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The problem is using a one-size-fits-all system to gatekeep a profession that needs diverse people to fill a huge array of roles. Pharris, who grew up in Appalachia and saw the need for greater access to care there, wants a credentialing system that provides an array of pathways into counseling that match the array of needs. People suffering domestic violence should have access to care from domestic violence specialists. Recent immigrants might need to talk with someone who understands their particular traumas. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:46 PM - 6 comments

Singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry shot to fame with Ode to Billie Joe and had a smattering of later hits, notably Fancy, covered by artists such as Irma Thomas, Spanky Wilson, Orville Peck and Reba McEntire. Though a flop at the time, her fantastic second album, The Delta Sweete, picked up many fans since, including Mercury Rev, whose The Delta Sweete Revisited covered eleven of twelve songs, each with a different singer: Norah Jones, Hope Sandoval, Rachel Goswell, Carice van Houten, Lætitia Sadier, Margo Price, Susanne Sundfør, Vashti Bunyan & Kaela Sinclair, Phoebe Bridgers, Marissa Nadler, Beth Orton, closing with Ode to Billie Joe as sung by Lucinda Williams. Missing track Louisiana Man was released later, sung by Erika Wennerstrom. Stuart Berman interviewed Mercury Rev about it.
posted by Kattullus at 1:36 PM - 3 comments

A video about adorable LA hipsters building a teardrop trailer
posted by Sebmojo at 1:15 PM - 6 comments

Infinite Craft - from the creator of the Password Game (previously), a browser-based colossal productivity killer where you simply combine two words, over and over, to make... any/everything?! (Via RPS)
posted by protorp at 11:05 AM - 69 comments

Reporting from The Tyee: The B.C. government quietly announced on Feb. 1 that it had detected chronic wasting (prion) disease in two deer.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:08 AM - 39 comments

New Study Reveals Large Holes In America’s Ocean Protection. Here’s How We Can Fix Them (Smithsonian magazine). Thousands of marine species, and many vital habitats, have little to no coverage in America’s marine protected areas.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:00 AM - 1 comment

Third Place? Here’s Why I Started Exploring the Sewers "Although the sewers have everything I’m looking for in a third place (rats, a constant fear of being discovered), I can recognize that they might not be for everyone. Similarly, some third places I tried out and found lacking that you should avoid at all costs include: standing too long in one place on the sidewalk (illegal), reading a book at a bookstore without buying it (illegal), and being outdoors without your wallet (illegal)."
posted by AlSweigart at 7:01 AM - 18 comments

Many games and tools exist in the mysterious valley that lies between tabletop roleplaying in groups and writing fiction. Solo RPGs can be considered a creative writing practice or a generator for creative writing. Solo gaming surged during the pandemic, along with a surge in the creation of solo RPGs. (What do you know? Solo boardgaming surged, too.) There are whole kit-n-kaboodle games, as one might find on MeFi Projects and elsewhere, and then there are tools that serve as emulators for the GM/DM/referee. In the depths of the valley, or at the height of the mountain range, between boardgames and solo RPGs are to be found tabletop RPG boardgames.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:44 AM - 22 comments

Some books are so utterly bad that the case against them can be made based on almost any excerpt. Elon Musk is one of those books. from Very Ordinary Men, a deliciously scathing review of Walter Isaacson's biography by Sam Kriss [The Point Magazine; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 2:43 AM - 71 comments

A helpful Adversary explains to a Sunday School class the many ways that Evangelical Christian teaching doesn't match up to what pastors learn in seminary, in the animated documentary Satan's Guide to the Bible. (1 hour 26 minutes) Watch out for that Jen!
posted by JHarris at 11:02 PM - 15 comments

An expansion of solidarity: Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of acclaimed works like The Sympathizer, explores what it really means to be Asian American now, and how the question of Palestine is relevant for Asian Americans. [more inside]
posted by toastyk at 9:47 PM - 6 comments

"The composition of Opening dates back to 1979, where Glass was commissioned by the Alberta Piano Institute to write a set of varying piano pieces for educational use. It was originally published for solo piano as part of his 'Solo Piano' album in 1989, and since then has been re-recorded and re-arranged in numerous other forms. Opening was also re-contextualised in 1996 as part of the album ‘The Essential Philip Glass’ and was even re-arranged again in 2010 as an orchestral score." Phillip Glass - 'Opening' ( offical version) [slyt. 7:17]
posted by clavdivs at 9:06 PM - 13 comments

More than 300 endangered glassfish (olive perchlet) have been rescued from a drying lake and transferred to a nearby landholder's dam in the back of a ute (a ute is a vehicle with an open cargo area at the rear, what the US would call a pickup truck). The olive perchlet, commonly known as glassfish, is a small endangered species that was once found throughout the east coast of Australia. Only isolated pockets remain now. It is considered one of the rarest fish in the Murray-Darling Basin, with the only other population in NSW previously believed to have been in Lake Brewster near Hillston.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:56 PM - 3 comments

