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Six brothers. That’s how many brothers it takes to make a Ginny Weasley. That’s how much familial finally-a-daughter pressure is required to make a Ginny Weasley. That’s the weight of hand-me-down boy’s-jeans and you-can’t-do-it-you’re-a-girl that’s necessary to make a Ginny Weasley. Women of Harry Potter: Ginny is Not Impressed by Sarah Gailey. [more inside]
posted by guster4lovers at 6:42 PM PST - 46 comments

How to Adjust Your Mirrors to Avoid Blind Spots. "For the past few years, various carmakers have been offering blind-spot detection systems for their cars’ side mirrors. Often complex, these systems employ cameras or radar to scan the adjoining lanes for vehicles that may have disappeared from view. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) published a paper in 1995 suggesting how outside mirrors could be adjusted to eliminate blind spots." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 6:01 PM PST - 88 comments

Inside CBC Radio’s New ‘q’ with Tom Power [Toronto Star] “This past week, Tom Power [@tompowercbc] assumed his most prominent post yet: host of q. Taking over CBC Radio’s flagging flagship property can’t be considered a simple promotion, not after the damage inflicted to the brand by Jian Ghomeshi’s scandal and Shad’s brutally brief succession. When it comes to hot seats, there are few warmer than this particular hosting chair. And for all Power’s ascendant momentum, it’s a mighty burden to task one person with being the answer for q. Power has no illusions about being a one-man saviour — if his q succeeds, it will do so not as a solo performance, but something more akin to a loose-limbed kitchen party. Power’s show seems less about the dulcet tone of its authoritative host, and more about the benefit of voices from across the country and behind the scenes, with the goal of making art of all kinds more accessible and appreciated.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:57 PM PST - 54 comments

Many vehicles have horns. There are some who think bicycles should have one. And then there are those who just want to make a little music with them. [more inside]
posted by But tomorrow is another day... at 4:24 PM PST - 23 comments

Look, next time aliens demand sex for helping you escape, remember that they probably don't know a damn thing about how humans actually do it (SFW).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:47 PM PST - 34 comments

Daniel Oberhaus, Motherboard: "On the Silver Globe [full film] is one of the best sci-fi films I've ever seen, or at least it would’ve been if Zulawski had been able to finish it. As it exists today, it is only partially complete, a victim of censorship by Poland’s communist government. Fortunately Zulawski returned to Poland to rescue the film in the late 1980s after a period of self-imposed exile, so we have at least some idea of what could’ve been. At once the retelling of a 100-year old sci-fi novel written by Andrzej Zulawski’s granduncle Jerzy Zulawski, a meditation on communist Poland, and a deeply personal insight into the breakdown of Zulawski’s marriage, On the Silver Globe is a kaleidoscopic tour de force that was almost swallowed by history."
posted by sapagan at 3:27 PM PST - 8 comments

The documentary 'Before the Flood' is free to stream on National Geographic's Youtube channel until November 6 . It follows Leonardo DiCaprio as he interviews individuals from every facet of society in both developing and developed nations who provide unique, impassioned and pragmatic views on what must be done today and in the future to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on our planet from climate change.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 12:46 PM PST - 16 comments

Vine users can now port all their loops into Giphy -- although the process necessarily removes the audio, which for many vines was integral. [more inside]
posted by me3dia at 11:38 AM PST - 27 comments

The Professor Who Made Movies Talk. On June 9, 1922, Dr. Joseph Tycociner, the University of Illinois's first professor of electrical engineering held a public demonstration of his invention that simultaneously recorded sound and picture on the same film, instead of having to sync them on separate contraptions.

Those in attendance saw harshly lit pictures of people ringing bells, reciting oratory and playing the violin. They stayed close to the microphone -- taken from a telephone, with a megaphone attached to capture the sound. The film’s sound track was plainly visible on the right-hand side of the movie image, a strip that carried the encoded sound by shifting quickly from white to shades of grey and back again.

[more inside]
posted by obscurator at 11:26 AM PST - 11 comments

Dad: Why were you putting your head in there, anyway?
Rachel: I just thought it would be funny.
Mom: It was funny! [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:44 AM PST - 45 comments

How well do you know your Halloween animals? Some animals have a sinister reputation this time of year. Amateurs. We got yer vortex of evil right here: [more inside]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 10:33 AM PST - 14 comments

Kelly Conaboy of The Hairpin got freaked out at a podcast host pronouncing the first word in "read receipts" as reed rather than red. A Slack poll, a party conversation, and a Google dive later, Conaboy ties the pronunciation to Tim Cook firing Scott Forstall.
posted by Etrigan at 10:08 AM PST - 75 comments

Q: Hey kids, what do you want to do for Halloween? A: PUT A HEAD ON A STICK AND HAVE A PARTY! [more inside]
posted by vrakatar at 8:37 AM PST - 5 comments

Celebrity make-up artist, photographer, and Instagram luminary Mathu Andersen has spent most of his career on the margins of popular aesthetics and gender expression. He is most widely known as RuPaul's makeup artist, and was nominated in 2015 for an Emmy for Outstanding Makeup For A Multi-Camera Series Or Special for an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race. But the self-proclaimed 'wig whisperer' has a broad range of styles and techniques that you can find in his self-portraits. You probably don't have enough time to master his skeleton face design for Halloween, but you can give his Cat Lady Transformation of James St. James a try. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:34 AM PST - 10 comments

Together we investigate the possibility of a minimal bicycle that does not require multiple feet nor the reversal of gravity. I have some reservations about the performance, but none about the aesthetics. [SLYT]
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:14 AM PST - 50 comments

This morning, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Fry v. Napoleon County Schools; Ehlena Fry, a then five year old girl with cerebral palsy, was told by her school that her service dog, Wonder, could not accompany her, since the district was already paying for an aide to help. Ehlena and Wonder's case was brought by the ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan. (video)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:15 AM PST - 34 comments

A supercut of Donald Trump saying his own name. After that you might need some guided meditation.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:43 AM PST - 28 comments

David Nagler has set some of Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems to music. The work includes an all-star cast of Chicago musicians, including Robbie Fulks, Sally Timms and Jon Langford of the Mekons, and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Under the Harvest Moon and Theme in Yellow are especially autumnal. More about the project here.
posted by carrienation at 1:48 AM PST - 7 comments

Vince Staples is interviewed by Simone White

I never wanted to be a rapper; I like to be quiet in my music. Actually, having this job, I don't know… I know that certain music made me want to feel and do stuff on the wrong side of the fence, so my whole thing is being mindful of that reality and not pretending it's not there. That's more of a responsibility where I'm from, you know? Life has a soundtrack. And certain music is a soundtrack to a certain type of identity or feeling. So what happens sometimes when you don't pay attention to what you say and what you do, like 50 Cent, the Game, and those kinds of guys—they made us feel like our lives were worth nothing, basically.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:02 PM PST - 21 comments

The ghouls of No Man's Land James Deutsch explores an urban legend from the First World War, and its decades-long afterlife. (SLSmithsonian)
posted by doctornemo at 6:48 PM PST - 22 comments

In the past decade, more and more North Americans of non-Mexican origin have begun celebrating some version of el Día de los Muertos. Predictably, this has led to accusations of cultural appropriation. Not so predictably, the targets of the latest complaints are the government officials in Mexico who have just turned the Day of the Dead into a major tourist attraction. [more inside]
posted by Creosote at 2:03 PM PST - 66 comments

The most terrifying horror shorts you can watch online
posted by garlic at 1:24 PM PST - 36 comments

Sure, we swim with dolphins, sharks, rays, and a whole host of other marine creatures—but tuna?--Hakai Magazine on controversy in South Australia's tuna-ranching industry [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 11:52 AM PST - 3 comments

Epitaph, a game about the Fermi Paradox -- Given the likelihood of other forms of life, why don't we find them? Part of the September 2016 Fermi Paradox Jam, Epitaph lets you act as a guiding hand for burgeoning civilizations discovered. The rarity of a planet's survival to the technological level needed for interstellar communication becomes apparent. Over time, failed civilizations fade away... [more inside]
posted by cobaltnine at 11:42 AM PST - 98 comments

The size of a very large cat or very small dog, the rare pudú is the tiniest, and thus most squeeful, deer in the world. (For scale, here is one being hand fed.) They love to frolic and have even inspired heavy metal musicians, but at the end of the day they kiss their mom and go to sleep in a flower pot.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:41 AM PST - 27 comments

High Tech Pumpkins - Wired brings you a entries from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's pumpkin carving contest. Aaron Yazzie has posted more NASA pumpkin pics at Twitter.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:46 AM PST - 4 comments

Joshua Hoffine brings his children's nightmares to life in a new book and gives them motion in his first short film, Black Lullaby. (previously) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:12 AM PST - 13 comments

Chola fashion. "...set claiming was not forgein to me. Latino gangs played by their own set of rules, meaning they had different rules and a sense of fashion than their African American counter parts. In my book, Cholas were Deathrock before there was even the term Deathrock. Their steez has always looked rad to me, from the pancake make up to the chola braclets to the hairspray-drenched hair to their heavily starched jeans."
posted by goofyfoot at 9:15 PM PST - 24 comments

The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony * A-ha - Take On Me * Britney Spears - Toxic * Toto - Africa * Star Wars Theme * Game of Thrones Theme * Taylor Swift - Shake It Of * Sia - Chandelier * Bee Gees - Staying Alive * Queen - We Are The Champions * ABBA - Dancing Queen * Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody * Beyonce - All The Single Ladies * Prince - When Doves Cry
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:30 PM PST - 38 comments

In 2014, to mark the 90th birthday of Robert Frank (previously), the Aperture Foundation commissioned "Alec Soth, Billy Bragg, and Joe Purdy to take a road trip and create a live performance of music, photography, and video. They drove from Rock Island, Illinois, to Little Rock, Arkansas, performing and gathering material along the way." This trip would go on to inspire Bragg to team up with Joe Henry to record Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad. "The two hopped on an Amtrak train and recorded these songs acoustically at various stations and junctures around the country." NPR Tiny Desk Concerts: Billy Bragg and Joe Henry perform "Rock Island Line" and other songs from Shine a Light. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:04 PM PST - 16 comments

Cheese Slope Mosaics: how to arrange not-quite-triangular LEGO pieces into impressive patterns, projects, scenes, and everything under the sun.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 1:58 PM PST - 18 comments

Even assuming the unlikely possibility Park Geun-hye might not have had the discernment to know firsthand (unlikely because she grew up in the lap of luxury,) the obvious cheapness of Park's clothes and bags even made the news. Yet nothing came of it. Choi Soon-sil dressed Park Geun-hye liked an unwanted doll, and Park, the president of the country, did not care.

Ask a Korean attempts to explain the current South Korean presidential corruption scandal and why it shocked the country more than previous such scandals.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:06 PM PST - 69 comments

American reporter Elizabeth Hawley has lived in Kathmandu since 1962, where she is the world's authority of the summiting of high Himalayan mountains and keeps Himalayan Database. The High Priestess of Posterity

These files are her life's work, containing the largest catalog of man's athletic achievements at the edge of the troposphere. Never mind that Hawley hasn't climbed a mountain in her life. She has interviewed, documented, and, when necessary, investigated nearly every expedition coming through Kathmandu since the country opened its doors to outsiders in the mid 1950s. She's also acted as an archival historian, collecting trip reports from as far back as 1905.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:21 PM PST - 7 comments

Quotes about Writing. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 12:00 PM PST - 20 comments

"I didn't go online for a long time because of my fears it'd mostly be a bunch of 15-year old technoid geeks and social outcasts. ☯87DEC" Visit the early days of the Internet with @WWWTEXt which posts online conversations from 1980-94
posted by The Whelk at 10:33 AM PST - 19 comments

OMG! OMG! OMG! Jolene the Golden Retriever gets the best dog toy ever!!
posted by Room 641-A at 8:52 AM PST - 36 comments

Very, Very Scarey Stories. Here are ten of scariest tales of ghosts, demons, stalkers, and murderers that you’ve ever read. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 8:05 AM PST - 16 comments

Jason Munshi-South, a biologist at Fordham University first studied the DNA of rats in every zip code in Manhattan finding greater diversity in the areas with the worst infestations. Then he studied rat samples from around the world and was able to determine where the Brown Rat came from and how it spread around the world. Link to the study.
posted by Bee'sWing at 7:14 AM PST - 7 comments

Become a tattoo. Be a pencil. Reside in a creepy 3-D bust. These are some of the things you can do with your cremated remains.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:39 PM PST - 36 comments

Since everyone keeps asking what I'm doing for Halloween... Ladies and gentlemen... BEARDY QUINN
posted by Evilspork at 8:52 PM PST - 8 comments

A Youtube playlist of short and beautiful videos portraying various traditional Japanese crafts. For example: Decorated paper. [more inside]
posted by carter at 7:21 PM PST - 14 comments

Anecdotally speaking, the number of internationally acclaimed male pianists greatly outnumbers the number of similarly acclaimed female pianists. Could it all be because of differences in hand span? CBC Radio's show The Doc Project found that this indeed may be the case. But not to worry! Piano keyboards made for smaller hands are indeed available, courtesy of a textile manufacturer in, of all places, Titusville, PA.
posted by greatgefilte at 3:03 PM PST - 26 comments

Average earners getting squeezed out of Sacramento region’s tight housing market Average wage earners in Sacramento, who can afford a roughly $250,000 house, are being excluded from the real estate market because of low resale inventory and a lack of new construction. Sacramento may be following the lead of the Bay Area, where only higher-earning families can own a home. And, just when that sounds bad, a more recent article, Study: Rents Rising, Incomes Declining offers more possible evidence of a worsening situation for real-estate consumers in the Sacramento area.
posted by strelitzia at 1:40 PM PST - 88 comments

Eleven days to go. Since last time, Donald announced his first 100 days of actions, but still dislikes Jeb and John, while Hillary considers Texas and (post-birthday) speaks with Michelle (post title from speech) in North Carolina, early voting is happening, and Barack has nice approval ratings (though not everywhere). In the polls, 538 reckons Donald needs a sweep of swing states, GOP "insiders" think there are secret Trump voters, another release shows ties in Georgia and Iowa, and in perhaps less reliable data, Donald has a huge lead. While social media rages and schools have concerns about being polling stations, Wikileaks continues to drip-feed mundane emails, the FBI writes a vague letter about other emails (rebuttal), Colin Powell declares for Hillary, a 'Victory Bus' tours (gallery), Evan and Mindy continue to draw support across Utah, and therapists and patients describe election stress. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 1:00 PM PST - 3594 comments

Nightmare Machine uses a deep-learning algorithm to create Artificial Intelligence-powered "nightmares" from ordinary photographs, and it needs your votes to hone its edge: Scary or Not? [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 11:35 AM PST - 23 comments

Bikepedia contains detailed bicycle specifications dating back to 1993, for all your bicycle building and selecting purposes. The site also has a broader catalog of related gear, and a stolen bike registry. But if you want a ton of information about bikes, which parts to pick and how to maintain them, Sheldon Brown's (memorial*) website is still a key resource, and it's being updated all the time. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:00 AM PST - 15 comments

Classic Monster Horrorscopes by MeFi's The Whelk, who's previous spookiness spookiness includes Adult Beverages to Pair with Your Halloween Candy [via mefi projects]
posted by Artw at 10:28 AM PST - 19 comments

Emma Bracy's eloquent essay about her grandfather's legacy | "Imagine the minds who gave us the ability to fly, all vision and measurements and math. Flight comes from the minds of people who aren’t afraid to plummet. The kind of people who can dream what they cannot see and then, almost miraculously, conjure it into existence. We are taught that those are people like the Wright brothers. But they are also people like my grandfather... I wonder if my grandfather knew the helicopters he helped to perfect would one day be used to surveil and oppress Black and Brown bodies."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 10:24 AM PST - 2 comments

"Why would someone intentionally want to mar the goodness that is chocolate with the tiny atrocities known as raisins?" It's a good question. As is the question of why anyone would hand out Mike and Ike to innocent children. Your favorite Halloween candies, ranked. (SLVox)
posted by holborne at 9:45 AM PST - 183 comments

This Artist Re-Imagined Your Favorite Hardcore Bands as Pokemon and Did a Really Shitty Job
posted by griphus at 9:19 AM PST - 18 comments

aeon digital magazine posted the video Beautiful Chemical Reactions. The video is from a site Beautiful Chemistry, which is "a collaboration between University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and Tsinghua University Press (TUP)." [more inside]
posted by CMcG at 9:17 AM PST - 3 comments

We are thrilled to announce the addition of NTT DOCOMO’s original set of 176 emoji to the MoMA collection. Developed under the supervision of Shigetaka Kurita and released for cell phones in 1999, these 12 x 12 pixel humble masterpieces of design planted the seeds for the explosive growth of a new visual language.

posted by Etrigan at 8:15 AM PST - 33 comments

jwz tells the story of the Mozilla logo:

I'm going to draw a line through 1930s agitprop, Ronald Reagan, methane-breathing zombie space aliens, the Mozilla logo, Barack Obama and the International Commiunist Conspiracy. It's a long walk, so please stick with me.

posted by jenkinsEar at 7:49 AM PST - 21 comments

The other day, Marcin Wichary went to visit a museum near Figueres, Spain. He didn't get there; instead, he found a sign pointing to a different museum, where he found magic [Twitter thread]. [more inside]
posted by metaquarry at 5:08 AM PST - 42 comments

A new iOS app, Vigilante, has been launched in New York City. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 3:54 AM PST - 67 comments

"I could feel her soul when she sang it. It was just one of those moments where the studio disappears, and the whole world disappears, and all that’s there is the emotion of that thing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what great music and great art is. It just pulls you into the moment and the feeling and emotion of it. I felt like I could feel her heart." - “I Can’t Make You Love Me”: A 25th Anniversary Oral History
posted by beisny at 11:12 PM PST - 28 comments

Today’s political dialogue—which often merely consists of opposing sides shouting over one another—echoes another contentious era in American politics, when women fought for the right to vote. Then and now, a mix of political tension and new-fangled publishing technology produced an environment ripe for creating and distributing political imagery. The meme-ification of women’s roles in society—in civic life and at home—has been central to an advocacy tradition that far precedes slogans like, “Life’s a bitch, don’t elect one,” or “A woman’s place is in the White House.”

The Weird Familiarity of 100-Year-Old Feminism Memes, by Adrienne LaFrance.

