The March of Links

March 1, 2025 11:56 AM

LinkMe, March '25: Come across an interesting link recently that you'd like to share, but don't want to work it up into a full post? Share it here for our perusal, nbd. And if you'd like to post something but need some inspiration, check out the links here to see what other members have found interesting and would like to read more about! Just tag the resulting post "LinkMe" and include a nod back to the original suggestion. No self-linking and usual site rules apply, but otherwise feel free to post whatever you like! Look inside for a round-up from last month.

Sammy "The Bull" Gravano describes ADX Florence Supermax [via Lemkin]

Make a small world in a flask [via chavenet; posted by jenfullmoon]

The Dan Da Dan opening, except it's One Piece [via SPrintF]

The Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2024 | The Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2024 [via box]

Underground trans surgery clinic [via dick dale the vampire]

Time Cube: The RPG [via Lemkin]

Why We’re Raising 100+ Guinea Pigs to Mow Our Blueberry Orchard! | Can 100+ Guinea Pigs REALLY Mow Our Half Acre Blueberry Orchard? [via polecat; posted by jenfullmoon]

Sex Differences in Sport: What Science Does (and Doesn’t) Know [via Mr.Know-it-some]

Making the Video That Made Gorillaz [via JoeZydeco]

Wiki of the world's highest bridges [via maxwelton]

The rise of plant poaching: illegal trade in succulents [via box]

90 Funniest Monkey Puns | 140 Funny Tentacle Puns [via polecat]

Boy Building a House of Cards, 1735 (Louvre) | 1735 (Waddesdon Manor) | 1737 (National Gallery of Art) | 1740 (National Gallery, London) [via surlyben]

That time a local dentist blew up a cycle shop [via SunSnork]

AI slop is already invading Oregon’s local journalism [via soelo]

Drive the Sunset Strip in 1985 [via mmrtnt]

World Radio History [via wheelieman]

Farscape's official YouTube channel | ubuweb has reactivated [via juv3nal]

There are 20 quadrillion ants on Earth [via JoeZydeco]

Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church awarded "Proud Boys" trademark [via droomoord]

Designing robots for people with dementia [via Art_Pot]

Warner Bros is uploading full movies to YouTube [via JoeZydeco; posted by not_on_display]

Trump's executive order centralizing agency power [via jenfullmoon, soelo, and box; posted by NotLost]

Some political comedy [via jenfullmoon]

Family Feud: Name the greatest rapper of all time [via box]

RIP Michelle Trachtenberg [via jenfullmoon, posted by Wobbuffet]

The Duolingo Owl marketing stunt [via jenfullmoon]

VIRTUE v2.2.0: Free particle collider for desktop and VR [via mittens]

posted by Rhaomi (25 comments total)

I rather enjoyed Beyond the Hype: A Realistic Look at LLMS by Jodie Burchell, about the current state of generative AI's.
posted by SunSnork at 12:24 PM on March 1 [1 favorite]

Stack some stuff! In a pig sty.
posted by slater at 12:32 PM on March 1 [1 favorite]

Here are a few things I wondered about exploring further for post material:

• Elvia Wilk has started a Substack (I know ...) with recent posts on artists in residence at CERN and reading / viewing recs
• Another Substack post about "The best fantasy world-building game I've ever played just dropped" looked interesting, but the game--"Worldwizard"--costs $5.
• A review of Kate Folk's upcoming novel was interesting: "‘Sky Daddy’ Takes Airplane Fetishization to New Heights." So I read several of her short stories, e.g. "The Head in the Floor" and "Heart Seeks Brain." There's a bunch more online, but these seemed really familiar and might have been posted before? Anyway, the theme of her novel also reminded me of the pretty awesome movie Titane about a woman who has sex with cars, currently available on Kanopy and Tubi.
• Alexis Wolf has appeared on several podcasts recently to talk about her book, Transnational Women Writers in the Wilmot Coterie, 1798-1840, which sounded neat.
• Nick Mamatas's review of Gina Tron's new memoir Suspect caused me to read further, e.g. "‘Suspect’ Dives into the Dark Side of Growing Up in Barre," [Vermont]. Evidently it has some connection to a ~12-year-old article Tron wrote for Vice, so it might have been posted before: "I Was a Suspected School Shooter."
• Someone on Bluesky linked to this interesting "List of animals held in the ‘Bear Garden’ in Elizabethan Southwark." You have to click to open up the transcript for the details, and though they're fun to read out of context, I'd guess the realities could have been pretty rough.

