February 7
The Rise and Fall of Howard Johnson's
"Howard Johnson's had a powerful position, at its peak possibly a higher market share of the chain restaurant industry than McDonald’s has today. Yet the company’s glory days lasted less than thirty years." [more inside]
How to tell the difference between Australian crows and ravens
How to tell the difference between Australian crows and ravens.
The mournful caw of a crow is part of Australia's bush soundtrack. But is it the sound of a crow or in fact a raven? It depends on where in Australia you are. Here are some tips on identifying these intelligent but often maligned creatures.
Licking the AI Boot
At this point, refusing to use AI, and especially LLM tools is an act of resistance. Give them no quarter. Purge them whenever you find them. Turn off Copilot. Poison any data that you put out into the world, and make it as difficult as possible for AI bots to train from your data. Treat the people who mindlessly boost AI as collaborators. [more inside]
Stories of powdered sugar
From the poem Gate A4 by Naomi Shihab Nye:
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie. [more inside]
Show me the dead pixels, let loose the sphere that would roll astray
So here’s my real hot take: focusing on immersion in video games is at the detriment of having them being appreciated as craft. Interesting games writing makes you pause and consider intentionality and authorship. Immersion, at least as its popularly used to refer to getting “lost” in a game, doesn’t leave space for the pleasures of engaging with the gameworld as artifice. from Good game writing goes to heaven, bad game writing gets shared on the internet by Florence Smith Nicholls
Marooned on an island for 6000 years
Wrangel Island, off the coast of Siberia, hosted a tiny population of the world's only remaining mammoths for 6000 years after they were stuck there by receding ice sheets, kept away from the humans who hunted the rest of the species to extinction. [more inside]
Ultraviolet Grasslands RPG
"There is a distinctive attitude and vision which simply leaps off the page. Groping for antecedents to compare the grasslands to, I suggest that this might be what you’d end up with if Hayao Miyazaki adapted Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun: It embodies a seemingly impossible nostalgia for something so alien it shouldn’t be able to resonate with our own sense of a lost past… and yet somehow does, capturing a serene beauty which is nevertheless filled with pulse-pounding savagery." [more inside]
🤘🤘 16 the only number that's the perimeter and area of a square 🤘🤘
Spiritbox just droppped the video for No Loss, No Love and it's a simultaneous kick to the eardrums and eyeballs, with a great mix of screaming, spoken word, and massive visuals. It's from their new album that comes out in 28 days. Also, Courtney is Poppy. [more inside]
Hopes second-ever discovery of night parrot egg will aid conservation
Hopes second-ever discovery of night parrot egg will aid conservation. Researchers hope the discovery of a night parrot egg in Western Australia, second only to one found in Queensland, means the once-thought-extinct bird's population is beginning to recover.
Welcome to the Future
The work of Dutch editorial cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards for Trouw over the past couple of months captures this historical moment. Knowledge of Dutch not essential. [more inside]
IanOnYouTube
Why Am I 30 years old working a dead end retail job? This is a kind of YouTube video I haven't seen for a long time. Most popular YouTubers nowadays make their living from YouTube, produce slick, polished content, and give the impression of being super successful. This guy is actually cleaning the floor in this video, as part of his job. Seeing someone so genuine, hardworking, and economically challenged, it's touching how many people are donating, now that his channel has, due to some YouTubular quirk, massively blown up.