After several years of alternative playoff game broadcasts, the NFL and Nickelodeon are stepping things up with an alternative Super Bowl broadcast on the children's entertainment network. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:30 PM - 13 comments

On February 1rst, Sylvia Baumgarten, award-winning romance novelist, died at the age of 90. [more inside]
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 4:12 PM - 6 comments

Clara Belle Williams was born in Plum, TX in October 1885 [!]. She attended undergrad in Prairie View TX, graduating in 1908. After a marriage, three sons, and a widowing, she enrolled at University Of Chicato and finally at New Mexico College of Agriculture in 1928. Clara Belle Williams was [what is now known as] New Mexico State University's first black graduate [nmsu.edu link, primary text link], graduating in 1937 with a degree in English at the age of 51. She was the Las Cruces School System's first black school teacher, and she forged a path into a community that had very little black population during a time long before it was expected. Here is an interview with Clara Belle Williams and her family from 1980 [1h31m. VHS transfer, long but amazing] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:06 PM - 4 comments

“I guess I should just admit that I’m not a Pilot guy. If I’d realised that earlier, I’d have saved myself a lot of money — money that I could have spent on Viscontis and Montblancs, which speak to me much more.”
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:21 PM - 48 comments

This past Friday, Wayne Kramer, legendary co-founder and guitarist of the incendiary and massively influential MC5, died at the age of 75. [more inside]
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:18 PM - 29 comments

Taylor Swift threatens legal action against student who tracks her jet. Jack Sweeney — who irked Elon Musk by sharing public flight data — recently posted about the environmental impact of travel tied to the Eras tour and Swift's relationship with Travis Kelce. Taylor Swift’s lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to a college student who uses public flight data to track private jet usage, suggesting his social media accounts were aiding Swift’s stalkers and threatening her safety. gated story at wapo.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 12:53 PM - 109 comments

President Trump has become Citizen Trump [Gift New York Times link] A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals For the District of Columbia Circuit has unanimously rejected Trump's claim of absolute immunity.

For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.

[more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:48 AM - 113 comments

Previously limited to users by invitation only, the X (née Twitter) competitor Bluesky is now open to the public. The culture currently encourges aggressive muting and/or blocking of trolls, and there’s no single algorithm that promotes or popularizes any particular individual. Like Mastodon, it was developed with an eye toward federation, though it’s not as far along in that regard, though the paper describing the AT protocol was just published. (Previously)
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:53 AM - 82 comments

Toby Keith - 1961-2024 Country singer Toby Keith passed away over night in his sleep at the age of 62. He revealed he'd been battling stomach cancer in 2022 Known for his ultra patriotic songs post 9/11 (e.g. “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue,”) and big hits like his duet with Willie Nelson ("Beer for My Horses"), he had more than 60 charting hits. He was also known for being aggressively outspoken and was notable for his feud with the "Chicks" after their comments regarding the war in Iraq. He billed himself a conservative Democrat, became independent in 2008, praised Obama and then played at the "Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration" prior to Trump's inauguration.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:11 AM - 50 comments

The identity guidelines serve as the definitive source of truth—a rubric by which we gauge the success of everything we make (from furniture to campaign ads to retail catalogs), everywhere we show up (from brick-and-mortar showrooms to digital experiences to exhibition wall copy). Each component of the visual language is outlined individually, as well as how the full system works together.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:53 AM - 8 comments

Though the city has survived a series of local and national recessions in recent decades, San Francisco is said to be in a ‘doom loop’ because so much office space and so many shops have been abandoned since the pandemic. Tech layoffs drove some of the shutdown, but the industry also enabled a mass white-collar withdrawal from the workplace – employees working from home, sometimes leaving the region to work remotely. More than the shrinkage of the population and the emptying out of downtown, the new mood of the city seems to be influenced by a kind of shrinking from human contact. The city remains the densely urban place it always was, but the way people inhabit it is increasingly suburban, looking to avoid strangers and surprises. from In the Shadow of Silicon Valley by Rebecca Solnit [LRB; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 1:42 AM - 68 comments

Celebrate Chinese New Year in Nanyang style with a delicious raw veggie and fish (smoked salmon can be used) salad that will bring you good luck and prosperity for the year ahead. How to Lo Hei instructions for the newbies for the Singapore (alright fine, Malaysia too) tradition also called yusheng.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:05 PM - 6 comments

Breaking news about Zoozve The International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature has made a decision, and that decision is to accept Radiolab's suggestion to name Venus' quasi-moon Zoozve! (Why did they suggest this? Previously.) [more inside]
posted by johnabbe at 10:15 PM - 16 comments

