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Last month Tom Lehrer put all his songs online for free streaming or downloading, and relinquished all rights to them. You can browse them by album, title or category, and also download the sheet music for each song. But get those songs fast, because the website is only staying up for a limited time yet.
posted by Kattullus at 3:20 PM - 1 comment

The coziest frogs (and tiny chickens, ducks, fawns, rabbits, kitties, etc.) you'll find anywhere. Claire Garland (dot pebbles) creates incredibly detailed and adorable knitting patterns for tiny animals and also their tiny sweaters. She graciously gave me permission to use a really lovely frog photo (the one with the tiny table) for my holiday cards, and then I discovered so much more. She also has a beautiful book, with those patterns also on Ravelry. Instagram too.
posted by amtho at 2:54 PM - 0 comments

Together is an ongoing comic about a nurse, her unemployed boyfriend and the mysterious tumor forcibly joining them together. [more inside]
posted by simmering octagon at 12:24 PM - 1 comment

On 16 December 1972, a village in northern Mozambique virtually disappeared from the map. Wiriyamu saw its inhabitants killed one by one at the hands of the Portuguese military, who invaded the territory during the colonial war. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:56 AM - 0 comments

For your reading pleasure (?), the 2022 winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which "challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:51 AM - 6 comments

Straight No Chaser released a new song, Christmas Night With You. The men's acapella group, which formed at Indiana University, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. A YouTube video of the group's first performance of The Twelve Days of Christmas in 1998 went viral after being posted to YouTube in 2006. [more inside]
posted by brentajones at 11:32 AM - 2 comments

Hijacking & Weaponizing the Narrative: Disinformation Amid Rising Repression in East Asia. Case studies focused on the Philippines, Mindanao, Indonesia, West Papua, Hong Kong, and Cambodia, but are indicative of a larger, systemic issue across the region.
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:04 AM - 0 comments

99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn't Hear About in 2022 from Future Crunch & The Progress Network
posted by ellieBOA at 11:03 AM - 7 comments

For decades now, a certain phrase has been appearing on motivational posters, necklaces and, thanks to a particular explosion in the early aughts, in the home goods aisles at stores like Target, Marshalls and TJ Maxx: “Live, laugh, love.” The saying is a paraphrase of Bessie Anderson Stanley's 1904 poem "Success," which reads, “He achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much." And while "Live, laugh, love" is just one example of a phrase used in inspiring home decor, it has, for whatever reason, now reached iconic status. [more inside]
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:56 AM - 76 comments

After 25 years, numerous series, and finally winning the title of Champion, the story of Ash Ketchum's path to becoming a Pokémon Master will finally come to a conclusion. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:11 AM - 10 comments

The Bagel Shop Next to the Bagel Shop! Only in NYC would you find two bagel shops right next to each other. Are they rivals? Friends? What's the story there? A reporter actually did the legwork to investigate.
posted by SituationNormal at 9:10 AM - 20 comments

Governor of Massachusetts Charlie Baker will be the next President of the National Collegiate Athletic Administration (archive.today link), a billion-dollar business nonprofit organization "dedicated to the well-being and lifelong success of college athletes". IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel (the NCAA headquarters is in Indianapolis) says "Welcome to the worst job you've ever had".
posted by Etrigan at 8:57 AM - 13 comments

"Many claim that our spaces are “toxic” or “problematic,” often sharing compelling and troubling personal anecdotes as evidence of this . . . If everything is “violent,” nothing really is. If every slight is “oppression,” nothing is." Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, offers a searing indictment of the problems that identity politics engender in left-wing activism.
posted by Gordion Knott at 8:53 AM - 10 comments

At 04:50 GMT this morning, a 1,000 tonne fashion accessory, containing 1,500 fish, blew apart in the lobby of the Radisson Blu Hotel in Berlin. It was the world's largest cylindrical aquarium, now it's a puddle. [more inside]
posted by BobTheScientist at 8:41 AM - 33 comments

The first trailer for Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie staring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling has dropped and it's something.
posted by octothorpe at 6:59 AM - 66 comments

