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Have you wondered why people from hot climates can handle the heat better than those from cold climates? In the December 1991 issue of Natural History, Jared Diamond wrote the article "Pearl Harbor and Emperor's Physiologists" with the subtitle: Our ability to feel comfortable in hot climates depends on where we spend the first few years of of childhood.
posted by ShooBoo at 11:21 PM PST - 27 comments

Recently, photographer Simon Dell stumbled upon a family of mice running around his garden. Instead of reaching for the traps, however, he took out his tools. Dell built the mice a miniature village and they repaid him by posing in front of his camera.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:19 PM PST - 36 comments

Meet Kung Fu Joe! He's a brand new fursuit currently wandering around this weekend's Midwest Fur Fest, the second largest furry convention in the US (maybe the world). He's there because his daughter, @RubyBruceLee, is a furry and he's there with her. Here's Ruby with her dad. Also, Ruby with her dad and a fan. And Ruby with her dad and a another fan. But why does that last tweet mention Insane Clown Posse's Violent J? Because Violent J's daughter is a furry and he's had a fursuit made that incorporates his juggalo clown markings into its fur. They're at the con and it's charming as fuck. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:28 PM PST - 27 comments

George Herbert Walker Bush, first baseman for the Yale Bulldogs baseball team in the 1947 and 1948 College World Series, WWII naval aviator, twice elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the 7th district of Texas, 10th U.S. Ambassador to the UN, head of the CIA, 43rd Vice President of the United States for two terms under Ronald Reagan, 41st President of the United States for one term, member of a multigenerational political dynasty, and skydiving enthusiast, has died at age 94.
posted by theory at 9:28 PM PST - 244 comments

Delane Parnell is creating a valuable scouting grounds for new tech talent. Parnell’s PlayVS (pronounced play versus), an e-sports platform for high schools, has yet to even launch. But the 26-year-old Detroit native exudes confidence. “Investors are starting to realize that gaming is the next social paradigm,” says Parnell, answering a question about e-sports’ mainstream popularity. “And they want a piece of it.” You don’t have to look far for evidence of gaming’s influence
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:45 PM PST - 4 comments

The Inexplicable Sexiness Of Ivy Valentine [Kotaku] “From the first day I played Soulcalibur in the early 2000s up to playing Soulcalibur VI in the present day, I have felt every possible feeling about character Ivy Valentine’s tits and ass. Alienated. Angry. Sad. Jealous. Embarrassed. Bored. Horny. Amused. Jaded. Ivy hasn’t changed much throughout the life of the series, but I’ve changed my mind about her many times over the years.” [YouTube][Soul Calibur VI Character Trailer][History of Ivy Valentine] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:49 PM PST - 11 comments

Unfortunately, sometimes feel-good stories of academic achievement are built on lies and abuse. SL New York Times. Tw for racism, child abuse, and general awfulness.
posted by Alensin at 5:11 PM PST - 19 comments

NPR's annual best of books list is back! Yay!
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 3:02 PM PST - 18 comments

The publication of Rookie magazine is ending. "In one way, this is not my decision, because digital media has become an increasingly difficult business, and Rookie in its current form is no longer financially sustainable. And in another way, it is my decision—to not do the things that might make it financially sustainable, like selling it to new owners, taking money from investors, or asking readers for donations or subscriptions. And in yet another way, it doesn’t feel like I’m deciding not to do all that, because I have explored all of these options, and am unable to proceed with any of them." -Tavi Gevinson.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:54 PM PST - 19 comments

Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association releases a video highlighting the importance of the deep water port to the fishing industry in Portland Maine and surrounding communities.

"The working waterfront is our collective connection to the sea, to the deep maritime tradition, to the work ethic and soul of this place. Men and women of the fishing community, for generations, have been willing to tackle the sea to return with harvest; always a life or death gamble. Hotels and condos become meaningless without the context of our fishing community. To lose our working waterfront would be to betray the cultural context of this state."

