February 12

Koalas are thriving in this hotspot but researchers aren't sure why

Koalas are thriving in this hotspot but researchers aren't sure why. More than 60 endangered koalas have been discovered living in bushland around a dam in regional New South Wales. Ecologists and landowners are working to ensure the colony continues to thrive.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:07 PM - 0 comments

Suzanne Ciani, Electronic Music Pioneer

Suzanne Ciani: A Life in Waves [more inside]
posted by Lemkin at 5:45 PM - 11 comments

Who's sayin' that stuff?

The Gunfighter (Best Short Film Ever) [YT 8:49] (CW: A FEW CRUDE BITS IN THE MIDDLE) "In the tradition of classic westerns, a narrator sets up the story of a lone gunslinger who walks into a saloon. However, the people in this saloon can hear the narrator and the narrator may just be a little bit bloodthirsty." The narrator: Nick Offerman. [more inside]
posted by Glinn at 2:05 PM - 7 comments

Her piping-voiced husband, Howard Lovecraft

The blog Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein offers an exhaustive history of the relationship between eldritch weird tales author H. P. Lovecraft and doomed modernist poet Hart Crane. The two had friends in common, lived in Brooklyn Heights at the same time, and would occasionally meet socially.
posted by whir at 1:26 PM - 13 comments

I didn’t fully grasp the extent of my grandmother’s fame

My grandmother’s once-celebrated legacy has faded into obscurity. Sometimes I wonder what it means to remain the star of your own life, despite the barrage of tempting disappointments against it and the systems that try to render you undesirable or unknown. My grandmother is no longer a public fixture but rather an anonymous immigrant in the suburbs of Virginia, although a few elderly fans from the Korean churches and supermarkets still recognize her from her years on the screen. “This is your grandmother? She was on television quite a lot back in the day,” cashiers would sometimes remark as we’re shopping through H-Mart. from When Fame Fades, What's Left? [Harper's Bazaar]
posted by chavenet at 1:20 PM - 6 comments

If you ever stacked cups in gym class, blame my dad

[S]omewhere between five and eight percent of US adults between the ages of 22 and 35 share the same core memory—and in the ensuing years have asked themselves, their friends, or social media the same question: Why did credentialed educational professionals make us do this ludicrous activity in gym class? I am, perhaps, the person best suited on the planet to answer this question. Because the answer...is my dad.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:19 AM - 37 comments

"I'm Will, the only person dumb enough to try YouTube as a game engine."

This YouTube video is an Undertale fangame. So is this other video here. (There's actually several Undertale-inspired ones.) This YouTube video is a playable chess board. This video is a playable DOOM level. This video is a piano rhythm game. (You're doing it "right" if the song has as little stuttering as possible.) Most of the games require captions and/or YT keyboard controls, so playing on mobile may be tricky. [more inside]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:40 AM - 6 comments

just hella nerding out on snowflakes

Ken Libbrecht presents SnowCrystals.com. Its Guide to Snowflakes is an abbreviated version of what you can find in Ken Libbrecht's Field Guide to Snowflakes. There's also a different, more-detailed version up on a Cal-Tech site.
posted by cardioid at 7:46 AM - 12 comments

Essential Vermeer

"The primary goal of the Essential Vermeer website is to harness the extraordinary potential of the internet to provide a comprehensive and organic presentation of Vermeer's art, life, and cultural milieu. Complex art historical issues are made accessible to casual art lovers while retaining their relevance for scholars and experts. News of Vermeer-related exhibitions, publications, and multimedia events are reported in real time."
posted by Lemkin at 6:40 AM - 3 comments

The man who destroyed everything he loved

In 1792, a Corsican nationalist, furious at the purchase and control of his native land by the French, somehow ended up leading the bloody suppression of an anti-French revolt in his own native Corsica. Later, he would cause the end of the Holy Roman Empire... [more inside]
posted by quacks like a duck at 5:29 AM - 10 comments

What you might not know about the seagull stealing your chips

What you might not know about the seagull stealing your chips. Seagulls can get a bad rap for their chip-thieving exploits but there is more to them than meets the eye. (Australia)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:55 AM - 18 comments

“Sous les pavés, la plage!”