Building Consensus Through a Common Enemy
"In a way, one can assume that Charles Bukowski is used both as a common interest for forum members and a pretext for like-minded people who, after exchanging knowledge and information about their author, feel safe enough in the community they have built for broader conversations about other culturally-related topics." [more inside]
Vailala Madness
The cargo cult metaphor is commonly used by programmers. This metaphor was popularized by Richard Feynman's "cargo cult science" talk with a vivid description of South Seas cargo cults. However, this metaphor has three major problems. First, the pop-culture depiction of cargo cults is inaccurate and fictionalized, as I'll show. Second, the metaphor is overused and has contradictory meanings making it a lazy insult. Finally, cargo cults are portrayed as an amusing story of native misunderstanding but the background is much darker: cargo cults are a reaction to decades of oppression of Melanesian islanders and the destruction of their culture. from The origin of the cargo cult metaphor [Ken Shirriff]
February 6
Escapism for free at your local internet video rental store
Warner Brothers has just released 33 of their classic movies onto YouTube for free. Here's the full playlist. Selections include: | The Incredible Mr. Limpet. | Oh, God | Waiting for Guffman | Mutiny on the Bounty | True Stories | SubUrbia | Plenty of gems and just as many questionable/stinkers to be watched, but if you've never seen one of these and have an hour or two to spare, you could do much worse than a slice of any of these free pies, just sitting there on the windowsill. Mmmmm.... I can smell the blockbuster checkout aisle they have hostess pies...
'I, Willie Sutton'
In 1953, Quentin Reynolds wrote the first "biography" of Bank Robber and Jail Breaker, Willie 'The Actor' Sutton. (Hoaxed the same year by George Dupre) The "Memoir", ' Where The Money Was" title is derived from the infamous Q&A: " why rob banks/ that's where the money is". Sutton also mentions Sutton's Law.
"Willie Sutton Would Love The CTV Ad Business'
"A wake-up call: Why bank robber Willie Sutton may have important lessons for modern media executives"
'Willie Sutton Rule: What It is, How It Works'
Thing is, no one is 100% sure if Sutton even said it, not even him.
'The unexpurgated search for Willie Sutton'
"Willie Sutton Would Love The CTV Ad Business'
"A wake-up call: Why bank robber Willie Sutton may have important lessons for modern media executives"
'Willie Sutton Rule: What It is, How It Works'
Thing is, no one is 100% sure if Sutton even said it, not even him.
'The unexpurgated search for Willie Sutton'
James Foley’s “Glengarry Glen Ross”
First-Ever Photographs of the Elusive Mount Lyell Shrew
See the First-Ever Photographs of the Elusive Mount Lyell Shrew, Finally Caught on Camera in California. A group of young researchers captured and photographed the animal on a three-day expedition to the Eastern Sierra Nevada.
Bringing Back the Potatoes!
Not holding my puppets hostage equals clean, dry cheeks
Improbably Poppy | Episode 1: Taking Risks (NSFW language)
Social Justice Jihadi - Full Comedy Special of Sammy Obeid
Enjoy 90 min of Lebanese-Palestinian-Syrian-Italian-American comedian Sammy Obeid. May contain jokes about Israel/Palestine, among other things.
Tintin is timeless
The panels and pages within Tintin are filled with an ephemeral old world that doesn’t really exist anymore (if it ever did). Hergé creates a sense of scaled urbanism as well as the naturalistic world in fantastical yet real places. ... Tintin’s adventures span the globe. In a lot of ways, it might be the first depiction that some children see of these locales. True, there are instances that may grate the modern sensibilities—these are still part of the learning process. Even Hergé himself grew in his depictions and understanding of the various peoples and cultures he was sketching. from Celebrating the Timeless Allure of Tintin's Aesthetics [College Towns]
tvangsreduksjon and the art of Máret Ánne Sara
Art, colonialization, and the destruction of the Sami culture Chavenet's post title, It can be difficult to know exactly what time it really is ironically underscores Máret Ánne Sara's art and motivated this one. I wanted to see the art, Pile o’Sápmi, referenced in his article. Is this a time of change in the Sami culture or is it the final step in its destruction? What does a pile of reindeer heads look like? Is this what it feels like when a culture is being destroyed in the name of progress? The Sami are fighting battles for their existence on all fronts, but it all boils down to capitalization and colonialization. [more inside]
The Trials of George Archer-Shee
The Real Winslow Boy. The real life story of George Archer-Shee may sound like a familiar underdog story. A boy accused of theft of a postal order and expelled, defended by his father with all his resources. It inspired Terence Rattigan to write a play, The Winslow Boy, which inspired two films of the same name (1948 - trailer, 1999 - trailer). [more inside]
MAGApartheid
USAID[.gov] very visibly helped bring apartheid to an end around 1988, which just happens to be the year Elon Musk and his family abruptly fled South Africa – illegally immigrated to America to launder his family’s apartheid fortunes through tech startups like PayPal and so… he says now he will kill USAID [flyingpenguin]
Edward D. Wood, Jr. - Writer
“Depending on your point of view, Ed Wood was either a famous, or infamous filmmaker. What the average Ed Wood fan doesn't know is that Wood wrote a heck of a lot of novels, short stories and news articles; 80 novels, several hundred short stories and a few hundred non-fiction articles. And Wood was a damn good writer. Imagine Elmore Leonard writing without an editor and submitting a first draft. That's Wood.” [more inside]
Rescue mission like no other: Tiger and boar pulled out of well in India
Rescue mission like no other: Tiger and boar pulled out of well in India. Officials say the unlikely pair fell into the water when the young tigress was chasing the boar. With expert coordination & care, both animals were pulled out unharmed and released back into the wild.