12 little wharves
posted by pintapicasso at 1:25 PM PST - 6 comments

Besides sporting ostentatiously grown-up names that sound like they were randomly generated by small boys wearing thick glasses (Dr. Silence, Mr. Perseus, Moris Klaw, Simon Iff, Xavier Wycherly) these occult detectives all had one thing in common: they were completely terrible at detecting.
posted by dfan at 12:34 PM PST - 62 comments

My parents don’t have AC, but they have one of those “fridge on top, pull-out-freezer below” fridges. Last summer, we were remarking that we might need to shave [the dog] so she didn’t get heatstroke, to which she looked up and made a disgusted noise at us.…Then got up, used the dishrag to pull open the freezer and climbed on top of the frozen vegetables, stretching out and sighing contentedly. “Arwen,” Mom began, but was interrupted by a loud ‘WHAAAaaaaarrr?” from Arwen. “Ok you can stay there for now but we’re getting you a kiddie pool so you have to get out when we get back. Don’t eat anything.” She ate a bag of frozen green beans and farted for three days straight. Blogger gallusrostromegalus regales us with tales of Arwen the gloriously naughty (off-duty) service dog. [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:30 PM PST - 18 comments

Tonight's the night! The Irish equivalent of the Superbowl is The Late Late* Toy Show, an annual extravaganza that reaches far beyond it's usual fanbase and into the heart of a nation. Live international stream from 21.30 GMT. It's probably easiest if you just join in the drinking game [more inside]
posted by Iteki at 12:12 PM PST - 11 comments

“Now, a Nation investigation has uncovered an explanation for the Pentagon’s foot-dragging: For decades, the DoD’s leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD’s budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity. DoD has literally been making up numbers in its annual financial reports to Congress—representing trillions of dollars’ worth of seemingly nonexistent transactions—knowing that Congress would rely on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the DoD the following year, according to government records and interviews with current and former DoD officials, congressional sources, and independent experts.” Exclusive: The Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed (The Nation)
posted by The Whelk at 11:00 AM PST - 44 comments

Menial Tasks, Slurs and Swastikas: Many Black Workers at Tesla Say They Faced Racism (slnyt)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:56 AM PST - 7 comments

Never, ever, ever, ever give up. (single-link 46-second YouTube)
posted by Etrigan at 10:48 AM PST - 5 comments

Start by making your default 20 percent everywhere — yes, even there [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:28 AM PST - 162 comments

N.K. Jemisin Is Trying to Keep the World From Ending
posted by infini at 10:23 AM PST - 11 comments

How has someone with such sterling Establishment credentials—Harvard University, Harvard Business School, the Clinton administration—managed to find herself in such a pickle? Facebook’s leadership culture, as should be clear by now, has been anything but open, transparent, or authentic. A true leader would not have had to write a post defending herself in light of her company’s hiring of a P.R. firm, Definers, that leveraged anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros to deflect attention from Facebook’s own missteps. (“I did not know we hired them or about the work they were doing, but I should have,” wrote Sandberg, who was hired, in part, to manage Facebook’s Washington relationships.)
posted by mecran01 at 9:56 AM PST - 22 comments

How did the rectangle become Western art’s anatomical limit? "This is about the dominance of the rectangular format in a certain tradition of picture making, a dominance that still holds today and extends well beyond the medium of painting. The book, the photographic print, the screen, and the museum—which has tended to favor this format—all guarantee that we encounter most pictures in rectangular frames." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 8:48 AM PST - 33 comments

The Guardian long read: "But, like fresh bed linen and French bulldogs, the Squatty Potty exerts a powerful emotional force on its owners. “I have one and I have to tell you, it will ruin your life,” a Reddit user called chamburgers recently posted. “I can’t poop anywhere but at home with my Squatty Potty. When I have to poop at work I’m left unsatisfied. It’s like climbing into a wet sleeping bag.”" Also in The Week, bonappetit, Joe.co.uk, and Adweek. Related: which emerged first, poo or poop, and some more differences. (Previously)
posted by Wordshore at 8:35 AM PST - 76 comments

Brian Hayes, author of Infrastructure, writes about the Merrimack Valley Gas Explosions, which killed 1, injured 25 and burned 40 homes in and around Lawrence and Andover, Massachusetts last September: Another Technological Tragedy