When I happened upon The Beach Book, it was like discovering a note in a bottle, a buried treasure, a time capsule from the 1960s. Where could I find the queen of the second wave, the woman of staunch convictions and serious ideas, in the book’s embrace of the superficial and silly? Is The Beach Book merely the juvenilia of a woman who would go on to co-found Ms. Magazine, the National Women’s Political Caucus, and publish seven subsequent books? Or is there some relationship between this Dionysian version of the beach and the more serious work of activism? from B-Sides: Gloria Steinem’s “The Beach Book” [Public Books]
posted by chavenet at 2:04 AM - 1 comment

February 11

Diamonds in the rough

79 envelope liners for your viewing pleasure (via Bluesky). The envelope photos somehow reminded me of Donald and Jill C. Knuth’s surprisingly large collection of photos of diamond road signs, which I don’t believe has made it to MF before.
posted by louigi at 10:13 PM - 18 comments

The Week of Living Dangerously: Your FanFare Roundup

THIS WEEK IN FANFARE... NEW MOVIES: Oscar contenders Emilia Pérez, Nickel Boys, and I'm Still Here; also, another Nosferatu. AND IN TV: New episodes of Severance and The Pitt; new Secret Service drama Paradise; and season posts for season two of Elsbeth; and Poconos-set murder mystery The Madness. Also, there was a football game and that was a pretty big deal. [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:15 PM - 9 comments

Sid Meiers SimCivilicity VII

More than eight years after the release of Civilization VI (previously), Civilization VII is out! And it's... maybe a bit rough around the edges? Also, expensive. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:36 PM - 49 comments

McLibel: The Motion Picture

McLibel is a 2005 feature-length documentary by Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach about the libel suit brought in England by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris for publishing this. [more inside]
posted by Lemkin at 6:05 PM - 7 comments

How this little fish was once central to cuisine in the Roman Empire

How anchovies, a fish that was once associated with the poor, reached the very heights of gastronomic greatness. How this little fish was once central to the cuisine in the Roman Empire.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:36 PM - 23 comments

Bring me the head of Herman Melville

It hasn’t always been devoid of a marker, however. Until recently, Melville’s visage graced a small plaza on Pearl St. between two skyscrapers by way of a bronze bust with a plaque informing visitors that “On this site, number 6 Pearl Street, HERMAN MELVILLE was born August 1, 1819.” ... For many years, fellow water gazers from around the world came to this plaza to pay their respects, until suddenly it was gone; both the plaque and the bust were removed and replaced with a dumb blankness matching the rest of the wall, which is how it still looks today. from Herman's Head ; or, what happened to the Melville bust at 6 Pearl St.? [All Visible Objects] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 3:01 PM - 21 comments

for certain values of 'values'

"We’ve found as AIs get smarter, they develop their own coherent value systems. For example they value lives in Pakistan > India > China > US. These are not just random biases, but internally consistent values that shape their behavior, with many implications for AI alignment." (Dan Hendrycks via xcancel) [more inside]
posted by mittens at 12:07 PM - 61 comments

The Books of Making

The 75 Most Essential Books for Gen X Aaaand - GO! The list is of course somewhat ridiculous as are all these lists. [more inside]
posted by mygothlaundry at 10:28 AM - 130 comments

RIP: Rural Indexing Project

"Rural communities are dispersed across the American landscape. The buildings and streetscapes in these places are a repository for visual trends—historical, architectural, and social—that relate to aspects of commercial, municipal, and private life. Rural Indexing Project (RIP) documents these trends as they exist in the built environment." [more inside]
posted by at by at 9:18 AM - 13 comments

Do You Turn on the Big Light?

Few things are more contentious among cohabitating adults than “The Big Light.” [Slate / Archive] Like a millennial household, the Big Light has divided the Strategist staff and ignited vigorous debates. [Strategist / Archive]
posted by ellieBOA at 9:05 AM - 142 comments

It’s alive! It’s alive!

Remember that video from Pixar, years ago, with that cute animated lamp? It appears that Apple research people have now made that lamp for real. Be prepared for wicked cuteness. The video is at the bottom of the link.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:12 AM - 35 comments

An even faster hash table

Andrew Krapivin turned to a common approach for storing data known as a hash table. But in the midst of his tinkering, Krapivin realized that he had invented a new kind of hash table, one that worked faster than expected — taking less time and fewer steps to find specific elements. Martín Farach-Colton, a co-author of the “Tiny Pointers” paper and Krapivin’s former professor at Rutgers, was initially skeptical of Krapivin’s new design. Hash tables are among the most thoroughly studied data structures in all of computer science; the advance sounded too good to be true. But just to be sure, he asked William Kuszmaul of CMU, to check out his student’s invention. Kuszmaul had a different reaction. “You didn’t just come up with a cool hash table,” he remembers telling Krapivin. “You’ve actually completely wiped out a 40-year-old conjecture!” [more inside]
posted by ShooBoo at 7:14 AM - 36 comments

Maki-e Fountain Pens

This video about maki-e fountain pens will make you sad that you don't own a maki-e fountain pen. [more inside]
posted by Lemkin at 7:01 AM - 16 comments

