September 20
Pig That Went To Ireland One Damn Time
Amongst writer/comedian Keaton Patti's hobbies is recaptioning Antiques Roadshow stills. Tumblr | Instagram
September 19
Oratorio, "The Seasonings", S ½ tsp.
P.D.Q Bach is the 21st of Johann Sebastian Bach's surviving twenty children, and his surprising oratorio The Seasonings just might be worth ~23m of your time (including warm-up informational lecture). Classical music at its most entertaining! [more inside]
This is what it sounds like
The population of birds in North America has dropped 30% since 1970, according to a Cornell study published today in Science. A summary of the study here. [more inside]
They/Them/Theirs
This has been a big week for singular they/them pronouns. Merriam-Webster included the "singular they" for the first time. Singer Sam Smith, who'd previously come out as non-binary (instagram link), announced that their pronouns are now they/them - and The Associated Press somehow got it wrong in an article about that very pronoun announcement (they later corrected it). Queer, queer, non-binary journalist Ashley Dye brought this to light in a viral tweet and then wrote about how this error exposes journalism's failings when it comes to writing about LGBTQ issues and people.
Reaching out is a sign of strength and courage
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder (22:27 YT).
In a frank and disarming interview Special Books by Special Kids has a conversation with Daniel about living with schizoaffective disorder, including complex PTSD, borderline personality disorder, psychosis, paranoid delusions and hallucinations. [more inside]
Client: We accept the risks of you testing in prod.
“Fast-forward to today, and many utilities have now embraced the concept of trimming trees from a helicopter. They have found the technology works safely and efficiently, particularly in mountainous terrain, rural locations, wetlands and sensitive areas where environmental or regulatory issues are encountered” [Viral Tweet from today containing video] [more inside]
This man knew how to live.
#boysdancetoo
In light of the recent controversy surrounding Lara Spencer's remarks about Prince George's love for ballet, it is particularly timely to note that for the first time in history, the National Ballet School of Canada will graduate a class of more young men than young women.
Flying to conclusions
As FAA administrator Steve Dickinson prepares to meet with Boeing executives to assess changes to the 737 Max 8, both the New York Times and The New Republic have published detailed reports on the 737 Max crashes. William Langewiesche writing for the New York Times: "What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max? Malfunctions caused two deadly crashes. But an industry that puts unprepared pilots in the cockpit is just as guilty." Maureen Tcacik, writing for New Republic: "Crash Course: How Boeing's managerial revolution created the 737 MAX disaster."
"A prostitute hunting men...is a deeply comforting story."
"Need to find different words for unprecedented."
The Washington Post breaks the news that the whistleblower complaint at the center of a tense showdown between Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire and the House Intelligence Committee involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader that included a “promise” regarded as so troubling, it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community. The New York Times reports today, "During a private session on Capitol Hill, Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, told lawmakers he was unable to confirm or deny anything about the substance of the complaint, including whether it involved the president." This morning on Twitter, Trump denied he said anything inappropriate but did not dispute he made such a promise. [more inside]
It seemed like just a lot of cocaine and hair!
Maggie Mae Fish (formerly of Cracked) is doing film analysis on Youtube. She's looking at what Robocop has to say on gender roles, learning empathy with Rugrats, exploring what Tim Burton is really saying about the suburbs, and all those bad daddies in superhero films.
How Two Kentucky Farmers Became Kings Of Croquet
Clay-court croquet arose in Kentucky and Tennessee during the Depression. It was cheap and open to anyone. And despite its bourgeois roots, croquet—in the South or elsewhere—is one of the few sports where age and sex don’t matter in tournament play. The basic rules are the same in all versions of the game: each player has to hit his or her balls through a series of wickets in order, and then finish by “staking out,” or hitting a post.
Against skilled opponents, though, Archie was ruthless. He could pull off trick shots to make a pool shark weep. But his real talent was in the game’s complex strategy and Machiavellian mind games: blocking opponents’ balls, always thinking three or four shots ahead.
To every warrior, their Valhalla.
I have the sad duty to report that Grandpa Mason, the resident curmudgeon, hair stylist and kitten wrangler at TinyKittens HQ, will be leaving them and us very soon. [more inside]
Country maps with dancing pixels
PixelDanc3r, or just Danc3r, is an Argentinian artist named David who makes pixelated art and pixelated game graphics as seen on Twitter and Instagram, as well as Deviant Art. He also makes animated maps, like this map of the world, and these much more detailed, static map of Córdoba, Argentina, as well as animated maps of Argentina, Venezuela, Brasil, and United States of America.
Liberals fail to vet Montreal candidate.
