-20

Culinary "hot takes" slreddit.

What food faux pas do you do?
comment posted at 8:03 PM on Oct-11-20

These amphibians, they act in complicated ways to each other, but the friendship is the only thing standing between them and despair.” For the uninitiated, reading such deep psychodrama into a story about a couple of anthropomorphic polliwogs might seem a bit much. But anyone who’s spent time in the world Lobel built for these two critters knows that, if anything, it’s almost an understatement. Bonus.
comment posted at 10:35 AM on Jul-9-20

Apple’s WWDC 2020 conference began today with announcements on iOS 14’s new home screen, Apple CarKey, App Clips (similar to Android’s Instant Apps), improved handwriting recognition on iPadOS, 3D audio on AirPods Pro, handwashing and sleep tracking on WatchOS, macOS 11 “Big Sur”, and of course, Apple’s transition away from Intel and to its own in-house ARM processors for its computers.
comment posted at 3:04 PM on Jun-22-20

On May 30th, days after the murder of George Floyd, Greg Doucette began collecting videos of the lawlessness and brutality of the police response to the protests. That list passed 500 separate incidents earlier this week, averaging over 30 such incidents per day. [content warning: violence]
comment posted at 11:37 AM on Jun-19-20

In 1838, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet reported that “the best treatment of sea-sickness” would be to place the patient with eyes covered in a hammock slung with long strings and on deck as near the center of the ship as possible. The article added that “if any palliative be given, it should be large doses of ammonia with opium.” It’s sound advice, minus the opium and ammonia.

--The Rolling, Lurching, Vomit-Inducing Road to a Seasickness Cure
comment posted at 8:40 AM on Jun-14-20

Why does this commercial have a better plot than half of the shows y’all be watching? asks Dripjutsu on twitter.
comment posted at 4:39 PM on May-17-20

Meet Mojo Lens, a smart contact lens with a built-in display. (digital trends)
comment posted at 8:39 AM on May-12-20

I’m going to preface this by saying I love dark mode. It started with my desktop Kindle app, and as soon as it was rolled out everywhere, I switched everything over to the soothing white-on-black aesthetic. My eyes rejoiced, and I too decried this mad blog calling dark mode a crutch for suckers.

But oh, I have now seen the light. (Victoria Song, Gizmodo)
comment posted at 9:37 AM on Apr-26-20

(CW: Dark coronavirus/pandemic humour) Frankie Boyle on the pandemic: “Mistakes have been made in the handling of the crisis. Like flying the Buckingham Palace flag at half mast when the Queen’s not in, which is just an advert for burglars. In my local park, someone has tried to cheer people up by chalking 'You Got This!' on the ground. Literally the last thing you want to hear in a pandemic.” ... “The Prime Minister has written to every household in the UK. As that letter lands on the doormat, I won’t be the only one who’ll be picking it up with a couple of snooker cues, like a contestant on a Japanese game show.” Previous Frankie: [1][2][3]
comment posted at 8:19 AM on Apr-5-20

In a few decades, two warring toothbrush giants have carved out a market worth billions, with the help of a little science and some clever marketing. But where does it go next?
comment posted at 1:55 PM on Dec-1-19

Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino talk movie obsessions, director heroes, process and violence as catharsis.
comment posted at 6:50 AM on Oct-1-19

In case you missed it, now you know about baseball pitcher Mike Fiers' short-lived beard.
comment posted at 6:00 AM on Sep-17-19

Black Bears Adapting To City Living (2003), Urban Bears "Live Fast, Die Young" (2008), Missoula Urban Bears (2009), Bears Of The Last Frontier (2011, Anchorage), You've Heard of Urban Coyotes. Urban Bears Could Be Next (2012) Map of Anchorage Bears (2015, includes earlier data), Miserable Urban Bears Reconnect With Nature (2016) Home Video Of Urban Bears (Asheville, 2018)
comment posted at 8:29 PM on Aug-31-19

Is Netflix bad for the environment? How streaming video contributes to climate change - "Driving an electric car, choosing train travel or using less plastic — we know there are many things we can do to be less of a burden on the world's environment. But would you be willing to give up on streaming video?"
comment posted at 6:27 AM on Jul-15-19

These TV shows were ruined by stray shoes: A rogue sneaker is all it takes to smash through the suspension of disbelief.
comment posted at 9:01 AM on Jun-22-19

"The banana used to be a luxury good. Now it’s the most popular fruit in the U.S. and elsewhere. But the production efficiencies that made it so cheap have also made it vulnerable to a deadly fungus that may wipe out the one variety most of us eat. Scientists do have a way to save it — but will Big Banana let them?" Maybe, if Western public opinion keeps coming around to the idea. But is continuing to farm vast monoculture crops worth endangering global banana production?
comment posted at 10:20 PM on Jun-19-19

Fortnite is basically a giant, endless advertisement now [Polygon] “Last year, playing Fortnite largely meant hopping onto a make-believe island in the hope of surviving against 99 other players. This year, Fortnite isn’t as divorced from the real world — there are constant tie-ins that encourage people to buy, or at least engage with brands and products. To play Fortnite in 2019 is to be enmeshed in advertisements.”
comment posted at 7:24 PM on May-25-19

