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A Writing Studies Primer attempts to supplement and enhance the necessarily instrumental nature of a handbook for composition courses by cultivating students’ awareness of writing as a culturally determined act. This is great. But, teeming with factual errors and underpinned by a triumphalist Eurocentrism, it only embraces the surface relativism of liberal values, which ultimately needs history to be quaint so that the surface relativisms of modernity can emerge as modernity’s greatest distinction. from Slanting the History of Handwriting [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:00 PM - 0 comments

Gift link from today's Washington Post: The most popular pizza style in every state, mapped -‌- the 'Pineapple Belt' and America's hidden culinary divide. Contrast with The Spruce Eats' Definitive Guide to Pizza Styles in the United States. [more inside]
posted by Rash at 3:12 PM - 34 comments

MSIOTHM (Mercury Stardust Is Our Trans Handy Ma'am) on TikTok: Need to find a wall stud? No problem! Plugged up tub drain? She's here for you. Podcast: Handy Ma'am Hotline. And Instagram.
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:21 PM - 10 comments

Colin Woodard (previously) and the Nationhood Lab have found that "the most impoverished quartile of U.S. counties in Yankeedom (ones where around 30 to 60 percent of children live in poverty) have a higher life expectancy than the least impoverished quartile of U.S. counties (where child poverty ranges from 3 to 15 percent) in the Deep South." They argue that the difference is not explained by race, income, or population density, but by culture and government.
posted by clawsoon at 11:32 AM - 21 comments

Figures in the Sky by Nadieh Bremer, astronomer and data visualization designer, shows how stars have been grouped into constellations by different “sky cultures”, ranging from the familiar modern ones, to those of the Sardinian, Norse, Hopi, Hawaiian, Chinese, Boorong, Arabic and 20 others. You can read a bit more on Bremer’s page for the project.
posted by Kattullus at 11:12 AM - 11 comments

Casseptember! Sixty years of cassette tape culture: BBC Radio 3 "...will feature specially-commissioned works from an array of artists whose work makes use of the particular qualities unique to the cassette tape. And, throughout the month, we’ll also hear from dedicated collectors and artists with a soft spot for the format." [hissssss << tktktkt >> KA-CHUNK]
posted by not_on_display at 8:51 AM - 12 comments

CUNY TV brings us Stephen Sondheim's Legacy, part of their Theater: All the Moving Parts series. It's an hour looking back at Sondheim, with the first half-hour in conversation with three Stephenstans [Sondheimistas?], and the second part with his official biographer and a CUNY music scholar.
posted by hippybear at 8:51 AM - 1 comment

Andrew Huberman is having a bit of a moment. An Associate Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford Medical School, Huberman started posting science education content to his nascent Instagram account in 2019. [more inside]
posted by sid at 7:41 AM - 32 comments

Millions of shoppers agree: It’s OK to eat supermarket sushi. At U.S. retailers, sales are up over 70% in the past year. (archive,today link)
posted by Etrigan at 7:10 AM - 69 comments

Let's feast! (single link to reddit video post)
posted by the primroses were over at 5:01 AM - 21 comments

Starfield | Overwhelming Scope [Game Informer] “Even in the increasingly crowded marketplace of big, expansive games, Starfield stands out. Leveraging the gameplay Bethesda popularized with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, Starfield expands the breadth of exploration to a galaxy of solar systems, planets, and ships. It populates those environments with a rich palette of activities and missions that tap into the outer space fantasy. It’s a staggering span of content to wrap one’s head around. At times, that scope threatens to impair the focus and pacing, and moment-to-moment gameplay is not always a strong suit. But players can expect to uncover hundreds of hours of experimentation in a richly imagined sci-fi playground, and that thrill is worth experiencing.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:42 AM - 34 comments

"The cash transfer is such a no-brainer. But nobody is willing to try it:" Dr. Jiaying Zhao, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, was part of a team that gave 50 unhoused people in Vancouver $7,500 and then followed them for a year.
posted by Shepherd at 4:03 AM - 56 comments

Pioneering wind-powered cargo ship sets sail.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:43 PM - 25 comments

Coffee City, Texas has 250 residents, and 50 police officers. More than half of the have been suspended, demoted or dishonorably discharged from their previous jobs.
posted by Artw at 8:11 PM - 37 comments

We know our bodies are paralyzed during REM sleep, and we know they twitch. We thought our muscles were somehow reacting to our dreams. But what if the twitch comes first? What if, in fact, the paralysis of REM sleep is a way to learn what it means to have a body--to test the boundaries and movements of the dreaming self, one muscle at a time? What Are Dreams For?, by Amanda Gefter for the New Yorker, explores this intriguing view and the research behind it.
posted by mittens at 4:27 PM - 33 comments

US businessman is wannabe ‘warlord’ of secretive far-right men’s network [Grauniad; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 3:59 PM - 28 comments

“I vividly remember being violently hungover on a cold winter morning in New England, passionate kisses playing loudly in the background as someone’s grandma slowly searched her purse for coupons, fluorescent lights inescapable as I prayed for a swift end to my existence. Hell is real and I’ve lived it.” Passionate Kisses: The Soundtrack at CVS, by Mitch Therieau (The Paris Review). [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:46 PM - 20 comments