PS There are early-1900s cat pics too
posted by librarina at 10:35 PM PST - 28 comments

“I think the whole selling point with dating apps is ‘Oh, it’s so easy to find someone,’ and now that I’ve tried it, I’ve realized that’s actually not the case at all"--The Rise of Dating App Fatigue
posted by MoonOrb at 8:19 PM PST - 70 comments

Vlogger Casey Neistat talks about the difference between risk and recklessness and The Day I Almost Died
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:19 PM PST - 14 comments

Photographer Thom Pierce photographed horsemen and herders in Semonkong, Lesotho The gorgeous vistas of the mountain kingdom make for a spectacular backdrop. Pierce was originally in the area documenting the suffering of workers in Gold mines.
posted by smoke at 7:06 PM PST - 3 comments

[Most links NSFW] My Twin Brother Made Me Crossdress As Him And Now I Have To Deal With A Geeky Stalker And A Domme Beauty Who Want Me In A Bind!! or, Ladykiller in a Bind (trailer) is the funny, sexy, and very explicit new visual novel from Analogue: A Hate Story developer Christine Love (previously 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). It's about sex, BDSM, consent, social manipulation and girls kissing other girls on a boat. The full game (supporting PC/OS X/Linux) is not free, but a demo (PC/OS X and NSFW with a minor spoiler) is available here. [more inside]
posted by figurant at 6:10 PM PST - 15 comments

50 years ago and a week and a half or so from now, Patrick Troughton took the now iconic British sci-fi show Dr. Who into the first regeneration story and it was a doozy. Aired once and lost in a fire (I think), The Power of the Daleks has been reconstructed as a animation based on still photos and a full audio recording. See it on Nov. 19th or at a theater near you.
posted by vrakatar at 6:10 PM PST - 13 comments

Pushing That Crosswalk Button May Make You Feel Better, but … [The New York Times] “It is a reflex born of years of habit: You see a button, press it and then something happens. The world is filled with them, such as doorbells, vending machines, calculators and telephones. But some buttons we regularly rely on to get results are mere artifices — placebos that promote an illusion of control but that in reality do not work. No matter how long or how hard you press, it will not change the outcome. Be prepared to be surprised — and disappointed — by some of these examples.”
posted by Fizz at 6:08 PM PST - 77 comments

Stupidly fun: Watermelon Survives 45m Drop Test!! [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:26 PM PST - 11 comments

Leaders of the Oregon refuge standoff have been acquitted.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:10 PM PST - 195 comments

"43 percent of women at least sometimes experience harassment on the run, according to a recent Runner's World survey, compared with just 4 percent of men. In the vast majority of cases, it’s not life-threatening. But it is pervasive, and it’s upsetting, and it’s most likely happening to you or someone you know."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:49 PM PST - 33 comments

A Stranger Things Christmas (SLYT).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Mattis Dovier is a visual artist and director who makes black and white animations (think early 80s Mac GUI). Content Warning: flashing lights, horrific imagery, and NSFW themes throughout. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 2:27 PM PST - 9 comments

Could an astronaut’s corpse bring new life to another world?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:27 PM PST - 18 comments

An Enigmatic Ex-con, His Improvised Religion, and the Georgia Town That Watched It Fall (SL Oxford American/Warning: descriptions of abuse) [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:58 AM PST - 12 comments

RIP to the Worst Movie Theater in NYC
posted by Mchelly at 11:44 AM PST - 46 comments

A sizable video essay on Hannibal, the embrace of The Other, and the fascination with death, courtesy of Shannon Strucci of So You Wanna Be A Film Nerd. [more inside]
posted by Peevish at 11:39 AM PST - 31 comments

Over 10 years ago, Klaus and Roland Bartl, from Munich rode 70 km (43 miles) along the Danube river from Passau, Germany to Linz, Austria. This was a Guinness World Record. This previous Sunday, they got round to posting the video of them riding their tandem unicycle. [more inside]
posted by ambrosen at 11:11 AM PST - 10 comments

8000 Match Chain Reaction — what better and more-satisfying way to encapsulate 2016 than with a red flower of FIRE? Imagine your least-favorite person or organization consumed by the flames of their own wrath... h/t Atlas Obscura
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:35 AM PST - 12 comments

Twitter is discontinuing Vine and shuttering its mobile app. They say users' content will remain accessible, but just in case, maybe start collecting some of the best vines now. [more inside]
posted by rewil at 10:03 AM PST - 224 comments

"Many historians, I fear, still think of ghosts as the province of a small number of specialist ‘historians of the ghostly’, such as Peter Marshall, Sasha Handley and Shane McCorristine. They are prepared to acknowledge that belief in ghosts, like other supernatural beliefs, can be illuminating of the culture of a particular time and place." Yet "Every half decent historian has had this experience: for a moment, the past seems more real than the present, and the absence of the dead an absurdity." Why Historians Need Ghosts, an article by Dr. Francis Young. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:54 AM PST - 9 comments

In theory, any of the major characters could have been the star of this episode. But it is not at all a coincidence that it is Beverly — a woman, a healer, a mother, and Picard’s occasional love interest — who lives out this story. Star Trek’s Feminist Statement: Believe Women
posted by redsparkler at 9:49 AM PST - 51 comments

In Food Hacking, a documentary series of shorts from Vice's Munchies, host Simon Klose explores the people and science mapping out new boundaries of Japanese cuisine, as well as their social and environmental implications. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 8:54 AM PST - 3 comments

In 1993, Bill Watterson did something he almost never did: he approved a piece of Calvin & Hobbes merchandise. No, not a T-shirt or a window sticker of his hero peeing on a Ford logo. The merch was Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, a middle-grade reading textbook. It has become the Holy Grail of C&H collectors, with a Blogspot column that "archives information from all sources about the rare and collectible textbook". Copies are valued as high as $34,000. Eight are known to exist in libraries, half in North Dakota (where the book was published) and one in Singapore.
posted by Etrigan at 7:54 AM PST - 24 comments

The moment we get too uppity and start demanding anything other than commitments to the further brutalisation of foreign people at the hands of the state, they will turn on us just as quickly as they do on our non-native neighbours. We will be shifted from the frame where we are honest hard working salt of the earth noble peasants, to the frame where we are obese thick scroungers suitable only to be mocked on a Channel 5 docusoap.

McDuff on how the fetishisation of the very real concerns of the (white) working class in British politics doesn't extend outside of providing cover for racists.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:58 AM PST - 83 comments

"Progressive societies cared for their children by emphasising play and schooling; parents were expected to shelter and protect their children’s innocence by keeping them from paid work and the wrong kinds of knowledge ... adolescence soon became a vision of normal development that was applicable to all youth – its bridging character (connecting childhood and adulthood) giving young Americans a structured way to prepare for mating and work. In the 21st century, the bridge is sagging at both ends as the innocence of childhood has become more difficult to protect, and adulthood is long delayed." [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:39 PM PST - 12 comments

A profile of the artist by Taffy Brodesser-Akner [content warning: sexual assault]
posted by thetortoise at 11:06 PM PST - 9 comments

To celebrate "20 years of preserving the web", the Internet Archive has unveiled GifCities – The Geocities Animated GIF Search Engine. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:56 PM PST - 19 comments

Iceland's Pirate Party looks likely to take the country's election next weekend - "If you're worn out and depressed with the US election campaign, ponder what's going on in Iceland for a moment. The country's Pirate Party, founded less than four years ago by a group of activists, anarchists, and hackers, is poised to upend Icelandic politics with an Oct. 29 general-election victory."
posted by kliuless at 9:41 PM PST - 91 comments

Photographer captures what kittens look like mid-pounce
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:08 PM PST - 30 comments

Submitted for your consideration: Google Sheep View. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 6:59 PM PST - 12 comments

Why is Tom Hanks, as SNL one-off David S. Pumpkins, setting the Hallowe'en world on fire?
posted by Shepherd at 5:53 PM PST - 103 comments

Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq
posted by bq at 5:39 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Female Doctors Speak Out About Racism and Sexism During Airplane Emergencies
posted by Evilspork at 5:27 PM PST - 31 comments

An Attempt to 3D Model Jorge Luis Borges’s Library of Babel [Hyperallergic] Programmer Jamie Zawinski has created a digital rendering of the infinite, hexagonal library that is the subject and setting of Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Library of Babel.”
posted by Fizz at 5:16 PM PST - 14 comments

Peter Thiel[readme] (Paypal inventor, venture capitalist, libertarian, vampire, techno-optimist, futurist, tranhumanist, lawsuit-machine finanicier and inflation-predicting billionaire) is supporting Donald Trump for President of the United States, and thinks America made a (one of many) wrong turn granting women the vote. Why?
This has made some of his compatriots in Silicon Valley (and New York, but not Chicago) anxious. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:09 PM PST - 104 comments

There are a couple of other things you should know. When you’re reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, you are now required by law to say “one nation, under a groove.” Also, after careful deliberation, we’ve decided to change the National Anthem to something a little less militaristic: Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” Standing while the anthem is playing will be optional, but bobbing your head during the acoustic guitar breaks will be strictly enforced. By the way, America is now gluten-free.
posted by listen, lady at 2:39 PM PST - 44 comments

The colorful rise and fall of "Crazy Eddie" Antar, who built an New York City electronics store empire and then ended up in prison. (Bonus: more Crazy Eddie at the New Yorker).
posted by Chrysostom at 11:23 AM PST - 33 comments

The police show up, they do some canvassing, they try to find some fingerprints, then that’s it. They leave her to deal with her suddenly broken life. They’re gone and Josh is gone and there’s not even any sign of the guy who broke into her home. All she knows is that when she went to bed her son was at home safe with her and when she woke up he was gone and a man was standing in her kitchen wearing Josh’s underwear. That’s where she is.

‘Big’ Is Secretly a Horror Movie — Just ask Tom Hanks’s terrified mom
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:55 AM PST - 73 comments

Recognition is an artificial intelligence program that compares up-to-the-minute photojournalism with British art from the Tate collection.
posted by obscurator at 10:46 AM PST - 3 comments

More than thirty years after his death, Canadian flight attendant Gaetan Dugas — who has been dubbed “Patient Zero” of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, has been exonerated by medical evidence, a new study published in Nature today.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:41 AM PST - 26 comments

The Google Maps Streetview Player • Input either a starting point and end point, or a provide a file of a route, and Brian Folts's app will provide you with a Google Streetview maps-lapse. (Tips: Check the Advanced Options box, and tweak the FPS or mode of transportation; and mess about with the progress bar in case the app gets ahead of itself.) — Routeview is a very similar app, with a few more more ways to configure your ride. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 10:22 AM PST - 3 comments

SAG-AFTRA, an actors’ union, represents a number of voice actors in video games. And on October 21st, they went on strike against video game employers: Activision, Take 2, Electronic Arts, WB Games, and several talent agencies, including Blindlight, Disney, and VoiceWorks. They've been tweeting with #PerformanceMatters since before the strike started. [more inside]
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:06 AM PST - 29 comments

The Interactive Fiction Competition 2016 is open for judging, and invites us all to play and rate this year's entrants. Browse the games individually to play in your browser or download, or grab the 222MB zip archive containing all the entrants. [more inside]
posted by metaBugs at 8:30 AM PST - 10 comments

The Oxford University Press, upon the recommendation of a panel of 23 international scholars and extensive data analysis, has decided to give co-author credit of the three Henry VI plays to Christopher Marlowe. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:20 AM PST - 44 comments

So this is basically [MLYT]....
Steven Universe - Gravity Falls - Adventure Time - Miraculous Ladybug - Cowboy Bebop - Overwatch - Pokemon [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 6:52 AM PST - 35 comments

While speculation continues on how Pokemon GO will handle the coming winter, the game has begun its first global event with a Halloween treat. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:24 AM PST - 254 comments

In 2010, science fiction and fantasy author (and MeFi's own) Tim Pratt wrote "Scientific Romance", a Valentine's Day love poem for his wife.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:08 AM PST - 2 comments

With Halloween right around the corner, and Horrors Weeks in full swing, The A.V. Club is counting down the scariest, creepiest, and most nerve-shredding opening scenes in horror-movie history. Bonus: Karin Slaughter recommends 7 thrilling, disturbing mysteries written by women.
posted by valkane at 4:10 AM PST - 37 comments

A mesmerising video of industrial robots working together to create a variety of springs. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 3:52 AM PST - 28 comments

The 337 justifiably most despised and detested songs in the world, as determined through a Twitter thread started by Edward Mund.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:41 AM PST - 260 comments

Australian writer Marise Williams' essay "Mourning Half Begun" begins with "I’m thinking of having my cat stuffed when she dies,"^† proceeds through Barthes, Sontag and the OED and arrives at the taxidermy work of artist Julia deVille. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:14 PM PST - 5 comments

Celestial Soul Singer Kadhja Bonet's Voice Has the Power to Stop Time. At least, that's the headline from LA Weekly's interview with young-looking musician who claims that she was born in 1784 in the backseat of a sea-foam green space pinto. But as The Guardian puts it, "Sometimes it’s like listening to music ... from the 1940s, say – drenched as it is in Disney-sweet Hollywood strings. At others it seems as though it’s beamed in from the 2040s, from a science fictional future when soul has become completely deracinated and etherised." Enough talk, time for the music! Enjoy The Visitor, her debut album, and for a stripped-down sound, here's Kadhja performing Fairweather Friend live and This Love in April 2015, just her vocals, her guitar, and a backing vocalist/ guitarist.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:14 PM PST - 6 comments

One evening in 1972 a group of young people from Catalina High School were talking about dreams. One told of a dream where he was led through a fantasyland by a Wizard who was all dressed in black and performed magic. In the dreams he saw faries and elves dancing in the moonlight. Three others said they'd had the same dream. Another friend said he was pretty sure their dream was an actual place, so they set out to find it. What they found was sadly overgrown with weeds and badly in need of repair, and the aging Wizard (George Phar Legler). [more inside]
posted by MrVisible at 9:49 PM PST - 6 comments

Little Norah Wood met 82-year-old Mr. Dan on her 4th birthday while shopping at the grocery store with her mother. When Norah requested a special birthday photo with Mr. Dan a few aisles later, her mom obliged (and thankfully, so did Mr. Dan!). It was the start of a beautiful, and very healing, friendship.
posted by Hermione Granger at 7:55 PM PST - 19 comments

Atlas Obscura (previously) recently hit a milestone when it reached a total of 10,000 places listed on the site. And now, for your convenience, those places have been mapped for easy browsing.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:17 PM PST - 23 comments

The Decline in Chinese Cyberattacks: The Story Behind the Numbers - The Obama administration has been touting a decrease in commercial espionage, but the reality for corporate America may be more complicated. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 3:39 PM PST - 9 comments

It is believed every Māori woman wears a moko on the inside, close to their heart; when they are ready, the tattoo artist simply brings it out to the surface.
posted by bq at 1:36 PM PST - 15 comments

Finally a Handy Chart of the “Big 5” Book Publishers and Their Imprints [Tor] “Trade book publishing is dominated by the “Big 5”: five book publishing companies that own or partner with over 100 different publishers and imprints, and who are responsible for the lion’s share of books that you see on shelves. As such, it can get confusing as to which imprint (like Tor Teen) is owned by which publisher (Tor/Forge Books) is owned by which “Big 5” company (Macmillan). Designer and author Ali Almossawi recently collected this information into an easy online info chart, allowing curious folks to quickly identify imprints and publishers owned by the same “Big 5” company. This is publicly available information, but it can be difficult to track down in some cases. Almossawi’s chart greatly simplifies that information. It should be noted that not all publishers are included in the chart, just the ones that are considered the five most prominent.”
posted by Fizz at 1:24 PM PST - 20 comments

More than one-third of social media users are worn out by the amount of political content they encounter, and more than half describe their online interactions with those they disagree with politically as stressful and frustrating

Americans, Politics, and Social Media by Pew Research Center
posted by infini at 12:03 PM PST - 47 comments

After being used to describe boring games (and remaining as a controversial term), the walking simulator is finally getting its due. Recently there have been many great free examples of pure, procedurally-generated walking simulators: no puzzles, no goals, no crafting, no enemies... just walking in a space that was created just for your game. Bernband gives you the feeling of walking through a bustling alien city/mall/something and observing its inhabitants. The ominous TRIHAYWBFRFYH lets you wander around a setting as the apocalypse begins. Secret Habitat creates an island full of art galleries. Sanctuary features a strange, creepy walk among mysterious obelisks. Sacremento is a stunning walk through a watercolor world. If you like realistic walks, Outerra is an amazing engine producing procedurally-generated landscapes using Google Earth data that lets you wander anywhere on the planet, zooming out from a blade of grass to outer space, at which point you probably want to shift to the equally amazing Space Engine to explore other worlds. [all games downloadable, most for Windows and Mac]
posted by blahblahblah at 11:53 AM PST - 58 comments

Netflix releases the trailer for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
posted by Talez at 10:44 AM PST - 93 comments

"Putin" is a new song and video by Randy Newman, from an as-yet untitled album due next spring. A review in Pitchfork by Greil Marcus. A Washington Post interview about the song. A Telegraph interview from last year. His last album of new material was 2008's Harps and Angels (not counting five film scores and two volumes of his Songbook series). His last music video was 2012's "I'm Dreaming" (prev).
posted by rollick at 9:54 AM PST - 14 comments

"Narcissus was a man who was so in love with himself that he fell in love with his own reflection. No one else was good enough for him. He stared into the pool, and eventually wasted away." But that's not the whole story.
posted by Alterity at 9:50 AM PST - 39 comments

The New York Times Company recently acquired The Wirecutter and The Sweethome, "product-recommendation services that serve as a guide to technology gear, home products and other consumer services." Some guy without a blog thinks that is awesome news, and that Brian Lam doesn't get the credit he deserves for building a successful business that doesn't have to cater to either advertisers or investors, but relies instead on "a combo of trust and earnest nerdiness".
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:45 AM PST - 39 comments

We are in a Walmart parking lot in Nogales. Captain Pain and a couple of others go into the store to get supplies. In Pain's absence, Showtime is our commanding officer. He is a Marine special-ops veteran who did three tours in Afghanistan. He has camo paint on his face and a yeti beard. He gets in the cab to check Facebook on his phone while Destroyer, Jaeger, Spartan, and I stand with our backs to the truck, rifles in hand, keeping watch for anything suspicious. The Mexican border is three miles away. (TW: Extremely offensive language to pretty much everyone)
posted by josher71 at 8:48 AM PST - 122 comments

Bob Hoover, one of the finest pilots in generations, has died at age 94. [more inside]
posted by exogenous at 8:28 AM PST - 32 comments

It’s been a monumental month for one of Nashville’s most masterful songwriters, John Prine. As October rolled in, Prine’s latest album of duets with women, “For Better, or Worse,” was released and debuted at #2 on the Country Charts, making it the highest-charting album of his career. A week later, he celebrated his 70th birthday with a series of star-studded, sold-out shows at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium... [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:13 AM PST - 38 comments

Cubs-Indians World Series shows what fans long have known: Life is suffering

Whichever team wins, that city will have its parade. But the fans of the losers will, in the way of their breed, find a different kind of victory. Much as they would have preferred to be drunk on joy, they’ll share their frustration, rewind memories of their fine season, commiserate, support each other and, in yet another season without a title, show much of what is most resilient, most loyal and most generous in themselves. And they’ll show it to each other.

[more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:29 AM PST - 99 comments

What It Feels Like Being A Trans Person Serving In The Armed Forces, an interview with former Senior Airman Jordan Blisk, US Air Force Reserves, cartoonified by Jess Ruliffson
posted by Etrigan at 7:08 AM PST - 26 comments

HBO's Class Divide is a documentary that profiles the neighborhood of West Chelsea, New York, and in particular focuses on the housing projects that sit across the street from Avenues: The World School, a private school with an entrance fee of $50,000 per year.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:38 AM PST - 12 comments

InvestedInstead.com is a little website with a single purpose, which is to provide you with the answer to the question "if I instead of buying <iconic product> on launch day invested the same amount of money into <iconic product's maker>, what would my investment be worth today?"
posted by Harald74 at 3:31 AM PST - 39 comments

"...the underlying philosophy here is that what is mundane in one local is exotic in another, and underlying the daily events in all of our lives, there is profound truth lurking in the seemingly mundane details of living."