I admit to a morbid fascination with stories of technological disaster. I read NTSB accident reports the way some people consume murder mysteries. The narratives belong to the genre of tragedy. In using that word I don’t mean just that the loss of life and property is very sad. These are stories of people with the best intentions and with great skill and courage, who are nonetheless overcome by forces they cannot master. The special pathos of technological tragedies is that the engines of our destruction are machines that we ourselves design and build.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:27 AM PST - 14 comments

Even without further context, we'd find Frances Henshaw's 1823 "Book of Penmanship Executed at the Middlebury Female Academy" imaginatively and artistically remarkable. But this 14-year-old girl's textually-derived maps and cartographically-arranged texts also provide some of our best direct evidence for the teaching practices of famed women's educational reformer Emma Willard. Willard founded Frances Henshaw's school at a time when geography was taught almost entirely through prose, and there she developed a new, visual and experimental pedagogy. This led her to assert her own impact on spatial and historical understanding in the early American republic unblushingly: "In history," wrote Emma Willard, "I have invented the map." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:04 AM PST - 3 comments

For years, scholars have tried to pin down the exact date (previously) but after some debate, it appears that three decades ago today was, indeed, a very good day.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:59 AM PST - 10 comments

Soon I was locked in, balls deep, ready to be ground down by the enamelled pepper mill within her. Literary Review's. Bad sex award 2018: the contenders in quotes.
posted by zabuni at 7:01 AM PST - 55 comments

Millennials are killing countless industries — but the Fed says it's mostly just because they're poor. The core argument is that due to the various recessions (including the Great One back in 2008), Millennials have had multiple rollbacks on their earning, and so they have less money; then they don't buy the same things, and keep them longer. When they have the money, though, they do buy similar things as to previous generations. If there's a greater economic recovery, it might result in the end to the Millennial Economic Murder Spree.
posted by mephron at 5:51 AM PST - 96 comments

"I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life" The Cut's advice columnist Heather Havrilesky, a.k.a. Ask Polly, with some thoughts on the angst one feels when looking back on misspent(?) time.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:46 AM PST - 47 comments

The Digital Maginot Line: “Cyberwar, most people thought, would be fought over infrastructure — armies of state-sponsored hackers and the occasional international crime syndicate infiltrating networks and exfiltrating secrets, or taking over critical systems. […] But as social platforms grew, acquiring standing audiences in the hundreds of millions and developing tools for precision targeting and viral amplification, a variety of malign actors simultaneously realized that there was another way. They could go straight for the people, easily and cheaply.” [more inside]
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:02 PM PST - 16 comments

What manner of creature is Sausage Cat? How is he related to the Taramster and the Cthulcat? They're all creations of the cheerfully demented Ida: Instagram | Facebook | Patreon
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:59 PM PST - 8 comments

Virginia-based Americana group Carbon Leaf created a holiday-season EP back in 2010. Whether it's winter weather, traditional family holiday parties, childhood holiday longings, or just being an adult at New Year's, Carbon Leaf probably has a song for you here. Christmas Child runs about 30 minutes total. Christmas Child, Red Punch Green Punch, Ice And Snow, Sutton's Reel, Ode To The Snow, Drifting, Christmas At Sea, Christmas Child (Instrumental), Toast To The New Year [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:23 PM PST - 6 comments

Two women have spoken to independent reporter David McAfee about inappropriate behavior by Neil deGrasse Tyson. A former assistant "says she decided to quit after the negative interactions with Tyson, and that she told the story to at least one supervisor in hopes that he wouldn’t hire more female assistants for the astrophysicist."
posted by 445supermag at 8:03 PM PST - 86 comments

Cyberons, sexy Zygons and Mark Gatiss: the bizarre world of the unofficial Doctor Who spin-offs - featuring actual Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy and Jon Pertwee as “The Stranger”.
posted by Artw at 7:08 PM PST - 11 comments

