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"At this point, I decided the only thing that made sense was to build my own mattress from scratch." [more inside]
posted by rufb at 12:52 PM - 10 comments

Guillaume Hebert first merged classical landscapes with photography in his series The Rocks of Taiwan, then The Rocks of Ludao, combining his photographs of seascapes with romantic landscapes. He increased the juxtaposition of the modern foreground with idyllic background in a series titled Updated Landscape, pairing the lighting in his photos with the background paintings from prior centuries. [via Wired] For different takes on merging painting with photography, here's a list of 16 more artists from My Modern Met, and a nod to Painted Land, a film documenting the efforts to track down landscapes painted by Canada's Group of Seven [interview video as trailer].
posted by filthy light thief at 10:52 AM - 1 comment

Under a Porcelain Sun [YouTube] [Video Game Trailer] is a first-person adventure set in a surrealist colonial India. It’s about two thieves searching for the mythical city Kayamgadh. Along the way, they’ll encounter castles of glue, wax people, and other strangeness. It comes from a studio in India called Oleomingus and will be out this summer. [via: Kotaku]
posted by Fizz at 9:12 AM - 10 comments

“...by 1984 the future of the conservative party had already been in Washington for a dozen years. Jesse Helms, a junior senator, was among the group of North Carolinian and Texan conservatives that created their own wave without full national party backing, without complimentary ads from Nixon and his squad, without the money or even full-throated support of the North Carolina Republican Party. His election registered nationally, but only because of what the national media and audience saw as the byproduct—a one-off Republican conservative slipping through while the Democrats picked up two Senate seats and kept a healthy lead over their counterparts in the GOP. Helms was initially cast as an aberration; he wasn’t. He was a reaction, and the future.” How though direct mail, mudslinging, open racism, and television appearances Jesse Helms Invented The Republican Party (Splinter News)
posted by The Whelk at 8:43 AM - 16 comments

"Rihanna made headlines last fall when she launched Fenty Beauty, an intentionally inclusive makeup line created “so that women everywhere would be included.” Fenty’s liquid foundation product, Pro Filt’r, was so groundbreaking that it made it onto Time’s 25 Best Inventions of 2017 list. Its claim to fame: the foundation launched with 40 shades “made for women of all skin colors & undertones." But as it turns out, a few other brands had 40 or more shades too, including Make Up For Ever, who was not about to let that fact go unnoticed. Shortly after Fenty’s launch, they challenged the newcomer in an Instagram post noting that 40 shades of foundation was “nothing new” since they’ve had 40 shades since 2015. Rihanna was unimpressed. She quickly shot back with two comments: “lol. still ashy” and “shook.” In other words, Rihanna was implying that Make Up For Ever’s foundation lacked range and would still leave people of color looking “ashy” or slightly gray. So how valid is her comeback? Actually, there’s a way to find out—with data." How Inclusive Are Beauty Brands Around the World?
posted by everybody had matching towels at 6:27 AM - 35 comments

What are higher education deserts? The Chronicle of Higher Education explores where and which Americans are the farthest away from colleges and universities.

The Urban Institute offered a somewhat different approach, combining geography and broadband.

The American Council on Education focused on geography, but used a different model to yield different results.
posted by doctornemo at 6:06 AM - 12 comments

My great-grandfather, the Nigerian slave trader. A New Yorker article by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani in which she reflects on her family's involvement in the African slave trade, and its ramifications today for the descendants of both the slavers and the enslaved.
posted by tavegyl at 2:14 AM - 14 comments

An entomologist rates ant emojis.
posted by Vesihiisi at 12:01 AM - 21 comments

Incredibly Detailed Aztec Inspired Pop Culture Illustrations by Jorge Garza
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:44 PM - 5 comments

Nuwaubian group wound up labeled as a hate group by the SPLC. Not long ago in Georgia, black and gold pyramids stood proudly on the 476-acre compound of Tama-Rey. It was the holy “Land of the Sun,” a place where the self-declared God, Dr. Malachi Z. York, manipulated thousands of nationwide followers in the “Nuwaubian Nation of Moors” to believe they were cosmic purveyors of an extraterrestrial truth.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:09 PM - 23 comments

Robin Johnson makes interactive fiction and text adventures. [more inside]
posted by nightrecordings at 7:52 PM - 6 comments

"I respect that bakers who are proud of their bagels might get pissed that someone is destroying their creation. But it’s a damn piece of bread. Eat it in a way that makes the most sense to you. If you want to enjoy your sandwich without half of the toppings falling out of the sides, then do what feels right: hold your head high and scoop out your bagel."