In the early 90s, Lyle Hiroshi Saxon filmed many hours of video documenting scenes and life in Tokyo and other areas in Japan.
1990 / 1991 / 1992 / 1993
posted by timshel at 11:45 PM PST - 9 comments

A little more than five years ago, a previously unused Reddit account began posting seemingly random strings of numbers and text in a new subreddit it had created. To the casual eye, there wasn’t much to see. The subreddit shared the same inscrutable set of numbers and letters as its moderator; the sidebar and comments provided no clarifying information.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:19 PM PST - 20 comments

The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin - "Ursula Kroeber was born in Berkeley, in 1929, into a family busy with the reading, recording, telling, and inventing of stories. She grew up listening to her aunt Betsy’s memories of a pioneer childhood and to California Indian legends retold by her father. One legend of the Yurok people says that, far out in the Pacific Ocean but not farther than a canoe can paddle, the rim of the sky makes waves by beating on the surface of the water. On every twelfth upswing, the sky moves a little more slowly, so that a skilled navigator has enough time to slip beneath its rim, reach the outer ocean, and dance all night on the shore of another world."
posted by kliuless at 10:34 PM PST - 29 comments

Jeff Beck describing (and playing!) some of his favorite guitars. (SLYT)
posted by dfm500 at 10:00 PM PST - 17 comments

Almost 100,000 dogs are euthanised every year in Taiwan. The dogs caught on the street are kept in the kennel for twelve days waiting for adoption. If nobody rescues them over that period of time, they are put down. The ones who are seriously ill and suffering are put down immediately. Yun-Fei Tou is the author of Memento Mori, a series of portraits of these Taiwanese stray dogs taken just before being euthanised. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:24 PM PST - 37 comments

Pamela Buttery noticed something peculiar six years ago while practicing golf putting in her 57th-floor apartment at the luxurious Millennium Tower. The ball kept veering to the same corner of her living room.

The Millennium Tower in San Francisco's Financial District is sinking, and leaning. And it shows no signs of stopping. [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 8:49 PM PST - 71 comments

Inmates explain how they'd run prisons. From saving prisons money to encouraging good behavior, most suggestions have this in common: respect the basic dignity of the people behind bars.
posted by blankdawn at 7:39 PM PST - 10 comments

"Your wife always used to say you'd be late for your own funeral. Remember that? Her little joke because you were such a slob—always late, always forgetting stuff, even before the incident. Right about now you're probably wondering if you were late for hers." This is the beginning of Memento Mori, a short story by Jonathan Nolan, which was originally published with an Esquire article Everything you wanted to know about "Memento". Jonathan also read the story, which became the movie Memento (trailer, original 2000 era website, still online - previously, twice). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 6:44 PM PST - 4 comments

Stranger Things is streaming on Netflix, so just in time for Halloween, Netflix Kitchens shows you how to make French Onion Barb and Demogorgon Pie.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:07 PM PST - 9 comments

The Police Killings No One Is Talking About. "Native Americans are being killed by police at a higher rate than any other group in the country - but these deaths are rarely covered in the media. Now, Native groups are organizing for justice in a growing Native Lives Matter movement." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 3:55 PM PST - 29 comments

Marlow Moss was a radical lesbian who apprenticed herself to Léger and became a modernist to rival Mondrian.
She is one of the great figures of modern English art (keep Scrolling).
The first full-length academic study of Marlow Moss in English wasn't written until 2008.
posted by adamvasco at 2:14 PM PST - 14 comments

"A sculpted pair of figures thirty-three feet tall, on a high platform, were striding triumphantly toward the German pavilion. I therefore designed a cubic mass, also elevated on stout pillars, which seemed to be checking this onslaught, while from the cornice of my tower an eagle with the swastika in its claws looked down on the Russian sculptures. I received a gold medal for the building; so did my Soviet colleague." A story of dueling architecture at the Paris International Exposition of 1937.
posted by theodolite at 1:59 PM PST - 4 comments

GTFO: an eviction story in one Ellis Act by Kenny Keil.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:47 PM PST - 11 comments

Infuse Your Booze! Don't let the gift-giving season catch you unawares; whip up a big batch of homemade liqueur this week and all you'll have to do is wait. Some of my tried-and-true favorites under the fold. [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 1:33 PM PST - 34 comments

The man that Daniel Raeburn suggested was "the most widely read theologian in human history," for better or worse, has died. A report from the official social media of Chick Publications states that Jack T. Chick has passed away at the age of 92. The wide, insane, paranoid, KJV-only, anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic, anti-Semitic, and, of course, loving world of Chick's work has appeared in the finest of public transit and mall restrooms for decades. An accessible and delightful in-depth critical review of his work can be found in The Imp, available here [nsfw] as a PDF [direct link].
posted by Countess Elena at 12:42 PM PST - 149 comments

Roly poly Tibetan monks having roly poly fun (FB link) doing handstands badly over barrels. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 12:13 PM PST - 6 comments

We asked our librarian delegates to help us build the perfect library by answering one simple question: which one book couldn’t you live without?
posted by infini at 11:41 AM PST - 38 comments

The Sinking of El Faro: On October 1, 2015, the container ship El Faro sailed directly into the path of Hurricane Joaquin. When it sank it took the lives of all 33 aboard, including eight New Englanders. Rachel Slade wanted to know what happened and why. You will not soon forget what she found.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:39 AM PST - 44 comments

Meet her newest incarnation: Joanne. "She’s Burt Bacharach in sequined hot pants; she’s a Liza Minnelli for the Beyoncé era; she’s Streisand Spice. She projects the kind of timelessness that makes it very easy to forget that Lady Gaga is just 30, a ’90s kid trying more to be slightly more like Cole Porter than Kurt Cobain."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:03 AM PST - 45 comments

Classic black TV shows haven’t made the jump to streaming platforms — and their window of opportunity may be closing
posted by Etrigan at 5:56 AM PST - 76 comments

Tom Hayden, member of the Chicago Seven, one of the founders of the SDS, politician and leading anti-Vietnam War activist has passed away at the age of 76. Link to recent NPR podcast from the DNC.
posted by HuronBob at 3:56 AM PST - 53 comments

Dr. Rahul Jandial takes us inside the thoughts of a brain surgeon. After working on flesh and bone for 30 minutes, the real summit presented itself: the human brain, the most delicate, complex, and beautiful thing [in] the universe.
posted by pjern at 9:02 PM PST - 30 comments

"Anthropodermic bibliopegy, or books bound in human skin," writes Megan Rosenbloom in Lapham's Quarterly, "are some of the most mysterious and misunderstood books in the world’s libraries and museums. The historical reasons behind their creation vary [...] The best evidence most of these alleged skin books have ever had were rumors and perhaps a pencil-written note inside that said 'bound in human skin'...until now." Anthropodermic biblipegy on Metafilter previously and previously. Warning: links may contain details disturbing for some. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:32 PM PST - 7 comments

201 smiling animals!
posted by Room 641-A at 2:50 PM PST - 18 comments

[T]o toast the 10th birthday of The Black Parade, I called up two black writers whose work I adore and whose taste I admire, to have the exchange of ideas I wish I'd known how to have way back when. Here's hoping it reaches a few brown kids still learning how to trust themselves. NPR Music's Daoud Tyler-Ameen offers up a 25m audio article and an accompanying article about being black and loving My Chemical Romance's mega-hit album, released on Oct 23, 2006.
posted by hippybear at 2:45 PM PST - 13 comments

We Salted Nannie. A small tale of ghosts and spirits both real and semi-real, and what lies buried in the past.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 12:48 PM PST - 20 comments

June 2016; a small cardboard sign appears by the A456 Hagley Road, near Birmingham UK. It reads 'who put Bella in the wych elm'. A few new twists have recently been added to a 73 year old murder mystery, including a connection to the last man executed in the tower of London. [more inside]
posted by AFII at 10:55 AM PST - 9 comments

Shelter. a collaboration between Porter Robinson, Madeon, Crunchyroll , and A-1 Productions. [more inside]
posted by zabuni at 10:49 AM PST - 8 comments

I hardly ever heard about the Nagô, the Afro-Brazilians, and the Lukumí, the Afro-Cubans, who returned back to West Africa. The idea that the Yorùbá people share one identity is strongly related to the transatlantic experience of the slave trade and the returnees’ influence in the homeland. This story contributes a lot to the classical discussions of what is ‘Original-Yorùbá’ and what a diaspora invention - as not even the word ‘Yorùbá’ is of ‘Yorùbá’ origin itself. I summed up the basic facts.

posted by infini at 10:20 AM PST - 17 comments

BBC Four Documentary: Jacques Peretti explores how public bodies utilise their resources and asks whether taxpayers are getting value for money. [slyt]
posted by marienbad at 9:25 AM PST - 13 comments

Peruvian shamanic whistling vessels. Being made out of clay archaeologists first thought these beautiful, ceramic sculptures were water bottles or toys until an amateur anthropologist explored their ritual use. One can just blow into the vessel but when water is added in one of the chambers and the vessel is rocked back and forth the shifting air creates an interesting sound pattern. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 8:55 AM PST - 10 comments

You have been invited to visit a haunted mansion owned by a ghost named Spooky. Can you survive all 1,000 rooms of jump scares? Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion is a free (Steam and Indie DB) 2.5D FPS puzzle survival horror game. Despite its cute exterior, there's more to Spooky's house than meets the eye. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 8:52 AM PST - 7 comments

Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war. Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back. [more inside]
posted by Shmuel510 at 8:51 AM PST - 62 comments

Meridian 59 is one of the longest running original online role-playing games. Launched in 1996, the game was a commercial venture until 2009 and the game files were open sourced in 2012. The once massively multiplayer online game now is rarely hosting more than twenty people at a time, the last survivors of Meridian 59. [via]
posted by jessamyn at 8:31 AM PST - 9 comments

Jumping spiders don't have ears—but they can still hear you coming. This may only apply to hunting spiders. However, orb weavers can control their web’s tension and stiffness to help them identify potential partners as well as prey. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:15 AM PST - 12 comments

The latest game in a long running series of classics has just been released! No, not that one. Why not spend ten minutes playing the latest GROW game, GROW Cinderella.
posted by Rinku at 5:32 AM PST - 14 comments

Google researcher Elie Bursztein leads their anti-abuse research team. He sometimes posts articles of extreme interest to game players and computer security people. Such as using machine learning to predict Hearthstone decks: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3. His list of publications leads to a wealth of interesting information, for people of various technical inclinations! [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 3:08 AM PST - 18 comments

This is a website about the British Rail Corporate Identity from 1965–1994 which includes a wealth of digitised examples of British Rail design material collected over several years. I hope you find it useful and inspiring, whether you're a practitioner or historian of graphic design, a scale modeller or simply a connoisseur of corporate design at its aesthetically satisfying best.
posted by jack_mo at 10:17 PM PST - 16 comments

Artist and co-creator of the comic book Preacher, Steve Dillon, has died at the age of 54, his brother announced today on Twitter. Dillon was best known for his artistry on Preacher from Vertigo Comics, and the Punisher from Marvel Comics, both written by Garth Ennis. Some of his art can be seen here (not Dillon's tumblr).
posted by skycrashesdown at 7:43 PM PST - 43 comments

A visualization of the river basins of the continental United States
posted by Rhomboid at 6:40 PM PST - 34 comments

Howard Schneider was a doctor treating psychiatric patients in the ER when he decided to transform the grocery store experience. He set out to invent the self checkout machine (partial transcript here). Schneider's self-checkout kiosk was first deployed at a Price Chopper supermarket in Clifton Park, New York in 1992. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:21 PM PST - 85 comments

What Makes a New York City Kid?
posted by strelitzia at 4:45 PM PST - 12 comments

It’s kind of an old southern version of hide and seek. One of our favorite old fashioned kids games was a game we played at night. It was one of our “scary” old fashioned outdoor games, called “ain’t no boogers out tonight.” Never heard of it, huh? It’s kind of an old southern version of hide and seek. One person is the “booger” (monster, villain). The booger hides, and the rest of the kids try to find him. They travel around in the dark in a gang, chanting, “Ain’t no boogers out tonight; Granpa shot ‘em all last night.” Once the booger is discovered, he tries to catch as many kids as he can before they can return safely to base.
posted by ND¢ at 4:35 PM PST - 61 comments

Homeric Singing - An Approach to the Original Performance is the website of Professors Georg Danek and Stefan Hagel. There they have a five minutes of their educated best guess of how ancient Greek bards would have sounded like, singing the epics of Homer accompanying themselves on a phorminx. [via Open Culture]
posted by Kattullus at 3:31 PM PST - 11 comments

AT&T Agrees to Buy Time Warner for More Than $80 Billion [The Washington Post] “AT&T’s ambitious move to acquire Time Warner for more than $80 billion, which the Wall Street Journal first reported could be announced as soon as Saturday, would singlehandedly turn America’s second-largest wireless carrier into a content powerhouse and one of the most prominent TV, film and video-game producers in the world. AT&T and Time Warner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 12:38 PM PST - 58 comments

The PBS documentary series "The Migrant Kitchen" explores Los Angeles’ booming food scene through the eyes of a new generation of chefs whose cuisine is inspired by the immigrant experience. The filmmakers visit the kitchens of those who have transformed the culinary landscape of the city, combining traditional ethnic cuisines and a fusion of new flavors and techniques. Ep 1: Chirmol: How a Guatemalan Tradition Journeyed to an American Menu; Ep 2: Barkada: L.A.’s Exploding Filipino Food Movement; Ep 3: Mercado: Artisanal Street Food & L.A.'s Best Mole; Ep 4: Loghmeh: Whole Animal Roasts & Middle-Eastern Culinary Traditions; Ep 5: Banchan: Korean Food Beyond BBQ. [Scroll down the pages for related background and recipes.]
posted by Room 641-A at 12:06 PM PST - 9 comments

A Defcon 2016 talk about a very sophisticated hi-tech gadget designed to cheat at cards.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:25 AM PST - 25 comments

"The 1970s produced acclaimed horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, Jaws, Carrie, and Halloween. But the decade also unleashed cinematic oddities galore, most of which were low-budget entries that gleefully pushed the boundaries of good taste. You say “cult movie”—we say “essential.”" (io9)
posted by valkane at 10:54 AM PST - 78 comments

I have a lot of friends who used to watch anime but don’t anymore, partly because, like me, it became too hard to seek out anime that treated women well. There are also lots of people who are enthusiastic about other geek properties but won’t touch anime because of its reputation of infantilizing women and sexualizing children. It makes it hard to recommend anime to people who aren’t already fans.

Amelia Cook on the need for more feminist criticism in anime. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 7:09 AM PST - 78 comments

Dogs are too amazing to let go, but sometimes it happens and they will forgive you. — For about two months Hannah has been having seizures, they were small and nothing to worry about, but they gradually got worse. (Alternate link) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:44 AM PST - 38 comments

OCTOBER 22ND IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!1!!!!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!
posted by eyeballkid at 12:05 AM PST - 172 comments

Couple Encounters a Black Metal Band in Woods During Engagement Shoot
posted by Artw at 9:17 PM PST - 45 comments

Brazilian musician, Ed Motta, created a good mix of Japanese 70s-80s AOR music titled: Japanese City Pop Mix Vol. 2. [more inside]
posted by gen at 6:31 PM PST - 13 comments

Dr Casey Handmer (homepage) gave a talk last month to the Mars Society about why getting humans to Mars will be really hard. He's also written a much more detailed analysis.
posted by moonmilk at 4:40 PM PST - 60 comments

A major figure in higher education has passed. William G. Bowen was president of Princeton, head of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and helped launch a variety of projects, including JSTOR, Artstor, and Ithaka Harbors. 2012 winner of the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal, Bowen also found time to write nineteen books, many influential, often on higher education.
posted by doctornemo at 4:28 PM PST - 11 comments

Confirming months of speculation, the official Star Wars Twitter account has announced that Community and Atlanta star Donald Glover has been cast as smooth-talking space pirate Lando Calrissian in Disney’s upcoming Han Solo film.
posted by misterbee at 4:04 PM PST - 89 comments

This Is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium Is The Massage [54m] is a well-done little-known film put out in conjunction with his well-known book The Medium Is The Massage: An Inventory Of Effects [pdf page includes download link] and the cult album The Medium Is The Massage: with Marshall McLuhan [41m]. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 3:21 PM PST - 27 comments

The lady in seat 4F, though, the one in the light cashmere pullover reading the newspaper, she clicked the latch on her seat-back tray and said: “Double Smirnoff, on the rocks. And Doritos.” NYTimes [more inside]
posted by mosessis at 3:12 PM PST - 53 comments

How a tiny Florida community could influence the way we fight Zika around the world
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:11 PM PST - 4 comments

With the final debate behind us (MetaFilter), many people registered and many states now voting, we're into the last few weeks of this increasingly globally watched 2016 US election. These are unhappy days for Donald, with that debate not going well for him and launching a hundred t-shirt designs, the map shrinking, likely voters not helping, and being booed at a charity dinner; sad! Hillary, at increasingly shorter odds to win, seems to be having a better time, while Joe has a hot car (MetaFilter) and Evan McMullin (who) (twitter) continues to make the presidential vote in Utah more interesting. But it's not just the presidency up for election; there's the Senate (538 forecast), House, and various measures such as the minimum wage, and 17 propositions in California (also on MetaFilter), plus a crucial vote in Westport. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 2:15 PM PST - 3761 comments

Frozen Dreams: Russia's Arctic obsession (16 min.) is a Financial Times video feature about Russian Federation preparations to take advantage of the Northern Sea Route opening up along its Arctic coast, which may at some point offer a preferable path for global shipping between the Atlantic region and East Asia, in comparison with the conventional route through the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, and Indian Ocean. [more inside]
posted by XMLicious at 2:01 PM PST - 2 comments

10 minutes of Kate McKinnon's improvised outtakes from Ghostbusters. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 11:25 AM PST - 60 comments

Drugslab is an educational YouTube channel about drugs. On this YouTube channel we will take in the drugs you want us to try. We do this in the name of science so we can show you what the effects of drugs are on the human body. ... Besides our weekly experiment, we provide you of safe methods of use, safe doses, the effects, the risks and very useful do's and don'ts when high on drugs. Given by experienced epicureans. Light it up people, in the name of science! Peace. Dutch language, English subtitles, links inside. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 11:01 AM PST - 26 comments

A look at Arno Schmidt's challenging 1970 work Bottom's Dream, newly translated into English.
posted by holmesian at 10:33 AM PST - 18 comments

The historic 20th season of the WNBA culminated in a hotly contested finals match up between the two best teams of the league, culminating in game five was decided in the final seconds [more inside]
posted by anthropophagous at 10:22 AM PST - 5 comments

Many sites including Twitter, Shopify and Spotify suffering outage. USA Today and Fortune Magazine offer additional details. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the Department of Homeland Security was “monitoring the situation" but that “at this point [we] don’t have any information about who may be responsible for this malicious activity.”
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:08 AM PST - 258 comments

My non-verbal son communicates through ‘Hamilton’ [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:15 AM PST - 14 comments

A Walking Tour Of The Places Where I Hit Rock Bottom by writer Michelle Tea
posted by gwint at 8:11 AM PST - 5 comments

David Hall is snapping up farmland to bring his vision of a sustainable high-density community to life. The neighbors are horrified. (SLBloomberg)
posted by zebra at 7:56 AM PST - 63 comments

How is prangent formed? The legend continues
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:42 AM PST - 33 comments

The regime’s state of emergency, announced this month, has legitimated two things. The first one is that it formalized the regime’s implicit desire and behaviour of being a military dictatorship... Secondly, it made it official that the slow motion mass murder the regime has been undertaking for the last 25 years could be carried out with full scale and coordinated order of the “command post” with much bigger causalities than the “red terror” of 1978-79.
posted by BekahVee at 5:02 AM PST - 12 comments

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is the latest film by Ang Lee and premiered this week at two theaters. It also happens to be the latest major experiment with HFR (High Frame Rate, previously) in a major motion picture since Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy. But wheras Jackson shot at 48 fps, Lee has gone all the way up to 120 fps. The results? Well, reactions are mixed, but Slate's Daniel Engber tries to get at why that might be.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:28 AM PST - 28 comments

What makes an image NSFW, according to Yahoo's recently open sourced neural network, open_nsfw?
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:41 AM PST - 36 comments

21st October 1966, 9.20am and school had just started. (Trigger warning - immense tragedy involving children.) It's 50 years to the day that the tragedy at Aberfan occurred. A school was lost and a community was devastated. And those responsible denied their culpability for as long as possible. [more inside]
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 11:59 PM PST - 48 comments

Tiny Hamster Is A Zombie! (Tiny Hamster previously)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:19 PM PST - 9 comments

New techniques mean that wood can now be used for much taller buildings - "Wood has many attractions as a construction material, apart from its aesthetic qualities. A wooden building is about a quarter of the weight of an equivalent reinforced-concrete structure, which means foundations can be smaller. Timber is a sustainable material and a natural 'sink' for CO2... Using wood could reduce their carbon footprint by 60-75%, according to some studies. There are two main concerns about using wood to build high. The first is whether wood is strong enough... the second worry: fire."
posted by kliuless at 9:41 PM PST - 30 comments

The sixth official installment in the Civilization computer game series drops any minute now, and the anticipation is at its usual fever pitch. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:55 PM PST - 117 comments

Vroom, vroom! [more inside]
posted by Guy Smiley at 3:20 PM PST - 69 comments

Wells Fargo Fined $185 Million for Fraudulently Opening Accounts [The New York Times] “For years, Wells Fargo employees secretly issued credit cards without a customer’s consent. They created fake email accounts to sign up customers for online banking services. They set up sham accounts that customers learned about only after they started accumulating fees. On Thursday, these illegal banking practices cost Wells Fargo $185 million in fines, including a $100 million penalty from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the largest such penalty the agency has issued. Federal banking regulators said the practices, which date back to 2011, reflected serious flaws in the internal culture and oversight at Wells Fargo, one of the nation’s largest banks. The bank has fired at least 5,300 employees who were involved. In all, Wells Fargo employees opened roughly 1.5 million bank accounts and applied for 565,000 credit cards that may not have been authorized by customers, the regulators said in a news conference. The bank has 40 million retail customers.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:57 PM PST - 81 comments

And in the thoughtless, uncredited, mangled deployment of that phrase — even in praise — Gaiman broke the chain between the two of them; a prominent, living male artist inserted between Russ’ ideas and Jackson’s reality.

