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"Harris seems to be adopting a gimmicky new strategy every day, from embracing cryptocurrency to announcing that as president she’ll run all policy through a bipartisan council of advisors. She’s throwing everything against the wall, hoping that something, anything, will put her over the edge. There’s one tactic Harris doesn’t seem keen to try, though. She won’t embrace the kind of antiwar sentiment and economic populism that might appeal to many currently unenthusiastic voters, but which would infuriate the Democratic establishment and the donor class." Ben Burgis in Jacobin, "The Strangely Empty Politics of Kamala Harris."
posted by mittens at 1:49 PM - 55 comments

In 1973, Roe v. Wade granted a nationwide right to abortion and helped create a path to access. But, abortion access has rarely been a straight line — it’s full of twists, turns, and roadblocks. And these barriers have only gotten more complicated since the US Supreme Court gave states the power to ban abortion in 2022’s Dobbs ruling. While 13 states completely outlawed abortion, with many additional states dismantling access in other ways……other states have moved to strengthen their protections, creating a complicated patchwork of laws across the country. To illustrate how difficult it is to get abortion care, we built a maze for each state where the difficulty is calculated by the state’s abortion policies. [The Pudding]
posted by chavenet at 1:21 PM - 4 comments

Just in time for fall, the 52nd Mersenne prime has been discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). It's 41,024,320 digits long. [more inside]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:18 AM - 21 comments

Metafilter's own L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg has started a new serialized novel, featuring Sean and Wormwood, the Friendly Satanists, with episodes each Monday on his substack. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 10:58 AM - 4 comments

Two short stories about yearning, beauty, and craft. "What Tempts Our Wives" by Sarah Horner (published this year): "My wife no longer washes her hands when she comes in from the garden." "Free Art" by Meg Elison (published this year): "Breathing deeply and moving past my annoyance, I opened up the Little Free Art Gallery. Inside, there was only one piece aside from the old ugly ashtray. In that same marble again, there he stood. David." (Meg Elison, previously.)
posted by brainwane at 8:46 AM - 3 comments

Insects are the little things that run the world. Now you can help choose Australia's favourite. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has begun its quest to find out which native six-legged marvel is Australia's most popular insect for 2024. Six experts have selected their finalists for an online poll.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:59 AM - 9 comments

The sequel to Gamestop-- people convinced to invest in BB&B even as the company was going bankrupt. It was orchestrated by a man who got out, tanking the stock. A bunch of people kept buying it, losing their life savings and sometimes their marriages. The investors (at least a fair number of them) kept trusting. They were giving each other tremendous emotional support. They still have hope. [more inside]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:03 AM - 46 comments

A driver who ran over a cyclist following an altercation in central Paris has been charged with murder in a case that has shocked France. [more inside]
posted by daveliepmann at 6:33 AM - 69 comments

AI Audiobook Narrators in OverDrive and the Issue of Library AI Circulation Policy. Librarian Robin Bradford found that some audiobooks in her library were AI-read. Then she and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books went down a rabbit hole about whether the authors themselves are real.
posted by paduasoy at 5:19 AM - 27 comments

We gathered 57 of the most powerful people in media — and rather than simply anoint them, we put them to work. What follows is a tour through the state of journalism, assembled from dozens of hours of extremely candid conversations. (Bypass NY Magazine’s business model here). WARNING: a 14,000-word article.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 5:17 AM - 28 comments

For years, Moldova—a country similar in size to the US state of Maryland, sandwiched between the EU and Ukraine—has complained of Russian meddling. But more recently, as this former Soviet state prepares for a pivotal presidential vote and referendum on whether to join the EU, the country has become a cautionary tale about how the world’s biggest social media platforms can be exploited to create and fund a complex disinformation operation that sows discord around some of a society’s most divisive subjects. from The Disinformation Warning Coming From the Edge of Europe [Wired; ungated] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:04 AM - 13 comments

A folk-pop mischief-maker who goes by Catbreath has collected hundreds of thousands of streams by giving his songs prankish titles like “Chill Music,” “Gym Bangers,” and “My Discover Weekly.” [more inside]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:06 PM - 10 comments