posted by Lexica at 7:51 PM - 61 comments

The facility, called Diamond Light Source, is one of the most powerful and sophisticated X-ray facilities in the world, used to probe everything from viruses to jet engines. On this summer afternoon, though, its epic beam will focus on a tiny crumb of papyrus that has already survived one of the most destructive forces on the planet—and 2,000 years of history. It comes from a scroll found in Herculaneum, an ancient Roman resort on the Bay of Naples, Italy, that was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:41 PM - 8 comments

In 1993, writer/director Steven de Souza battled a military coup, an ever-growing cast list and a self-destructing Jean-Claude Van Damme – and came out with a profitable picture. A loving, quite funny reminisce.
posted by smoke at 7:23 PM - 15 comments

Justice Among the Jell-O Recipes: The Feminist History of Food Journalism [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 3:39 PM - 10 comments

68-year-old artist/musician Lonnie Holley has released the video for his new single, "I Woke Up In A Fucked-Up America." [more inside]
posted by mykescipark at 2:16 PM - 8 comments

Library tickets, library cards and library pockets as historical or nostalgic objects: Is the Library Card Dying? by Sara Polski in The Atlantic. [more inside]
posted by paduasoy at 2:14 PM - 31 comments

Iga, a small town in Japan, and the birthplace of the ninja, is seeking to combat decreasing population by recruiting more ninjas A short (9:30) podcast from NPR.
posted by stillmoving at 1:18 PM - 30 comments

We kept all three types stacked high in a kitchen cabinet, a potentially disastrous placement for clumsy kids looking to set the table each night. But these weren’t any plates. They were Corelle, the seemingly indestructible kind still found in immigrant households across the country. [more inside]
posted by Emmy Rae at 12:49 PM - 109 comments

Toward a Feminist Reading of "Die Hard"
posted by Scattercat at 11:46 AM - 32 comments

We lefts the stadium with no loss, no victory, but plenty of indignation. Thousands of us walked out onto the street through a long dark tunnel, lost in the all-consuming blow of horns and chants of Iraa-a-a-n. The trumpet of God seemed to be calling out the Day of Judgment: Iran gave its best World Cup performance in recent history, and women were allowed inside Iran’s largest stadium for the first time in decades. @Pedestrian writes about women and Iran's World Cup performance for Popula. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 11:38 AM - 2 comments

Donald Trump, current occupier of the Oval Office, has returned to the US after a tumultuous six-day international tour in which he again declared himself "a very stable genius" after disrupting the NATO summit in Brussels (Rolling Stone), lied about predicting Brexit while criticizing PM Theresa May over her handling of it (The Sun), called the European Union "a foe" of the US (CNN), and then met with President Vladimir Putin in a two-hour, closed-door, off-the-record session that culminated in a joint news conference so shameful (Washington Post) and obsequious (NYTimes) that people are debating if it was treasonable (Business Insider). … And halfway through this trip, on Friday the 13th, Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued a new indictment (PDF) of 12 Russian intelligence officers in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign (NY Times), and on Monday, the Department of Justice DoJ Release: charged Russian national and NRA Mariia Butina, who lobbied the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast on behalf of Russia (New York Times) and met Trump in 2015 (CNN), Conspiracy to Act as an Agent of the Russian Federation Within the United States (DoJ press release). [more inside]
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:40 AM - 435 comments

Empathy Machines: Fellow feeling as a technologically mediated experience by Olivia Rosane “The narrative about the power of literature, like the current approach to VR, makes historical change not a matter of the resistance efforts of the oppressed and their allies but of relatively privileged people speaking to other relatively privileged people to spark a paternalistic response. [...] By focusing on bringing the experiences of the marginalized to elites, VR developers implicitly endorse a system in which a small number of people retain outsize power.”
posted by Fizz at 8:40 AM - 4 comments

While the idea that women are innately nurturing and emotionally sensitive might sound harmless, these ostensibly positive stereotypes are hard-working components in the overall narrative that women are irrational, intellectually inferior, and servile beings who are most at home in the domestic sphere — the exact logic that’s always facilitated women’s oppression. And however innocuous it seems on the surface, this kind of benevolent sexism actually causes more harm than overt misogyny.