On Neil Gaiman, Shirley Jackson, and the importance of not erasing women’s writing by Carmen Maria Machado
posted by MartinWisse at 2:34 PM PST - 59 comments

"[I]n a modest apartment in the town of Nuoro, a slight 62-year-old named Paola Abraini wakes up every day at 7 am to begin making su filindeu – the rarest pasta in the world."

posted by SansPoint at 12:44 PM PST - 52 comments

We teach our students that the first move in an argument is often one of definition: gun as tool. Gun as "objective correlative" (T. S. Eliot) of "liberty" (Wayne LaPierre). Gun as "right" that, if left "unexercised," will be lost (opencarry.org). While running for president, Jeb Bush argued that our country is a gun when he tweeted a photo of his engraved handgun with a one-word caption, "America." A gun is a little cannon for killing that we've sentimentalized and normalized. [American Weather]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 12:43 PM PST - 46 comments

In 2008, Iggy Pop asked Jim Jarmusch to make a documentary about Pop's wildly unsuccessful (until recently) but hugely influential band The Stooges. It took 7 years, during which time many of the original members died... but now the film is finished, and it opens in limited release on October 28th. Pop and Jarmusch interviewed each other in Rolling Stone for the release. [more inside]
posted by Huck500 at 12:17 PM PST - 27 comments

A walk through Kampala's Taxi Park with animator Duncan Senkuba. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 11:12 AM PST - 5 comments

Thousands of gay and bisexual men convicted under outdated gross indecency laws are to be posthumously pardoned , the Government has announced, in a “momentous” victory for campaigners‘. Alan Turing law’ unveiled by government will posthumously pardon thousands of gay men convicted of historic offences.
posted by marienbad at 10:48 AM PST - 30 comments

“We live in China, but we saw Fugazi’s DVD as many times as you guys did in America,” says Xubo, singer and guitarist for the most successful contemporary emo band in China, Chinese Football. “I grew up [on] the late ‘90s and early ’00s pop-punk and emo wave,” he says, “so I loved U.S. bands like blink-182, Green Day, Jimmy Eat World, and all the bands from Drive-Thru Records back in high school. As I grew up, I listened to more and more.” - The rise of Emo in Asia
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:37 AM PST - 4 comments

From Sugarhill Gang to Trinidad James, a Look at the Influences of Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars' 'Uptown Funk' Part of the excitement of Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk," the just-released kickoff single from the DJ/producer's Uptown Special is catching the allusions to one early '80s funk/R&B classic after another. Even on Ronson's own Facebook page fans cite "Cameo horns, the Time [keyboards], and 'Party Train' [by the Gap Band] drums."There’s an irony here. Because “Uptown Funk” is effectively a new Bruno Mars single as well, it received instant airplay at top 40 radio, including the “world premiere” treatment from some iHeart Media stations. By comparison, many of the early ‘80s classics referenced were released during the worst period of a "disco backlash" that effectively kept all types of black music, not just disco, off of top 40 for three years, beginning in fall 1979.
posted by josher71 at 9:19 AM PST - 14 comments

72 tiny animals in tiny sweaters!!!!
posted by Room 641-A at 9:05 AM PST - 23 comments

Hugh Jackman unsheathes his claws one last time to bid farewell to Wolverine AKA Logan AKA James Howett, a role he has played for 17 years. The first trailer for Logan, which borrows some concepts from the grimdark Old Man Logan comics by longtime MetaFilter-favorite Mark Millar, is out. The film is directed by James Mangold, who directed the second standalone film starring everyone's favorite hairy Canuck as well as a little biopic that bears some connection to the trailer's music and title card look. [more inside]
posted by entropicamericana at 7:50 AM PST - 76 comments

After endless speculation and at the tail end of a console that was largely a commercial flop, Nintendo has unveiled the Nintendo Switch. [more inside]
posted by selfnoise at 7:10 AM PST - 159 comments

Daniel Turducken Stinkerbutt is an emotional support duck that recently flew for the first time. (SLWP) The duck’s human introduced him to their fellow, now-amused passengers: This was Daniel Turducken Stinkerbutt, or Daniel for short. He is a 4 1/2-year-old Indian Runner duck and is her emotional support animal, she explained.
posted by whitetigereyes at 6:18 AM PST - 44 comments

The Navy is jettisoning its complex ratings system to make sailors' jobs more understandable and allow them to more easily transfer occupations. This change represents a significant cultural shift and it is recognized that it will not happen overnight, but will take time to become fully adapted. [more inside]
posted by zinon at 5:11 AM PST - 37 comments

Mr. Wright of Louisville Male High School I found this while I was supposed to be doing homework. This is way more interesting. (Warning: It's dusty in here...)
posted by dfm500 at 8:47 PM PST - 12 comments

Q: What do you call a theoretical aurochs-bison hybrid that could only be proven by a scientific hybrid of DNA analysis and ancient cave paintings?

A: The Higgs bison.
posted by Etrigan at 7:49 PM PST - 10 comments

What Happened to Eastern Airlines Flight 980? On New Year's Day in 1985, Eastern Air Lines Flight 980 was carrying 29 passengers and a hell of a lot of contraband when it crashed into the side of a 21,112-foot mountain in Bolivia. For decades conspiracy theories abounded as the wreckage remained inaccessible, the bodies unrecovered, the black box missing. Then two friends from Boston organized an expedition that would blow the case wide open.
posted by mlis at 5:34 PM PST - 13 comments

With 20 days to go until Election Day, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off in their third and final debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas at 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Print out your Bingo cards and tune in to any major network (BBC News and Sky News in the UK) or listen on NPR. Alternately, watch on one of YouTube's channels in English (NBC, PBS, Fox News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, C-SPAN) and Spanish (Univision, Telemundo.) Twitter will stream Bloomberg. Facebook has ABC and PBS. C-SPAN has its own feed (C-SPAN Radio is also streaming.) You can watch in virtual reality (Gear, Rift, or Vive) via AltspaceVR, although that may not be a good idea. If you hurry, you can even watch for free in your local Regal Cinema. [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:31 PM PST - 3775 comments

New York city is home to tens of thousands of stray cats and there are around 500 registered feral cat colonies in NYC. The latest real estate boom is also pushing out your local stray cat. Vacant lots, old factories, former warehouses and even shuttered hospitals are being redeveloped, forcing colonies of strays to find new habitats. While the cats help keep the vermin population in check, they can also carry disease, kill backyard wildlife “Outdoor cats obliterate wildlife,” said Robert Johns of the American Bird Conservancy, “and yet they get special treatment. We don’t allow colonies of feral dogs to roam around.” [more inside]
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 2:31 PM PST - 45 comments

After years of heavy use, some chronic pot smokers begin to vomit repeatedly and feel nausea and abdominal cramps, and the only source of relief is "stifling hot water... the hottest water I could get. My body was beet blood red afterwards." First described medically in Australia in 2004, the biological mechanism is not known, though the hypothalamus is a prime suspect and compulsive bathing in hot water is a typical symptom. High Times says that the syndrome is very rare, though one Canadian emergency room physician says he personally sees about one case a week. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 2:20 PM PST - 40 comments

Do you want to watch a skeletal puppet duo perform "Oye Como Va?" I thought so. How about a lone skeleton puppet doing "Let's Twist Again?" But if rock isn't your bag, there's always the Walt Disney classic Silly Symphony: "The Skeleton Dance."
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:15 PM PST - 8 comments

Colin Benders, aka Kyteman, in a #Eurorack jamsession:
Reunion
Feels
FeelsGoodMan
on a huge synth that's not just noodling (and on twitch.tv [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:23 PM PST - 3 comments

When part-time Cubs meme creator Matt Paolelli noticed the near-rhyme of “Clark and Addison” to a certain hit musical, he knew he’d found fertile ground
posted by pjern at 12:25 PM PST - 7 comments

It’s the evening of April 30th of this year. I’m sitting on the edge of my bathtub smoking. I smoke almost every day. I am standing on the edge of an abyss. Everything feels wrong and I have no idea why. I’m covered in molasses, dragged to earth. I have strange ideas, strange fantasies. Nothing makes sense. I don’t know why. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 10:33 AM PST - 46 comments

Everyone knows Queen's stomping, clapping epic, "We Will Rock You." In 1977, the band recorded a fast version of the song for the BBC's John Peel. This version sees release November 4th with other rarities on the upcoming Queen on the Air
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:22 AM PST - 39 comments

Se Ri Pak recently retired from her astonishing 18 year LPGA career, after winning 25 LPGA Tour titles and five majors, two of them during a rookie season in 1998 that "gave women's golf its biggest boost since Nancy Lopez." She was the youngest player to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2007, but she qualified two years earlier, when she was 28 and had to wait to meet the minimum career length rule. Pak won 14 times on the Korean LPGA and captained South Korea's Olympic team in Rio, where Inbee Park won the gold medal. Park is one of the Se Ri Kids, a generation of golfers, mostly South Korean women, many who were inspired by her 1998 performance in the US Women's Open. Parting video: players, friends and fans salute Se Ri Pak as she plays her last LPGA round.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:22 AM PST - 3 comments

In which a rich Silicon Valley Libertarian decides to build a children's playground.
posted by Scoop at 9:59 AM PST - 161 comments

A Pakistani teenager gets a job making tea. One day in the market, in his striking blue shirt, he is suddenly the next big thing!
posted by Oyéah at 9:23 AM PST - 12 comments

"However, our race-based skepticism actually makes us nicer. Because of what we see on TV and movies, we assume all White people are one bad breakup or firing away from becoming a serial killer. I know that’s very prejudiced, but just like how your kin clutch their purses when we pass them in parking lots of Target, Black people will be nice to you for the first three months because they want to be the one person you spare when you go on your shooting spree."-The Caucasian's guide to Black neighborhoods
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:59 AM PST - 44 comments

Scholars and activists, poets and playwrights have been writing about rape for centuries. What would the conversation around sexual assault, police bias, and the legal system look like if investigators, police officers, and judges read deeply into the literature on sexuality, racial justice, violence, and power? It is in view of this question that the following syllabus is offered as a scholarly resource—and object of critical discussion and debate—on "rape culture" in the 21st century. Public Books presents a 13-week Rape Culture Syllabus. [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 8:51 AM PST - 2 comments

We're all witches now: with our black turtlenecks, our blood-brown lipstick, our crescent moons and evil eyes, our combat boots and girl gangs and moon cycle apps. We've been shimmering like mood rings for a while now. [more inside]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:49 AM PST - 18 comments

The octopus hunters of Zanzibar (photostory)
posted by infini at 8:47 AM PST - 6 comments

BBC: Rushcliffe Borough Council said rough sleepers had been "causing a nuisance" in West Bridgford, a suburb of Nottingham nicknamed Bread and Lard Island because of its large houses. Campaign group Liberty said the fines were "cruel" and called on the government to scrap powers allowing them. Rushcliffe Borough Council said the fixed penalties were a "last resort". If people fail to pay the initial £100 fixed penalty notices they may be prosecuted, with the maximum fine being £1,000. [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 8:32 AM PST - 11 comments

Illustrations of mental illness.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:21 AM PST - 25 comments

The government sentced former Swiss banker Bradley A. Birkenfeld to three years in prison for abetting tax evasion. They also paid him $104 million dollars for blowing the whistle on tax evasion. (SLMedium)
posted by Diablevert at 7:02 AM PST - 14 comments

Hey, Harry Potter fans! Do you want to know when and how often each magic spell was cast in the Harry Potter novels? Sure you do. Link to full chart.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:56 AM PST - 10 comments

APM Reports, the investigative journalism effort from American Public Media, has just released the eighth and final episode of In The Dark, a podcast looking into the abduction and investigation of the 1989 Jacob Wetterling kidnapping which coincidentally debuted a week after a courtroom confession was made solving the 27-year-old mystery. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:33 AM PST - 14 comments

ShowTime has released a teaser video for the new season of Twin Peaks, with cast members describing their experience on set. There is no firm release date yet, however. Mark Frost's Secret History of Twin Peaks was also released today. It is a detailed account of the world that surrounds the show, and may tide you over until we finally get to see what Coop has been up to in the 25 year hiatus since the end of the show. A large, large number of previouslies await your perusal.
posted by codacorolla at 10:44 PM PST - 44 comments

There’s a carbon tax on the ballot in Washington this November, meant not just to put the state on the path to its climate targets but to serve as an example to other states. The measure, called Initiative 732, isn’t just any carbon tax, either. It’s a big one. It would be the first carbon tax in the US, the biggest in North America, and one of the most ambitious in the world.

And yet the left opposes it. The Democratic Party, community-of-color groups, organized labor, big liberal donors, and even most big environmental groups have come out against it. Why on Earth would the left oppose the first and biggest carbon tax in the country?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:18 PM PST - 58 comments

The finalists for the 2016 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have been announced.
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 PM PST - 48 comments

Nearly one in 10 New York City schoolkids was homeless during the school year that ended last June, representing a 22% jump in homelessness over the year before. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:33 PM PST - 18 comments

Is satire dead? (SLGuardian)
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:07 PM PST - 79 comments

Don’t believe the hype that you hear about the water being fixed. That water’s not fixed. This shit ain’t over. Just because it isn’t being talked about doesn’t mean it’s over. Light still needs to be shone on this.

-- Rasheed Wallace in The Players Tribune on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
posted by lkc at 1:41 PM PST - 34 comments

"A mixologist is just a bartender with fresh ginger on hand who will wait five minutes longer to punch you the fuck out." A nice story well told.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 12:42 PM PST - 35 comments

A future shaped, at least in part, by women poses such a profound identity threat as to be unthinkable to many ordinary joes.
posted by Lycaste at 10:38 AM PST - 80 comments

Westworld is a good TV show about a terrible video game [more inside]
posted by Artw at 9:44 AM PST - 113 comments

An aqueduct, an escape route, an air raid shelter, and an impound lot. Naples Bourbon Tunnel descends 30 meters into the bowels of Monte Echia and travels through 500 years of Neapolitan history. But since the 1970s, these tunnels were forgotten, until local geologists Gianluca Minin and Enzo De Luzio were told about them by a man who had sheltered in them during World War II. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:33 AM PST - 6 comments

How the Grinch Stole IoT — Level 3 Threat Research Labs reports on the Mirai malware, which has spawned numerous botnets, including the one responsible for the distributed denial-of-service attack that took down the popular KrebsOnSecurity blog (previously).
posted by tonycpsu at 9:24 AM PST - 22 comments

“Ethanol was a surprise -- it’s extremely difficult to go straight from carbon dioxide to ethanol with a single catalyst.” [more inside]
posted by mrjohnmuller at 8:26 AM PST - 36 comments

How To Choose a Halloween Costume That Isn't Racist By Caity Weaver
posted by palegirl at 8:18 AM PST - 80 comments

North Of Reality is a fiction website and twitter account featuring many worlds, copious annotations, and A Menu or Two.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:25 AM PST - 5 comments

"a sought-after acoustics genius" One third of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, which helped build ARPANET, Beranek was an important acoustical engineer. Died at 102.
posted by doctornemo at 5:49 AM PST - 17 comments

My Memento Mori project follows the tradition of the 16th Century Dutch Vanitas painting movement, which took decaying objects as its subject matter, symbolizing the ephemeral nature of life and the certainty of death. Though none of the subjects I have photographed are endangered, they pay homage to the many species that have been pushed to the margins of existence and of their habitats by the relentless growth of human civilization. — Bobby Neel Adams exhibit at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, through October 30.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:15 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Sometimes, you need to open a bottle of Coke from across the room, and all you have is a table tennis paddle and a ball. If you are a member of Pongfinity, this is not a problem. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:22 PM PST - 26 comments

HyperNormalisation (UK-only iPlayer) (region-free link), the new BBC documentary from Adam Curtis (previously), covers four decades leading up to today's seemingly inexplicable chaos - the Syrian Civil War, Brexit, Vladimir Putin, the Islamic State, waves of refugees, suicide bombs, and on and on. Curtis argues "all of us in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us we accept it as normal." This version of normal, promoted by the Internet and 24-hour news cycle, is now under assault by forces that everyone from Patti Smith, Colonel Gaddafi, and Jane Fonda to Henry Kissinger, the Assad dynasty, and Putin's post-modern propagandist, Vladislav Surkov, has been trying to forget over forty years. (Youtube trailer) (Warning: footage of blood, dead bodies, etc)
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:30 PM PST - 85 comments

The United Federation of "hold my beer, I got this" aka the real reason why it's always human starships that suffer transporter mishaps, random space warps or time travel. (An imgr album of a Tumblr thread because apparantly in the new internet 2.0 search is basically useless.)
posted by MartinWisse at 3:00 PM PST - 113 comments

Above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, a half-day's journey by snowmobile from the nearest paved road or tree, a village called Kivalina sits on a slip of permanently frozen earth bracketed by water — a lagoon on one side and the Chukchi Sea on the other. Everything on Kivalina is hard: there are no roads, few jobs, and rising waters that will soon swallow the island whole. But life can get better if the villagers catch a whale. It hasn't happened since 1994, but that's no reason to give up. This just might be the year. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:17 PM PST - 3 comments