"I propose it has consequences to democracy how available to the public are their laws, their policies, their judicial decisions, their holy texts, and even their academic papers about literature. The W3C spent decades insisting in utter folly that they were right in their conception of how ordered lists work, in the face of the whole world, and in doing so they frustrated the transparency on which democracy rests." [more inside]
posted by mhoye at 2:08 PM - 48 comments

It seems like nearly every week I am having arguments about how bike infrastructure is ableist. It’s not.
posted by aniola at 1:21 PM - 41 comments

Burger King must defend its Whopper size in court. Other fast food chains may follow [CBC] Includes a quote by "the Vanilla Vigilante" lawyer Spencer Sheehan.
posted by readinghippo at 10:41 AM - 73 comments

"He’d had enough of being at the animal shelter, so Scout the dog climbed over one tall fence and then another, crossed a busy highway in the darkness, entered the automatic doors of a nursing home down the road, walked unnoticed into the lobby, hopped onto a couch, curled into a ball and quietly went to sleep for the night."
CW - sympathetic mention of animal abuse at the start (non-graphic).
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:16 AM - 33 comments

From just a few weeks ago, Maria Bamford – 28th Annual OCD Conference Keynote [44m] has Maria Bamford, um, giving the keynote address to the 28th Annual OCD Conference. She speaks at length about her intrusive voices and OCD, which sounds horrible but she makes funny.
posted by hippybear at 8:50 AM - 11 comments

For men awaiting execution in Texas, illicit games of Dungeons & Dragons became a lifeline. CW: Discussion of violent crime and execution
posted by Etrigan at 7:08 AM - 7 comments

Apparently the "infectious" choreography for Jungle's "Back on 74" has been going viral on TikTok, with everyone from the international touring cast of West Side Story to Emily Ratajkowski getting in on the trend, but I learned about it from this LA Times interview with Shay Latukolan, the choreographer, who has previously lent his talents to videos for Rosalía's "SAOKO" and Stormzy's "Vossi Bop". [more inside]
posted by sigmagalator at 12:30 AM - 11 comments

As natural disasters loom, these towns are taking control of their power by building microgrids. Two communities that went without power during Black Summer are getting a microgrid to keep the lights on during network outages. As another dangerous fire season looms, is this technology the way forward? [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:58 PM - 33 comments

“There are hundreds of poisonous fungi in North America and several that are deadly, They can look similar to popular edible species. A poor description in a book can mislead someone to eat a poisonous mushroom.” - AI generated mushroom foraging books are spreading on Amazon, placing the public at risk.
posted by Artw at 7:43 PM - 50 comments

Courtesy of a British radiologist: Sword Swallowing And Its Side Effects
posted by BadgerDoctor at 5:25 PM - 23 comments

Low-tech Magazine (many previouslies) created a solar-powered version of their website a few years ago (previously). Since then they've realized that most of the financial and carbon cost of their solar website comes from using batteries to keep it on all the time. They explore the implications of using the sun's energy when it's available, including experience from the Living Energy Farm, in Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries.
posted by clawsoon at 4:16 PM - 20 comments

My criticism of the empty atom picture isn’t meant to shame people’s previous attempts to describe atoms and molecules to the public. On the contrary, I applaud their effort in this challenging enterprise. Our common language, intuitions and even basic reasoning processes are not adapted to face quantum theory, this alien world of strangeness surrounded by quirky landscapes we mostly cannot make sense of. And there is so much we do not understand. from We are not empty by Mario Barbatti
posted by chavenet at 3:59 PM - 32 comments

Vagina Rehab Doctor aka Dr. Janelle Howell (Instagram, Twitter and podcast) dresses up as your pesky bladder, suggests exercises for incontinence, cringes at "good coochie" brags and gives a rundown on possible signs of pelvic floor dysfunction. Content note: profane humor and lots of illustrations of vulvas on Dr. Howell's IG. Title taken from the recent Double Shift post on pelvic floors. Interview on Dr. Streicher's menopause podcast. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:34 PM - 9 comments

The Hoopla was a Razzle-Dazzle ride in the Pavilion of Fun at Coney Island's Steeplechase Park. Several dozen people sat on a ring suspended from a central pole, rather like a sit-down giant stride. It is documented in a newsreel, a painting and a postcard. The Pavilion of Fun was a vast, glass box, an ocean-front Crystal Palace erected by George Tilyou in 1909 and demolished by TFG's father in 1966 (although the Hoopla had been deleted twenty tears previously). See what it was like in this British Pathé Let's Go Coney! (Island) newsreel, which also has the Human Roulette Wheel and the Human Pool Table, but the Hoopla is shown at the very beginning. [more inside]
posted by Rash at 11:28 AM - 22 comments

As part of his Factually podcast, comedian and WGA representative Adam Conover interviews Defunctland's Kevin Perjurer about what drew him to theme parks and their history, how such parks factor into our culture, and how services like YouTube are enabling a new breed of fandom documentarian. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:14 AM - 24 comments