Springtime for Scammers

Matt Stoller and Paul Krugman on the dismantling of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB has a budget of 800 million but returned over 21 billion dollars to consumers since its creation in 2016. Project 2025 architect Russell Vought is the acting head of the CFPB and this is his first major action following his Senate confirmation. It is expected to be blocked by the federal courts - at least on paper - just as the "pause" on federal grants, end of birthright citizenship, mass federal employee resignation offer, and change to NIH funding formulas have been. Here is Heather Cox Richardson on what the judicial branch (and Democrat-lead states) are doing to block the Trump's administration's continuing moves to illegally consolidate power. [more inside]
posted by subdee at 6:58 AM - 30 comments

Thalassa Mechane

SOLSTICE - 5 (YT 10:36), a visually intricate short sci-fi film about resource extraction on another planet, and Forgotten Archives (11:11), a just released expansion of the world. [more inside]
posted by lucidium at 6:28 AM - 3 comments

From the very beginning, nothing at all has lasted

Some time around 2200 BC, a high priestess conceived a child and bore him in secret. She placed him in a basket of bundled reeds, sealed the opening with tar, and cast the basket into a river, from where he was discovered and raised by Akki the Water-drawer, in the city of Kish. This is the story of Sargon, who founded an empire... [more inside]
posted by quacks like a duck at 5:28 AM - 13 comments

Origami Guide - Beginner to Intermediate

Origami Guide - Beginner to Intermediate Tutorial Site Step by step Introductory Guide to origami. No A.I. No Video. Step by Step photos. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 3:54 AM - 9 comments

What is life, after all, but a serialized adventure?

One of the great joys and curiosities of marriage, in my experience, is the way it opens a private universe governed by its own laws—a space to celebrate, to grow, to weather storms (some more damaging than others). A space for trading backstories, showing the places you’ve carved your initials in the woodwork. A space for exploration, crossing together to the far side of the world, sewing one another’s ears back on as necessary. A space for improvising duets, a “deep mutual comprehension” elevating the results beyond the sum of the players’ individual talents. And if this space could be a semi-enchanted vessel called, almost too perfectly, the Surprise? from Actually, Master and Commander is a Domestic Fantasy About a Codependent Life Partnership! [LitHub] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:35 AM - 10 comments

THEY NOT LIKE US, THEY NOT LIKE US

Sine of the easter eggs/hidden meanings in Kendrick Lamar’s now iconic Superbowl half time show.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:44 AM - 43 comments

February 10

Fragile States Index

The Fragile States Index is an interesting site to visit if your interested in comparing the liveability and governance of a country relative to others. Scoring is inverted, that is the higher the score the more fragile a country is. Norway (179th place) has the lowest a score of 12.7, the USA (at 141 place) scores 44.5 squeezed between Argentina and Hungary. [more inside]
posted by Narrative_Historian at 11:37 PM - 8 comments

$4.8 million pledged to return island to the wild

$4.8 million [US $3.01 million] pledged to return island to the wild to save threatened species. South Australia's fourth-largest island is set to become an ark for mammal species recovery, funded by $4.8 million from governments including ridding the island of rats, mice, and cats.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 11:30 PM - 3 comments

“There are simply too many notes, that’s all.”

Last September, the film Amadeus turned 40. Long criticized for its looseness with historical fact (no, Salieri didn’t live a life of chastity as a way of thanking God for killing his father), Amadeus has experienced a critical reassessment in recent years. Mozart’s vulgar laugh is now seen by many as a middle finger to the Soviet Union in what would prove to be the regime’s final years. [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 8:36 PM - 24 comments

THE PRICEMASTER HAS SPOKEN

The PriceMaster (32:23, a little NSFW) "'Everything is for sale.' 'Make me an offer!' . . . the wonderful mantras of the prophet of Captive Market Capitalism (i.e. American Style Corporate Capitalism) echo pertinently on a crisp winter day in Denton, TX in the newborn hours of the great decisive 21st Century. Members of the hallowed Fast House look on and document the unfolding." [more inside]
posted by chinesefood at 8:01 PM - 6 comments

The Casio G-Shock Watch

You remember the scene in David Cronenberg's Crash when the people are sitting on a couch watching slow-motion car crash test videos in a soma-like daze? G-Shock Tests of Toughness is like that, except with watches. [more inside]
posted by Lemkin at 7:59 PM - 3 comments

Sounds bloody awful!