Netflix’s anime announcement frenzy [Ars Technica] “We only have a teaser trailer and a list of writers, directors, producers, and supervisors, but it's enough to get a certain jazzy anime theme song rocking in our heads. That's right: the late-'90s Japanese cartoon Cowboy Bebop is coming back. As, um, a live-action series? Netflix, in an apparent attempt to assuage anxious "uh live action?" responses, immediately informed fans that original animated series Director Shinichiro Watanabe will participate as a "consultant." [...] It's somewhat easier to get excited about Netflix's other huge Tuesday anime announcement, since it's a known quantity: Neon Genesis Evangelion is coming to the service in spring 2019. By that, we mean the TV series' original mid-'90s run of 26 episodes.” [YouTube][Neon Genesis Evangelion Trailer] [Twitter][Cowboy Bepop Teaser Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:06 PM PST - 55 comments

Star Wars and Empire Uncut. Toy Story Live Action. (The original video seems to be blocked worldwide - but that's not stopping others from making a live-action Toy Story 3). Our Robocop Remake. Tons of reanimations. But premiering in mere seconds holy crap is one that might top them all in weirdness: SHREK RETOLD. [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 4:59 PM PST - 6 comments

This is what can happen when a cop decides not to shoot. TW: suicidal ideation, suicide by cop, tragedy. Via ProPublica.
posted by Alensin at 4:10 PM PST - 52 comments

Infected ‘Zombie Spiders’ Forced to Build Incubation Chambers for Their Parasitic Overlords. Parasites that control the behavior of their hosts for their own benefit are a well-documented natural phenomenon, but the discovery of a previously unknown relationship between a parasitic wasp and a social spider is particularly upsetting. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 3:03 PM PST - 21 comments

He abused hundreds of underage girls. He served 13 months. After months of investigation, the FBI appeared to have enough evidence to send Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein to prison for life. But in 2007, U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta accepted an unusual plea, which resulted in a brief stint in county jail and also granted immunity from federal criminal charges to Epstein, four accomplices, and “any potential co-conspirators." Acosta is now Secretary of Labor, but he is no longer being considered for Attorney General. (Original link goes to the first of three long Miami Herald stories, which are based on their year-long investigation and include detailed descriptions of the abuse. Slate has a summary.)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:28 PM PST - 50 comments

@TristanACooper: "There's an unused music track hidden on the cart of The Flintstones SNES game and it's INCREDIBLE..."
Guy tweets out a handful of links to hidden musical gems from old video games and a bunch of people reply with their own recommendations of long-forgotten 16-bit soundtrack favorites.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:26 PM PST - 28 comments

The above-titled World War I documentary by Peter Jackson makes heavy use of contemporary footage which has been digitally colorized, cleaned up, and corrected for speed. Trailer; behind-the-scenes; early reviews are quite good. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:16 PM PST - 25 comments

Ant-mimicking SE Asian jumping spider Toxeus magnus nurses its babies with nutritious spider ‘milk’ until they reach puberty.
posted by cenoxo at 12:29 PM PST - 28 comments

All the Animals with Rick and Branson is America's number one animal-listing podcast. Join hosts and animal-name enthusiasts Rick Andrews and Branson Reese as they run through the common name of every single animal on earth. [more inside]
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 12:20 PM PST - 3 comments

"The innuendo-laden campaign cost National a small fortune—they spent over $9 million a year on the ads—but it paid off. The National Organization for Women objected to the ads, calling them sexist, saying that they presented flight attendants as a “flying meat market” and invited passengers to make sexual advances. Nevertheless, the “Fly Me” series raised the carrier’s profile and won a handful of advertising awards. Advertising the bodies of women employees was good for business."How Flight Attendants Organized Against Their Bosses to End 'Swinging Stewardesses' Stereotyping
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:08 PM PST - 17 comments

"Of course, the effort to cut off climate-wrecking financial institutions is somewhat complicated by the fact that just about every major bank in New York City is complicit in fossil fuel financing. The solution, environmental advocates say, is a municipal public bank. The idea has existed in North Dakota for nearly a century, and is picking up steam among left-wing politicians in Los Angeles, Oakland, and New Jersey. In New York City, a handful of elected officials, including City Councilmember Mark Levine, have thrown their support behind the plan." As De Blasio Touts Climate Change Divestment, NYC's 'Designated Banks' Continue To Invest over $100 Billion In Fossil Fuels (Gothamist) (Previously Taking Oil TO Court, Public Banking To Fund Green Revolutions?)
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 AM PST - 4 comments