You're doing it wrong. People tend to overestimate the climate benefits of recycling. One study led by a researcher at the University of Leeds placed recycling second-to-last among more than 50 actions people can take to reduce their carbon footprint.
posted by folklore724 at 8:27 AM - 126 comments

Dating Roundup #1 - This is Why You're Still Single is a long commentary that mixes surveys on dating and relationship attitudes, common strategies and their pitfalls along with crossfire commentary from other viewpoints. Some of the language is absolutist so ymmv. (20-30 minute read) [more inside]
posted by storybored at 7:52 AM - 46 comments

On a sunny winter morning, dog trainer Mario Fortebraccio slowly bends toward a line of potted olive trees and indicates it with his hand. Waiting for that signal, Paco, a three-year-old white Labrador, rushes through the row of plants with his head tilted, sniffing each pot at the root, the rhythm of his inhaling echoing through the greenhouse. The dog is carefully scouting for something humans can't sense: Xylella fastidiosa, a type of bacterium that has been ravaging southern Italy's olive fields for the past decade. Paco and a few other four-legged colleagues make up the highly trained Xylella Detection Dogs team.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:33 AM - 5 comments

Accessibility should not be a grudging afterthought. With planning, it can lead to elegant, beautiful, and engaging art. (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan at 6:40 AM - 16 comments

Rick Beato sat down with the Emily Saliers half of Indigo Girls for a conversation about her decades of making and recording music: In the Room with Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers [50m]. It's a free-wheeling talk that I, as a long-time IG fan, felt was revelatory and insightful. And there's a lot of joy happening here, too! Includes solo performance of song Look Long.
posted by hippybear at 6:31 AM - 8 comments

50 years later, is there anything left of hip-hop? (SLDefector, archive.org)
posted by box at 5:36 AM - 33 comments

Greater bilby numbers soar through Taronga Western Plains Zoo rehabilitation program. The quest to save Australia's threatened greater bilby has been an amazing success at Taronga Western Plains Zoo where the population has jumped from 18 to 136 since 2019.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:43 PM - 13 comments

Scientists solve mystery of why thousands of octopus migrate to deep-sea thermal springs [more inside]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:39 PM - 15 comments

The subject of all great literature is either about redemption or its loss. Soteriology—that is the branch of theology that concerns itself with salvation—is the only worthy topic of prose, poetry, or drama. Whether you take any of that God stuff literally or not is irrelevant to this discussion. Noble, heroic, and good people corrupted or degenerated; sinful and wicked men made whole—either/or—those are the narratives which should concern any genuine art, because the turmoil within an individual mind, the canker and possible curing of the soul, is the only drama commensurate with the broken, flawed, limited, damning, painful, horrible, and beautiful experience of being trapped in a human body and a human life. from Darkness Visible [Ungated] [CW: alcoholism]
posted by chavenet at 3:58 PM - 38 comments

Japanese band Number Girl played their last show on November 30, 2002, performing "Omoide In My Head" as their final song. The bittersweet finale was captured on video and you can hear the crowd let out their last scream for the band. 20 years later, Number Girl played the song again for the first time in front of an audience and it feels just as ephemeral.
posted by donuy at 3:40 PM - 5 comments

"America has been slow to learn the lessons of overpumping." The New York Times offers a powerfully researched and visualized account of the building crisis in America's groundwater supply. (SLNYT)
posted by doctornemo at 3:17 PM - 18 comments

How the GOP and Christian millionaires plan to syphon billions of dollars from public schools
Florida is just the start.
posted by Artw at 1:46 PM - 31 comments

NPR, in association with LG U+ and Something Special, has launched Tiny Desk Korea. First up is 김창완 밴드 (KIM CHANG WAN BAND). More about the project here, and more about artists to come here.
posted by carrienation at 1:22 PM - 3 comments

You need to do a thing - NOW! For when you need to calculate a thing, or look up a thing, or be able to do the thing in your Browser without any faff. Most of the tools listed are NOT from https://freetinytools.com/ but I had to put a link in the description.... [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 9:15 AM - 44 comments

The University of Michigan, a community of over 120,000 people, has gone offline in response to a security incident. [more inside]
posted by Nelson at 8:04 AM - 124 comments

--about a question that has been plaguing me for months: Why is this bridge here?" The deepest of deep dives into the history of a seemingly trivial phenomenon: a footbridge over a suburban freeway south of Minneapolis. At the same time, an amazing piece of citizen research and reporting on a bit of pre-internet local history. (via)
posted by Kat Allison at 7:18 AM - 58 comments

Latinas are breaking generational curses, so why are we seen as malcriadas? [more inside]
posted by Bottlecap at 6:16 AM - 6 comments

The Incredible Edible Egg, the symbol of life. There's been a long debate about the health benefits and negative effects of the humble egg, but for many, the scrambled egg is the go to breakfast choice. The real question is which scrambled egg? Milk? Cream? Nothing? Salt? No Salt? Again, as with all things culinarily inclined, this list is short sighted, full of gaps, holes, glaring errors and misconceptions, etc. Feel free to scramble over any and all bare spots! [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:47 PM - 88 comments