January 11
Happy 50th birthday, more or less, to Dungeons & Dragons!
Tom Van Winkle (01/10/2024), "Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons": "Fifty years ago this month, the first 1000 copies of the original Dungeons & Dragons were printed and then boxed up at Gary Gygax's house. It's supposed to have been late in January of 1974, but we don't have a specific date. January 1974 is good enough for me. And what counts as the specific origin date, anyway? The final draft? The actual printing? The availability for sale? We're close enough. I'm saying it's been fifty years right now." [more inside]
2024: The Year You Finally Learn Spanish
The team at Dreaming Spanish use Comprehensible Input to help learners acquire Spanish the way most children learn their first language - by listening to real native speakers.
Someone is buying Meetup
announcement Probable new owner: Bending Spoons - "a technology company that owns and develops a suite of category-leading consumer products including Remini (an AI-powered photo enhancer), Splice (a mobile video editor), and Evernote..."
What Enrapturing Magic Lies In That Lustre....
Sometime last year, the World Gold Council tapped Idris Elba to host a corporate documentary about the gold industry; it was released in October. Yesterday, Dan Olson of Folding Ideas released his own documentary about that documentary and the gold industry overall. [more inside]
A Very Black Monday
The Monday (and the week) after the last weekend of NFL regulation play is called Black Monday, as it is typically the day that head coaches around the league either get handed their pink slips or announce their departures. While a number of the dismissals were expected, such as Atlanta, Washington, and Tennessee dismissing their coaches, this year has seen a number of surprise departures in both the professional and college levels, with Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick, and Nick Saban all departing their head coach positions. [more inside]
Predator Fan Film WTF?
Predator: Dark Ages
Regarding the mystic power of a ludicrous sci fi one off featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger on generations of wannabe monster movie auteurs. Excluding of course any reference to the execrable corporate mashups of all things Alien vs. Predator and their occasionally molecular acidic ilk for all the obvious they suck reasons. [more inside]
Regarding the mystic power of a ludicrous sci fi one off featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger on generations of wannabe monster movie auteurs. Excluding of course any reference to the execrable corporate mashups of all things Alien vs. Predator and their occasionally molecular acidic ilk for all the obvious they suck reasons. [more inside]
The Generation Gap
Every January, there's a new Australia Day lamb ad. This years is about the generation gap.
Cicada Safari
SpaceX vs OSHA
“Elon’s concept that SpaceX is on this mission to go to Mars as fast as possible and save humanity permeates every part of the company." CW: Descriptions and a few photos of injuries.
“SpaceX’s idea of safety is: ‘We’ll let you decide what’s safe for you,’ which really means there was no accountability,” said Carson, who has worked for more than two decades in dangerous jobs such as building submarines. “That’s a terrible approach to take in industrial environments.”
Comics were real good last year
January 10
Someone Who Is Good At The Economy Please Help Me
Articles asking us to feel sympathy for families barely scraping by on healthy six-figure incomes may be staples of the financial press, but it’s rare that they come packaged as real-world case studies attached to flesh-and-blood individuals. But that’s what happened just before Christmas... Clarence Thomas and the bottomless self-pity of the upper classes
Sydney funnel-web spider Hercules sets record for largest specimen
Sydney funnel-web spider Hercules sets record for largest specimen collected in Australia. With fangs that could pierce a human fingernail, the largest male specimen of the world's most venomous arachnid has found a new home at the Australian Reptile Park where it will be milked for venom to make antivenom. Since the inception of the antivenom program in 1981, there has not been a fatality in Australia from a funnel-web spider bite.
Dronin' and microtonin'
The magnificent, minimalist avant-garde composer and filmmaker Phill Niblock, who explored microtones like nobody else, died a few days ago at age 90. (Pitchfork obit/The Quietus obit.) Niblock's austere yet playful compositions, which he preferred to have performed at high volumes, are truly felt as much as heard. To honor his legacy, The Wire has made a 2006 article on him free for 30 days. [more inside]
Terry Bisson 1942-2024
Terry Bisson, award winning SFF author of short stories such as Bears Discover Fire and They're Made Out of Meat (video) has passed away. [more inside]
It was the least remarkable Q&A I’ve ever been a part of.
Invisible Ink: At the CIA’s Creative Writing Group A mildly-interesting piece by Johannes Lichtman in the well-known CIA cutout, The Paris Review.
Bill Hader talks anxiety with Dan Harris
I don't know what I was expecting when I sat down to watch Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome and Leaning Into Discomfort [1h20m], from the Ten Percent Happier podcast but what I got was a bare-bones confessional of a man who suffers deeply from anxiety even while he lives one of the most public lives in the country. I think I needed to watch this, and maybe you need to watch it also.