For the love of goddesses, stop deifying women
posted by griphus at 8:35 AM - 46 comments

The New Story of Humanity's Origins in Africa comes from several new discoveries, which suggest that our species didn’t arise from a single point in space. Instead, the entire continent was our cradle. In reviewing and summarizing recent developments across multiple fields, 23 scientists pose the questions Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations across Africa, and Why Does It Matter? Researchers have determined that much of human DNA comes from Neanderthals, and at least two other hominid species. And with these re-evaluations come others, including the discovery of ancient (2.1 million year old) tools in China that suggests early hominims left Africa earlier than previously thought.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:33 AM - 15 comments

“Outside of Posadism there was Peter Kolosimo, an Italian born anti-fascist partisan and early proponent of the “ancient astronaut” theory that alien visitors kickstarted civilization. After the war, he was kicked out of the Communist Party for his unorthodox views — not because of the alien stuff, but for his support of Tito’s anti-Stalinist Yugoslavian socialism. As a freelancer, he began to dabble in the occult and paranormal. His 1965 work, Not of this Earth, which argued that aliens had influenced — or created — early human civilizations, became a bestseller in Italy.“ THE SECRET HISTORY OF MARXIST ALIEN HUNTERS (The Outline)
posted by The Whelk at 8:22 AM - 4 comments

The Socialist Network - "At the heart of the split between liberals and socialists, at least in theory, is the question of what to do about capitalism. Liberals tend to see it as something that needs to be fixed. Socialists see it as something to be defeated. They say they do, anyway. As we've seen, the Millennial socialist intellectuals aren't really calling for government takeover of industry. Still, their stated opposition to capitalism-as-such has consequences for how we address the problems of the modern economy." (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:33 AM - 51 comments

Treasure Planet - Disney's Biggest Mistake [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:20 AM - 48 comments

Meet Billy Wayne Ruddick, Sacha Baron Cohen's latest creation. Dr. Ruddick (PhD) runs Truthbrary.org for the good of the American people.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:24 AM - 28 comments

One discipline reduces behavior to elegantly simple rules; the other wallows in our full, complex particularity. What can they learn from each other?
posted by spaceburglar at 4:34 AM - 11 comments

The American Library Association, through their Officer for Intellectual Freedom, has passed a resolution stating libraries must allow hate groups to book their meeting rooms.. Many librarians and library supporters have taken to twitter to express their opposition using the hashtag #NoHateALA, claiming this decision threatens the safety of their users and staff. Members of the Office for Intellectual Freedom claim the resolution was snuck past to the members. [more inside]
posted by daybeforetheday at 3:01 AM - 63 comments

The UK has announced it will be building its first spaceport on Scotland's northern coast.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:57 AM - 29 comments

That’s 12 double-crosses in a movie with a runtime of 108 minutes. That’s an average of one double-cross every nine minutes, which is an extremely high DCPM (double-cross per minute) rate. There’s also the raccoon, and a few alligators, and Kevin Bacon’s alligator, and the pool scene, and Bill Murray as a lawyer. It’s a lot. Wild Things is a lot.

Wild Things, one of the sleaziest wide releases of the '90s, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. [spoilers abound in all links] [more inside]
posted by edeezy at 10:35 PM - 22 comments

David Roberts argues that journalists' desire to appear unbiased impacts their ability to understand the substance:

[I]magine covering substantive disputes every day but not allowing yourself to develop opinions about them. It takes will & effort!  [ . . . ] Political/policy analysis, when done well, is developed through dialog. [ . . . ] It's a muscle that requires exercise. And "objective" reporters don't exercise it. [ . . . ]  I've seen it again & again: when I can cajole "objective" reporters into sharing their opinions on, oh, the national debt, or climate policy, or electoral dynamics, those opinions are almost always shockingly flat-footed & childlike.

[Threadreader link for the twitter averse] [more inside]
posted by mark k at 8:36 PM - 6 comments

Vera Polozkova is a contemporary Russian poet. For most of you, here are some beautifully illustrated English interpretations of her poems. [more inside]
posted by prefpara at 7:26 PM - 5 comments

A family created a small scholarly museum of bugs in nowhere Colorado. Driving along a nondescript section of Highway 115 a few miles south of Colorado Springs, it’s hard not to swerve at the sight of a gigantic Hercules beetle, its horns as tall as a house, standing beside a sign for the May Natural History Museum.
posted by MovableBookLady at 6:48 PM - 8 comments

TwoSet Violin are a pair of blokes from Brisbane who want to make classical music relevant to the modern generation through fun, humour and simplicity. Which explains the existence of Pachelbel's Canon in D performed on rubber chicken.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:34 PM - 18 comments

Saturday, July 14 2018. Tweet to Film Critic HULK: "You can replace the cast of any movie with The Muppets, but you keep one of the human actors. What movie and which human do you keep?" [more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 5:50 PM - 354 comments

The 100 Best One-Star Reviews of The Catcher in the Rye [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 1:20 PM - 76 comments

Ruth Franklin writes about children's Holocaust literature for the New Yorker: There’s something essential about the interactions among generations in the stories we tell about the Holocaust ... a younger person literally bears witness to the stories of an older generation—either by experiencing them herself, as Hannah does, or by listening to the testimony of survivors. And the reader, by imagining herself in the place of the main character, can vicariously bear witness, too. If there’s a consolation in reading these books, that’s where it can be found... “Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory.” We may emerge from these books without grasping the true horror of their stories. But at least we’ve learned how to listen to them.
posted by ChuraChura at 11:09 AM - 10 comments

