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Jim Steinman has died at the age of 73. He's best known for writing and producing a string of hits for artists including Meatloaf (Albums "Bat Out of Hell" and "Bat Out of Hell II"), Bonnie Tyler ("Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero"), Air Supply (Making Love out of Nothing at All), among many others. [more inside]
posted by rmd1023 at 4:38 PM - 15 comments

The time for Hollywood’s "White Male Genius" is over. "Well, ma’am, I wanted to say, he’s a grown-ass man in his 40s who puts more salad on the floor than in his mouth. And me, a woman half his age, getting paid less hourly than what she made as an intern out of college, shouldn’t have to be living proof of how society silently bends around white men with no protest."
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:00 PM - 24 comments

Stephen Curry, point guard for the Golden State Warriors, along with his wife Ayesha, have helped serve 16,000,000 meals to Oakland kids this year. In November he bought a new food truck for Homies Empowerment, after theirs was stolen and trashed. In early April, he worked with the Bruce Lee Foundation to raise money to show solidarity with the Asian community. He's also found time to set the record for the most 3 point buckets in any 11 game stretch in NBA history for players 33 and older. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia at 2:18 PM - 12 comments

That anxiety you're feeling, it's a habit you can unlearn. An interview with researcher/psychiatrist Jud Brewer on anxiety as an addiction. Transcript. "...we like to think that our thinking mind is in control. But if you look at how behavior is driven, thinking really doesn’t hold a candle to the feeling body. The feeling body — those urges are much stronger. And in the same way we can’t stop our thoughts. I often get people coming to me in a seminar or if I’m teaching a class where they say, oh, how do I just turn off my mind? How do I just stop my thoughts?" [more inside]
posted by storybored at 2:07 PM - 7 comments

Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021. (SLNYT)
posted by treepour at 11:46 AM - 20 comments

"It’s hard for people who have never experienced it to truly grasp what it means to lack proper documents." --From On Being an Outsider: Words by Charles Simic, Photos by Romeo Alaeff [excerpted by LitHub from the book In Der Fremde]
posted by chavenet at 10:15 AM - 2 comments

Night in Paradise is recent to Netflix, and if you like your revenge flicks served in the Korean style this one is pretty great. I am definitely in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to Korean cinema, but so much of what I have seen has been so great.. "Space Sweepers" would have been a groaner if produced in Hollywood, but somehow it was just darn entertaining.. and put Kang-Ho Song in any film and it cannot be a bad film.. Exhibit A: The Drug King. I imagine some of you have additional recommendations? Please share. And no, I am not a Netflix shill but what is up with their Korean content? I am not complaining!
posted by elkevelvet at 8:57 AM - 25 comments

Scientists Create Simple Synthetic Cell That Grows and Divides Normally - "New findings shed light on mechanisms controlling the most basic processes of life."[1] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 5:43 AM - 29 comments

"To me, honestly, genre is just a vehicle I use to cross the story terrain. So depending on what story I want to tell, I use the appropriate genre." Author Nicola Griffith, author of scifi, historical fiction, detective fiction, nonfiction, and more, discusses her books and writing journey in an interview from late 2020. She learned more about how her own fiction works while writing a PhD thesis a few years ago. Griffith's blog has tons of interesting musings, on topics including the phenomenon of marginalized readers feeling "momentarily flummoxed by fiction that doesn't push us down" and identity and science fiction. "Reading SF, the over-riding value of which is the new, keeps our reticular activating systems primed: we expect everything and anything."
posted by brainwane at 4:30 AM - 3 comments

Earliest known recording of Joni Mitchell, thought lost forever, found in B.C. basement. Summer 1963. Joni Mitchell. The House Of The Rising Sun.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:01 PM - 18 comments

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka "Bad Bunny" the Puerto Rican singer, has been taking the world by storm. Featured on Cardi B's I like it (Like that), Bad Bunny has been grinding and climbing sin parar.. [more inside]
posted by Dressed to Kill at 9:01 PM - 6 comments

“We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace.” Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale was remembered Monday as a towering figure in Minnesota's public life and a leading influence on Democratic politics in the final decades of the last century. Tributes poured in on social media and in press releases from politicians of both parties in the hours following the announcement from Mondale's family that he had died at age 93.
posted by ichomp at 7:55 PM - 60 comments