"I’m always shocked when critics of the mid-20th Century architectural style known as Michigan Modern decry that period as a silly time of tail fins on cars, uncomfortable furniture, and shiny, kitschy buildings. Shocked, because I think Michigan Modern, properly understood, remains our greatest architectural expression." [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:45 PM PST - 28 comments

Who is Alex Trebek? is a collaborative response to the massive shade thrown by the game show host recently, when he called current three-day champion Susan Cole and her fellow Nerdcore fans 'losers.'
posted by carsonb at 11:45 AM PST - 75 comments

Order of Canada recipient and renowned architect Douglas Cardinal is seeking to bar the Cleveland Indians' name and logo from use in Ontario as they enter playoffs against the Blue Jays.
posted by Shepherd at 9:06 AM PST - 122 comments

Against the rise of Donald Trump, the former heir to a racist movement reconsiders the ideology he helped spread. [SLWaPo] [more inside]
posted by cosmic osmo at 8:27 AM PST - 40 comments

There are 17 propositions on California's ballot this year (average is 18). According to the L.A. Times, California voters will be asked on Nov. 8 to sort through the longest list of statewide propositions since the PlayStation 2 was on the market and the St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl. Trying to make sense of each of them is going to be a project, so here we go, one by one. First links are to the official ballot measures. Controversial measures have more links. Add to the discussion with more links in comments. [more inside]
posted by Sophie1 at 7:41 AM PST - 108 comments

A pleasant album by Equip called I Dreamed Of A Palace In The Sky harkens back to the classic jrpg osts by Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Matsuda.
posted by rebent at 7:23 AM PST - 7 comments

But the folks in Garðabær have been busy [more inside]
posted by k5.user at 7:08 AM PST - 8 comments

A 600-Year-Old Oak Tree Finally Succumbs [The New York Times] “The locals say that George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette — the Frenchman who bankrolled the American patriots with cold, hard cash — picnicked in the shade it provided. Rank-and-file soldiers are said to have rested under it, gathering strength before going on to beat the redcoats. It is a huge oak tree, now estimated to be 600 years old. Arborists such as Rob Gillies consider it one of the oldest in North America. It is a local landmark, right there in the cemetery of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church. On Thursday, Mr. Gillies sliced into it with a chain saw.”
posted by Fizz at 7:02 AM PST - 28 comments

Fear illusions "We start receiving notifications on our phone as soon as these disasters happen. So there's a false sense of involvement that we didn't have 150 years ago."
posted by bitmage at 5:21 AM PST - 12 comments

An in-depth piece on Chipotle and the company's attempts to recover from a major crisis caused by several food safety incidents in its supply chain and restaurants.
posted by starzero at 2:33 AM PST - 31 comments

The magnificent, insane castles of Ludwig II of Bavaria are slowly decaying. (Come for the architecture, stay for the orgies and proposed bank robberies.) As the article notes, "Ludwig kept hundreds of upholsterers, wood carvers and gilders busy, along with engineers and Siemens technicians." He spent himself into debt for the sake of his castles, many of which were designed after inspirations from Wagner, and some of which may have been built specifically for Wagner performances. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:42 AM PST - 21 comments

Our Fancy Foods, Ourselves - Three days at the world's greatest assemblage of exotic, expensive, absurd, and occasionally delicious snacks [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:34 PM PST - 7 comments

Compilation
Slow-motion boxers
Jersey looks like a Chinese demon
Bonus: Deer vs. Leafblower
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:28 PM PST - 12 comments

The Moon Animate Make-Up team's reanimated Sailor Moon episodes and Bartkira trailer. Golem Jam 3: SCROOBJAM (previously). Dragon Ball Reanimate. And now, from Canada, a reanimated episode of the 1960's Spider-Man animated series. [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 6:33 PM PST - 3 comments

"The common wisdom, as research verifies, is that most men want sons. That’s starting to shift. Some men, like me, fear becoming fathers to sons." Andrew Reiner considers having and raising sons today. (SLNYT)
posted by crazy with stars at 6:08 PM PST - 66 comments

The Enduring Mystery of the Oreo Cookie Design
posted by Etrigan at 6:06 PM PST - 21 comments

After a long wait, Set 8 of the Cryptopals Crypto Challenges has been announced. Designed to be approachable by neophytes and newbies, one Hacker News commenter describes them as "...a much more interesting version of those silly string manipulation tasks you get in CS101, except that instead of passing a course you break harder and harder crypto." Filippo Valsorda, a very well-known and respected cryptographer has announced that he will be doing a live speedrun of the challenges on Twitch.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 5:45 PM PST - 7 comments

Baffling illustrations from a 1994 handbook to Scientology, helpfully garnished with thought bubbles.
posted by scratch at 5:37 PM PST - 46 comments

Tinykittens is livestreaming a two-day Trap-Neuter-Release "fixathon" to humanely care for a feral cat colony. [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 4:18 PM PST - 12 comments

"The Story of Skinhead" is a Don Letts documentary detailing the origins of the Skinhead movement as a fusion of West Indian Black Reggae culture with Working Class white London culture, and how it then changed to become part of football hooliganism, the NF, punk, and Oi. Warning: this video contains strong language, violence, and Gary Bushell. Originally shown on BBC 4.
posted by marienbad at 3:50 PM PST - 10 comments

(NYT)When the University of Houston’s football players arrive for a game, they know what to expect as a prelude to the coming hours of brutality as they file into the stadium: a kiss on the cheek from their head coach, Tom Herman.

[more inside]
posted by hilaryjade at 3:42 PM PST - 7 comments

Do you like fonts based on ultra-obscure 1980s LED displays, or based on ROM dumps from the Commodore 64's pen plotter? Of course you do! [via mefi projects]
posted by aniola at 1:54 PM PST - 18 comments

i'm not hiding anymore, fam. some asshole at a reading a couple years ago was like, "lol japanese wave tattoo!?" and for a split second i felt stupid and almost apologetic but wait: HELLO, SON. I AM OLD. and while i hope that tiny hipster mustache etched permanently into the side of your finger remains au courant forever, i'm smart enough to know it won't and that you better start thinking up the cutesy story to explain it away at parties now. because in ten years when 3D face tattoos are the wave and the girls you're trying to bone are all, "ew...mustache?" you're going to feel this exact same shame and hopefully by that point my aquarius constellation tattoo and i will be cackling up at you from the ninth circle of hell. [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 1:21 PM PST - 55 comments

Today, the Kagurazaka district in Tokyo had its annual Bakeneko Festival . Pictures from last year. [more inside]
posted by eye of newt at 12:40 PM PST - 5 comments

Robin Williams, on cycling. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 9:34 AM PST - 18 comments

Chie Hitotsuyama creates astoundingly beautiful paper sculptures from rolled up newspapers. Her work is currently on exhibit at the Museum of Art & History in California. [via]
posted by jacquilynne at 7:55 AM PST - 7 comments

The Pink House Sessions. Spare, crisp, melancholy, and touching acoustic recordings at The Pink House in Nashville, Tennessee, home to Langhorne Slim. I'd personally recommend Wooden Wand, Dawes, Luke Bell, and Langhorne Slim and Jill Andrews. But there aren't that many. Watch them all.
posted by OmieWise at 7:53 AM PST - 2 comments

Aleppo, Ukraine, Cyber Attacks, Baltic Threats: What Should We Do About Putin? [The Guardian] “The challenge presented by Russia is one of the biggest facing the next US president. Some analysts say Putin is taking advantage of Obama’s lame duck status to create “facts on the ground” in Syria. The Russian president is said to anticipate a further deterioration in bilateral relations if Hillary Clinton wins. The two have a history of personal dislike, dating back to Clinton’s time as secretary of state. “She says she sees in him a cold-blooded, self-enriching KGB agent and a bully; he remembers how she appeared to encourage street protests against him in 2011,” said analyst Leonid Bershidsky. Speaking in August, Clinton described Putin as “the grand godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism” – lumping him with Trump, German anti-immigrant xenophobes and hard-right populists such as France’s Marine Le Pen.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 6:26 AM PST - 124 comments

Taller Than the Trees [N/YT] by Megan Mylan - "Japanese men haven't traditionally been caregivers. But for Masami Hayata, it's a crucial part of raising his family." (via)
posted by kliuless at 12:21 AM PST - 1 comment

Space law [previously: 1, 2] is a thing. Popular Science asks whether the laws of Earth would apply to the colonists of Mars. Want to know more about the law of space? Engadget has you covered. Space.com tells you who owns the moon. Wired asks whether asteroid mining is legal. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 11:17 PM PST - 28 comments

Curmudgeons is a 16 minute long film directed by Danny DeVito and starring Danny DeVito, Lucy DeVito, and David Margulies. NSFW due to adult themes and language, no nudity. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:42 PM PST - 17 comments

Profiling a mix of practical effects, Photoshop®, photographer effort, modelling and correct angles this series of tricky photos presents the photo and then with a click shows how they were setup. Part 1 {1 - 15}, 2 {16 - 30}, 3 {31 - 45}, 4 {46 - 53}. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 8:57 PM PST - 24 comments

Three years ago, the Republican-led House was close to reaching a compromise on immigration. This is the inside story of what went wrong. - Alec MacGillis, ProPublica [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:11 PM PST - 2 comments

Liquid lead ballroom dance: "Seeing a petite woman dip a man who’s over six feet tall can strike the viewer as odd and different, but it breaks the traditional boundaries set by gender roles. It’s clearly possible for anyone to dance what has typically been prescribed for female dancers and male dancers, and it doesn’t matter who leads. In the end, it’s a negotiation."
posted by sibilatorix at 7:09 PM PST - 18 comments

Lost In Shinjuku A series of double, triple, quadruple, and quintuple exposures taken over one night in October in the Shinjuku area. [via mefi projects]
posted by not_the_water at 6:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Michael Charney is trying to get Americans to adopt what he calls the "Dutch reach" -- opening your car door with the opposite hand, which puts your head in a better position to see whether you're about to door a bicyclist. In the Netherlands, this is simply "how to open your car door", as it is taught as part of driver's training and is part of the licensing test.
posted by Etrigan at 5:25 PM PST - 47 comments

There are many artists, usually great ones, who are able to push themselves to their limit to experience life and death for their art. Especially with death, many people feel extremely uncomfortable with its trappings – the pungent scent of decay, the multiple hues of flesh rotting, the insects who make bodies their homes – and it takes a true artists’ eye to see the beauty in these things: Sally Mann's Body Farm Photography [photos of decomposing human bodies] [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:24 PM PST - 9 comments

This is a king whom Paris Hilton (a major political figure in Los Angeles at the time) makes a point to walk over to chat with during a timeout ...and then leans over to laugh at a joke by — not a forced laugh, I have it on good authority that it was a funny joke — later on in the game.

Sam Donsky answers the question: What Is the Best Night Any Celebrity Has Ever Had at Madison Square Garden?
posted by The Gooch at 5:17 PM PST - 26 comments

Corporate sharks are circling around the platform we love. But there is another way: shared ownership, where the community takes control.

Here's my plan to save Twitter: let's buy it. Twitter could be the next Mozilla. A Guide to #BuyTwitter.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:29 PM PST - 59 comments

For I am become Mar Cuervo, destroyer of foods.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:43 PM PST - 43 comments

Borrowed Time. A short animation done by Pixar animators in their spare time.
posted by pjern at 8:08 AM PST - 49 comments

It runs (in the northern hemisphere) from November to March, though culturally it kicks off when Starbucks change their menu to pumpkin spice; people who would rather be single or promiscuous start looking for someone to attach themselves to for the cold winter months. How to handle ‘Cuffing Season’
posted by acb at 5:25 AM PST - 74 comments

Reflections on ten years working as a fire lookout:

My lookout tower is situated five miles from the nearest road, on a ten-thousand-foot peak in the Gila National Forest. I live here for several months each year, without electricity or running water. Although tens of thousands of acres are touched by fire here every year, I can go weeks without seeing a twist of smoke. During these lulls I simply watch and wait, my eyes becoming ever more intimate with an ecological transition zone encompassing dry grasslands, piñon-juniper foothills, ponderosa parkland, and spruce-fir high country.

--A Talent for Sloth
posted by MoonOrb at 10:39 PM PST - 29 comments

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Final Trailer [YouTube] [Trailer] The final Rogue One trailer is now in range. You may watch it when ready. Rogue One tells the story of how a group of unlikely heroes unite to undertake a daring and seemingly impossible mission to steal the plans for the Death Star. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:27 PM PST - 102 comments

In theaters in the US from Oct 11th thru the 18th, Japanese with English subtitles. The Godzilla Myth is reborn by Toho Film Co., Ltd., a new Godzilla for a new age. An entirely new story (except for the part where he wrecks Tokyo,) same great theme song. If the 2014 Godzilla movie with it's paltry 8 minutes of monster left you cold, Shin Godzilla is the kaiju movie for you!
posted by jbenben at 7:47 PM PST - 40 comments

The National Park Service has published LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History in 32 chapters. Each page includes a .pdf link to a much longer exposition on the subject of the chapter. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 6:28 PM PST - 29 comments

French clown, actor, writer, sleight-of-hand expert, and director Pierre Étaix has passed away at age 87. With all the scary clown talk of late, let us pay tribute to a gentler, more thoughtful form of clowning. His 1962 short Happy Anniversary won the 1963 Best Short Subject Academy Award, and he is most well-known for his 1965 feature-length comedy Yo Yo, about a wealthy heir who just wants to be a clown. [more inside]
posted by JauntyFedora at 6:00 PM PST - 5 comments

I was a little late to the birthday party of Ms. Kahlo, but saw this fantastic article and couldn't resist sharing with my fellow Meefs. How To Be More Like Frida Kahlo, As Told By Frida Kahlo Today I ran across another fun tidbit about Frida's old stompin' ground and knew it was deserving of the blue...........Frida Kahlo’s home.
posted by strelitzia at 4:54 PM PST - 7 comments

A charming gentleman covers Kitty Wells' Sugartime (h/t MeFi's own Miss Cellania).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:51 PM PST - 6 comments

The bottom line is, trauma and secondary trauma have identifiable symptoms and they are everywhere in the “industry.” The “hyper-real” space which the national security state creates by its very nature extends to everyone too, now, but it’s more intense for professionals. Living as “social engineers,” always trying to understand the other’s POV so one can manipulate and exploit it, erodes the core self. The existential challenge constitutes an assault on authenticity and integrity. Sometimes sanity is at stake, too, and sometimes, life itself.

Playing Through the Pain: A DEF CON 24 presentation by Richard Thieme (h/t Schneier)
posted by automatizing nihilist vortex at 12:58 PM PST - 27 comments

What $50 buys you at Huaqiangbei, the world’s most fascinating electronics market.
posted by DynamiteToast at 11:53 AM PST - 60 comments

Tron 2.0 - Creating a Visual Language of Scale "Today we introduce TRON version 2 as a fully realized Mapzen house style, rebuilt from the ground up to take advantage of the latest features of the Tangram graphics engine and Tangram blocks. With this new version, visual forms and elements transform per zoom, revealing new cartographic details and a deep exploration of scale transformations."
posted by Tevin at 11:33 AM PST - 17 comments

Fifteen months ago, Donald declared and we commented; two months earlier, Hillary did likewise. And now, here we are near the end of an divisive and damaging election. As Donald's campaign struggles under many allegations [BBC] [NBC News] [Guardian] [New York Times] and increased conversation on abuse, Hillary pulls out a 7 point lead in a Fox poll, a gap in the Real Clear Politics poll average and a large victory chance in 538 (though, cautionary words about poll bounces). Michelle Obama spoke about the language of this election (FPP title from her speech) [BBC] [New Yorker] [Washington Post] and in The Guardian: "She lent her extraordinary ability to say what people are feeling to every English-speaking woman in the world". Elsewhere, Trump-stooge Chris Christie is facing a criminal summons and Utah could be a three-way race which leads to a small possibility of President Evan. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 11:31 AM PST - 4468 comments

Then you might like Cribbage With Grandpas.

• You play cribbage,
• You play against the computer,
• The computer is your Grandpa,
• You get to create your Grandpa.

[more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 11:08 AM PST - 30 comments

"Harold’s death at Hastings by an arrow to the eye remains one of the most enduring ‘facts’ in English history. But this detail may have been the product of historians writing generations after 1066, and the Bayeux Tapestry, the most famous witness to Harold’s death, may not show the king being shot by an arrow at all." [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 11:07 AM PST - 17 comments

As we pass the film festivals and Oscar Season approaches, the question is asked: Is there such a thing as an "Oscar Bait" movie?
posted by Artw at 10:59 AM PST - 20 comments

D.S. Moss produces an occasional podcast, titled The Adventures of Memento Mori, subtitled a cynic's guide for learning to live by remembering to die. He talks about his ideas in an interview with the Eternal Life Fan Club (website), which can be summarized as embracing life by accepting death. There are eight episodes in the Adventures of Memento Mori so far, covering Plan on Dying, Communicating with the Dead, The Science of Immortality, Past Life Regression, Escaping Death, Thoughts in Passing, and Digital Afterlife. Remember to Die is also on Twitter and Instagram, and I am Mori on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:54 AM PST - 2 comments

Does what it says on the tin. Now, can we wedge it all into a scanner?
posted by symbioid at 10:31 AM PST - 15 comments

Anti-Drug PSAs by Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the rest of the 'Looney Tunes' gang via Dangerous Minds.
posted by chavenet at 10:20 AM PST - 8 comments

Bird chases dog
posted by griphus at 9:52 AM PST - 17 comments

Salvador Dalí's eccentric cookbook reissued for the first time in 40 years
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:12 AM PST - 10 comments

Looking for a new sport? Why not have a nice game of Three-Sided Football? Three teams, a hexagonal field, and the team that concedes the fewest goals is the winner! You might especially enjoy it if you're an anarchist Marxist with an interest in psychogeography and surrealism. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 7:59 AM PST - 14 comments

Malinda Kathleen Reese runs songs back and forth through Google Translate, then sings the results. This being MetaFilter, let's put the Hamilton one above the fold: You'll Be Back [more inside]
posted by Shmuel510 at 6:58 AM PST - 13 comments

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling is (arguably) the second biggest professional wrestling promotion in the U.S., but it's a distant second. The most coverage it has received in the mainstream press lately comes from behind the scenes, as its co-owner and president has sued the promotion over intrigue regarding a potential sale. Normally, this wouldn't rate a story in The Guardian, but that co-owner/president is Billy Corgan, better known as the front man of Smashing Pumpkins. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:24 AM PST - 27 comments

A 100 year old fair ground organ plays Bohemian Rhapsody. [more inside]
posted by freethefeet at 5:41 AM PST - 25 comments

You are almost definitely not living in reality because your brain doesn’t want you to.
Use the Cognitive Bias Codex [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:54 PM PST - 29 comments

Auto-Tune — one of modern history’s most reviled inventions — was an act of mathematical genius. The pitch correction software, which automatically calibrates out-of-tune singing to perfection, has been used on nearly every chart-topping album for the past 20 years ... But often lost in this narrative is the story of the invention itself, and the soft-spoken savant who pioneered it.
posted by ShooBoo at 9:25 PM PST - 73 comments

Irish People Attempt American Accents
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:52 PM PST - 58 comments

Great White Shark Cage Breach. What it says on the tin.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 5:52 PM PST - 48 comments