No, Aliens Haven’t Visited the Earth. Why are so many smart people insisting otherwise? via Longreads. "Thoughtful, sensible-seeming, non-crankish people at Harvard, at The New Yorker, at the New York Times, and at the Pentagon seemed to be drifting ever closer to the conclusion that alien spaceships had visited Earth. Everyone was being appallingly open-minded. Yet even after more than 70 years of claimed sightings, there was simply no good evidence. In an age of ubiquitous cameras and fancy scopes, there was no footage that wasn’t blurry and jumpy and taken from far away." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 9:15 PM - 114 comments

Excavating a rare 70-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton in Mongolia. Retrieving the remains of the long-necked Nemegtosaurus In the remote Gobi desert.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:28 PM - 2 comments

For the past 15 years, a crew of volunteers has been going out to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center every week to count all the crawling, flying critters they can find. So far they've identified almost 3,000 species of insect including over 50 bees, 345 flies, and over 500 different beetles. (SLTexasObserver) [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:14 PM - 5 comments

I'm really not quite sure who Rosie Bennet is, but somehow she ended up sitting in Brian May's kitchen talking about all kinds of things. From fame to his astrophysics degree to AI and even a bit of music! It's a lovely gentle-voiced conversation that is one of the best musician interviews I've encountered lately! Brian May on AI, Mental Health, Fame, Plagiarism and the Internet - FRET NOT EP.2 [1h5m]
posted by hippybear at 2:13 PM - 7 comments

The guy at the keyboard (gift link) Are you bummed you weren’t around when the Stasi ruled? Do you wish you could’ve been one of Mao Zedong’s millions of neighborhood snitches? Maybe watch the Red Guards drag off your least favorite aunt? Not to worry, the bad old days are back — thanks to Nextdoor.com.
posted by Toddles at 2:05 PM - 95 comments

A web development extravaganza & feel good song, Antonymph will wow you if you're a web dev and might even make your cold, numb, unfeeling heart thaw just a smidgen. (Desktop browser and HD monitor highly recommended - not really for mobile!)
posted by signsofrain at 12:30 PM - 23 comments

The Vesuvius Challenge Grand Prize has been awarded to a team that joined forces after their earlier successes. The team provided about 5% of the first scroll, which looks to be part of an Epicurean work. The organizers also announced the 2024 goal: 90% of the first four scrolls scanned and segmented!
posted by bbrown at 12:28 PM - 18 comments

Behold, the bin chicken: Sydney’s stinky, grimy but (mostly) beloved bird (WaPo gift link) Meet the Australian white ibis. It's not pretty, it smells bad, it poops huge, and it's always in your trash. Of course, some humans have now become fans of it, dressed like "sexy bin chickens," and made a rude song and a fake documentary about them, previously mentioned here in 2017.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:50 AM - 30 comments

and the dark patterns you should try to avoid. From their description: A game review website devoted to helping you find mobile games that aren't riddled with in-app purchases, and don't use psychological tricks to manipulate you into becoming an addicted gamer. Learn about the dark patterns that game designers use to waste your precious time and money. [more inside]
posted by wowenthusiast at 10:48 AM - 55 comments

"Sometimes treasures are hidden in plain sight and it only takes the curiosity of an astute observer to properly identify them. Such was the case with a piece of original artwork by Edward Gorey that is on display at the F. Brooke Whiting Museum in Cumberland, Maryland." [more inside]
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:17 AM - 26 comments

What are you writing - a CV? A resignation letter? Reports? A spell? Academic papers? Job applications? A thesis? Letters to lovers? A book? A ransom note? Some code? A shopping list? Some interactive fiction? Erotic fiction? A journal or diary entry? Poetry (by Jessica Smith)? MetaFilter posts? And with what - a favorite pen? A pencil? The keyboard? Software? A stencil? A tablet? A paintbrush? A quill? Something else? Or talk about anything and everything in your life and your world as this is your free thread.
posted by Wordshore at 2:15 AM - 165 comments

For better or worse, the web doesn’t work like that anymore. No one clicks a webpage hoping to learn which cat can haz cheeseburger. Weirdos, maybe. Sickos. No, we get our content from a For You Page now— algorithmically selected videos and images made by our favorite creators, produced explicitly for our preferred platform. Which platform doesn’t matter much. So long as it’s one of the big five. Creators churn out content for all of them. It’s a technical marvel, that internet. Something so mindblowingly impressive that if you showed it to someone even thirty years ago, their face would melt the fuck off. So why does it feel like something’s missing? Why are we all so collectively unhappy with the state of the web? from Where have all the websites gone? [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 1:42 AM - 72 comments

There are about 50 red pandas in Australia, but none have successfully given birth in two years until now. The new cub at Altina Wildlife Park near Wagga Wagga is the first born in Australia for two years — and with only 10,000 red pandas left worldwide, breeding programs like it are key to survival of the species.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:04 AM - 6 comments