DJ Earworm: Decade of Pop - The 2000s: 10 years, 100 songs (source playlist: Spotify, YT).
posted by metabaroque at 7:43 PM - 2 comments

Today is the last day to ask or answer a question on Yahoo! Answers. Tomorrow (April 20), it will be in read-only mode, and on May 4 it will be shut down by its parent company Verizon. Users will have until June 30 to request access to copies of their data. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 5:42 PM - 26 comments

The FIDE Candidates Tournament resumed today in Yekaterinburg, Russia after a 1 year pause(previously). Chess.com has good background article for those needing a rundown on the players and the event. Watch the event live on various twitch channels such as: chess24, chess.com, and FIDE channels. [more inside]
posted by interogative mood at 5:15 PM - 7 comments

How to use OpenAI's API to turn task descriptions into command-line instructions [more inside]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:49 PM - 12 comments

We now have an idea of what a kung fu movie in the MCU looks like, as Marvel has premiered the first trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
posted by mightygodking at 3:02 PM - 78 comments

The Teletubbies, set to "The Rite of Spring". That is all.
posted by Johnny Assay at 2:47 PM - 18 comments

Deffrwch Cymry cysgld gwlad y gan (Wake up, sleepy Wales, land of song!) The Welsh music scene is so vibrant and full of talent. Croeso! Come in and listen to some new (and new-ish) Welsh music. [more inside]
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 12:16 PM - 17 comments

Vitalik Buterin in conversation with Julia Galef (Rationally Speaking podcast). Julia and guest Vitalik Buterin (creator of Ethereum) explore a wide range of topics, including: Vitalik's intellectually honest approach to leadership, why prediction markets appeared to be biased in favor of Trump, whether it was rational to invest in Bitcoin ten years ago, the ethics of life extension, convex vs concave thinking, effective altruism and so on. (2hr interview, transcript). [more inside]
posted by storybored at 12:00 PM - 4 comments

It was a phone call from an acquaintance in Tokyo who often travels to Oregon for business that started it all. He told me there were two people from Oregon roaming around the northeast with what sounded like an impossible mission: they were in possession of what appeared to be parts of Torii gates that had washed up in their state in 2013, presumably the result of the tsunami two years earlier, and they wanted to find out where the wreckage came from. "Can you help?" he asked.

For NHK Ebara Miki tells the story of how parts of Torii gates washed away with the 2011 tsunami were found in Oregon in 2013 and returned to their rightful place.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:15 AM - 7 comments

Japanese biker uses FaceApp to trick internet into thinking he is a young woman A TV show revealed the star of popular 19,000-follower motorbike enthusiast Twitter user @azusagakuyuki was actually a 50-year-old man named Soya. Fans seem more supportive than betrayed. Biker fans educated on the fluidity of sexual attraction. A new acronym describing this phenomenon: UNBGBBIIVCHIDCTIICBG. This also illustrates how patriarchy picks winners and losers. TV program Getsuyou Kara Yofukashi unmasking segment. Originally reported on the BBC.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:12 AM - 19 comments

While it may have been the first to be described as such, the well-known "easter egg" hidden in Atari's Adventure is not only not the first example of hidden content in a game, but is also not the first time a programmer hid their name in a game. Video game historian “Critical Kate” Willært of A Critical Hit hunts down the earliest examples in her Hardboiled History essay and video. [more inside]
posted by subocoyne at 9:55 AM - 13 comments

"Looking beyond the narrative of creative difficulties and studio interference, the story of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is also one of resilience, creativity, dedication, and, of course, humor. To celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary, several of those involved in the creation of this beloved TV-show-turned-movie were interviewed—Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, Jim Mallon, Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Conniff, and Joel Hodgson—and current host Jonah Ray also discussed the film’s legacy and influence." -- Adam Carston @ AVClub
posted by valkane at 7:59 AM - 45 comments

"We can say human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet." On April 19th the Ingenuity copter, part of the Perseverance rover mission, took off from the Martian surface, hovered, took a photo of its shadow, then safely landed. It is the first time a human-built craft has flown on another world. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 6:23 AM - 32 comments

Recent research suggests that when you’re feeling burned out, the best person to help you recover may be yourself. Burnout is not a monolithic phenomenon, but rather, it can present as any combination of three distinct symptoms: exhaustion (a depletion of mental or physical resources), cynical detachment (a depletion of social connectedness), and a reduced sense of efficacy (a depletion of value for oneself). To recover from burnout, you must identify which of these resources has been depleted and take action to replenish those resources.
posted by folklore724 at 2:02 AM - 39 comments

