March 13
The world, filtered through the apps, is not the world we want
This sounds spectacularly self-centered: that you can only quit a thing, or modify your usage of it, when it fails to serve you. But if we think of our phones and social media as addictive products, which they certainly are, then the classic addiction model makes sense: you only consider quitting when the negative impacts (the dead feeling of the soft-brain scroll, the loss of attention span, the weight of comparison, the exposure to trolls, the lack of control over the algorithm) outweigh the positive benefits (the distraction, the serotonin hit, the semblance of connection, the loose ties, the business benefits). from The Social Media Sea Change by Anne Helen Petersen
Why you should treat wombats with respect
Most wombats are shy, gentle, and timid unless you make them angry, but they are very muscular and have sharp claws. A man in 2010 had the misfortune of accidentally startling a wombat that had sought shelter from a bushfire under his caravan: 20 minutes later, he was in a condition that resulted in him being admitted to hospital with significant injuries to his arms and legs. (And yes, if this had happened to the influencer who kidnapped a baby wombat, I would have been on team wombat.) Meanwhile the woman who kidnapped a baby wombat is having her visa reviewed and may not be allowed back into Australia again. [more inside]
March 12
That's a lot of sites
While it's self-proclaimed, it's easy to believe that this is the largest collection of links to free sites on the internet.
Finalists for the 60th Nebula Awards
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the Nebula Awards. [more inside]
Where to start with the National Film Board of Canada?
Leonard Maltin’s Animation Faborites from the National Film Board of Canada! The National Film Board of Canada is such an amazing wealth of riches!
This movie has 9 short animations that start with a brief description by Leonard Maltin, and they are all amazing. Some of them have been staples of Canadian school curriculums for half a century and many Canadians will watch these, as I did, with the realization that they have seen them before but forgotten.
With a runtime of 1:34, it’s well worth the time either all at once or in little snippets. [more inside]
Stan Brakhage's "The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes"
The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes is a grueling, fascinating experience only made bearable by our sense of the real human being gripping the camera for dear life. There’s a moment when Brakhage brings the camera around to take in the newly emptied cranium of one of the autopsied corpses, peering down into the gaping skull, where I felt that he and I were experiencing exactly the same great and horrible feeling of dumbstruck awe at what had become of a human life. It’s enervating but surprisingly humanist in its aspirations -- if it’s ultimately despairing, it remains clearly the work of a master exploring the human condition in every facet. - Bryant Frazer (h/t: languagehat)
On a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits
Wikipedia portraits are famously bad, so much so that there's an Instagram page dedicated to them. They're amateurish. They're old. Sometimes, like in the case of English footballer Kyle Bartley, they're just weird. (Is that a referee’s finger in his mouth?) WikiPortraits, a group of volunteer photographers, has been covering festivals and shooting celebrities specifically to improve images in the public domain. (404Media)
"They used our building, so now we’re using their typeface."
The office of London design studio DUDE was vandalized... so they turned the graffiti into a free* typeface for everyone to use. [more inside]
B.S.
“I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said.
Terrifying reporting from ProPublica about the SSA describes a meeting held by acting head of the Social Security Administration Leland Dudek in which he seems to admit that the "DOGE kids" may very well actually break the social security payments process and tries to disavow all responsibility because he is clearly alarmed by what he is being asked to do. [more inside]
The dam, the myth, the legend: 50 years of the beaver
“I’m gonna do it on purpose forever,” you said.
elodieunderglass (previously quoted on MeFi) and derinthescarletpescatarian wrote a moving, funny composite narrative about human biology: “Wait a minute,” you say a couple of generations later, because you’re not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post... That link won't work well unless you're logged into Tumblr, so here's a repost that everyone should be able to read.