Great Barrier Reef sharks that can walk on land genetically unique, study finds. Researchers are investigating the possibility that a population of epaulette sharks on Lady Elliot Island could qualify to be named as a new species. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:33 AM - 19 comments

Answering AskMeFi's eternal questions, Does It Go Bad? is an old school website run by one man (Marcin Skrzypiec) pulling together sensible advice about food and food storage.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 12:56 AM - 5 comments

If you want to follow the progress of the private jet of the world's richest man, you're out of luck. Bernard Arnault, the LVMH CEO sold it over a month ago.
But suppose you want to follow the comings and goings of the private jet of the man who will soon be the third richest person in the world? That's a more interesting story. "Free speech absolutist" Elon Musk has not only banned the @elonjet account from his once-popular social media site Twitter, on Thursday night the accounts of multiple high profile journalists were banned apparently for reporting on the controversy. [more inside]
posted by Superilla at 11:20 PM - 157 comments

Just over a year ago after years of suffering from the debilitating pain of CRPS a popular TicTok content creator named FunshineCrayon decided to go into hospice and have a medically assisted death. It appeared that their journey had come to an end. This week they returned to their account to let folks know that they had survived, after being offered some new treatments. A more detailed video has been posted to their YouTube Channel
posted by interogative mood at 10:09 PM - 14 comments

You are STRG.SNEK, the computer repair program. The program is broken, explore the data and find out a way to repair it. But watch out for the data!
(Ed. Note: The program is not broken. This is a snake/metroidvania mashup with a bangin’ soundtrack by ToulouTouMou that you can play in your browser. H/t Terry’s Free Game Of The Week and a person on Mastodon.)
posted by Going To Maine at 9:38 PM - 5 comments

Compilation of rare, high-quality clips of pre-DSOTM Pink Floyd, collected by the BBC. Highlights (for me) include Astronomy Domine with a shamanic Syd Barrett, a rockin' Let There Be More Light featuring a groovy dance floor under a tent, and Atom Heart Mother complete with choir, in Germany. Full setlist inside. [more inside]
posted by swift at 7:25 PM - 14 comments

Prof. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Dr. Jami Valentine Miller, and many others have been working to compile a nearly comprehensive list of Black US woman physicists and astronomers in association with the AAWIP.
posted by eotvos at 6:43 PM - 1 comment

"Chindogu is a Japanese word meaning “weird tool.” These (almost) useless inventions might address a challenge, but they also create bigger problems....While inventions like these are usually not practical for their intended purpose, they can still be charming, evocative, and funny, and give us something that successful inventions can’t. They offer a moment’s deviation from some prescribed path to success, a pause in the slog of value creation, to allow a moment’s worth of weird joy....The Chindogu Society has published ten underlying – and surprisingly deep – tenets. They espouse an endearing earnestness, speak to the bizarre failures of late-stage capitalism, and underline Chindogu’s appeal across cultural and linguistic divides, offering more interesting musings on failure than most of our fables or motivational posters in the process." [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:54 PM - 15 comments

The Horrifying War on Libraries (slDiscourse Blog)
posted by box at 3:24 PM - 22 comments

Portfolio site Artstation is dealing with an ongoing protest over AI. Artists are not compensated for the use of their art for AI datasets, which charge money and are a commercial product. [more inside]
posted by ishmael at 3:21 PM - 54 comments

In NY, some teens are rejecting iPhones and social media. SL-NYT, but to reader view - think it should work for everybody.
posted by COD at 2:24 PM - 68 comments

The Witching Cats of New Jersey is a short essay by artist and historian Kazys Varnelis about the fashion among the 19th century New Jersey merchant class of commissioning portraits of their cats in the guise of witches’ familiars, most of whom are now kept at the Germantown College Archives. This then becomes an essay about AI generated art, for obvious reasons.
posted by Kattullus at 12:55 PM - 12 comments