The Horn of Geddon as recreated by Stevyn Colgan.
posted by Mizu at 4:08 PM - 11 comments

The life of a nepo baby's always intense

She told all these stories with a cigarette and a smile, because she was a survivor. Before Lara entered my life, my favorite summer activity was going to Staples to buy pencil cases and binders before school started in the fall. Lara taught me that much like femininity, adolescence can be depressing and confusing, but it can also be full of freedom and unencumbered play. As my life started to change, so too did the world. America was at war, civil liberties were under attack—against the backdrop of approaching darkness, Lara taught me the glory of loving every day. from When I Was 9, Lara Flynn Boyle Was My Father’s Sweetheart—and My Best Friend [Vanity Fair; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 3:32 PM - 23 comments

"General approach to elder home clear out"

"I thought it might be helpful to review how I approached clearing out my in-laws’ condo last weekend." Mary Anne Mohanraj recently "took about two 8-hr days to clear most of a two-bedroom, two-bath condo [in the US], mostly just me, but with some help from Kev’s sister and my friends" and wrote up how she did it. A few principles, then experiences with: Pre-clearing; Getting ready; Moving heavy items; Set aside valuables that will need to be appraised, if any; Sort as you go; Papers; Electronics; Clothes; Housewares; Furniture, lamps, mirrors, appliances; Memorabilia. [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 1:05 PM - 34 comments

Gouda: one cheese to rule th... oh. Not statistically, it doesn't.

In which Google made an advert showing their AI system "helping" a cheesemonger in Wisconsin write a product description, which contained a clunkily incorrect fact, after which Google chose to blame the World Wide Web. In the same ad, it appears Google faked the AI output. Elsewhere, an infomercial pairing a brand of Port to Gouda. And elsewhere again, an American man compares Gouda to "Gouda".
posted by Wordshore at 12:41 PM - 54 comments

Tom Robbins, 1932-2025

The author Tom Robbins has died. I had no idea he was so old. He was old for a Baby Boomer, and probably didn't even qualify for inclusion in that generation, born in 1932, well before the war that the Baby Boomers followed. [more inside]
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 10:55 AM - 69 comments

Tell us something good: a free thread

WaPo gift link: A campus sign said ‘Tell us something good.’ Students delivered. Free thread for this week. Do you have a small something good to share?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:57 AM - 85 comments

M. F. K. Fisher's "How to Cook a Wolf"

"Originally published in 1942, How To Cook A Wolf is presented as a wartime cooking guide, but... its essays are an argument for living the best life that you can when everything around you goes to shit." - Emma Terhaar [more inside]
posted by Lemkin at 8:57 AM - 22 comments

US trailer for Legends of the Condor Heroes: the Gallants

Tsui Hark returns with a take on chapters 34-40 of Jin Yong's Legend of the Condor Heroes and a US release, starring Xiao Zhan as the protagonist Guo Jing. The Wikipedia summary can catch you up and will contain spoilers for the Jin Yong wuxia classic series but might make it easier to follow along with the epic movie. If you can't get enough and would like to be taken through the whole series, the TVB 1983 show version is available on the TVB Mandarin YouTube channel (no English subs). English fan translations of the novel are available at the Wuxia Society. (Previously on Jin Yong.)
posted by toastyk at 8:41 AM - 6 comments

The Sunshine Coast Dock War

Meet the waterfront millionaires trying to cancel the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act
Short history of the shíshálh swiya Dock Management Plan and the reaction of adjacent land owners. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 8:36 AM - 7 comments

‘Hamilton’ at 10: How does it hold up?

Seattle Times' Gemma Wilson on ‘Hamilton’: Because time is what makes all theater feel new, and understanding where we’ve been is the only way to see our present clearly. So what does this show mean today? Here we go. ( archive )
posted by ShooBoo at 8:21 AM - 42 comments

Primary school Lord of the Rings

The Winton School in New Zealand was forced to cancel its annual musical due to COVID concerns. So they leveraged the spectacular South Island New Zealand scenery seen in Lord of the Rings, got a professional cinematographer on board, and made a full-length fantasy epic: The Great Sword of Isthgul. [more inside]
posted by rednikki at 6:07 AM - 5 comments

Sex Lives of Whale Sharks Caught on Camera

Sex Lives of Whale Sharks Caught on Camera: Pursuit, Love Bites, and Getting Into Position. Researchers have captured rare video of whale shark courtship behavior, revealing intimate details of the largest fish in the sea.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 5:38 AM - 5 comments

I thought there used to be a sea here?

Since the 1960s the Aral Sea, originally measuring 68,000 square km (or about half the size of England), almost entirely disappeared, destroying a thriving fishing industry. Parts of it have since been restored in Kazakhstan. "I was five or six the last time I saw ships in the sea when we went swimming". It's especially unfortunate that on an island in the middle of this former sea was a top secret Soviet bioweapons facility.
posted by quacks like a duck at 5:18 AM - 5 comments

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

Such realizations left the heirs with a mix of emotions: confusion, guilt, shame, resentment. For them, giving up their wealth requires rethinking not just their place in the world but also their very identities. They come from a variety of backgrounds and support many different causes, but they're all grappling with the same question: What does it mean to be a "good" rich person? from They inherited billions from their parents. They don't want it. [Business Insider]
posted by chavenet at 1:39 AM - 16 comments

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