Bison bars were supposed to restore Native communities and grass-based ranches. Then came Epic Provisions. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:19 AM PST - 29 comments

“How can you recover from the trauma of accidentally killing someone?” (SLTG) Shame and guilt are constant for many who, without intention, have caused others to die. This can have consequences that last a lifetime and sometimes beyond. (Trigger warning—graphic descriptions of accidents.) [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet at 9:27 AM PST - 56 comments

A creepy detail worth noting: Biologists say some fox squirrels are known to be almost totally black, meaning they could be invisible in the woods after dark. "North Carolinians have come to expect rattlesnakes, bears, alligators and possibly even Bigfoot in wooded areas, but state wildlife officials posted images this month of a lesser known oddity that is just as startling: A 2-foot-tall squirrel."
posted by grobertson at 9:15 AM PST - 26 comments

Scientists agree: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone (short Vox explainer video; related article with links to the three studies cited)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:51 AM PST - 26 comments

The Complicated Legacy of Stewart Brand's 'Whole Earth Catalog' - "Brand's generation will leave behind a frightening, if unintentional, inheritance. My generation, and those after us, are staring down a ravaged environment, eviscerated institutions, and the increasing erosion of democracy." ('We Are as Gods and Might as Well Get Good at It') [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:24 AM PST - 32 comments

Looking Inside My Heart. "Jen Hyde discovered that her heart valve was made by women working in a factory near her childhood home. Getting to know them brought her closer to her own mother." [Via] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 5:58 AM PST - 5 comments

Handmade Sketchbooks Teeming with Colorful Calligraphy, Diagrams, Sketches, and Travel Ephemera by José Naranja. A facsimile edition of these notebooks can be yours for a mere €285. If that's too steep, enjoy some of the many images posted from it online. See also an interview with the artist. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 5:12 AM PST - 6 comments

For one thing, they want their knowledge to be employed in the right way ... without exploitation. Hard experience has led to cautions and created resistance. On the other hand, the Wisdom Weavers of the World, who have made 30 hours of films on native ideas. "With Earth's living systems being stressed and dishonored in new extremes", in their view, "we must come together to weave a new story and new awakened presence as one Earth family."
posted by Twang at 2:53 AM PST - 3 comments

How Restaurants Got So Loud. "Constructing interiors out of hard surfaces makes them easier (and thus cheaper) to clean. Eschewing ornate decor, linens, table settings, and dishware makes for fewer items to wash or replace. Reducing table service means fewer employees and thus lower overhead. And as many writers have noted, loud restaurants also encourage profitable dining behavior. Noise encourages increased alcohol consumption and produces faster diner turnover. More people drinking more booze produces more revenue. Knowing this, some restaurateurs even make their establishments louder than necessary in an attempt to maximize profits."
posted by storybored at 9:32 PM PST - 99 comments

As water passes through pipes in general and showerheads in particular, a thick biofilm builds up. Biofilm is a fancy word that scientists use to avoid saying “gunk.” It is made by individuals of one or more species of bacteria working together to protect themselves from hostile conditions—including the flow of water, which constantly threatens to wash them away—via their own excretions. In essence, the bacteria poop a little indestructible condominium in your pipes, built of hard-to-break-down complex carbohydrates. But when the pressure is high enough, these species are let loose into the fine aerosol spray of water droplets pelting our hair and bodies and splashing up and into our noses and mouths. And in some regions, but not others, they increasingly seem to be making people sick.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:24 PM PST - 21 comments

For The New York Times, director Rishi Chandna brings us a documentary about a man, his rooster, and his family: “Meet Tungrus and His Pet Chicken From Hell” [n.b. chicken violence]
posted by Going To Maine at 8:42 PM PST - 16 comments

The Netflix Algorithm Wrote " The Princess Switch" Which Is Why You Should Watch It [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:17 PM PST - 31 comments