Freedom Cities
Plans are underway to create "Freedom Cities" around the United States on large open tracts of protected federal lands, following in the footsteps of California Forever, Próspera, Yatai New City and other law and regulation free Special Economic Zone safe-havens for anarcho-capitalists, libertarians and criminals. [more inside]
It is possible to arrest someone for crimes against humanity
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on an ICC warrant for crimes against humanity in Manila. According to his daughter, who is currently the country's vice president, “As I write this, he is being forcibly taken to The Hague tonight. This is not justice – this is oppression and persecution.” Internal Philippine politics made the arrest possible, as a former power-sharing agreement between the Marcos family currently in power and the Dutertes broke down.
Flight Attendant Uniforms
1,891 different flight attendant uniforms from 632 airlines (previously) (previouslyer) (previouslyest)
Jewish comedian dropping truth bombs
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Addresses General Assembly, 78th Session (pdf) - "Terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons." [more inside]
Photographer Jacob Holdt: A Message of Love
A Message of Love is a long interview with Danish photographer/activist Jakob Holdt. Long haired hippy Jakob Holdt hitchhiked in the US for 5 years in the early 70's, documenting the lives of the most marginalized people, as well as some of the most affluent. His "adventures" resulted in an output of 15,000 harrowing photographs, which he later published as the book "American Pictures". (CW: Abuse, Racism, Deprivation, Poverty, KKK). [more inside]
Don't pick up wild baby wombats
Don't pick up wild baby wombats. Picking them up can injure them; can cause their mother to abandon them (a death sentence if they are still breastfeeding); and could cause you to get seriously injured by an angry mother wombat (wombat claws can disembowel a person if the wombat gets angry.) US influencer criticised for temporarily taking joey wombat from mother. A US influencer is under fire after posting a video of herself capturing a wild baby wombat off the side of the road. [more inside]
Welcome to the wild west of Glasgow’s waterways
“Not many people come out in the rain,” says Goody, with a smile. “But we just batter on. You never know, we could pull out Rob Roy’s sword, fingers crossed”. They fish “for the history,” he adds. A lot of this history seems to be embodied by weaponry, judging from the list Goody reels off. Unexploded ordnances are a particular pain. “We’re a bit scared of pu’ing them oot — feart in case the police will do us wi a public disorder or suhhin like that. It becomes a bit of nuisance when you have to phone the polis and get the MOD out.” from Magnet fishing is supposed to be a wholesome hobby. Why all the beef?
March 11
Jim Goldberg's "Rich and Poor"
"By depicting the rich and the poor in their respective environments, we see life as it is lived by our means, which tells a far different story than would portraits taken outside of these contexts. Jim Goldberg’s other key innovation in this book is how he has allowed his subjects to attempt to capture themselves. As part of his process, he asks for their commentary on their own photos, giving the subject an opportunity to add context, personality, and self-perception to each photo in handwritten reflections. These annotations change not only the meaning of the book, but also the meaning of the act of taking the photos." - Abbey Lee
What the size of your book collection says about you
What the size of your book collection - potentially - says about you "Are you a minimalist or a mini-librarian? Do you let your books pile up around your home, or do you treat your collection like a carefully curated gallery of your best self? Time to find out." [more inside]
The Manipulative Bastards corner is especially interesting
You may be wondering: What makes a villain “best”? That, friends, is really up to you. You can vote for the most iconic villains, the most memorable villains, or the most villainous villains. You can vote for the villain you enjoyed reading about the most, or the one that kept you up at night. You can vote for the cutest villain, if that’s your thing. The point is, there are no rules. Villains are rule-breakers, and so are we. from The Best Villains in Literature Bracket: The Not-So-Sweet 16 [LitHub]
It was already pointless, fellas
After a very positive reception at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight, Carson Lund's directorial debut Eephus is opening this week to very good reviews, touted as "the best baseball movie since ‘Moneyball’". [more inside]
Finding the source music from The Dirty Cowboy
A short doc about a musical obsession, perseverance and git'n r done ...The Mystery of the Dirty Cowboy
Christ, What an Asho
In a triumph of graphic design and branding, Major League Baseball’s new ‘Overlap’ hats are going viral for all the wrong reasons.
People stay around a long time. The result is that they go bananas.