"Every Monday morning, we will post a new map on this site. The maps will be unlabeled, uncaptioned thematic maps with no scales or legends.... For each week’s map, your job is simple: figure out what data is being presented by the map. To solve the map, you have to find the clues on it and come up with an explanation that ties them all together." [more inside]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:16 PM PST - 72 comments

United Nations to Name Wonder Woman Honorary Ambassador [Comic Book Resources] In the DC Universe, “Wonder Woman [wiki]” has long acted as an ambassador from her native land, but soon the Themiscyran Princess will take on the role for real when she becomes UN Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. According to a statement released by the UN, the official announcement of “Wonder Woman’s” new title will be made at an event held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Friday October 21.
posted by Fizz at 4:04 PM PST - 18 comments

What if the New York City subway map paid homage to some of the city’s great women? It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” is a song James Brown recorded in a New York City studio in 1966, and, whether you like it or not, you can make the case that he’s right. Walking down the city streets, young women get harassed in ways that tell them that this is not their world, their city, their street; that their freedom of movement and association is liable to be undermined at any time; and that a lot of strangers expect obedience and attention from them. “Smile,” a man orders you, and that’s a concise way to say that he owns you; he’s the boss; you do as you’re told; your face is there to serve his life, not express your own. He’s someone; you’re no one.
posted by strelitzia at 3:15 PM PST - 4 comments

I have often puzzled and puzzled
about what it must be like
to go to sleep and never wake up,
to be
simply not there

Memento Mori is a short film by Sebastian Linda with narration by Alan Watts. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:59 PM PST - 6 comments

The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old.
posted by brundlefly at 1:57 PM PST - 77 comments

Today marks the launch of Green’s Dictionary of Slang Online, a digitized version of Green’s Dictionary of Slang, which originally appeared as a three-volume book in 2010. Everything that was in that book is available here, plus the fruits of over five more years of research… [T]he evolving database will be able to reflect the on-going additions and improvements that make it a unique resource. (Coverage at Language Log, Slate, and Quartz, and a June interview with Green in The Daily Beast.)
posted by Going To Maine at 1:42 PM PST - 7 comments

What is a chess game stripped of openings and normal patterns of play? It's Really Bad Chess, an iOS game by designer Zach Gage that randomizes the placement and quantity of pieces in each game. "[T]here's no concept of 'beginner’s luck' in chess because there's no luck in chess!" said Gage. "I wondered what would happen if I just struck down that balance in the stupidest way possible." [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 12:31 PM PST - 29 comments

Well, does it?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:12 PM PST - 20 comments

Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced today that she would call a second referendum on independence if the UK opts for a hard Brexit. Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced today that she would call a second referendum on independence if the UK opts for a hard Brexit. Addressing the UK prime minister, Teresa May, she said: If you think for one single second that I’m not serious about doing what it takes to protect Scotland’s interests, then think again. [more inside]
posted by stevedawg at 10:58 AM PST - 123 comments

Italian playwright Dario Fo died this morning at the age of 90. [more inside]
posted by spheniscus at 10:39 AM PST - 19 comments

"The story of how the nation’s third-busiest commuter railroad declined so rapidly is a tale of neglect and mismanagement that represents an ominous symbol of the challenges facing mass transit systems across the United States in an era when governments are loath to raise taxes." On September 29, a New Jersey Transit train headed into the Hoboken terminal crashed, killing one woman, and injuring 108 others.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:21 AM PST - 25 comments

Colin Dickey has spent a lot of time traveling the country searching for local ghost stories and haunted places, and from those experiences he shares thoughts on the Winchester Mystery House and the spinster trope in ghost stories (Google books preview), the glaring omission in ghost stories about Richmond, Virginia, the origin of the Native American burial ground trope in ghost stories, how a ghost story can evolve and the craziest story heard while researching the book*. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:18 AM PST - 7 comments

You've punned your way through IKEA before - but has it ever got your panda twerking? [more inside]
posted by progosk at 9:12 AM PST - 10 comments

BBC: "Germany's Constitutional Court has rejected a legal challenge to the EU-Canada free trade deal (CETA) from campaigners who call it undemocratic. The campaigners object to the fact that parts of CETA will be implemented before all national parliaments in the EU have voted on it. EU trade ministers are to vote on CETA next week. It requires unanimous support. If they all approve it, the deal can be signed on 27 October. CETA would remove many trade barriers."
posted by marienbad at 7:26 AM PST - 18 comments

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand has passed away at the age of 88. [more inside]
posted by bluecore at 5:47 AM PST - 51 comments

Kandodo McBain's Lost Chants/Last Chance [Spotify] is a collaboration between three members of long-running Bristol psych band The Heads and John McBain of early Monster Magnet. [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 4:38 AM PST - 1 comment

The Swedish Academy has given Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in literature.
posted by Kattullus at 4:06 AM PST - 258 comments

one
eleven
fifteen
- photographs of corrosion by Alyssha Eve Csük [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:08 PM PST - 12 comments

A review by Zoë Heller of Ruth Franklin's new biography
posted by thetortoise at 9:00 PM PST - 15 comments

Links to works of American photographer and chronicler of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, Arthur Rothstein (1915-1985). [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 8:48 PM PST - 1 comment

"So David, when you look up in the sky, do you see poems up there?"
"Not until I put them there."

David Antin died today at 84. [more inside]
posted by roll truck roll at 8:00 PM PST - 10 comments

At the peak of its cultural power and (say many) quality, the eighth season of The Simpsons may have peak-peaked with "You Only Move Twice", which introduced the world to tech mogul-slash-New Agey boss-slash-Bond Bont supervillain Hank Scorpio (voiced (and, in fact, largely improvised) by Albert Brooks). The Ringer's Alan Siegel delves into Scorpio's genesis and shows us why he's more than just a great character -- he's the eerily prescient predecessor of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their interplanetary dreams.
posted by Etrigan at 6:30 PM PST - 52 comments

Jost’s mother is New York municipal royalty. Kerry Kelly is the chief medical officer for the city’s fire department, and thus responsible for monitoring the mounting health care problems of first responders at Ground Zero. [...] Che’s full name is Michael Che Campbell (the middle name is for South American revolutionary Che Guevara). He grew up plenty poor in the Al Smith projects, a thicket of dun brick buildings jammed between City Hall and the East River.

Politico's Off Message podcast interviews the hosts of "Weekend Update."
posted by psoas at 4:21 PM PST - 8 comments

Penguin Bloom - how a scruffy magpie saved a family (SLGuardian)
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:15 PM PST - 8 comments

Pixel art resizes/shapes as you move your mouse cursor. Sometimes not always in the way you expect.
posted by curious nu at 3:57 PM PST - 14 comments

Welcome Back, SPY. [Esquire] “Then came the last year: the withdrawal of Stewart and Colbert from Comedy Central, the death of Gawker, the return of Hillary, and especially the rise of Donald Trump. SPY pioneered the exposure and ridicule of Trump back in its day, of course, always referring to him as "short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump"— and in this campaign, astonishingly, that epithet (and the general tiny-hand critique) resurfaced in a big way. As Trump became the Republicans' presumptive nominee, lots more people, pretty much every day, said to me, "SPY really needs to be rebooted, if only just for the election."” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 3:05 PM PST - 32 comments

Lessons in the Delicate Art of Confronting Offensive Speech. Researchers have detailed the difficulty of confronting prejudice, but they have also found that even the politest of objections – or subtle corrections to loaded words – can almost instantly curb a speaker’s behavior. With a clearer understanding of the dynamics of such confrontation, psychologists say, people can develop tactics that can shut down the unsavory talk without ruining relationships, even when the offender has more status or power: a fraternity president, say, or a team captain or employer. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 1:05 PM PST - 33 comments

I Wore a Tail for 1 Week and Learned Nothing
posted by clorox at 12:03 PM PST - 45 comments

July 1939. The world teetered on the brink of war as Hitler menaced Poland. The 11 millionth visitor passed through the turnstiles of the New York World’s Fair. Baseball fans still reeled after Lou Gehrig’s “luckiest man” speech at Yankee Stadium. But many Americans could think only of Donn Fendler, a 12-year-old boy lost on Mount Katahdin in Maine, the object of a frantic search and rescue operation that dragged on for nine days, monopolizing the radio airwaves and newspaper headlines. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 11:19 AM PST - 23 comments

There are many administrative tasks to a miscarriage. You have to tell everyone, including your boss and your sister and your husband’s parents. We thought we were in the clear at 13 weeks along, so we had already started telling all of our friends and family, some only a few days earlier. We didn’t have the energy to make dozens of phone calls, so we sent text messages. I felt an urgent need to update everyone who knew, as if I had passed out bad information and needed to correct it as quickly as possible. [more inside]
posted by melissasaurus at 11:04 AM PST - 26 comments

Interesting piece from the NYT, on how one 19 year-old Illinois man is distorting national polling averages: "If you trim the weights, your sample will be biased — it might not include enough of the voters who tend to be underrepresented. If you don’t trim the weights, a few heavily weighted respondents could have the power to sway the survey."
posted by stillmoving at 11:03 AM PST - 19 comments

Outside of work, she mostly hangs out at home with Grose and the producer’s younger sister, eating pigs in a blanket and watching The Real Housewives; she and her Marine ex-boyfriend broke up when she moved for the job. She doesn’t have time to go out that much anyway, unlike the Dallas “nerds” she describes partying every night on their parents’ money. She never had any of that, and anyway, she has a show to write.

Kyle Chayka writes for The Ringer on controversial 24-year-old conservative sensation, Tomi Lahren
posted by The Gooch at 10:37 AM PST - 33 comments

Vampirism — piercing or cutting animal skin to suck or lap up blood — is known throughout the animal kingdom. Mosquitoes come to mind, plus ticks, mites, vampire bats, and the vampire finch of the Galapagos Islands. But … vampire moths? Wait, let's take a step back, did you say the vampire finch of the Galapagos Islands? Yes. They're a subspecies of the sharp-beaked ground finch that outnumber every other finch species on all of the islands combined. While they don't seem to bother the adult Boobies whose blood they drink, they may be fatal to chicks* and even crack open eggs. Right, what of those vampire moths? [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:54 AM PST - 4 comments

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke around the same time that we started the paper, so that was Nirvana, Mudhoney, and Screaming Trees, everything was going on. Soundgarden. The whole world was moving to Seattle at the time. - Travel back to 1991 for an oral history of The Stranger, now celebrating it's 25th Year as "Seattle's Only Newspaper". [more inside]
posted by Artw at 9:11 AM PST - 13 comments

Kajetan Obarski is an artist who publishes animated GIFs under the pseudonym Kiszkiloszki. Many rework classic paintings for humorous or gruesome effect (and often both). His most widely-known creations feature a skeletal figure called the Death Fairy. He talks about his work in an interview with Dioniso Punk. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:33 AM PST - 4 comments

Musician and Youtube user Luminist is remaking music from the original Metroid using some full-on synths, and it sounds amazing. Title Theme; Brinstar; Kraid's Lair; Samus Fanfare; Item Room.
posted by cortex at 7:49 AM PST - 23 comments

Please do not look away from... The Kettle. The Kettle Is Now Calibrating. Data specialist Mark Rittman spent an entire day attempting to set up his new appliance so that it would boil on command (Guardian via, of course, @internetofshit)
posted by lmfsilva at 6:55 AM PST - 78 comments

To the tune of the Divine Comedy this time around.
posted by pharm at 4:42 AM PST - 25 comments

Riddlewot is a website with riddles made by whoever correctly guesses the front page riddle. That's all. If you want to post a riddle, you gotta make an account.
posted by MoonOrb at 7:45 PM PST - 64 comments

A Bad Week for Samsung [The New York Times] “Samsung Electronics is killing its troubled Galaxy Note 7 [wiki] smartphone, a humbling about-face for the South Korean giant and its global brand. In an unprecedented move, the company will no longer produce or market the smartphones. The demise of the Galaxy Note 7 is a major setback for Samsung, the world’s largest maker of smartphones. The premium device — with a 5.7-inch screen, curved contours and comparatively high price — won praise from consumers and reviewers, and was the company’s most ambitious effort yet to take on Apple for the high-end market.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:42 PM PST - 125 comments

As we stand four weeks to election day, we know more about the candidates, and it's not good. Things have also recently not been great for Donald; following the taped revelations of last week, involving yet another (and now dismissed) member of the Bush dynasty, a fiery and ugly debate ensued (MetaFilter). Since then, he has marched increasingly alone; Paul Ryan has all but unendorsed him, John McCain has had enough, a lot of other Republicans are doing their own thing, and his friends are mainly the apologist Ben Carson, Rudy Giuliani, a 'coward' in Florida, and Wikileaks and dubious Russian information services (leading perhaps to a campaign event cancellation). [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 2:02 PM PST - 3381 comments

"Millions of containers, thousands of ships, hundreds of scientists, 30 laws, 15 federal agencies, and we still can't prevent the next foodborne illness outbreak."

[Fun supplementary reading: FDA Defect Levels Handbook, FSIS Meat & Poultry Hazards & Controls Guide, CDC Foodborne Outbreak Investigations.]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 1:10 PM PST - 12 comments

Wunderkammer is a collection of high resolution images from old books in the Hagströmer Medical Library. Some of my favorites are sea anemones, nerve cells, rooster chasing off a monster, 16th Century eye surgery, muscles and bones of the hand and arm, elephant-headed humanoid and cupping. It can also be browsed by tag, broken up into subject (e.g. beast), emotion (e.g. strange), technique (e.g. chromolithography) and era (e.g. 18th Century). Once you've exhausted the pleasures of the Wunderkammer, venture into the Bibliotheca Systema Naturae, with scans from more books in the Hagströmer Medical Library, such as portraits of patients and Goethe's theory of optics.
posted by Kattullus at 12:25 PM PST - 11 comments

"Shut your mouth, baby, stand and deliver Holding hands won't make me a sinner" - Bishop Briggs, River [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:01 PM PST - 9 comments

"Removed audio of a cat purring when headphone jack is plugged in" [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by holmesian at 11:56 AM PST - 3 comments

A majority of UK voters oppose hard Brexit, and yet the government seems to be pursuing it. Why? Jacek Rostowski offers a cynical explanation.
posted by HoraceH at 11:05 AM PST - 141 comments

Australia's GPS coordinates will be moved 4.9 feet by the end of the year. The shift is not because old measurements were wrong, but because our smallest continent rests on a particularly fast-moving tectonic plate (relatively speaking, that is -- it's only about 2.7 inches per year). This is the fourth such adjustment for Australia over the last half-century; the last such adjustment in 1994 was a whopping 656 feet.
posted by Etrigan at 9:48 AM PST - 28 comments

Hip-hop legend Afrika Bambaataa allegedly molested young men for decades. Why are the accusations only coming out now? (SLVice; TW: descriptions of sexual abuse)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:12 AM PST - 37 comments

Make Chi Chi: just combine ramen, hot pickle, spicy sausage, jalapeno squeeze cheese, canned chili, honey, spicy cheese puffs, minute rice, hot sauce, and a billion dollar industry. Don't worry, you can buy the chips.
posted by phlyingpenguin at 8:34 AM PST - 24 comments

Previously, we thought that the offshore world was a shadowy, but minor, part of our economic system. What we learned from the Panama Papers is that it is the economic system.
posted by Bee'sWing at 7:38 AM PST - 39 comments

Twenty-nine years ago, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfolded on the Mall for the first time, with 1,920 panels. Today, it has grown to more than 49,000.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:54 AM PST - 11 comments

People get “violently ill” from Soylent bars; company stumped
posted by almostmanda at 6:27 AM PST - 138 comments

Freedom of speech in the digital age - "Speech that disseminates ideas is more valuable than speech whose purpose is to intimidate others." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 10:10 PM PST - 26 comments

Who Are the Real ‘Killer Clowns’ Terrorizing America? Insane Clown Posse weighs in on the most pressing issue in America today. (Autoplay audio)
posted by GuyZero at 4:11 PM PST - 78 comments

The hot new meme on tumblr is "The Cask of Amontillado". (via catesish on twitter) [more inside]
posted by moonmilk at 2:18 PM PST - 124 comments

An artist named Christopher Shy has somehow managed to capture the swirling, amorphous feeling of a nightmare with his series of watercolor horror and sci-fi movie posters, and each is more terrifying than the last. For example: The Thing [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:07 PM PST - 17 comments

Shitstorm In Academia As Professors Receive Packets Of Poop [Buzzfeed News] Junk mail took on a new meaning when three philosophy professors received envelopes of feces last summer. Now, the hunt is on for the 'poopetrator'. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 1:38 PM PST - 59 comments

At New York Comic Con last weekend, the Q&A for a panel on LGBT representation in comic books included a question about Romani representation. Writer Peter David responded with a story about a Romanian tour guide telling him that Romani parents break their children's legs to make them better beggars. He retold the story on his blog, saying further, "Apparently the only thing that matters is the sensitivities of activists, and if you take issue with actions that the people they represent have taken, then clearly there is something wrong with you." [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 9:20 AM PST - 65 comments

"If the uncannily accurate descriptions of your personal villain imply that he or she is outside the empire of normal mental health, flickering eerily at the edge of pathology, why do these descriptions also (in moments you quietly bury deep inside you) remind you, sometimes, of an entirely different person—that is, you? And why does the nightmare with which the internet is obsessed, of encountering people who look and sound real but are fake, remind you so much of the feeling of reading the internet itself?" Emptiness. [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 9:03 AM PST - 13 comments

Pictures of Japanese-Americans, 120,000 of whom lost property and were placed in camps for the duration of the war. "The people who lived across from us came to our house and took everything." - George Takei [more inside]
posted by blankdawn at 8:57 AM PST - 45 comments

The Joinery contains animated illustrations of wooden joints coming together.
posted by griphus at 8:49 AM PST - 23 comments

Chinese, Ancient Greek, and modern Western skies, swappable [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:06 AM PST - 13 comments

Vicious White Kids - Electric Ballroom, London - August 22, 1978. Sex Pistols, Longhorn Ballroom, Dallas, Texas - January 10, 1978. (This is the concert where Sid's bass comes unplugged and Steve Jones stops playing, walks over and plugs it in again - it is at about 6:30.) Bonus - Sex Pistols, Winterland, January 1978 - their final concert. (This has been an FPP previously but the link no longer works.) All links are Youtube. [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 6:16 PM PST - 10 comments

My First Gulfstream In 1998, Vanity Fair published this account by an anonymous "information entrepreneur" (rumored to be Nathan Myhrvold) about the process of buying a private jet.
posted by mecran01 at 5:49 PM PST - 38 comments

With just a month to go until the election (and after a Trumpian pre-debate shitshow) Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off again in the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis at 9PM Eastern Time. Print out your Bingo cards and tune into any major network (Channel 4 in the UK) or listen on NPR. Alternately, watch on one of YouTube's channels (NBC, PBS, Fox News, the Washington Post). Twitter will stream Bloomberg. Facebook has ABC and PBS. C-SPAN has its own feed (C-SPAN Radio is also streaming.) You can even watch in virtual reality (Gear, Rift, or Vive) via AltspaceVR. [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:37 PM PST - 4040 comments

Losing a large number of individuals is a tragedy, but what happens when we lose an entire whale culture? What do we lose when we lose a way of life? Every culture, whale or otherwise, is its own solution to the problems of the environment in which it lives. With its extirpation, we lose the traditional knowledge of what it means to be a Caribbean whale and how to exploit the deep sea riches around the islands efficiently. And that cannot be recovered.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:27 AM PST - 12 comments