Oh, I also skimmed nearly all the entries in the Tiny World TTRPG Jam that ran in January, wondering if that'd turn into a post like for the One Page RPG Jam. But too many entries are more like locations or thought experiments--like, I wasn't sure of any particular one as a main link. But these were the ones that I'd bookmarked to maybe revisit: Don't Tell Mom, We Shrank the Sleepover; DUCKS! (from space); The Brink: A Space station for SciFi Horror RPGs; Masiti Station Tiny TTRPG Setting; Yup, that's me and Your Room... Right? (because they reminded me of a sort of ekphrasis game from the 1600s); All Houses are Haunted Houses; Pillar House; The Rustwood Rot; The Brooksilk Periphery; Peach, The Vegan Vale; Ye Olde Abbey of St. Myra; 1088 Boylston; FORM 𝛀R-B; The Receiving Rooms; Planescrap Stories, which reminded me of Space Janitors (Season 1, Season 2, Season 3); Miraculous Apocalypse Vault; After Dark at the Arcana Lounge; The Ciera Goldenhand Rehabilitation Centre for the Homicidally Itinerant; Putko.
posted by Wobbuffet at 1:51 PM on March 1 [1 favorite]

Looking at Shirley, the Ultimate Norm: Colour Balance, Image Technologies, and Cognitive Equity.
posted by mittens at 2:27 PM on March 1 [2 favorites]

We'll Meet Again by TheFatRat and Laura Brehm.
posted by SPrintF at 3:42 PM on March 1

My friends who vote Trump by William T. Vollman [#USPolitics]
posted by chavenet at 5:08 PM on March 1

Mozilla is already revising its new Firefox terms to clarify how it handles user data. Says those terms don’t give it ownership of your data.
posted by JonathanB at 6:11 PM on March 1

Marshall Brain ("Manna", howstuffworks.com) died last December, amid some MeFi discussion-worthy unpleasantness.

The Amazing Kreskin also died in December. Did they carry his coffin around the graveyard until his burial site was located?
posted by zaixfeep at 7:57 PM on March 1

"NO MEOWING ON 121.5" [mhz] / "You're on GUARRRRRRRD" (example)
posted by zaixfeep at 10:50 PM on March 1

We've really been enjoying watching the eagles nesting in Big Bear Lake. The eaglets are due any day now! I keep the YouTube channel up on my TV all day so I can hear when any activity occurs. Wonderful to see the interaction and cooperation between the two birds.
posted by Rivvo at 7:40 AM on March 2 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Thank you Rhaomi for putting this collection together, we've added it to the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:09 AM on March 2 [1 favorite]

Brewing Tea Removes Lead from Water

"You could crush up all kinds of materials to get a similar metal-remediating effect, but that wouldn’t necessarily be practical. With tea, people don’t need to do anything extra. Just put the leaves in your water and steep them, and they naturally remove metals."

The paper does not yet appear to have been liberated.
posted by to wound the autumnal city at 10:16 AM on March 2 [1 favorite]

Where you find occlupanids, there you shall find civilization

Video essay on the niche world of occlupanid collection and taxonomy, as well as the motivations of its founder [previously].
posted by lock robster at 11:57 AM on March 2 [1 favorite]

Girlguiding Cymru released a guide to every Girl Guides and Girl Scout uniform worldwide which could be the starter to a post about Girl Guides & Girl Scouts in general.

(Happy to help craft a bigger post, just maybe a little too ill to actually make the post myself)
posted by creatrixtiara at 6:25 PM on March 2 [1 favorite]

How Whales Found Peace in War.
posted by gudrun at 8:13 PM on March 2 [1 favorite]

More Girl Guides links to go with the one about the uniforms:

How Girl Guides Helped End the First World War

Malaysian Girl Guides join protest to end child marriage

World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, the main HQ
posted by creatrixtiara at 8:37 PM on March 2 [1 favorite]

Here is a 1960 opera version of Aniara, an epic science fiction poem by Swedish poet Henry Martinsen.
posted by gamera at 12:01 PM on March 3

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, i.e. buy tickets to an imaginary event in the ocean....
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:40 AM on March 4

NYT: Chinese Company to Single Workers: Get Married or Get Out As China’s government worries about the falling birthrate, some private employers have ordered workers to do their part, or else.

It instructed them to start families by Sept. 30, or else.
“If you cannot get married and start a family within three quarters, the company will terminate your labor contract,” the memo said.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:21 AM on March 4

Boned By The Master: George Lowe, long-time voice of Space Ghost (Coast-to-Coast) and Brak's dad, passed on the 2nd after a long illness.
posted by zaixfeep at 11:01 AM on March 4

Mod note: One deleted, spam.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 11:04 AM on March 6 [1 favorite]

ActBlue, the Democratic Fund-Raising Powerhouse, Faces Internal Chaos.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:39 AM on March 6

Donald Trump declared Biden’s pardon of the Jan. 6 committee members void and vacant because of use of autopen.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:32 PM on March 17

Dunno if even I think this is worth an FPP, but IanOnYouTube got rehired by 7/11.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:01 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]

Um, I used mine already for the day, but Hysteria!
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:42 PM on March 19