Swearing may also be a sign of intelligence
“Words can change the way a patient thinks, feels, and performs. Swearing, or uttering a word that is considered taboo, is an often-ignored part of our language, even though over 50% of the population swears “sometimes” or “often”. If used correctly, within a biopsychosocial approach to care, swearing has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes.” [more inside]
It can be difficult to know exactly what time it really is
Time lives in the body, not as the tick of the clock, but as a pulse in the blood. It is a thought, buried deep in nerve, leaf, and gene. It is also a social contract, one we adjust according to different needs, whether for daylight saving or simply setting a watch five minutes fast to avoid being late. from Wild Clocks by David Farrier [Emergence]
February 5
A dramatic rendition by James McNicholas of "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley
Does what it says on the tin. There was a list of his Instagram posts on Laughing Squid. He also has a YouTube channel with some of these as shorts.
The Yamaha DX7
Race to save toxic macadamia nut
Scientists work to create insurance policy in race to save toxic macadamia nut.
Unlike commercial macadamias, the nuts only grow to the size of a five-cent piece and cannot be eaten due to their bitter flavour and ability to produce cyanide.
A simple dress?
In How Couture Can Shape A Body (Youtube, 19min) Frieda Lepold designs and makes a dress that appears simple, but hides a lot of structure and body shaping. While working she does a very calm voice over and shares some thoughts about fashion.
No luxury sports cars were harmed in the making of this post
Hand-crafted CGI renderings of crashed, abandoned, flooded, buried, and/or burning luxury cars. [more inside]
Hey! You got your Reddit in my TikTok!
ReddTok is a TikTok-like client for Reddit videos [CW: Reddit Videos]
Build. Buy. Live.
When game designer Will Wright lost his house in the devastating 1991 Oakland firestorm, the long process of reconstruction made him wonder: what if a game could capture the experience of building a home, filling it with possessions, and watching life unfold within its walls?
His small team spent most of the next decade quietly innovating, crafting
a Maslow-esque "pheromonal" needs system,
a satirical product catalog full of whimsical item descriptions,
a playfully improvised gibberish language,
and an unforgettable instrumental score that blended chipper midcentury shopping reveries with wistful, impressionistic, deeply evocative piano interludes.
Initially panned by focus groups and deemed too weird and passive by Maxis -- who jokingly called it 'the Toilet Game' for its mundane chores -- the project would finally launch as The Sims, twenty-five years ago today.