I Found David Lynch’s Lost Dune II Script
"David Lynch’s 1984 sci-fi epic Dune is—in many ways—a misbegotten botch job. Still, as with more than a few ineffectively ambitious films before it, the artistic flourishes Lynch grafted onto Frank Herbert’s sprawling Machiavellian narrative of warring space dynasties have earned it true cult classic status. Today, fans of the film, which earned a paltry $30 million at the box office and truly bruising reviews upon its release, still wonder what Lynch would have done if given the opportunity to adapt the next two novels in Herbert’s cycle: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune."
armed with her questions
Community science helps us unlock some pretty quirky aspects of the natural world, and those discoveries often come from unlikely places. Take year 3 student Emma Glenfield, who started with a simple question about magpies and wound up conducting some cutting-edge research almost by accident. 8-year-old Emma wanted to know: is there anything about people's appearance that connects people most often swooped on by Australian magpies defending their nests? When 30,000 people answered her question online, she found that people with thinning hair or no hair at all are much more likely to have been swooped on. (She also found out that Australians in her survey really love magpies, despite the swooping.) [more inside]
The giant space hamster is a beast; the space hamster is a monstrosity
The Monsters Know What They're Doing is a blog that examines all of the D&D 5th Edition monsters, according to their rulebook stats and descriptions, and offers strategy ideas for the interested DM.
Jennell Jaquays, 1956-2024
Rebecca Heineman on Blue Sky today: "Until we meet again… Jennell Jaquays 10/14/1956 - 01/10/2024." Intro to a 2022 interview: "an accomplished artist whose works were published in many D&D and other products; her adventures the Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia are held up to this day as examples of the best in dungeon design, and after working in the tabletop industry moved over to computer gaming where she worked on the Quake franchise." In 2017, she was inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. RPGGeek entry listing her many publications. Memorial threads at EN World, r/RPG, and r/OSR.
New old school van life
From 2008 to 2012 Bob Skelding drove a team hauling a caravan 9000 miles through the United States and published tales to his blog and published a free ebook on everything you need to go wagoneering. His only goal:
to see new places, meet plenty of nice people like yourself, and to enjoy this great country of ours like it’s meant to be enjoyed, but I found out that my travels and the horses positively affected the lives of countless people
Mating calls of saltwater crocodiles recorded
Scientists creating dictionary of saltwater croc sounds capture reptilian love song on tape. Spouting water, hissing and blowing bubbles might not work for humans on the dating scene, but according to Sunshine Coast researchers, for saltwater crocodiles it's a different story.
How Not to Speak to Someone With ADHD
How Not to Speak to Someone With ADHD
If you, your child, or your spouse/partner has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), you may encounter naysayers who simply do not understand the condition and its impact on everyday life.[more inside]
Of Vines and Villains
The British Library Fantasy Exhibition
The British Library is running an exhibition entitled Fantasy: Realms of the Imagination. Featured items include everything from Earthseaa drafts to Buffy clips to a playable Fallen London mini-game. The associated talks that are being streamed online look like something special, including Susanna Clarke and Alan Moore in conversation tomorrow (11 January at 19.30), and more yet to come, including Queer Fantasy, Black to the Future, and Goblin Market and Other Poems, among others.
The 2-D Three Body Problem
If we must have road-haulage, let it be efficient. One tractor with two trailers is more planet-kind than two tractors with one trailer each. Simple enough if the rig is going forward. Not so easy reversing a B-train round a corner into a narrow dock. This is the moment I knew it would work [8m50s]. [more inside]
Perfectly fine for everyday use and relatively benign
All those iterations yielded a total game changer, not only replacing the company’s unwieldy 1.8-liter jugs with a handheld design that would work for home consumers, but establishing the soy sauce bottle as a cultural touchstone. The company, well aware of the intense affection its specialty bottles have generated ever since, has fully cashed in on collectors’ enthusiasm. from The Kikkoman Soy Sauce Bottle Is Priceless
January 9
Pounded in the butt by the Texas Library Association
THE TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION TELLS CHUCK TINGLE TO STAY HOME BUT WE PROVE LOVE ANYWAY “just when you buckaroos thought 2024 would be a break from book drama, here comes chuck tingle in the mix. recently i was asked to be a featured speaker at the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION annual conference. a few days ago they rescinded my invitation. here is what happened….” [more inside]
Gentle fishing practices become law to safeguard the bay & the future
How a fishermen's pact 30 years ago to protect this bay is now creating a future for their children. At the southern-most tip of the mainland, Corner Inlet fishermen have turned their gentle fishing practices into law to safeguard the bay and the livelihoods of future generations.
The State of New York v. The National Rifle Association
Four years after filing suit and a failed attempt at declaring bankruptcy, the civil fraud trial against the NRA and its head Wayne LaPierre by NYAG Leticia James has finally commenced. [more inside]
The dude who pioneered Australian erotica
Lindsay’s bawdy portrayal of myth and pagan beliefs fueled his art and created controversy in his time. [NSFW] [more inside]
They are coming. And there's nothing you can do to stop them.