Justin Trudeau Wore Brownface at 2001 ‘Arabian Nights’ Party While He Taught at a Private School. Trudeau admits to 2nd incident where he donned makeup and sang 'Day O' in high school talent show. Global News has obtained video showing [Prime Minister] Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in blackface, the third instance of racist dress to come to light in 12 hours. The photo, the fallout and the folly of Trudeau’s brownface disgrace.
Parched Future
Ferns 2.0
Tim Heidecker takes you into the kitchen & teaches you how to make a variety of meals with some help from Eric Wareheim in Tim's Kitchen Tips
‘Okra is the most foul thing ever grown’
Chefs on their most hated ingredients (SLGuardian).
September 18
I Just Want What Everyone Wants
A new trailer for Judy. Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland. Judy Garland sings the Battle Hymn Of The Republic.
"Naturally, although I find Thibault cancels out Capoferro, don't you?"
Do you remember the sword-fight scene in The Princess Bride? And how Inigo Montoya and the Dread Pirate Roberts kept up a discussion about their various strategems? Turns out those are real, historic fencing references. [Threadreader]
California just passed a landmark law to regulate Uber and Lyft
Drivers will likely get health care and paid time off under the law. California just disrupted the gig economy.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a controversial bill Wednesday, known as AB 5, after months of uproar from businesses and gig companies like Uber and Lyft. The bill will require businesses to hire workers as employees, not independent contractors, with some exceptions. That will give hundreds of thousands of California workers basic labor rights for the first time.
And despite an aggressive lobbying campaign, Uber and Lyft are not exempt.
Spanish Stonehenge
This is just to say
Poems William Carlos Williams Revised After Being Told By His Agent To Do More Plums Content [SL McSweeneys]
They're good dogs Brent
Twelve years ago, 47 dogs were rescued from Michael Vick’s dogfighting operation and allowed to live. They've enriched the lives of countless humans and altered the course of animal welfare. (SL Washington Post, includes pictures of 47 good dogs.) [more inside]
"The truck was undamaged, having made its saving throw."
A prop is any object the actors handle or touch onscreen
I looked at Harvey and said, “I don’t care what you have to do, man. This box has to function in three days. And if you don’t have that done, we are both straight down the shoot.” Various prop masters talk about The Hardest Prop I Ever Made
Proudhon hangs his head
The 100 largest private property owners have 40 million acres, roughly the size of Florida. With the United States' large and growing inequality, is it time to upend the idea that land is private property?
Baby, talk to me
When babies babble, they are communicating exactly what they want. Even if they don't know it, parents are listening. (Fatherly summary) “Infants are actually shaping their own learning environments in ways that make learning easier to do,” study co-author Steven Elmlinger, a psychology graduate student at Cornell University, said in a statement. The report -- The ecology of prelinguistic vocal learning: parents simplify the structure of their speech in response to babbling (Journal of Child Language; full PDF) More from Cornell's B.A.B.Y. Lab from prior studies.
"Eating is a prerequisite for life"
How To Feed Yourself When You're Depressed For those of us who occasionally (or more than occasionally) struggle to find the energy to refuel ourselves, here are a small handful of ways to get some nutrition.
Forging a Path
Black Horse Forge helps veterans hammer away stress. James Scott Baron reports for Fredericksburg, Virginia’s Free Lance-Star on blacksmithing as therapy and craft.
Stuntmen React to Bad and Great Hollywood Stunts
Behind the scenes discussion of the making of iconic Hollywood stunts featuring stuntmen Eric Linden (Avengers, Daredevil) and Guix Dasilva (Black Panther) with Corridor Digital (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.)
The Internet Relies on People Working for Free
"cURL is used on billions of devices. It's included in every modern car. It's integrated into every iPhone. It's integrated in millions of TVs. Also, it's been maintained by one man, for 20 years, for free."
“Sometimes it pays to just be along for the ride.”
The joy of being a passenger in video games [Polygon] “The question I’m interested in today is what you’re missing out on due to always wanting to drive in games. And modern gaming has multiple ways it can make us a passenger. So what happens when the virtual wheel is taken out of your hands? A lot of good things, it turns out. [...] These rides are an important chance to have a few introspective moments during single-player games, or to let the tension build in multiplayer titles. Being a passenger allows the player to make a deeper connection to the world, or the other players in it. Giving up control to an NPC or another player while in a vehicle isn’t a flaw, as long as game designers know how to give you something else in return. It’s that trade-off that I find so fascinating, and being a passenger so often in real life has given me a deep appreciation for the games that do this well. So pay attention the next time a game takes away control while you’re in a vehicle, and ask yourself what the game is trying to achieve by doing so.” [more inside]
Guys Are Reporting Women on Tinder for the Crime of Not Being Into Them
Clean baseload
A report by Helen Czerski, from EVs-and-more channel FullyCharged, who visits First Light Fusion in Oxford, UK - who are working with pulsed power fusion. They give her a quick demonstration - starting with a children's xylophone but becoming a lot louder.