The Ringer puts forth an interesting exercise: "draft" a TV show, spending a total of $250 on actor's salaries, time period, setting, special effects, intellectual property, and miscellaneous expenses ($12 for "gritty", $7 per pun in title). Readers submitted their own ideas, ranging from James Marsden and Geena Davis on a miniature golf course to a remake of Up with Charles Barkley and Matt LeBlanc.
posted by Etrigan at 9:16 AM PST - 7 comments

In 2014, Grammy-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank brought together a chamber quartet with Ecuadoran pan players for a week-long workshop culminating with a performance of Mestiza Music. [57m] Trailer.
posted by hippybear at 9:09 AM PST - 5 comments

Unique one of a kind finishing completed by a professional!
posted by bonefish at 9:03 AM PST - 72 comments

Doughnut kitten: pretty much as advertised. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 2:01 AM PST - 26 comments

The Nine Emperor Gods Festival, a nine-day Taoist celebration beginning on the eve of the 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, is observed primarily in Southeast Asian countries. Thailand’s celebration is called the Phuket Vegetarian Festival, and is notable for devotees called Ma Song—“entranced horses”—whom the gods enter during the festival. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:44 PM PST - 2 comments

"Do you ever marvel at how there is not a single part of the planet that has not been died upon?" Dr. Paul Koudounaris probably has, given his interest in regional traditions regarding death and ways of honoring (and living with) the dead, with a focus on charnel houses and ossuaries. He has a website titled Empire de la Mort, "being an online resource for charnel houses and burial catacombs," and includes a section on skeletal reliquaries and individual mummies and other miscellaneous sites. His website is a bit dated in design, if not content, and he also posts on Facebook as Empire of Death and on Instagram as hexenkult. (Paul Koudounaris, previously)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:11 PM PST - 10 comments

Shiro Across the Sea The owners of Maneki agree to build Shiro a proper sushi bar—no more preparing omakase hidden in a kitchen. Seattle in 1969 is swarming with Japanese businessmen here to do deals—shipping, lumber, imports, Boeing. And they want to seal those deals the best way they know how: at a sushi bar. But first, the liquor board needs convincing that a sushi bar is merely a counter where the chef stands, making food and presenting it directly to diners.
posted by CrystalDave at 6:20 PM PST - 11 comments

Dark, confusing times have come to America. Times of turmoil. Times when difficult choices must be made. Times when the latest entries in two surprisingly long-lived actress-centered undead-fighting action series—both due in theaters next January from the same fucking studio—can release new trailers on the same day, both featuring their respective heroines on motorcycles.
posted by valkane at 5:33 PM PST - 32 comments

The most sampled song of all time. "..what is it about a 47-year-old, six-second drum solo from a relatively unknown soul band that’s given it musical immortality? The answer involves the invention of two new musical genres, a new piece of technology and a power blackout."
posted by storybored at 5:28 PM PST - 27 comments

Liquid Assets: How the Business of Bottled Water Went Mad by Sophie Elmhirst [The Guardian] “Water is no longer simply water – it has become a commercial blank slate, a word on to which any possible ingredient or fantastical, life-enhancing promise can be attached. And it’s working. Over the past two decades, bottled water has become the fastest-growing drinks market in the world. The global market was valued at $157bn in 2013, and is expected to reach $280bn by 2020. Last year, in the UK alone, consumption of water drinks grew by 8.2%, equating to a retail value of more than £2.5bn. Sales of water are 100 times higher than in 1980. Of water: a substance that, in developed countries, can be drunk for free from a tap without fear of contracting cholera. What is going on?”
posted by Fizz at 5:02 PM PST - 54 comments

Jenny Hval's new album "Blood Bitch" was released on 30 September. You can listen to it on Bandcamp. The official videos for "Conceptual Romance" and "Female Vampire" are up on Youtube. Hval discusses her new music: "I’m a vampire already… in that sense the vampire is always the human. When I write about it, the vampire is always me; and the vampire when you listen to a song is always you. We carry something dead with us." [more inside]
posted by sapagan at 3:25 PM PST - 4 comments

No country on Earth is taking the 2 degree climate target seriously. "The actions necessary to hold to 2 degrees, much less 1.5 degrees, are simply outside the bounds of conventional politics in most countries. Anyone who proposed them would sound crazy, like they were proposing, I don’t know, a war or something. So we say 2 degrees is unacceptable. But we don’t act like it is." [more inside]
posted by forza at 3:08 PM PST - 20 comments

Hey, youse, it's the weekend. And after the events large and small of this week, what with Hurricane Matthew and the disintegration of Donald's Trump's campaign, something seemed to be missing. That something is Walker. Late NIght 'Texas Ranger Lever! (Ooh Walker!) 5/28/04 Chuck Norris - Walker Texas Ranger - Broken Nose scene Walker Texas Ranger Fight Scene - Season One(Two)
posted by strelitzia at 2:08 PM PST - 13 comments

Today, I bring you a small handful of stories about representation mattering to people. Previously, a story about #toylikeme mattering to those with disabilities. About a black man cosplaying Batman mattering to a fellow-cosplaying child. About finally seeing yourself mattering to inventors of worlds. And a short note about a common experience of mattering in airports to young girls.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 1:03 PM PST - 7 comments

Virtual Worlds: Walter Pichler’s Futuristic Visions
posted by Confess, Fletch at 11:31 AM PST - 5 comments

This self service store in Jersey really trusts you.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:18 AM PST - 29 comments

How to save the Princess using 8 programming languages
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:05 AM PST - 28 comments

One month before Election Day, with the Trump campaign reeling from enough October Surprises to fill an advent calendar, the Washington Post's intrepid David Fahrenthold has landed what may be the mortal blow: vulgar 2005 footage of the Republican nominee bragging about his sexual abuse of married women, just months after marrying his third wife, Melania. "When you’re a star, they let you do it," the future presidential candidate declares. "Grab 'em by the p***y. You can do anything." The bombshell has forced GOP leaders to recoil from Trump and issue a parade of rebukes, with Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz revoking support, House Speaker Paul Ryan cancelling a joint rally, and top donors pulling funds and demanding a new candidate. Hours after a terse press release from the then-59-year-old calling it "locker room banter," Trump released a rare apology in a midnight video maligning the Clintons while vowing to attend the presidential town hall debate Sunday. Betting markets aren't so sure. Unfortunately for the GOP, there’s no longer any way to boot Donald Trump from the ballot. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 4:21 AM PST - 2490 comments

Tales from India's First War of Independence Eyewitness accounts of survivors of the Mughal family who fled from Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi) after the Revolt of 1857.
posted by infini at 12:15 AM PST - 5 comments

18 Times Doggie Day Care Was The Happiest Place On Earth — because who's a good weblog? Huh? Who's a good weblog? You are, MetaFilter! [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:26 PM PST - 16 comments

As you may know, a couple weeks ago an unidentified woodland creature ate our internet.
posted by matrixclown at 7:47 PM PST - 24 comments

Today is your day. Make it a good one, from the first buzz of the alarm clock to lights out. Let the motivating music set you free. Entrepreneur Magazine suggests 10 songs to help you start your day.
posted by hippybear at 7:43 PM PST - 27 comments

Unknown Pleasures Album Cover Gif Generator [via mefi projects]
posted by bobobox at 4:25 PM PST - 8 comments

Hollywood stars in Japanese whiskey commercials
posted by timshel at 3:27 PM PST - 33 comments

Just before sunset on April 5, 1815, a massive explosion shook the volcanic island of Sumbawa in the Indonesian archipelago. This destroyed the village of Tambora, erasing the unique culture, and changed world history (previously, more). Among the impacts, a small group of authors and creative types holed up in the Villa Diodati in June of 1816 and wrote two iconic "monster" stories that set up the next two centuries of story telling. You can read the inspiration and subsequent works of Lord Byron, Mary Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John William Polidori and Claire Clairmont below the break. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:31 PM PST - 26 comments

You've probably heard of the most lopsided game in the history of football. 100 years later Jon Bois has arrived to explain how the score is just the beginning of the story.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:26 PM PST - 15 comments

Move Over, Rats. New York Is Planning an Underground Park. If you can't build it out or up, then for fuck's sake build it below.
posted by strelitzia at 12:02 PM PST - 27 comments

Charles Krauthammer on Paul Erdős.
posted by dfm500 at 11:35 AM PST - 17 comments

The mystery of California's ghost redwoods may have been solved.

Brilliant October sunshine filters through the high forest canopy, where the silver-green needles of healthy trees soak up rays and turn them into fuel. But the albino tree lacks chlorophyll, the green pigment that allows plants to make food from light via photosynthesis. It is incapable of the one thing that all trees must do to live.… The mystery of the albino redwood has stumped researchers for more than a century. The trees are so improbable that those who haven't seen them up close sometimes question whether they can exist at all. But Moore is convinced that this ghost story has a scientific solution - one that should change how we view not just the albino trees, but also the entire forest.

[more inside]
posted by Lexica at 10:16 AM PST - 23 comments

Burning Man has been ruined 27 out of 30 times.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:04 AM PST - 27 comments

The culture editors at Slate asked Maria Semple to recommend three funny books with living authors. Then, rather cleverly, they turned around and asked those authors to recommend three funny books. Result: 83 of the funniest books ever, accoding to some of the funniest authors ever. Check 'em out if you need something to help you get through November.
posted by Diablevert at 10:03 AM PST - 26 comments

Women all over the world are coming forward to say it: I regret having my children.
Honesty this surprising and inconvenient breeds harsh backlash wherever it goes. In response to Dutton's Daily Mail story, some comments were vicious. "What an utterly miserable, cold-hearted and selfish woman," noted one. Another was astonished "such a vile creature could exist." Some have even accused these mothers of committing child abuse for daring to utter such thoughts.
posted by a strong female character at 8:55 AM PST - 106 comments

Racist Objects The New York Times and the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia are partnering to collect stories of personal encounters with racist objects, like producer Logan Jaffe's grandmother's salt and pepper shakers. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 8:42 AM PST - 13 comments

Thirty-five years ago, Lori Robinson decided to join the United States Air Force for a few years just to see what would happen (her father being a fighter pilot may have influenced her decision somewhat). Things kept happening, and earlier this year, General Robinson became the highest-ranking woman in U.S. military history upon her appointment as commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:44 AM PST - 8 comments

"Disgusting Xenophobic Repellent". These are the three words on the front page of the Scottish paper, "The National" as the Conservative Part Conference wraps up in Birmingham. [more inside]
posted by Talez at 7:11 AM PST - 136 comments

Justin Johnson crankin' out some righteous blues on a 3-string shovel guitar. [more inside]
posted by jammy at 6:34 AM PST - 13 comments

Starlee Kine's popular podcast, Mystery Show, has been mysteriously absent from the netwaves. She's finally gone on record that Gimlet Media fired her six months ago. Gimlet issued a terse statement that the show was unsustainable, but will the new season of StartUp turn into a Starlee-starring soap opera? And will Gimlet fans side with the show's creator or with the company?
posted by rikschell at 5:19 AM PST - 81 comments

The Monks Who Spent Years Turning Themselves into Mummies—While Alive

The Japanese climate is not exactly conducive to mummification. There are no peat bogs, no arid deserts, and no alpine peaks perennially encased in ice. The summers are hot and humid. Yet somehow a group of Buddhist monks from the Shingon sect discovered a way to mummify themselves through rigorous ascetic training in the shadow of a particularly sacred peak in the mountainous northern prefecture of Yamagata. Between 1081 and 1903, at least 17 monks managed to mummify themselves.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:05 PM PST - 32 comments

Frasier Intros Compilation (Every theme and animation used) [YouTube] | For completeness [YT] | 18 Things You Might Not Know About 'Frasier', Kara Kovalchik, Mental Floss
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:08 PM PST - 32 comments

There's a lot to worry about these days, what with weather and politics. Here's a bit of a distraction, The Silk Road Ensemble performing the classic St. James Infirmary Blues. Open a bottle of something smooth and spicy and enjoy.
posted by HuronBob at 8:05 PM PST - 14 comments

Up next on Ninja Warrior! (Slyt) Lila's dad, who may be the best dad ever, builds his little ninja her own obstacle course. Lila completes the course, cheered on by her dad and many stuffed animals.
posted by Elly Vortex at 8:02 PM PST - 20 comments

"The lists [of gear] are a point of complaint for some reviewers online, but the authors of these books know that they’re writing something that’s a cross between a novel, a shopping list, a survival manual, and a field guide; this is a wholly experimental form, and the results can be awkward." American prepper fiction.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:43 PM PST - 27 comments

Oh my god no, no one uses jQuery anymore. You should try learning React, it’s 2016.
posted by octothorpe at 6:59 PM PST - 97 comments

Noto, one of the most expansive typographic families ever made, supports 800 languages, 100 scripts in up to eight different weights, innumerable special characters, and absolutely no tofu. (SLWired)
posted by Huck500 at 5:32 PM PST - 14 comments

Both W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley were contemporaneous members of the British occult society, The Golden Dawn. They hated each other, due to conflicting personalities and views on magick [Direct PDF link to text from the 1948 Partisan Review]. This rivalry culminated in Crowley waging astral warfare on Yeats, and then attempting to seize the headquarters of the G.D. wearing a kilt and wielding a ceremonial dagger. Although the location of that headquarters is now a coffee shop, it once hosted a showdown between two of the world's most famous magicians: The Battle of Blythe Road.
posted by codacorolla at 4:55 PM PST - 36 comments

The Audit [is] a website and newsletter devoted to discovering, reviewing, and recommending podcasts. We do this work independently and anonymously. We pride ourselves on uncovering interesting audio from all over the world… If you twist our arms, we will tell you that we are sisters, based in Sydney and Berlin.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:50 PM PST - 6 comments

Who Is Louise Delage? (AdWeek)
posted by naju at 4:39 PM PST - 18 comments

When you see a woman with no headphone jack, it can be intimidating, to say the least. Many men assume that a woman would only forgo a headphone jack by choice. But, with the technological landscape being so complex, it can be easy for a woman to get overwhelmed when making decisions about her headphones. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 4:07 PM PST - 27 comments

Brutalism Is Back [The New York Times] “But now, like the chevron mustache, Brutalism [wiki] is undergoing something of a revival. Despite two generations of abuse (and perhaps a little because of it), an enthusiasm for Brutalist buildings beyond the febrile, narrow precincts of architecture criticism has begun to take hold. Preservationists clamor for their survival, historians laud their ethical origins and an independent public has found beauty in their rawness. For an aesthetic once praised for its “ruthless logic” and “bloody-mindedness” — in the much-quoted phrasing of critic Reyner Banham — it is a surprising turn of events.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:03 PM PST - 71 comments

“Roman,” she wrote. “This is your digital monument.” [more inside]
posted by melissam at 12:18 PM PST - 37 comments

Repeat After Me: Psychology's Reproducibility Problem a comic by Maki Naro
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:11 PM PST - 34 comments

On April 5th, 2010, the Upper Big Branch Mine suffered a coal dust explosion, killing 29 miners. Massey Energy CEO and 'American Competitionist' Don Blankenship was charged with conspiring to violate safety and health standards, facing up to 31 years in prison; he was ultimately sentenced to a single year in prison. And now, "...Appalachia’s infamous imprisoned coal baron just claimed he’s a 'political prisoner.'" [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 10:30 AM PST - 30 comments

"A prominent animal rights activist in New Delhi, explaining her relentlessness on behalf of animals, said to me the following: "I only wish there were a slaughterhouse next door. To witness that violence, to hear those screams... I would never be able to rest." She was not alone among animal welfare activists in India in linking the witnessing of violence against an animal to the creation of a profound bond that demanded from her a life of responsibility. I argue in this article that this moment of witnessing constitutes an intimate event in tethering human to nonhuman, expanding ordinary understandings of the self and its possible social relations, potentially blowing the conceit of humanity apart." Witness: Humans, Animals, and the Politics of Becoming, an essay by Naisargi N. Dave. [cw: contains vivid text/visuals describing non-human animal suffering and death*] [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 9:11 AM PST - 16 comments

Baseball's finest bat-flips are performed in South Korea. An in-depth article with animated illustrations. Flipping one's bat after hitting is taboo in MLB but celebrated by Korean fans and players. Each player has his own distinctive style. [more inside]
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:03 AM PST - 29 comments

My Shattered Istanbul , Selin Thomas
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:00 AM PST - 7 comments

Fan conventions, where stars can take home hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for a few hours of time, once were the domain of has-beens and sci-fi novelties. But the business has become so lucrative — think $500,000 for Captain America's Chris Evans or The Walking Dead favorite Norman Reedus to appear — that current TV and film stars are popping up at events like Salt Lake City Comic-Con and Heroes and Villains Fan Fest.