As we had into the finals of the 2022 World Cup tournament, much has been made of its location, Qatar, and how they got the bid and executed preparing for the global event. Podcasters Roger Bennett (Men In Blazers) and Tommy Vietor (Pod Save the World) bring us a seven-part podcast, World Corrupt [Crooked Media page with listening links], which examines these issues in depth with humor and outrage in equal measure. Episodes mostly run under an hour. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 11:44 AM - 14 comments

Collect Them All! The elderly man from Florida has learned about NFTs and hired someone to work miracles with Photoshop. We were promised a "Major Announcement." Apparently this was it.
posted by hydra77 at 11:18 AM - 117 comments

Huntington Library acquires the papers of Thomas Pynchon [This is not an obituary, Thomas Pynchon is alive, though he is 85] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:01 AM - 6 comments

Looking Back: BabyNameWizard.com, 2004-2021 I had cause to look up the Baby Name Wizard today and was saddened to learn it's gone. But creator Laura Wattenberg is still writing about names on her site Namerology! [more inside]
posted by faethverity at 10:48 AM - 13 comments

From Serena Jones on Mastodon (@SerenaJ@historians.social): "The Albert Khan Museum in France has just made available for download thousands of early autochrome photos from around the world: Khan, a banker, had top French photographers travel the world documenting everyday aspects of global life which he believed would soon vanish as the world rapidly developed. Such prescience." [more inside]
posted by taz at 9:20 AM - 13 comments

A roundup of major critics' lists of the best of 2022
Rogerebert.com: The Ten Best Films of 2022, The New York Times: Best Movies of 2022, Slate: The 10 Best Movies of 2022, Indiewire: The 25 Best Movies of 2022, Polygon: The best movies of 2022, The Guardian: Best films US 2022, Rolling Stone: 22 Best Movies of 2022, The Atlantic: THE 10 BEST FILMS OF 2022, Washington Post: The 10 best movies of 2022, The Ringer: The Best Movies of 2022, The New Yorker: The Best Movies of 2022 [more inside]
posted by octothorpe at 5:26 AM - 56 comments

This week in Alaska, a trial has begun that may test the provision of the Alaska state constitution barring persons who belong to groups that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government from holding office. Representing residents in the politically conservative Matanuska-Susitna valley, Wasilla representative David Eastman has been a controversial member of the lower house of the Alaska legislature since 2017. Recently re-confirmed in his office by those voters, Eastman must first face a historically unusual challenge to his eligibility to serve another term. [more inside]
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:40 AM - 7 comments

After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth…65 million years ago. [Trailer via Kottke]
posted by ellieBOA at 1:05 AM - 92 comments

Mosfilm has uploaded a 4k extended version of Andrei Rublev to Youtube. Mosfilm is a Russian film studio, particularly noted for producing the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. Much of their output is available to watch on their (English) Youtube channel.
posted by Alex404 at 12:08 AM - 21 comments

I Don’t Want My Little Girl to Die on The Floor of a Hospital “I have a daughter. She’s four. Before the pandemic, she had a bad case of RSV. She was having trouble breathing. We took her to a hospital. The staff treated her right away. We were home later that afternoon. Back then, hospitals weren’t full of babies with respiratory viruses. Now they are. Now parents are spending days trying to find a bed. There’s a growing shortage of liquid antibiotics. Moms are calling 18 pharmacies just to get a prescription filled. Doctors are telling us to crush up adult medicine and sprinkle it on their food. I know, it doesn’t look that bad. I understand how easy it is to dismiss everything I just said. When you look out your window, you don’t see toddlers dying on the floors of hospitals. You don’t see packed ERs. [more inside]
posted by Bottlecap at 10:57 PM - 54 comments

“Everything I have came from $800.” On Twitter, the men touted themselves as financial sages in a community known to fans as FinTwit. Two launched a Discord server, Atlas Trading, amassing more than 230,000 members who avidly followed their stock tips. They appeared on podcasts that soared in popularity with the bull market, and showed off luxury cars on Instagram. The ‘FinTwit’ Influencers now face charges in $100 Million Scheme. [more inside]
posted by Toddles at 10:28 PM - 24 comments