AT&T Workers: Drugged, Bugged and Coming Unplugged; Moving the Indiana Bell Central Office; History of Engineering and Science at Bell Labs; How the Telephone Helps the Farmer; and much more of the lore of telecommunications from the library of Telephone Collectors International.
It’s down at the end of Infinite Street… Hilbert Hotel
A six minute video illustrating Hilbert’s paradox of the Grand Hotel with cute blobby monsters.
There are no ghosts in Galley House
Why don't you come down to Galley House this Saturday evening?… I have recently acquired something to keep you interested if you decide to come. It's not perfect, but sometimes when you close your eyes, it's like someone else is in the house… Type Help is a new, free, browser-based, text-based deductive mystery game by William Rous. [more inside]
Just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history
Fukuyama’s pining for past ideological struggles suggests that the Last Man would eventually get bored with technocracy, consumerism, and the stultifying constraints of middle management—and seek new monsters to fight. America’s flirtation with an authoritarian leader who promises he alone will fix the nation’s problems and restore the country’s past glory is a manifestation of this phenomenon. The greatest challenges to liberal democracy would not come from new ideological competitors but rather from complacency. from Francis Fukuyama Was Right About Liberal Democracy [The New Republic; ungated]
March 10
Lifesling in action
Following up last month's post on the development of the Lifesling, two sailors participating in the Possession Point Race were rescued from Puget Sound (Seattle Times, archive) after falling off one of the contending boats, while videoed from a ferry. [more inside]
Scientists genetically modify Victorian lizard
One of Australia's smallest skinks has undergone a big genetic change in an attempt to fight the risk of extinction due to climate change. Biologists bred and released four tiny genetically modified Guthega skinks in an outdoor enclosure on Victoria's High Country in December.
It is one step away before the tiny lizards are released into the greater wild when biologists are hopeful the offspring of the critters can be set free in about a year.
The Best Sports Moments of the last Quarter Century
From The Ringer: The Best Sports Moments of the (last) Quarter Century
Then listen to this, plus my Roland
The Roland TR-808 had a larger impact on commercial music than any other branded musical instrument except perhaps the Fender Stratocaster. So someone made a documentary about it. [more inside]
RIP Calpundit
Kevin Drum, one of the earliest left wing political bloggers, has passed away after a long battle with cancer. [more inside]
It's the little differences
If there's one thing McDonald's is known for among its American customers, it's its uniformity. Almost all McDonald's from Maine to California look the same and have the same offerings. And when McDonald's began to open restaurants outside the States over the course of the later 20th century, the standard menu of the United States McDonald's held an exotic appeal for non-Americans. McDonald's was exporting America. ...Now with over 40,000 restaurants across the planet, the McDonald's of each country can look and taste as different as the cultures in which they are embedded. from McAtlas documents, analyzes, and celebrates the international multiformity of McDonald's [BoingBoing] [more inside]
How Do You FREEly Express Your Creative Self?
Oh sure, there's always the usual mainstream things every article trots out, blah blah blah. But what unusual/surprising/interesting hobby, activity, or task do you find works as a creative outlet? Or talk about anything else - it's our weekly free thread!
“You just walk in like you belong.”
The first season of Andor is now streaming on Hulu and Disney has uploaded first three-episode arc to YouTube. This is done to build momentum for the April 22nd premiere of the second, and last, season. A day which happens to be, as Damien Walter notes in a recent video essay, Lenin’s birthday. This fits Walter’s argument that Andor is a Marxist story. Others, such as Sage Hyden and Phoebe Wagner, maintain it should be understood as anti-fascist. Either way, left-wing science fiction magazine Red Futures released a whole issue devoted to Andor analysis.
"In 5 years you'll be giving unsolicited life advice to strangers."
An Alternative to Hope
Emily and Amelia Nagoski discuss how to cope when you've either lost your hope or never had any. Emily and Amelia made the Feminist Survival Project podcast in 2020. In 2025, they brought it back. In a recent episode, they discuss what to do when you don't have hope. [more inside]
see (Marquand, 1983)
Is a bone a viable weapon when combating a Rancor? Estimating the bite force of an intergalactic mega-predator. S. Lautenschlager and T. Clements, Journal of Geek Studies, volume 12, issue 1, pages 25-36 (2025).