New Three Body Problem trailer appears. Netflix posted a longer trailer for their upcoming series, adapted from Liu Cixin's novel.
A Guide For Prospective Tea Monks
In Becky Chambers' book A Psalm for the Wild Built, Tea Monks travel across the planet of Panga, setting up their kettles to freely offer both tea and conversation to strangers wherever they stop. One pseudonymous writer, The Peaceful Revolutionary, was inspired by the idea of making this vocation a reality on Earth, and has written a guide for prospective tea monks.
i've heard of marble madness but 2: Electric Boogaloo
Ivan Miranda decides to use a lot more 3D printing and a lot of hand tooling to, both figuratively and literally, complete his own seven-segment digital clock: BUILDING A MARBLE CLOCK - Pt. 3 and BUILDING A MARBLE CLOCK Pt.4 - NOW FASTER!!. Previously.
"Could a president order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?"
Tax me now!
Marlene Engelhorn is an Austrian heiress who gained media attention after saying in an interview that she is willing to donate 90 percent of her wealth and is in favour of a wealth tax. Marlene is a highly vocal advocate for a global wealth tax regularly appearing in newspapers and the media, she is also a founding member of the German speaking initiative Tax me now , asking for higher taxes on the wealthy. [more inside]
With an uneasy mixture of consternation and lust
The duo who pioneered Australian erotica
"We thought we'd have a go ourselves, for the heck of it": The duo who pioneered Australian erotica. The forgotten story of the pioneering Sydney-based creative couple behind the one of the earliest explicit adult films produced in Australia in 1970.
Making Kin in the Catholithulucene
“Dar’st thou measure this our god!”
Through most of modern history the idea that the value of a whale was not discoverable through its market price would have seemed silly, at least to anyone operating in that commercial market. But for three centuries whales have occupied a peculiar point where economics and the environment meet, their fortunes tracing the changing relationship between the two. In the 19th century a drop in the demand for whale-based products worked to the whales’ benefit. In the 20th century, though, the supply of whale-based products became much cheaper and demand returned redoubled. Whales became increasingly endangered until societies newly focused on the environmental costs of affluence imposed a worldwide whaling ban. That made them literally priceless. from Where capitalism and conservation meet [The Economist; ungated]
DON'T DATE ROBOTS
January 8
How Google shapes everything on the web
Sort of Soundies: A Musical History by Michael Feinstein
So, I bought the DVD set for Soundies: A Musical History by Michael Feinstein and decided subsequently, via individual YouTube videos, to recreate it as a Christmas present for you all starting with...
Duke Ellington -- Hot Chocolate (Cottontail)
Cab Calloway -- Blowtop Blues
Louie Jordan & his Tympany Five -- Jumpin' at the Jubilee
Nat King Cole Trio -- Frim Fram Sauce
among others.... [more inside]
Duke Ellington -- Hot Chocolate (Cottontail)
Cab Calloway -- Blowtop Blues
Louie Jordan & his Tympany Five -- Jumpin' at the Jubilee
Nat King Cole Trio -- Frim Fram Sauce
among others.... [more inside]
Finding Copernicus's grave
Copernicus's grave was lost for centuries. An unlikely discovery finally solved the mystery. A team of archaeologists discovered the remains of the 16th-century father of modern astronomy, who was the first to demonstrate that the Earth orbits the Sun.
Getting a bit LOST in 2024
YouTuber Billiam continues his examination of television series LOST (previously, previouslier) with his new video LOST: A DEEP DIVE INTO THE UNIVERSE [6h40m]. This fourth and not final installment examines season 5, the philosophical roots of the show, ancillary material such as novels, videogames, and ARGs, and tries to untangle the time travel maze of the plot. This is a deeper dive than you're expecting, even if you've seen the previous installments, and he's finding treasures in the depths. He swears the next episode will be the last.
A Sad Day For Double Entendres
After completing a corporate merger bringing the company under their umbrella, Western US convience store and fuel station operator Maverik is planning to retire the long-standing "Kum & Go" brand. [more inside]
Drink of its water and be healed
The ‘Chicago Rat Hole’ Is the Hottest Tourist Destination of 2024 The cement imprint has existed for at least a decade, although no one seems sure how it got there.
Jodie Foster interview in advance of True Detective: Night Country
The Guardian interviews Jodie Foster in advance of her starring role in HBO's upcoming (14 January) True Detective season 4 (NYTimes, ungated, archive). Here are•some•reviews. The trailer.
The Long History of the Air Bud Logic
Need to put something on at work today to keep your mind alive? Do ya like sports? If you don't like sports, do you at least like crazy stories? Crazy stories about people finding the dumbest and/or wildest exploits in rules, such that rules have to be rewritten in their wake? Well, this past year, the gang at Secret Base compiled three volumes of "The Weirdest Rules in Sports and the Absurd Stories Behind Them." [2, 3]