The new glitchless, tool-assisted speedrun of the NES version of Taito's classic arcade hit Breakout clone Arkanoid is 10% faster than the previous record. It was done in an interesting way: the runner simulated the game on a frame-by-frame level in a C++ reimplementation, then used it to brute force a solution to each level, which required a year's worth of CPU effort (split across six cores) to accomplish. Here are full details, including video (12m) of the result played back in an emulator. For extra fun, he made an ASCII-art version of the run!
comment posted at 6:57 AM on May-18-19

There's a new Royal Baby™ as of 5:26 this morning. Any questions? The New York Times has you (interactively) covered.
comment posted at 9:08 AM on May-6-19

The Game Boy Turns 30 [The Verge] “On April 21st, 1989, Nintendo unleashed the Game Boy on the world, forever changing video games. The unassuming gray brick may not have been a technical powerhouse, but it helped take the idea of portable gaming mainstream, paving the way for the world of mobile gaming and hybrid devices like the Switch.” [YouTube][Original Gameboy Commercials]
comment posted at 9:35 PM on Apr-20-19

After seven years of work, a reasonably accurate port of Super Mario Bros. has been made for the Commodore 64. YouTube.
comment posted at 5:47 AM on Apr-20-19

Catch Me Once, Catch Me 218 Times, The program GraffitiTracker presaged law enforcement’s ability to use technology to connect people to past crimes. The sheriff had been keeping tabs on him and every other tagger in the city. It was 2010, and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department had recently rolled out a database called GraffitiTracker—software also used by police departments in Denver and Los Angeles County—and over the previous year, they had accumulated a massive set of images that included a couple hundred photos with his moniker. Painting over all Kyle’s handiwork, prosecutors claimed, had cost the county almost $100,000, and that sort of damage came with life-changing consequences. Ultimately, he made a plea deal: one year of incarceration, five years of probation, and more than $87,000 in restitution.
comment posted at 9:19 PM on Mar-21-19

"One day last June, two researchers were towing a special sonar system up and down the Hudson River near Hyde Park, New York, the site of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home, when they saw something pleasantly shocking." They had spotted a 14-foot sturgeon via side-scan sonar imaging. Sturgeon were once so plentiful in the Hudson they were referred to as "Albany beef." The discovery of a 14-foot specimen in the river is an encouraging sign in what is otherwise a dire outlook for certain sturgeon populations.
comment posted at 9:45 PM on Mar-7-19

"An extremely steep step felled nearly every member of a Nova Scotia minor hockey team, with each wee leap to the ice ending in a boy-sized pile."
comment posted at 7:23 PM on Mar-6-19

2,650' rappel off El Capitan (SLYT)
comment posted at 8:58 AM on Mar-6-19

Google won't run Canadian election ads. The decision comes in response to the Liberals’ signature election measure, Bill C-76, which passed in December. Among other things, it requires online platforms to keep a registry of all political and partisan ads they directly or indirectly publish. ... Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould said the decision was “very disappointing” in an e-mailed statement. ... “We know that Google is enormously capable both technically and financially," Ms. Gould said. "It should apply these resources to producing a registry in Canada that complies with Canada’s laws.” ... Because of how Google’s advertising systems work, the company argued, it doesn’t know which ads get displayed, making a registry impossible.
comment posted at 7:30 PM on Mar-5-19

Scientists give mice heat vision by covering their retinas with nanoantennae. "A single injection of nanoantennae in the mice’s eyes bestowed infrared vision for up to 10 weeks with minimal side effects, allowing them to see near-infrared light even during the day and with enough specificity to distinguish between different shapes." Full text of paper published in Cell.
comment posted at 7:37 PM on Mar-5-19

Tetris 99 [YouTube][Game Trailer] “The goal is simple: 99 people are playing Tetris simultaneously, and the last surviving player wins. It’s ridiculous and hectic, and it’s also kind of amazing. At its core, the game is still Tetris as you know it. Tetrominoes of various shapes fall from the top, and it’s your job to line them up and clear away complete lines. The blocks are even the same color as usual, and the familiar Tetris theme hums along in the background. The difference, though, is that your ultimate goal isn’t a high score. It’s to be the last surviving player. As columns overflow and players get knocked out, the number of participants steadily dwindles.” [via: The Verge]
comment posted at 8:00 PM on Feb-18-19

Like chiptunes but find the SID chip and NES sound chip too ornate and maximal? Shiru, a Russian video game composer and programmer, has composed an album using only the IBM PC speaker, arguably the most primitive possible computer sound output device. Technical details, including links to the code used to create the music, are here.
comment posted at 10:38 AM on Feb-8-19

Where did all the skateboard games go? [Destructoid] “Sure, when it comes to skateboard games we've had the dumpster fire that was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 and smaller titles such as OlliOlli and OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood. But compared to previous hardware generations, the lack of skateboard and extreme sports games in general is evident. So today I'm going to attempt to answer that question, in what I believe is a number of problems that began occurring over time, but inevitably killed off skateboard video games within the mainstream. Knowing and looking back at the history behind the sub-genre itself can provide great context and the answers we seek, as this didn't exactly happen overnight.”
comment posted at 2:00 PM on Feb-3-19