Tourists urged not to feed wildlife after spate of bin-diving kangaroo rescues. Wildlife rescuers in Victoria's Grampians region are reporting multiple cases of kangaroos getting their heads stuck in domestic kitchen bins and say it's because tourists are feeding them.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:32 PM - 5 comments

Rookie washashore wins historic derby prize! The annual derby always has great memories... [more inside]
posted by vrakatar at 3:55 PM - 0 comments

This had to mean something. I thought about the prophecies of ruined cities in the Bible. Nineveh and Babylon, empty of human life, inhabited only by birds: “The cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the lintels; their voice shall be at the windows; desolation shall be at the threshold.” Ruined granaries where a few sparrows still peck for the last wedged-in flecks of grain. Most of the people around me walked in silence. Ahead of us, in the distance, the Arc de Triomphe gleamed in the darkness of the city like a pulled molar. I wondered how many of these people were suddenly realizing that they couldn’t actually remember anything that had just happened. How the blaring brightness of fame and the oblivion that’s coming turned out to be exactly the same thing. from Forgetting Taylor Swift by Sam Kriss
posted by chavenet at 2:58 PM - 61 comments

At the 2024 World Crokinole Championship Series, Justin Slater (fresh off his win in the World Crokinole Doubles Division) and Connor Reinman (the defending World Crokinole Champion) met in the semi-finals and managed a double perfect game. Confused? The Pudding has an interactive explainer. [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:59 AM - 21 comments

Toilet lines are longer for women than men, but simple changes could reduce loo queues. Queuing is never a pleasant experience, especially if you're desperate to go — and while new research has revealed it's an issue that disproportionately affects women, experts say that tweaks to building codes could help reduce the problem.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:13 AM - 67 comments

+++ATH0: Ward Christensen, co-inventor of the computer bulletin board system (BBS), has died at the age of 78. Christensen, along with Randy Suess, created the first BBS in Chicago in 1978, leading to an important cultural era of digital community-building that presaged much of our online world today. [more inside]
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:38 AM - 50 comments

Why did everyone fall for the J1407b myth? is 12 minute video essay that starts off as discussion about a cool astronomical mystery but becomes a measured, well-argued rant about knowledge in the age of Google and LLMs. It is by YouTuber Kyplanet who makes weekly videos about cool astronomical things, mostly exoplanets.
posted by Kattullus at 4:51 AM - 9 comments

"I read the words Gibbet Hill and I knew that wasn't a Bram Stoker story that I had ever heard of in any of the biographies or bibliographies." [more inside]
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:49 AM - 4 comments

The human body is almost always at the centre of artist Joyce Lee’s work, often transformed into psychedelic penis-shaped mushrooms or vulvic flowers exuding sticky pearls. These surreal metamorphoses move the viewer away from reality and into imaginary spaces, where desire and the body’s experience of pleasure are the main focus. Over-the-top sexuality is combined with visual gags to lend the images a bizarre and obscene sense of humour. The exaggerated campness of Lee’s work is joyful, mixing comedy with sex and working against the idea that art has to be serious. from Erotic nuns and pubic plaits: Inside Joyce Lee’s surreal, sensual world [Dazed] [Images & text NSFW] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:41 AM - 8 comments

William Shakespeare on mass deportation, performed by Ian McKellan

On May 1, 1517 — now referred to as Evil May Day — riots broke out in London as a response to an influx of immigrant workers. A young Sir Thomas More spoke to the crowd, and Shakespeare (a few decades later) wrote his version of that speech. [more inside]
posted by PlusDistance at 8:28 PM - 8 comments

The Facebook of Margery Kempe. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:14 PM - 7 comments

Without Battery storage (by way of slashdot): MIT engineers have built a solar-powered desalination system that "ramps up its desalting process and automatically adjusts to any sudden variation in sunlight" [more inside]
posted by aleph at 3:52 PM - 13 comments

Despite the huge variation in how autistic people experience the condition, they can be divided into just four subgroups, according to a preprint. The people in these groups—who share similar traits and life outcomes—carry gene variants that implicate distinct biological pathways, the researchers found. from Untangling biological threads from autism’s phenotypic patchwork reveals four core subtypes
posted by chavenet at 12:55 PM - 7 comments