Twelve European football clubs have announced the formation of a new European Super League. Founding members include Milan, Arsenal, Atlético Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham, with three more members expected to be announced and a further five teams qualifying annually. Commentators are not happy; supporters are even unhappier. FIFA, UEFA, the English Premier League, and other organisations have all promised to do what they can to stop the new league.
posted by adrianhon at 1:09 AM - 102 comments

The City as a Survival Mechanism: Kim Stanley Robinson - "A future with far more cities, and cities that are asked to do far more." (Bloomberg) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:21 AM - 16 comments

Cas Van Der Pol: Sim-bah. Lilo & Stitch. Finding Nemo. Star Wars. Incredibles. Super Mario 64. LOTR. Totoro. It's all breathtaking.
posted by metabaroque at 5:08 PM - 6 comments

One person reminisced about, as a child, writing capital letter Es with several redundant horizontal lines so that it looked like a ladder. Other Tumblr users yes-anded with sentiments like "All capital letters should have a leveled-up form" and "Please add your own unsettling godtier capitals!" as well as calligraphy and a font (.otf) file for an "Anxiety" font.
posted by brainwane at 1:36 PM - 29 comments

A first-ever study of homeless encampments finds that cities are paying millions in clearance costs — only to shuffle unhoused people from one camp to another.
posted by aniola at 12:37 PM - 70 comments

YouTuber Sarah Z has posted A Brief History of Homestuck, clocking in at a bit over 2 hours. The official version of the webcomic is here, although you may want to use the unofficial version with Flash support if you intend to read back through it. The sequel is here. Previously on MeFi.
posted by graymouser at 11:01 AM - 9 comments

“I’ve got a very weird hobby, which is I love taking a look at photos and figuring out where they’re taken,” Mr. Kuo said. (NYT link) [more inside]
posted by medusa at 8:24 AM - 13 comments

Bakamonotako Like all stupid little girls who believe they can best become themselves by becoming unlike themselves, she eventually came to miss her lost limbs. At times, fully tattooed people feel so about their lost original skin. But B’s sense of regret ran deeper. [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 7:49 AM - 35 comments

“[T]hrough some mistranslation or misapprehension of its Mexican namesake, the French tacos is always plural, even when there’s only one, pronounced with a voiced ‘S.’ … [A] flour tortilla, slathered with condiments, piled with meat (usually halal) and other things (usually French fries), doused in cheese sauce, folded into a rectangular packet, and then toasted on a grill.”
In The New Yorker, Lauren Collins tells a complicated story of “France’s own junk food”: “The Unlikely Rise of the French Tacos”
Still hungry? Try the documentary Tacos Origins: Phénomène; Révolution; Génération
Want to see them in action? See this French YouTuber eat two five pound gigatacos from O’Tacos.
Previously, in 2019
posted by Going To Maine at 10:22 PM - 83 comments

Meow meow meow meow. One of the best known songs ever has gotten updated for the Now with Meow ReMix, an LP of 5 songs from feline artists such as Lupa [Meow], Gatocito [Meow], Sweet Teddy Pepperpaw [Meow], Hearts & Paws [Meow], and Endless Hiss [Meow]. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 5:02 PM - 17 comments

"Ships so big they get stuck in the Suez Canal literally define 'chokepoint' but other waterways will play much more serious roles as the rivalry between China and the U.S. heats up." A Twitter thread by David Fickling of Bloomberg on the strategic importance of ocean straits throughout history, including the Trojan War, the British Empire, and China's Belt and Road Initiative. Article by Fickling and Anjani Trivedi. [more inside]
posted by russilwvong at 7:53 AM - 37 comments

Abir Haronni, newcomer to the international scene has since 2018 made, quietly, nine great clips (YT playlist). Her latest, Yacht (YT) is an auto-fetishist fantasy. She was signed to Atlantic in '18 and is just getting started in what seems to be a very promising music career, if you count youtube statistics (all slyt).
posted by kfholy at 7:44 AM - 2 comments

"One could make a case that some of the very earliest Enlightenment salons were held not in Europe but in Montreal, during the 1690s. It was there that an indigenous statesman called Kandiaronk, acting as liaison between the Wendat (“Huron”) confederation and the regime of Louis XIV, sat down regularly with the French governor-general, the comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, and his deputies—including a certain Baron de Lahontan—to debate issues such as economic morality, law, sexual mores, and revealed religion." [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 5:42 AM - 10 comments