That otherwise inaccessible sweet spot between formality and insouciance
How the turtleneck became the iconic look for the creative genius; a brief history of the aforementioned long-necked garment and its connotations, from its origin as utilitarian clothing for 19th-century labourers and sportsmen, through its adoption by Noël Coward and Marlene Dietrich, its soaring popularity amongst Parisian existentialists and American beatniks (and subsequent fall to a signifier of laughable pretentiousness), to the days of Steve Jobs and, um, Elizabeth Holmes.
“Lust, plain and simple—if lust were ever simple.”
...these books are artifacts. There is every sort of forbidden subject in forbidden books, what was then illicit sex, but also, all things taboo—drugs, various subcultures, descriptions of parts of cities there was no reason to go to otherwise. There is an honesty that rises from there being little reason for lying: emotional states, cultural criticism about art and politics at the time of the writing, blind items, gossip, maps—the stuff we call today “creative nonfiction” ... These books served as community. My First Library Was a Library of Porn by Brian Bouldrey [NSFW text] [more inside]
September 17
Time out!
Watch out, preppy! The Saved By the Bell reboot is coming, featuring...Zack as the evil governor of California?
"And I remember us thinking... Like we'll EVER make SEVEN albums!"
Pet Shop Boys. Documentary. The Parlophone Years. [BBC2 link] Neil and Chris talk about their ELEVEN albums released on Parlophone Records between 1986 and 2012 in a documentary radio show, presented by Graham Norton. Covers 52 PSB songs covering every album. Available for about a month. [more inside]
🇮🇳 "Throw some melanin up in your Late Night" 🇨🇦
Lilly Singh’s NBC series debut proves late night TV and YouTube need each other Lilly Singh is the first queer woman of color to get her own late night talk show on a major network, and at 30, she’s one of the youngest late night hosts in NBC history. Check out her cold open from the debut episode: Hello my name is Lilly and I ain't a white man/My skin has some colour and it ain't a spray tan/I know you're only used to Jimmys up in the spotlight/But I'm gonna throw some melanin up in your late-night. [more inside]
Based on True Events
Two brothers battle over the future of the family, but it will be a young girl who changes her fathers SUBSTANCE and the fate of generations. (Animated Short, Single Link Vimeo) [more inside]
This is where the antelope range
Sagebrush Sisters is a short film (7 minutes) about three women and their hike along a migration corridor between two pronghorn antelope refuges. [more inside]
Novel Fencing Material
Maybe you're a knitter. Maybe you like knitting lace. Maybe you should modify a couple of curtain rods into gigantic knitting needles and knit a fence out of fishing net twine. Maybe the local lace museum is so taken with it they'll have you do one for them!
We need body rockin' not perfection
"Dead bodies move while decomposing, a significant find for death investigations," according to researchers who have used time-lapse photography to study the phenomenon at the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research (AFTER). [more inside]
Welcome...To The Fumble Dimension
Many of you may recall internet sports statistical bard Jon Bois' adventures in taking sports games and seeing how far he could twist the knobs until everything breaks, such as Breaking Madden, or murdering a virtual NBA with horrible players.
Well, he's back at it with compatriot Kofie Yeboah, in a new series for SBNation. (SLYT) [more inside]
"I'm a Mad TV guy anyway"
Even before its new season begins on Sept. 28, Saturday Night Live has fired new cast member Shane Gillis for "offensive, hurtful and unacceptable" language Gillis used on his podcast. The Good Good Comedy Theatre in Philadelphia chimed in with a tweet saying the establishment chose not to work with Gillis because of his "overt racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia - expressed both on and off stage." Other new cast members joining the show's 45th season are Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang.
Global Climate Strike 20 September
Our house is on fire — let’s act like it. We demand climate justice for everyone. This September, millions of us will walk out of our workplaces and homes to join young climate strikers on the streets and demand an end to the age of fossil fuels. On Friday the 20th – three days out from the UN’s Emergency Climate Summit -- take the day off to show our politicians that we’re serious about climate action. The world isn’t waiting, so neither are we.
[more inside]
#IAmNotABitch #SexistDictionary
Have You Ever Googled ‘Woman’? Nearly 30,000 people have signed a petition to change Oxford Dictionary’s sexist definition of "woman" and cut entries that "discriminate against and patronise women". The dictionary staff are taking the points raised in the petition "very seriously" and OUP is now investigating a possible update to its definition of "woman". [more inside]
Relax. Don't Worry. Visit the Smithsonian.
Curator Theresa McCulla has led the American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, amassing a collection of brewing artifacts that will debut on October 25 when the Museum's exhibition, FOOD: Transforming the American Table reopens.