First time my baby hears Clair de Lune - violin - viola - guitar - drums - fiddle - Moonlight Sonata - Hans Zimmer - Pavarotti - headphones - reggaeton - Johnny Cash - harp and violin - a storybook - opera singing - string quartet - Backstreet Boys - Elvis - Beat It - Guns N' Roses - the bassoon - the paper towel dispenser - bubble wrap
posted by Rhaomi at 11:51 AM - 12 comments

A big day for bird nerds as falcon chicks seen hatching in real-time. Melbourne's famous peregrine falcons are giving their live stream followers something to squawk about, with two tiny chicks hatching and another on the way.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:51 AM - 7 comments

Q: Are we immortal? A. If you trust the mathematics, yes. But it is not an immortality in the sense that after death you will wake up sitting in hell or heaven, both of which – let’s be honest – are very earthly ideas. It is more that, since the information about you cannot be destroyed, it is in principle possible that a higher being someday, somehow re-assembles you and brings you back to life. And since you would have no memory of the time passing in between – which could be 10¹⁰⁰ billion years! – you would just find yourself in the very far future. from Sabine Hossenfelder, physicist: ‘If you trust the mathematics, we are immortal’ [El Pais] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 1:21 AM - 105 comments

They may look like ant hills, but Western Australia's Pinnacles are 100,000 years old, study suggests. Western science has long debated when the towering pillars of the Pinnacles came to be. A new study suggests most of the spires formed when a particularly wet period dissolved the surrounding rock.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:39 PM - 5 comments

British Columbia goes to the polls [Global]. A rather complicated situation in BC: the old opposition party, BC United, quit (or at least its leader did)[CBC], and handed things over to the Conservatives. A bunch of BC United's candidates are running as independents [CBC]-- this includes five incumbents. So the Right-wing vote is split. Meanwhile, the Green Party seems to be doing okay (14% in the polls, leader doing well in her riding [Pollara]). The governing party right now is the New Democratic Party, which is social democratic. [more inside]
posted by CCBC at 5:43 PM - 63 comments

“Andy Capp is often dismissed as nothing but the exploits of a wife-beating drunk,” Paul Slade says. “It deserves better." ... The Redemption of Andy Capp is an appreciation of Andy Capp’s creator, Reg Smythe and his skills as a world-class cartoonist. There was far more to the strip than people realise today.” [via mefi projects]
posted by chavenet at 1:18 PM - 43 comments

On the University of Michigan's DEI initiative. Nicholas Confessore (previously) reports on UM's diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. (Gift link; X/Twitter thread introduction) [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 12:38 PM - 22 comments

Earlier this week, Paramotorist Alex Lang was flying around the Giza plateau when he spotted an unexpected sight - a dog frolicking on of the Great Pyramid barking at birds. Don't worry, the dog proved they knew what they were doing!
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:32 AM - 26 comments

How future-proofing Victoria's forests could help save the state's iconic emblem. A Victorian emblem — the lowland Leadbeater's possum — is dangerously close to extinction, with only a few dozen left in the wild in a small forest patch in the Yarra Ranges.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:07 AM - 1 comment

Mitzi Gaynor, song-and-dance queen with razzle-dazzle flair, dies at 93
posted by robbyrobs at 8:44 AM - 22 comments

The update offered some improvements! I appreciated the vertical orientation of its scientific mode, because turning your phone sideways is so 2009; the continuing display of each operation (e.g., 217 ÷ 4 + 8) on the screen until I asked for the result; the unit-conversion mode, because I will never know what a centimeter is. But there also was a startling omission: The calculator’s “C” button—the one that clears input—was gone. The “C” itself had been cleared [atlantic]
posted by HearHere at 7:03 AM - 62 comments

A Blood Moon (YT 16:29) - A Legend of Zelda short film about the war from the point of view of a bokoblin soldier, by Dan Weller. [trailer (YT 1:54)]
posted by lucidium at 5:48 AM - 11 comments

What happens when a 16thC manuscript page from the diary of Philip Henslowe (~1550 – 1616) is pushed in front of a math-wonk who a) recognises a problem in modulo arithmetic b) finds an error in the protocol? A card trick that stitches together Arts, STEM and edutainment. [more inside]
posted by BobTheScientist at 4:46 AM - 5 comments