[more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:06 AM PST - 103 comments

22 maps that show how Americans speak English differently across the US
posted by Room 641-A at 4:59 AM PST - 243 comments

Lady Gaga has begun her "Dive Bar Tour" with an appearance in Nashville at The 5 Spot [professionally filmed* for Facebook Live broadcast, 25m40s]. She debuted three new songs: "Sinner's Prayer", "A-Yo", and "Million Reasons", and also performed recent single "Perfect Illusion". She played guitar and performed with a four piece rock-and-roll band and asked the crowd to call her "Joanne". And, editorial note, she was pretty f-n awesome!** [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:43 AM PST - 14 comments

What do you do when your company's commercial sparks urban legends about a curse? Why, replace it with one that isn't creepy at all. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:49 PM PST - 38 comments

Athletes Jesse Owens and Carl Ludwig "Luz" Long, competitors at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, became devoted friends and corresponded long after Owens returned to America. [more inside]
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:54 PM PST - 6 comments

Phil Coyne is an usher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He first started working that job in the 1936 season.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:02 PM PST - 12 comments

The prevailing attitude [in China] is chabuduo, or ‘close enough’. It’s a phrase you’ll hear with grating regularity, one that speaks to a job 70 per cent done, a plan sketched out but never completed, a gauge unchecked or a socket put in the wrong size. Chabuduo is the corrosive opposite of the impulse towards craftmanship...it implies that to put any more time or effort into a piece of work would be the act of a fool. China is the land of the cut corner, of ‘good enough for government work’.
posted by beijingbrown at 6:58 PM PST - 69 comments

Pallas's cats (aka manuls) have been granted protection area in Sailyugemsky Nature Park. This calls for floofy manul kittens pouncing to a crime-sleazy lounge soundtrack. [more inside]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:52 PM PST - 27 comments

"The possibility that education has become a fundamental divide in democracy – with the educated on one side and the less educated on another – is an alarming prospect. It points to a deep alienation that cuts both ways. The less educated fear they are being governed by intellectual snobs who know nothing of their lives and experiences. The educated fear their fate may be decided by know-nothings who are ignorant of how the world really works. Bringing the two sides together is going to be very hard. The current election season appears to be doing the opposite." [SLGuardian] [more inside]
posted by forza at 5:26 PM PST - 88 comments

The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st Century Agriculture [NYT link] Our industrialized food system nourishes more people, at lower cost, than any comparable system in history. It also exerts a terrifyingly massive influence on our health and our environment. Photographer George Steinmetz spent nearly a year traveling the country to capture that system, in all its scope, grandeur and dizzying scale. His photographs are all the more remarkable for the fact that so few large food producers are willing to open themselves to this sort of public view [more inside]
posted by helmutdog at 3:48 PM PST - 25 comments

For Canadians, Thanksgiving Is a ‘Quieter’ Affair in October [The New York Times] Trying to explain their version of the holiday can be a thankless task for Canadians living in America. Most of the year, Canadians living in the United States look, talk and act so much like their neighbors that their nationality draws no attention at all. Autumn is a season of danger, though, when the mask of assimilation can be ripped off, forcing some Americans to face the unnerving, if fleeting, realization that Canada is an entirely different country. All it takes is one mention of Canadian Thanksgiving [wiki].
posted by Fizz at 3:12 PM PST - 126 comments

Heavy Metal Guitar Without Distortion I and II.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:33 PM PST - 72 comments

Mahjong! Mahjong! Students mystified at midnight, busted for playing mah jong in a common outdoor area. Apparently take out is controversial as well.
posted by Oyéah at 11:53 AM PST - 18 comments

Or rather, to be scrupulously accurate: We have been parted often since, in fact most of the time, as I live elsewhere, though she has ever been the companion of my heart. But I first knew her as my own on the internet. Making friends on the internet is the closest I have ever come to fulfilling my dream of becoming one of the monks of the B’omarr Order, who keep their brains in jars and the jars on mechanical spider-legs, and who are seen briefly in Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi: It is a nearly perfectly unembodied act. Online, we are all Jane Eyre yelling about soul-kindred-ness to one another.
posted by sciatrix at 10:51 AM PST - 14 comments

A Century Of Style: An illustrated guide to 1800s menswear
posted by The Whelk at 10:37 AM PST - 15 comments

"[O]ne thing that's really critical from an emotional agility perspective and that's actually really quick and easy to do, is to simply recognize your thought for what it is. It's a thought. Or your emotion for what it is. It's an emotion." An interview with author and Harvard Medical School faculty psychologist Susan David, Ph.D., by Sarah Green Carmichael for Harvard Business Review IdeaCast: Building Emotional Agility [audio + transcript] [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 8:57 AM PST - 32 comments

The highly acclaimed magazine mental_floss will publish its last edition this month. Executive Editor Foster Kamer shares his thoughts on its demise and the mountain of spam that he had to wade through to assemble the letters section each month. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:04 AM PST - 32 comments

NOAA data buoy 42058, located in the central Caribbean about 200 NM south of Jamaica, records as the eye of Hurricane Matthew passes directly over it. [more inside]
posted by Westringia F. at 5:34 AM PST - 147 comments

Take your seat and let the technology do the work! [more inside]
posted by carter at 4:49 AM PST - 14 comments

In Ancient Rome, memento mori was a Latin expression meaning "remember that you have to die," originating from a traditional means of keeping generals humble. In art, a memento mori is "an object kept as a reminder of the inevitability of death, such as a skull." In the United Kingdom, Memento Mori is a shop which specializes in objects and antiques which are macabre in nature. (Instagram) (Facebook)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:00 PM PST - 36 comments

A classic Dutch comic from the 1960s is being published in a local New Jersey newspaper. 'Tales from the life of Olivier B. Bomble, gentleman,’ was serialized in Dutch newspapers for many years, and Squire Bomble, his good friend Ocelot and many others have become household names in the Netherlands. [more inside]
posted by joost de vries at 5:38 PM PST - 13 comments

With 35 days to go until the election, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence square off in the vice presidential debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia at 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Print out your Bingo cards and tune into any major network or listen on NPR. Alternately, watch on one of YouTube's channels (NBC, PBS, Fox News, the Washington Post). Twitter will stream Bloomberg. Facebook has ABC and PBS. C-SPAN has its own feed. You can even watch in virtual reality (Gear, Rift, or Vive) via AltspaceVR. [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:25 PM PST - 3889 comments

"Legs are good. Internal organs are good. Eyes are good. I just walked out three miles, now I gotta go to the hospital." Man finds bear and two cubs - or bears find man - in Montana. So of course he [warning, blood, gore] films a reaction video.
posted by Evilspork at 4:28 PM PST - 47 comments

It is exactly what the title says it is. In a bizarre coincidence, the day this meta was posted would have been Buster Keatons 121st birthday. [via Reddit]
posted by marienbad at 4:19 PM PST - 19 comments

Eight of the cutest toxic caterpillars [more inside]
posted by isthmus at 4:11 PM PST - 7 comments

20 years ago today, a little band from Erie, PA took the world by polite shrug in Tom Hanks' That Thing You Do. [more inside]
posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:26 PM PST - 56 comments

Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by US intelligence officials, sources have told Reuters. The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA) or FBI, said two former employees and a third person who knew about the programme. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 2:22 PM PST - 51 comments

Rachel Brewson, Dating Editor, has written for xoJane and Thought Catalog, loves craft beer, the beach, and warm LA nights, and does not exist. The team of men behind Rachel Brewson, the fake woman whose breakup went viral.
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM PST - 19 comments

At the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida, Jesus is crucified most afternoons around 5 p.m. On the day I visited last fall, things were humming along right on time, if remarkably quickly. Six minutes after the redeemer’s bloodied corpse was carried into the tomb, a shout—“I am alive!”—proclaimed his return. A gold-spangled, virile-looking Jesus emerged from a cloud of smoke to announce that the sick shall be healed, and then kicked off a Hallelujah dance party.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:04 PM PST - 64 comments

Seven years ago, an incredibly stupid mystery captivated CNN. Today, thanks to cable news, Balloon Boys are everywhere. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:55 AM PST - 68 comments

Jeff Pearlman: Why You Really Hate Tom Brady
posted by colt45 at 10:40 AM PST - 54 comments

Playing Lynch is “a collaborative meditation on the work of David Lynch”.
Practically, it’s a site hosted by Square Space that lets you buy an album of David Lynch soundtrack covers with a donation to the David Lynch foundation
Best-of-the-web-ly, it's a collection of David Lynch scenes where said music was employed, with the signal characters reenacted by John Malkovich. [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 10:14 AM PST - 10 comments

Tomorrow night, the Mets face off against the Giants in Major League Baseball's NL Wild Card Game. $1.19 million of the $135 million Mets payroll will be watching from afar. This is not because the player is injured or didn't make the roster. It's because he's 53 years old and hasn't played baseball in 15 years. The Mets will continue to pay Bobby Bonilla $1.19 million each year until 2035, thanks to one of the strangest contracts in sports history. (538Video). [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:57 AM PST - 25 comments

Solange Knowles (previously) released her new album A Seat At The Table (narrated by Master P(!)) last week, along with a book of poetry, and photographs, two in-depth interviews (with Tavi Gevinson at W Magazine and Fader), a moderated conversation between her and her mother released on her website Saint Heron, and two music videos, "Cranes in the Sky" and "Don't Touch My Hair".
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:54 AM PST - 5 comments

As the capital’s traffic slows below pre-Congestion Charge speeds, difficult decisions loom. (via @felixsalmon ) [more inside]
posted by hawthorne at 7:07 AM PST - 91 comments

The hardest part of writing a show in the '80s isn't getting music clearance or convincing actors to get those haircuts -- it's finding the right tech (or at least, making it look right). [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:50 AM PST - 68 comments

Building human towers in Spain - Every year in Spain, a Catalan tradition of building Castells—human towers reaching up to 10 stories—takes place. [more inside]
posted by a lungful of dragon at 6:49 AM PST - 24 comments

Presented without ambient sound, the video plays out against a slow, deliberate marimba-based soundtrack. The Duke of Cambridge can be seen forming a large soap bubble. Princess Charlotte pets a rabbit. And Prince George, bubble-gun in hand, stalks the party with his now famous look of toddler-y disinterest. Canada just funded a strange, grey-toned video thanking itself.
posted by mannequito at 12:42 AM PST - 29 comments

Sarah Leonard: "What is social reproduction, and why does it lie at the core of your feminist analysis?"

Nancy Fraser: "Social reproduction is about the creation and maintenance of social bonds...." [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:56 PM PST - 29 comments

Bass Pro Shops struck a deal to acquire Cabela’s Inc. for about $4.5 billion in cash, uniting two of the biggest sellers of outdoor-sports gear and rivals that have spent decades building over-the-top megastores. [more inside]
posted by Quonab at 9:49 PM PST - 55 comments

"Chanticleer and Cantus, America's best-in-class male vocal ensembles, have never shared a stage together. They have shared a beer together, and, famously, video of that event last winter went wildly viral. [Ed.: YouTube link.] That inspired these two groups to think of what collaboration might look like. Voila!" Tonight's concert was streamed live from Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:34 PM PST - 5 comments

Five Scary Places And The Legends Behind Them (mental_floss) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:17 PM PST - 4 comments

Gloria Naylor, author of The Women of Brewster Place, passed away on Sept. 28 at the age of 66.
posted by girlmightlive at 6:05 PM PST - 20 comments

The Box: The Not-So-Wholesome Reality Behind The Making of Your Meal Kit [Buzzfeed] “Blue Apron wants to revolutionize the food system by selling would-be home cooks all the ingredients they need to make a meal without setting foot in the grocery store. But a BuzzFeed News investigation has found that in the rush to scale its supply chain at the speed of startup, the company has had health and safety violations, violent incidents, and unhappy workers at one of its packing facilities.”
posted by Fizz at 4:53 PM PST - 79 comments

"This is a personal story, sadly tragic and heartbreaking, but by sharing this information with you I know that you can help make a difference in the lives of others. As you may know, my husband Robin Williams had the little-known but deadly Lewy body disease (LBD). He died from suicide in 2014 at the end of an intense, confusing, and relatively swift persecution at the hand of this disease's symptoms and pathology. He was not alone in his traumatic experience with this neurologic disease." (cw: discussion of suicide)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:00 PM PST - 20 comments

Amazon has banned 'incentivized reviews' which were provided in exchange for receiving products for free or at a discount. An update to the customer review policy was posted which says that the banned reviews "make up only a tiny fraction of the tens of millions of reviews on Amazon" while independent analysis has shown that incentivized reviewers are much more likely to write positive reviews. This policy change does not apply to Amazon Vine which is a similar review program run by Amazon itself.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 2:54 PM PST - 47 comments

paperplanes.world, (best on mobile) [more inside]
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:39 PM PST - 26 comments

Over the previous weeks, cyber espionage group Fancy Bears has been releasing confidential WADA documents allegedly exposing a "legal" side to performance-enhancing drugs. [more inside]
posted by lmfsilva at 2:30 PM PST - 15 comments

The Detroit home of civil rights activist Rosa Parks has been dismantled and moved across the Atlantic by a Berlin-based artist after it faced demolition in its original location. [more inside]
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:36 PM PST - 13 comments

(1) patents constricting the essential channels of online communication run afoul of the First Amendment; and (2) claims directed to software implemented on a generic computer are categorically not eligible for patent.

[more inside]
posted by atbash at 12:35 PM PST - 38 comments

At the end of the process I ended up with a stack of 3.5” floppies, so I bought an external floppy drive to see if there was anything on them worth saving. Mostly they held back-ups of old manuscripts and story fragments from before I joined Valve, but on one disk I found several documents from the summer of 1998, late in Half-Life 1’s development, when I’d been working on the game for a year. - Novelist Marc Laidlaw unearths his notes from his time at the Lambda Complex, including an extensive piece on writing Half Life and afterthoughts on having shipped it.
posted by Artw at 12:30 PM PST - 32 comments

It's that time of the year, when the high desert starts to cool down and the conditions are just right for ballooning. It's the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta! Nine days of hot air balloon-related events, from dawn patrol's lift-off to test conditions to Mass Ascension when hundreds of hot air balloons take flight, to the evening special shape Glowdeo and fireworks for good measure. And if conditions are right, there's America's Challenge, the long distance gas balloon race, and if you need to cool down from all this excitement, enjoy a little splash and dash. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Slovenian Photographer Matic Zorman was awarded first prize (category: People) at this year's World Press Photo contest (previously), for a picture of a young refugee girl, Waiting to Register, taken one year ago in a small border town in Serbia. Winning changed his life - now he wants to help change hers. [more inside]
posted by progosk at 10:51 AM PST - 1 comment

Buddy Cannon's 92 year old mom, Lyndel Rhodes, wrote a song, House on a Hill, that Willie Nelson recently recorded and plans to put on his next album. This is her listening to it for the first time. [more inside]
posted by dog food sugar at 10:28 AM PST - 12 comments

Mr Plickett wakes up, and reviews The Force Awakens and the current Star Wars ecosystem [more inside]
posted by cendawanita at 8:33 AM PST - 70 comments

What it says on the crock. (SLimgur)
posted by duffell at 5:06 AM PST - 32 comments

For many people, 2016 has been a rough year (probably an understatement.) However, for two football teams in rival codes, 2016 has turned into a very good year indeed. [more inside]
posted by freethefeet at 3:43 AM PST - 6 comments

Portrait of a would-be world-changer Who is Sam Altman, the new head of Y Combinator? What does he want to do/for all of us? New Yorker portrait by Tad Friend. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 3:30 AM PST - 45 comments

Italian author Elena Ferrante has written under a closely guarded pseudonym for decades. Now, after a 'months long investigation', an Italian journalist uncovers the true identity of the author of the Neapolitan Quartet. Her readers, however, are less than grateful. [more inside]
posted by tavegyl at 12:11 AM PST - 172 comments

Like a detective analyzing a crime scene for potential clues, Ann travels the world at the behest of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (S.L.H.), poking and prodding her way around hotel rooms, spas, restaurants, and lobbies, and reporting back on everything from how many times a staff member smiles and makes eye contact during an interaction to optimum bed bounciness.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:32 PM PST - 8 comments

Sir Neville Marriner, the co-founder and long-time conductor of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, has died at age 92. (NYT link) [more inside]
posted by John Cohen at 9:22 PM PST - 46 comments

"For non-Angelenos, the most LA season is that brief spring, when the days are 72 degrees and sunny. But for Angelenos, who have a far more intimate relationship with both nature and apocalypse than the 72-degrees-and-sunny crowd will ever allow, the most Los Angeles season is Santa Ana season." -- Adrian Glick Kudler, Something Uneasy in the Los Angeles Air [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 8:47 PM PST - 38 comments

A signature can reveal a lot about a person. At least that’s what many believed in the early 20th century when people collected signatures of friends, family, and celebrities in autograph albums. But there was one particular book that bled the ink of an autograph into creatures, coffins, bats, and skeletons. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:03 PM PST - 3 comments

Put on your head phones, clean your ears, and enjoy the rubbing, cupping, stroking, tapping for tingles.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:45 PM PST - 37 comments

Deep-fried Data (Collections as Data, Library of Congress) For the generation growing up now, the Internet is their window on the world. They take it for granted. It’s only us, who have seen it take shape, and are aware of all the ways it could have been different, who understand that it's fragile, contingent. The coming years will decide to what extent the Internet be a medium for consumption, to what extent it will lift people up, and to what extent it will become a tool of social control.
posted by CrystalDave at 4:19 PM PST - 16 comments

Is Puerto Rico the Next Sustainable Ag Hot Spot? Additional related news includes Bayer Opens New Bio-Agriculture Facilities in Puerto Rico and Governor Cuomo Announces First-Ever Agriculture Trade Forum Between New York and Puerto Rico [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 4:10 PM PST - 1 comment

101 small ways you can improve your city Feeling cynical? Ground down by the divisiveness and pervasive hate? Just feeling blue about your surroundings? All politics is local. (So, too, are parks and recreation and community building.) Take a page (or 101) out of this post for sparking joy. [more inside]
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 2:58 PM PST - 8 comments

After 80 years, the original Carnegie Deli is closing this December. A bit more background information on the NYC landmark at Smithsonian.com.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:19 PM PST - 40 comments

The Virtues Of Nuclear Ignorance , Alex Wellerstein, whose blog RESTRICTED DATA covers Secrecy, verification, and purposeful ignorance
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:00 PM PST - 4 comments

The Art of Making a Nixie Tube (slyt)
posted by fremen at 1:47 PM PST - 26 comments

The economics of dining as a couple - "I am eternally astonished to find not only that many couples I know failed to discuss this key area before they marched up to the altar, but also that many of them still have not developed a joint dining strategy even after 10 or 20 years together. This is madness." Megan McArdle blends economics and marriage therapy.
posted by GuyZero at 12:55 PM PST - 97 comments

Remembering activist Niki Massey (1980-2016). Niki "lived the kind of life that our media and our society like to pretend doesn’t exist; the life of a black, asexual, disabled woman." Her freethought blog, Seriously?!?, among many other things chronicled her disability and her service as a clinic escort. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:51 AM PST - 17 comments

22 of the Most Hideous Jumpers on British TV in the 80s
posted by Artw at 6:28 AM PST - 53 comments

Richard D. Trentlage, 87, Who Wrote ‘The Oscar Mayer Wiener Song,’ has gone on to that great bun in the sky.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:26 PM PST - 40 comments

Capsule Silence XXIV is a first person sci-fi action game for Mac and PC featuring music by chiptune band Anamanaguchi. After a dispute with developer NHX, the band leaked an early development build of the game on Twitter. And if you're up for a short, quirky exploration game, you should pretend that everything I just said is true, go to the band's website, click "PLAY CAPSULE SILENCE XXIV," download the game and give it a try. Otherwise, read on ... [more inside]
posted by john hadron collider at 8:30 PM PST - 7 comments

The Parlor Roller is a breed of domesticated pigeon that have been selectively bred for their ability to perform somersaults on the ground. Competitions with these non-flying birds involve pigeon rolling for distance.
posted by fings at 8:08 PM PST - 23 comments

20 Cats That Fell Asleep and Look Ridiculous — that is all.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:58 PM PST - 51 comments

Outlander Kitchen is chef Theresa Carle-Sanders' blog (and now cookbook) inspired by the food in Diana Gabaldon's Scottish time travel romance series. Recipes include LJ's Steak and Mushroom Pie from The Private Matter, Claire's Spoon Bread from Drums of Autumn, Smoked Eggs at the McGillivray's from A Breath of Snow of Ashes, and Mrs. Graham's Chocolate Biscuits from Dragonfly in Amber.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:48 AM PST - 20 comments

My 18 months inside one of Chicago's most notorious gangs (Forrest Stuart, for Chicago magazine)
posted by box at 11:34 AM PST - 41 comments

Stranger Things 8-bit cinema, which is nostalgia².
posted by SpacemanStix at 11:02 AM PST - 19 comments

The states that Americans sing about. Some data to back up those bar bets?
posted by fixedgear at 10:33 AM PST - 41 comments

How do the revered do it? And what's the science? Perhaps you want to build a home cheese cave? Well, the Discovery channel explain how to turn 30,000 liters of milk into 1,400 blocks of Mozzarella, while the making of Blue Stilton, and then Swiss Cheese, are revealed. Elsewhere, Channel Cheese shows traditional Toma Ossolana, and Ricotta, making while The British Cheese Board have a short documentary. There's also some serious cheese making action in Somerset, Mary Rose Livingston, farmer owner of Northland Sheep Dairy in New York, talks about her cheesemaking, and John from the north of England makes a nice Blue Stilton. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 8:44 AM PST - 26 comments

Greg Rucka on Queer Narrative and Wonder Woman [Comicosity] [Interview] “Ah. We’re talking about the “Northstar Problem.” The character has to stand up and say, “I’M GAY!” in all bold caps for it to be evident. For my purposes, that’s bad writing. That’s a character stating something that’s not impacting the story. I get nothing for my narrative out of that in almost any case. When a character is being asked point blank, if it’s germane to the story, then you get the answer. But for me, and I think for Nicola as well, for any story we tell — be it Black Magick, be it Wonder Woman, be it a Batman story — we want to show you these characters and their lives, and what they are doing. We want to show, not tell.”
posted by Fizz at 7:43 AM PST - 19 comments