Now, the truth is, most of Prince's videos just aren't that great. Especially when considered in comparison to the sheer mind-boggling breadth of Prince's genius, or the groundbreaking video innovation of his pop contemporaries like Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Madonna, the fact that Prince has fewer truly extraordinary music videos is a stark contrast. But as with all things Prince, when he was doing his best, there was absolutely nobody better. Here, then, is a look at all of Prince's music videos, in chronological order. compiled by Anil Dash, via boingboing
posted by cgc373 at 6:44 PM PST - 22 comments

Firing Michigan State. Harassment - both sexual and otherwise - is par for the for course for female academics. Today historian of science Joy Rankin came forward with her proclamation of quitting her assistant professor position at Michigan State after she was the target of a public harassment campaign which an administrator latched onto after Rankin filed a sexual harassment complaint about a different administrator.
posted by k8t at 6:28 PM PST - 33 comments

How to Fuel for a Solo, Unassisted Antarctic Crossing: Colin O’Brady thinks it’s possible—but just barely—to haul enough calories to traverse the continent. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 4:19 PM PST - 44 comments

Knickers the cow. [The Guardian] “Technically he is not a cow, but a steer (a neutered male). But he is giant, standing at 1.94 metres (6ft 4in ) to his withers (the shoulder). This is just shy of the world record-holding steer, Bellino, who lives in Italy and stands at 2.02 metres. Knickers, a Holstein Friesian, weighs in at 1,400kg (220 stone) and is believed to be the biggest steer in Australia.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 3:25 PM PST - 57 comments

Coffee & Quaq is a podcast by Alice Qannik Glenn about exploring the lives and experiences of Alaska Natives, focusing especially on people in their 20s and 30s. So far there have been four episode: 1) Modern Interpretations of Traditional Iñuit Tattoos with Holly Nordlum and Charlene Apok. 2) All About Native Foods with Tikaan Galbreath and Leila Smith. 3) LGBTQ in the Native Community with Jenny Miller and Will Bean. 4) Eskimo vs. Iñuit with Jacqui Igluġuq Lambert, Mellisa Maktuayaq Heflin, and Inuujaq Leslie Fredlund.
posted by Kattullus at 2:43 PM PST - 7 comments

"In Japan, ghost stories are not to be scoffed at, but provide deep insights into the fuzzy boundary between life and death": essay by Christopher Harding in Aeon. [more inside]
posted by paduasoy at 2:13 PM PST - 6 comments

The Year the Clock Broke—How the world we live in already happened in 1992 [John Ganz, The Baffler]

Hitting the shows the day after his announcement, Buchanan...told NBC’s Today, “David Duke, I think, has been reading a lot of my past columns and if he keeps it up and keeps stealing my themes I think we’re going to go down to Louisiana and sue him for intellectual property theft.” [...] And if Duke was pretty good at TV, Buchanan was an absolute master. He knew how to dominate panels, to deal with interviewers, he gave reporters total access, and he went to every campaign stop mic’ed up so they’d get everything. [...] At a mall in Manchester, Buchanan sat down next to a man in fatigues who was unemployed and apparently homeless. Buchanan said if the cameras intimidated him, he could send them away. He said they did; Buchanan didn’t send them away. He asked if the man was on welfare, which the man claimed not to be. Buchanan wished him good luck and a merry Christmas and moved on, cameras in tow. A few weeks later he called for the chronically homeless to be jailed.

posted by Atom Eyes at 1:07 PM PST - 22 comments

Well, that's one way to rally support. [more inside]
posted by halation at 1:01 PM PST - 19 comments

Stumbling around YouTube, at 4 in the morning while drunk on coffee, as one does, I came across the inexplicably entrancing video for Smoko by Australian...punk? Garage? No... band The Chats. So I did some digging and I mean, it's certainly not Australian pub rock. Down the rabbit hole I went, where I found out that "smoko" is an unofficial smoke break. Mostly I learned that "yobbo punk", while certainly not the official term, is real, often Gold Coastian, GLORIOUS, and will make your day. [more inside]
posted by saysthis at 12:57 PM PST - 24 comments

Author Marie Myung-Ok Lee wants the publishing industry to end the author blurb.
posted by Etrigan at 11:08 AM PST - 87 comments