Do you value yourself more than a broken Macbook? (Louis Rossmann, Piped/YouTube, 17m51s)
posted by flabdablet at 10:43 PM - 26 comments

How British colonialism increased diabetes in south Asians (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:50 PM - 4 comments

Link is episode 1. As of 4 February 2024, he's up to episode 1887. Ron Calverley is a retired bus worker in Winnipeg who, after the death of his wife, decided to build a model ship like he had in his younger days. Actual model-making? Discussions of model-making infrastructure? LONG digressions about videography and computing? Classic old-man musings on life? ALL PROVIDED IN ABUNDANCE! [more inside]
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:20 PM - 5 comments

Do you like Star Wars lore? Exactly how much do you like Star Wars lore? I ask because A Very Brief Analysis: The Phantom Menace is 12 hours long and is chock full of Star Wars lore. "This is not a defence of Episode 1, nor is it an attack. The idea is a detailed, fair, and informed analysis. We'll go over the entire movie, giving credit and blame as needed."
posted by hippybear at 3:46 PM - 34 comments

Now, with cocktail culture saturating the country anew, we’re in the middle of a glittering renaissance of bar lingo. The most common terms thrown about today are both functional and fun; they also offer a vivid snapshot of the current state of the industry in the U.S. and the way it is evolving. Reflecting the increasing crossover between restaurants and bars, for instance, many of-the-moment twists of the tongue are pulled directly from the restaurant industry (think “86’d,” “heard” and “behind.”). At Silver Lyan in Washington, D.C., for example, bartenders address each other as “chef,” as a sign of deference and respect, an organic evolution of their in-house language that predates The Bear. And as bars continue to adopt high-level scientific techniques, the nuances of redistilling, centrifuges, rotovaps and clarification demand their own attendant terms. from The New Vocabulary of Cocktails [Punch] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 1:33 PM - 15 comments

This is one of the best Blake's 7 fan fictions that I've ever read. Rojer by x_los. Summary: Taking down the Federation might actually be easier than sorting out what's going on with Rojer's parents.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:52 PM - 2 comments

A week after its debut, The Smile (featuring Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood alongside drummer Tom Skinner and the London Contemporary Orchestra) has released their acclaimed sophomore album Wall of Eyes for free on YouTube, backing the record's subtle, languid, slow-burn melodies and towering crescendos with eclectic [music videos] and colorful collages: 1) Thom enjoys an unsettling night out with his selves on ["Wall of Eyes"] [lyrics] - 2) the undulating soundscapes of "Teleharmonic" [lyrics] - 3) jangling psychedelia contrasts with pockets of honey-sweetness on "Read the Room" [lyrics] - 4) silent ghosts usher in "Under Our Pillows" [lyrics] - 5) the lads perform a song about lockdowns and corruption to an unfiltered gaggle of artless children in ["Friend of a Friend"] [lyrics] - 6) the glitchy drifting landscapes of "I Quit" [lyrics] - 7) the gorgeously existential "to be or not to be" of "Bending Hectic" [lyrics] (or see the [fan video] based on the enigmatic animation of Vladimir Tarasov) - 8) ethereally beautiful closing ballad "You Know Me!" [lyrics]. More: lyrics and analysis - BBC interview with the band and Jonny - behind-the-scenes video - photos from the special edition [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 12:11 PM - 9 comments

Moving away from our bodies as machines we can fix, to understanding that healing and help is based on our bodies feeling safe. Marylsa B. Sullivan and Dr. Stephen W. Porges have published a free academic paper that maps Polyvagal theory to the yoga gunas (rajas/tamas/sattva). While there are many resources for background, perhaps the best is to start with Dr. Porges: YouTube link (SKIP Betterhelp ad) to Dr. Porges explaining the Polyvagal Theory. (And in skipping the Betterhelp ad, note that while western therapy has started with the mind, polyvagal theory starts with the body and evolutionary biology to show that there are easily accessed, free ways to help with regulation such as singing, chanting, yoga asanas, listening, working with the breath etc.) TLDR: Quick explanation of Polyvagal theory on Psychology Today .
posted by Word_Salad at 9:08 AM - 15 comments

WHY DON'T WE JUST KILL THE KID IN THE OMELAS HOLE, by Isabel J. Kim. An excellent Omelas riff that's just what it sounds like.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:24 AM - 76 comments

Biden wins South Carolina primary (NYT, WaPo, Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), carrying 96% of the vote and gaining 55 delegates in the first-in-the-nation Democratic primary.
posted by box at 6:28 AM - 163 comments

"I just really like the way ink looks on paper. I like its nuances and character. In some ways drawing with ink can feel like writing – it’s that same connection with a point against paper that I find incredibly expressive. I also like the fact that there is very little room to mess up. Ink does not erase well." [more inside]
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:54 AM - 1 comment