After building buzz with a fateful kiss [previ-ously],
it proved to be a smash hit, topping Myst as the best-selling PC game of all time and breaking ground with a broad spectrum of so-called "non-traditional" gamers, who embraced the title as a platform for sharing custom content, wacky mods, and heartfelt storytelling. A parade of expansions and sequels later, The Sims stands as one of the most important titles in the history of gaming -- look inside for a collection of behind-the-scenes design docs, music, rare videos, personal essays, and other fun stuff. [more inside]
How Trump moved to complete the coup he began on January 6, 2021
In a post last Saturday, Substack writer Robert Hubbell provided a partial list and analysis of the situation unfolding within the US government, writing:
"Speaking the truth about what is happening is difficult and unpleasant. Hearing the truth is also difficult and unpleasant. But the longer we fail to recognize the current situation for what it is—a slow-rolling coup attempt—the longer it will take for us to recover." [more inside]
Protectors of Aqviqtuuq
“Our land and our caribou are healthy at this point,” says Ullikatalik, his voice rising. “We want to keep it that way.” (slCanadianGeographic)
Pirate Libraries and AI
“The future of AI innovation may hinge on the outcome of a global copyright debate. In the U.S., rightsholders are taking a hard line, pursuing legal action against AI companies that utilize copyrighted works without permission. However, other countries are adopting more lenient approaches, allowing AI models to learn from the vast troves of data found in 'pirate' libraries. This 'copyright schism' could have far-reaching consequences." [more inside]
I FREQUENTLY THINK EVERY NOW AND THEN
There are now three different Green Eggs and Ham (1973 Dr. Seuss on the Loose version) YouTube Poop collabs, all with the clips in narrative order: 2012 (12m), 2018 (48m), 2024 (1h28m). That is NOT all. More collaborous collabs after the jump. (Flashing images and sudden loud noises are inevitable.) [more inside]
A new form of power, one that operates through seemingly absurd startups
I was, as is occasionally the case, catastrophically wrong in my assessment. What I and everyone else failed to comprehend, in our rush to mock this seemingly ridiculous venture, was that Dr. Patel - a queer Indian-American veterinarian possessing both extensive clinical experience and a PhD in genetic engineering - was not actually building a pet rental service at all. from The Cutesy Inquisition: From Pet Rentals to Playing God [Cruzzbunch] [more inside]
February 4
Orson Welles’ “The Trial”
“When it comes to film adaptations of very famous works of literature, there’s always a lot of pressure on the artist to produce something worth its background. In this case, Welles created a technically grandiose movie loyal to Kafka’s story, but enhanced by the infusion of Welles’ own vision. The Trial stands as one of the most accomplished book-to-film adaptations, and in Welles’ rich career, it’s a film that ranks among the very best.” - Sven Miculek [more inside]
British TV Mysteries -- A Compilation By a Dedicated Reviewer
Single Link Blog. It comes up often in AskMeFi what British mysteries are good to watch. Timothy Barron's website is very helpful in answering these questions, particularly when you're looking for something similar to what you've enjoyed in the past. Barron has kept up his site for decades now, updating it pretty much as new series of shows are introduced. [more inside]
These Other Londons
Nobody Elected Elon
Today at 5 p.m. EST on February 4th, 2025, a rally began at the Treasury to protest Elon Musk’s billionaire takeover. Livestream here. SLYT
The Adventurer
If you know Space:1999, you know that Victor Bergman (Barry Morse) and Maya (Catherine Schell) never met on the series because Victor died between Seasons 1 and 2. But they did work together in another series - The Adventurer, starring Gene Barry as a government agent who poses as a movie star. Several episodes are available on YouTube. [more inside]
The World’s Largest Landowners
Which Country has 18 out of 25 of the world's top landowners? When so much land and resources is owned by so few, what are the ramifications?
Scientists and Aboriginal rangers make exciting discovery of new lizard
Scientists and Aboriginal rangers make exciting discovery of new lizard species in remote Australia.
Scientists have worked alongside Aboriginal traditional owners to discover a new skink, Liopholis aputja, in the Central Australian desert.
The last of the Three Marias
Morreu a escritora Maria Teresa Horta, a última das "Três Marias" [sapo; google translation] [more inside]
James Bruton builds an omni-directional ball-wheeled bike
"and they decided to hate us more."
I picture my twenty-three-year-old self, back in 2010. What would I say to her? Things aren’t going to get better — they’re going to get worse?
Award-winning author Casey Plett for The Toronto Star: Think this is a rollback of trans rights? No, this is something entirely new, and much more regressive (archive)