“The use of oil revenues to fund social programs and redistribute Venezuelan wealth did not play a principal role in the country’s economic crisis–if anything, the Venezuelan government’s failure to redistribute enough wealth to disempower the politically powerful entities it spent its dollars buying off that caused the tailspin.” Reactionary Misinterpretations of the Venezuela Crisis (Fellow Travellers) “Bearing in mind the revolution-counterrevolution dialectic, it is imperative to look at the role of the elite, whose power extends throughout much of the agrifood system, and who have exploited the current “crisis” to further consolidate their power while simultaneously seeking to dismantle redistributive agrifood policies.” The Politics of Food in Venezuela (Venezuela Analysis) “It’s not a proving ground for Capitalism vs. Socialism. It’s a story of corruption.” What Happened In Venezuela Isn’t So Simple (The Nib)
posted by The Whelk at 9:47 AM PST - 32 comments

Usually photographed in unassuming knitwear and spectacles, Moult is an accomplished, well-regarded musician; he was a regular member of Irish avant-folk band United Bible Studies and his own music has appeared on labels including A Year in The Country and Fort Evil Fruit. For at least two decades, however, Moult, under pseudonyms including Christos Beest, Beesty Boy and Audun, was a core member of The Order of Nine Angles...

[CW: rape, sexual assault, racism, fascism, Nazi imagery, human sacrifice, grave desecration (graphic images). Everything really.] [more inside]
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:20 AM PST - 20 comments

Former Aardman animator Jim McKenzie is an artist, model maker, sculpturor, and "whatever" (his definition). Here's his Youtube Channel. [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 8:54 AM PST - 1 comment

As some librarians today contemplate ways to decolonize libraries—for example, to make them less reflective of Eurocentric ways of organizing knowledge—it is instructive to look to (Dorothy) Porter as a progenitor of the movement. Starting with little, she used her tenacious curiosity to build one of the world’s leading repositories for black history and culture: Howard’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. But she also brought critical acumen to bear on the way the center’s materials were cataloged, rejecting commonly taught methods as too reflective of the way whites thought of the world. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 8:39 AM PST - 12 comments

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has compiled a list of books more than 750 books, filterable by topic, that address a wide range of social justice issues, including ableism, bullying, LGBTQ issues, anti-semitism, race and religion. On its website, the organization says: "Books have the potential to create lasting impressions. They have the power to instill empathy, affirm children’s sense of self, teach about others, transport to new places and inspire actions on behalf of social justice." Here are few highlights picked by Lifehacker's Offspring sub-site.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:02 AM PST - 7 comments

The Guardian: “The Dreamcast, in its first two years, saw a burst of creativity and gameplay innovation that has perhaps never been surpassed. Sega’s talented internal development teams were utterly inspired. Games such as the urban skating adventure Jet Set Radio, the fast-paced puzzler Chu-Chu Rocket, the massively multiplayer role-playing adventure Phantasy Star Online and the open-world masterpiece Shenmue introduced whole new forms and conventions of interactive entertainment. There were astonishing arcade conversions in the shape of Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur; there were oddities including the subaquatic life sim, Seaman, and the zombie-infested keyboard tutorial, Typing of the Dead.”
posted by Wordshore at 5:35 AM PST - 63 comments

How China Walled Off the Internet - "The web was supposed to set the world free. China's is censored, but booming anyway." (previously) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 5:23 AM PST - 28 comments

Amy Ray [one half of Indigo Girls] released her 6th solo album, Holler, a couple of months ago. Musically, I'd call it maybe Sun Studios Country, banjo with a horn section. Definitely Americana. Lyrically, it's entirely Amy Ray. It might be just what you need right now. [YT Playlist] Side A: Gracie's Dawn (Prelude), Sure Feels Good Anyway, Dadgum Down [video], Last Taxi Fare [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:47 PM PST - 6 comments

One of the grandest engineering marvels of the ancient world victimof Yemeni war. Ancient Marib was the capital of the wealthy caravan kingdom of Saba (biblical Sheba, home of the legendary queen), which thrived during the first millennium B.C. Along with remains of the Great Dam, considered the most important ancient site in Yemen, excavations of the Sabaean capital have revealed two elaborate pre-Islamic temple precincts dedicated to Almaqah, the chief deity of the kingdom.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:33 PM PST - 8 comments