Snakes have a clitoris: scientists overcome a massive taboo around female genitalia. Scientists say previous research mistook the organs on female snakes as scent glands or under-developed versions of penises
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:01 PM - 22 comments

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT): The Politics of Loneliness — Social, economic, and technological trends contribute to widespread feelings of isolation—and there’s a role for policy in making things better.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:28 PM - 18 comments

Despite the death of Flash, through the holiday magic of Ruffle Homestar Runner has a new interactive feature, a Decemberween Advent-ish Calendar of sheet music of various H*R songs, along with the characters commenting on them and the odd animated grace note. [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 7:46 PM - 8 comments

Geographer and geologist collecting oral literature of indigenous peoples tells of stories of sea-level rise at least 7,000 years old.
posted by NotLost at 7:14 PM - 11 comments

How the team sets its own salaries at OCF (part 1) - This is part one, detailing the model we came up with and transparently sharing our staff's pay—part two is about the process we used and resources for other groups who might want to try something similar. - How OCF Developed a New Compensation Model (part 2)
posted by aniola at 5:28 PM - 13 comments

Zola Jesus: Alive in Cappadocia is a four-song performance recorded in a 2,000 year-old cavern-chapel in Turkey. (The performance of 'Skin' is particularly great, imo.) The chapel itself is fascinating, and is one of many ancient rock-hewn churches in Cappadocia. The monks of the region also had a vast complex of agricultural caves used for everything from stables to beehives to pigeon roosts. The music video for Lost from Zola's most recent album was also shot in the area, and is spectacular.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:37 PM - 2 comments

How bad is the fentanyl crisis in America? Very bad. " 'The cartels saw the void left by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry,' said John Callery, a 30-year veteran of the DEA who retired after running the San Diego field office. 'Nature abhors a vacuum and they said, ‘Holy crap. We only have to get five pounds of fentanyl across the border instead of 7,000 pounds of meth. Perfect. And we can make 10 times as much money.’”'" The article covers the DEA's confused and unfocussed response, the rise of the Mexican cartel supply chain and the situation in San Diego, ground zero for fetanyl smuggling. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 4:20 PM - 45 comments

Quiz: Are you fluent in Gen Z office speak? (WaPo gift link, archive.org)
posted by box at 3:18 PM - 118 comments

It seems to have been the emergence of globalized trade routes over the next few centuries that precipitated a new demand for fortified wine and other forms of alcohol that could travel across the ocean, packing as much potential drunkenness into the smallest spaces possible ... Hard liquor, in this light, is just one of the many scourges imposed on us with the rise of global capitalism, a centuries-long epidemic, a legal poison, normalized, for the most part, by the efficiency of its cultural laundering — cocktail recipes, jokes, advertisements, the eternal promise of “fun”. from Gone Bad, Come to Life by Justin E.H. Smith [Previously]
posted by chavenet at 10:52 AM - 41 comments

After spending years engaging with MAGA members, Q followers, and other believers in conspiracies, The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper finally takes stock of all the crazy and tries to understand it. The six-part podcast Jordan Klepper Fingers The Conspiracy [Apple Podcast page with listening links] features conversations with sane people who are experts in different conspiracies, and outlines their origins and how it all fits together. Episodes run around an hour. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:40 AM - 12 comments

Stephen "tWitch" Boss has died at age 40. Boss first gained notoriety as a runner-up on the 2008 season of So You Think You Can Dance - and later an All-Star on the show - but since 2014 has been best known as the sidekick and DJ on Ellen DeGeneres' daytime show. (CW: Suicide) [more inside]
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:38 AM - 36 comments

The 50 best video games of 2022. The Best Game of 2022. The 25 best video games of 2022. The Best Video Games of 2022. The Best Video Games of 2022. The Best Games Of 2022 (So Far). The 10 Best Video Games of 2022. The 25 Best Video Games of 2022. The best new PC games in 2022. The best video games of 2022. The best mobile games in 2022.
posted by Fizz at 8:22 AM - 31 comments