Peruvian artist Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo pays homage to trans women in this intensely moving gallery (click the pictures to advance through the gallery). (Vice article with background information) NSFW - Nudity
posted by stoneweaver at 10:59 AM - 4 comments

Today is Amazon Prime Day, a 36-hour shopping event invented to celebrate Jeff Bezos’s online marketplace dominance. As comrades around the world go on strike to protest Amazon’s workplace conditions, let’s take a look at the best Prime Day deals: The Motherboard Guide to Amazon Prime Day
posted by not_the_water at 10:59 AM - 107 comments

One of the founding members of the NAACP, Ida B. Wells was at one point the most famous black woman in America. A fiery, exacting journalist, she's best known for her work on documenting lynching (and the false premises used to justify it) in her books Southern Horrors and The Red Record, the latter of which is now seen as a pioneering work of early data journalism. Now, a community group is working to create a monument to Wells in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, where she lived and worked. [more inside]
posted by Four String Riot at 10:16 AM - 11 comments

Some physically pixelated (voxelated?) foodstuffs from Yuni Yoshida, art director:
- Apple and banana.
- Pineapple.
- Hamburger.
Also tilings and textures and patterns and tilings. [via kottke, c/o mltshp.]
posted by cortex at 10:07 AM - 14 comments

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith has, among other passions (not limited to corgis) , a love of brooches. She has an impressive collection: Some simply ornamental, and some with more significant meaning. [more inside]
posted by FritoKAL at 9:21 AM - 26 comments

It’s early April 2015, and John Marzluff and I are standing with a film crew attempting to capture some footage of a crow funeral to compliment a story they are working on about Gabi Mann. I’ve already set the dead crow on the ground, it’s placed just out from a cherry tree resplendent in springtime blossoms. After only a few moments of waiting, the first crow arrives and alights on the tree.
posted by sciatrix at 9:05 AM - 41 comments

Who owns the space under cities? (The Guardian) Airspace ownership and control (Slate) is often discussed with regard to drones. When thinking subsurface, mineral rights (Geology.com) probably come to mind with extractive industries, but what about subterranean management? With city centers fully built, developers are looking down as well as up. Singapore has been doing subsurface planning since 2007 (Science Direct, abstract only) Hong Kong built underground caverns to expand its available real estate space (Wired) after maximizing surface and airspace development, and Helsinki has an underground masterplan (Hel.fi). British Geological Survey's Project Iceberg (BGS) aims to document and better manage underground developments in England. Up next: tunnels to ease traffic congestion. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:27 AM - 20 comments

The Mansion of E, the daily fantasy webcomic by Robert M. Cook (who self-admittingly compares his work to that of Henry Darger - minus the creepiness, I assure you), today celebrates its 15th anniversary. If you dare delve through 5000+ strips of the worldbuilding-packed adventures of minor aristocrats in a post-magic world and their mansion so big its basement and garden contain entire civilizations, start in the same place 15 years earlier - or should that be two days earlier? Day 0 goes to July 31 2003 plus the Early Hours strips linked from there. Day 1 (aka the Endless Day) takes up a literal decade. We are currently in Day 2. (There are helpful Recap and Wiki links on the front page and there is also a TVTropes page.)
posted by BiggerJ at 6:52 AM - 2 comments

Nintendo Switch Labo Creator's Contest Winners [Nintendo Life] “Nintendo recently shared details surrounding its Nintendo Labo Creators Contest, asking players to come up with the greatest inventions they could muster to earn some fantastic prizes. The contest was split into three categories - Best Decorated Toy-Con, Best Toy-Con Mod, and Best Original Invention - with an emphasis being placed on musical instruments and game ideas when the contest was first announced. Some of the winners included an RC car that was decorated like a dinosaur and a beautiful The Legend of Zelda-inspired Toy-Con Piano, a 'solar-powered' accordion, and a tea-pot.”
posted by Fizz at 6:11 AM - 7 comments

Beninese artist Thierry Oussou’s multimedia installation Impossible Is Nothing, is currently on show at the Berlin Biennale. It's a multimedia representation of an excavation carried out in 2016 at Allada in Tokpa, southern Benin, with history and archaeology students from University of Abomey-Calavi. They uncovered the 19th-century royal throne of King Béhanzin, the last ruler of the kingdom of Dahomey. Except the throne has been in possession of the French state since the early 1890s when Béhanzin was defeated, and Dahomey (present-day Benin) colonised and it's currently in the stores of the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. [more inside]
posted by Helga-woo at 4:35 AM - 7 comments