Kiran Sidhu talks to Wilf Davies, a Welsh farmer who’s had the same supper for 10 years and only left Wales to visit a farm in England 30 years ago (The Guardian). “People might think I’m not experiencing new things, but I think the secret to a good life is to enjoy your work. I could never stay indoors and watch TV. I hear London is a place best avoided. I think living in a city would be terrible – people living on top of one another in great tower blocks. I could never do it. Walking around the farm fills me with wonder.”
posted by adrianhon at 5:23 AM - 60 comments

"What I can tell you is Amazon is going to spend about $650 million in season one alone," Stuart Nash, New Zealand minister for economic development and tourism, told Morning Report. Amazon's spending will trigger a tax rebate of NZ$160 million ($114 million U.S). This is somewhat controversial in New Zealand as the government could end up on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to help subsidize Amazon's elves-and-hobbits drama series. Stuff reported that the country's treasury has labeled the show a "significant fiscal risk" given there is no capped upside to how much Amazon — and therefore the government — might spend. But others point out that the boost in local spending by the production plus the potential tourism surge from Lord of the Rings fans far outweighs the taxpayer-funded kickbacks.
posted by folklore724 at 3:08 AM - 90 comments

Hathi: a token gift from India of a baby elephant for the Kabul Zoo "It was the latest expression of the centuries-old cultural and historical ties between the two nations... The diplomatic relationship was built on a bedrock of shared culture, and the gift of Hathi was an act in which history, regional bonhomie, pop culture and diplomacy merrily coalesced."
posted by dhruva at 6:08 PM - 2 comments

How Cold Water Swimming Cured my Broken Heart. "When I am in the sea I am a mystery to myself. I have no idea how I got here, or why or what I am doing. I am only swimming and I am amazed." After a breakup and the death of her father a writer ended up living on the coast of Brittany in winter where she went for a daily swim in the icy sea.
posted by storybored at 6:04 PM - 26 comments

Biden keeps Trump’s record-low cap on refugees — President Joe Biden on Friday stuck with his predecessor’s historically low cap of 15,000 refugees for this year and instead moved to accelerate admissions, triggering an outcry from resettlement agencies and even Biden allies that he was backpedaling on a key promise. [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 2:10 PM - 44 comments

Conservative commentator David Brooks is the latest to make this declaration. He was proceeded in recent times by people like Howard Jacobson and Schmuley Boteach. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler have even published The Jewish Annotated New Testament. The roots of this discussion are, however, fraught. [more inside]
posted by No Robots at 12:30 PM - 145 comments

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is a contemporary visual artist that bridges Haida, Asian, and Canadian cultures and identities with his art. In this video interview [YT] he discusses his mural, Orcinus Orca SKAAnaa. The mural is part of a new exhibition from the Royal BC Museum called Orcas: Our Shared Future. [more inside]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 12:08 PM - 3 comments

Mind the Gap, a handbook of clinical signs and symptoms in black and brown skin, is available to be downloaded online at no cost. [more inside]
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:50 AM - 6 comments

The “Red Ibérica en Defensa del Patrimonio Gráfico” is a Spanish/Portuguese collective that collects images of commercial signs as well as physical examples. Their site has a treasure trove of links to related Instagram accounts. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:31 AM - 4 comments

Just posting some blue on the blue, as you do "That's the surreal hue of Indonesia's Kawah Ijen Volcano, which glows with an otherworldly 'blue lava' at night. The mountain contains large amounts of pure sulfur, which emits an icy violet color as it burns, turning the rocky slopes into a hot (at least 239 degrees Fahrenheit), highly toxic environment." Some pretty stunning photos here!
posted by CarrotAdventure at 9:30 AM - 24 comments

Julia Evans (previously) is making interactive in-browser text puzzles to help people learn how to debug computer networking issues, and asking for feedback as she tries stuff out. "The Case of the Slow Websites" and "The Case of the Connection Timeout" are already up (source code using Twine), and she's thinking of making several more. "I'd love to know what folks think of this approach to learning debugging! One of my favourite ways to learn is by debugging weird problems, so my idea with this style of game is to sort of share the experience of past bugs I've run into so that other people can learn from them too." [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 8:53 AM - 22 comments