The ability of the Rancor to snap the femur with apparent ease poses interesting questions: (1) how much dorso-lateral force is required to snap a femur of the size used by Luke to stave off the Rancor in ROTJ? (2) Could the Rancor generate such force with its jaws? Lastly, (3) could any other extinct or extant organisms generate such force? Despite the fact that Rancor exist(ed?) a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away, there are techniques employed in paleontological research that can answer the questions outlined above.[more inside]
Urban downhill mountain biking in Chile
Please enjoy this POV video of the winner of this year's Cerro Abajo Valparaiso race. 2km descent through the streets, sidewalks, stairs, rooftops, and houses of the hills of Valparaiso.
Jennifer, don't just stand there, you can stop ovulating now.
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is ending. "It is with deep regrets that I announce the conclusion of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Being a year and a half older than Joseph Biden, I find the BLFC becoming increasingly burdensome and would like to put myself out to pasture while I still have some vim and vigor!" — English professor Scott E. Rice at San Jose State University [more inside]
A chilling movie
Lessons learnt from the northern hairy-nosed wombat
Key to survival for one of the world's rarest creatures. Conservationists say the lessons learnt from the northern hairy-nosed wombat could help save other animals around the globe.
March 9
The real SotU: AOC owns Trump -- and made her own sweater!
AOC responds to Trump's Congressional Address - "It's all about Medicaid. It's all about what they're not saying. Don't you find it interesting that Donald Trump, if you listen to that speech, Donald Trump said a lot of things, he said a lot of random things about studies and waste and all this other stuff. He did not talk about Medicaid. Not once. And as a certain right-wing operative likes to say: MAGA's on Medicaid. And MAGA Trump is coming for your Medicaid. MAGA Republicans are coming for your Medicaid. And the reason they are rattling off all of these things because -- listen, where there is waste, we should address it, where there is corruption, we should address it, where there's fraud and abuse, we should address it -- but don't you think that if you found a bunch of money in the couch cushions that you would put that to expanding Medicaid, improving schools, fixing our roads, right, but that's not what they're planning on doing." [more inside]
Put on these podcasts and escape into the friendship simulation
The Elephant Graveyard delivers wry, witty, scathing critiques of wayward comedians like Joe Rogan and Jerry Seinfeld. Their newest piece, How Comedy Became a Dystopian Imperial Hell World, explores deep into the alt-right comedy podbro pipeline of the Roganverse. If you need a further palate cleanser, there's always Professional Joke Explainer Myles Anderson, who whimsically breaks down the "comedy" of right-wing comedians such as Theo Von, Tony Hinchcliffe, and Dave Smith, among others.
STEMinist Romance Novels
Meet our new Prime Minister designate, Mark Carney
Mark Carney wins race to replace Trudeau. “We didn’t ask for this fight,” Carney said, referencing Trump’s threats to annex Canada. “But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.”
“So Americans should make no mistake. In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
[more inside]
I have long been a wet-lipped, weak-kneed, unashamed chef groupie.
I can’t describe in detail how the upstairs dining room at Sharmilee in Leicester has changed since last I visited. After all, 26 years is a long time. Sharmilee was the second restaurant I reviewed when I started writing this column in the spring of 1999 and it’s the only one of the first six that is still trading. — Jay Rayner, of many previous posts here, writes his final restaurant review for The Observer. And is delighted, as he much prefers to be. [more inside]
Amber and orange are hard colors to pin down
I have collected here many (85) color palettes of Retro CRTs, LCDs, CROs, VFDs, Nixie Tubes, Numitrons, Calculators, Terminals, and Computers (in text mode). Most of these are high contrast and are easy to read. When configuring software on modern PCs (such as your text editor, email client, etc.) or when creating web pages (in HTML, CSS), or other types of documents (graphics), you can use these color palettes to mostly relive displays of the past on today's high resolution flat panel displays.