The History of Red Hot, the Pioneering Social Change Organization, in 8 Great Songs Ahead of Transa, a new project for trans charities featuring Sade and André 3000, Red Hot founder John Carlin talks about wrangling Nirvana through Kurt Cobain’s babysitter and accidentally releasing the first-ever Wilco song.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 3:56 AM - 6 comments

Ontario premier Doug Ford--who is really just a series of corporations in a skin suit--to send out $200 cheques to ALL Ontarians. The issue? Looks like he's planning to call an early provincial election not long after the cheques are sent out. [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 3:46 AM - 36 comments

Was Saizeriya really designed by a lost Italian who got trapped in a Japanese convenience store for days, subsisted on a highly modified Italian diet, then came out the other side with low cost yet tasty Italian food? Sadly the truth is much more mundane. from Saizeriya's Secret to Survival [Hidden Japan] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:09 AM - 11 comments

Doctor Fukushi Masaichi And The Art Of Preserving Tattooed Skin. Tattoos have different meanings across cultures, ranging from sacred symbols to marks of rebellion. In Japan, tattoos are part of a broader subculture called irezumi, an intricate form of body art with its own set of unique designs, imagery, and symbolism.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:51 PM - 7 comments

Queensland to trial koala doggy doors to reduce roadkill rates. A unique collaboration in south-east Queensland will introduce one-way escape hatches so the marsupials can travel to their breeding spots without doubling back into traffic.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:35 PM - 5 comments

Robert Roberson Will be Executed Because It's Legal to Execute Innocent People in the U.S. Tonight, Texas was scheduled to execute Robert Roberson, who would have been (will be?) the first person executed based on the shaken baby syndrome hypothesis. [more inside]
posted by likeatoaster at 6:50 PM - 36 comments

Simon Stålenhag is a Swedish visual artist renowned for his beautiful, unsettling works combining pastoral landscapes and neglected, nostalgic locales with the striking presence of massive retro-futuristic technology. While most of his works come in the form of concept art, vignette series like Tales From the Loop (adapted into an underrated Amazon Prime anthology), and the occasional music video [previously], his most narratively compelling title is surely The Electric State -- a melancholy, apocalyptic vision of an alternate-history 1990s California Pacifica littered with spaceship hulks and rotting androids, in which a young girl searching for her brother journeys with her mute robot across a rapidly disintegrating society consumed from within by an addictive neural-VR craze that's birthing a race of ominous Lovecraftian machines. The tale inspired video essays, animations, and even roleplaying games, and fans took note when Netflix optioned the book for a big-budget adaptation. But though the project nails the imagery and has a stacked cast, the first look and teaser trailer suggests the Russo-directed blockbuster may be more in the vein of "Fallout + Marvel with an endearing team of ragtag robots" than "unspeakable horrors slithering through your headset."
posted by Rhaomi at 1:30 PM - 26 comments

Toni Vaz, stuntwoman who started the NAACP Image Awards, dies at 101 [more inside]
posted by Ideefixe at 1:27 PM - 16 comments

Constructed entirely of archival footage, the short documentary Balloon Boy tracks the news story via the breathless hours of coverage news channels across the world gave to the peculiar spectacle, both during the flight and long after the balloon had landed. Directed by the US filmmakers Arlin Golden and Brian Gersten, and produced by the US filmmaker Nathan Truesdell, who is known for tragicomic archival documentaries tackling institutional dysfunction, the work forms a withering criticism of profit-driven news media. And, in the process of gawking at the surreal spectacle all over again, viewers may even find themselves a tad implicated in the systems of ‘news coverage’ that are rewarded for entertaining rather than informing. [Aeon]
posted by chavenet at 12:43 PM - 26 comments

“She sparked a movement and changed the face of pay equity forever” [ap] rest in peace Lilly Ledbetter
posted by HearHere at 10:55 AM - 30 comments

Student in Bristol, Britain finds scorpion crawling inside Shein parcel. Sofia Alonso-Mossinger found the creature in a bag of boots which she had ordered online.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:57 AM - 64 comments

Bots placed in chat room invent meme religion! (SL YouTube) Thank God they chose one of the more auspicious memes, and yes, I mean goatse.
posted by pepcorn at 7:01 AM - 29 comments