Kwame Brathwaite: Celebrity and the Everyday is an exhibit chronicling the work of Brathwaite, photographer of the "Black is Beautiful" aesthetic movement, which organized fashion shows in the early 60s of black women in natural hairstyles. [more inside]
posted by praemunire at 9:10 PM PST - 2 comments

‘SpongeBob Squarepants' creator Stephen Hillenburg dies at 57 The cause of death was ALS, which Hillenburg revealed he had been diagnosed with in March of last year. “Steve imbued 'SpongeBob SquarePants' with a unique sense of humor and innocence that has brought joy to generations of kids and families everywhere. His utterly original characters and the world of Bikini Bottom will long stand as a reminder of the value of optimism, friendship and the limitless power of imagination."
posted by gryphonlover at 7:17 PM PST - 57 comments

Fighting in the Age of Loneliness (previously) is a feature length documentary series about the history of MMA from a political and cultural perspective, made "for MMA fans, people who don’t care about MMA, and people who feel that it’s a stupid bloodsport for idiots and assholes." The series was written and narrated by Felix Biederman (Chapo Trap House, Carl Diggler), directed and produced by Jon Bois (17776, Breaking Madden, more). Here is the cast of characters. A sampling of the topics covered thus far: Anderson Silva's jell-o leg; samurai honor; the invention of Ju Jitsu and Judo; the Gracie family; Ronald Reagan's attempt to primary Gerald Ford in 1976; the birth, decline, and eventual sale of the Ultimate Fighting Championship; the rise of P.C. culture in a newly corporatized America. Content warning: This series contains depictions of graphic displays of violence. [more inside]
posted by JimBennett at 6:18 PM PST - 37 comments

Imagine shredding your combat uniform. Or the dress you wore to your son's funeral after his death in war. Imagine the fibers dissolving into a slurry, ground to pulp in a bath of equal parts water and memory. Be with student veterans as they turn the fabric of their military past into paper, into art, and into a kind of peace (YT, 17 minutes). And then join me below the fold for more about the Peace Paper Project and its Veteran Paper Workshop. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:55 PM PST - 3 comments

After LRAD devices were used against protestors of police killings in Ferguson, MO, after the Pentagon-developed Active Denial System was proposed for an American prison, after "counterterrorism tactics" were used against the Standing Rock anti-pipeline protests (previously), and after tear gas (CS or CN, cf: LoAC) was fired across the U.S. - Mexico border, remember Michel Foucault:

that while colonization, with its techniques and its political and juridical weapons, obviously transported European models to other continents, it also had a considerable boomerang effect on the mechanisms of power in the West,

- "As our planet urbanizes more rapidly than ever before, an insidious set of boomerang effects, linking security doctrine in cities in the global North with those in the South, are permeating state tactics of control of everyday urban life." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:52 PM PST - 15 comments

Jump down a rabbit hole and keep scrolling in Jenny Odell's [previously] A Business With No End (NYT), a dive into a world of mysterious packages, Amazon sellers, Newsweek, an indicted Christian university, a department store, and a confusing bookstore as it becomes impossible to "distinguish the virtual from the real, the local from the global, a product from a Photoshop image, the sincere from the insincere."
posted by zachlipton at 3:06 PM PST - 25 comments

Scientific American reports on a study which claims that dogs are not exceptionally intelligent in the animal world. Twitter responds.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:48 PM PST - 65 comments

An adorable little river otter has somehow found his way into Dr Sun Yat Sen Garden in Vancouver and he is eating all of the Koi fish. At first I was Team Otter, because hot damn is he an intelligent little bugger. It also doesn't hurt that he is cute! But now I'm Team Koi because there are only 4 left, they are extremely old and now they're being moved out of their home which is stressful. All in all, I can gladly say that I Love living in Vancouver when this has been the top story on the news for the last week!
posted by JenThePro at 2:48 PM PST - 20 comments

Peeling Back the Paint to Discover Bruegel’s Secrets [Kunst Historisches Museum Wien] “New imaging technology, created by a project known as “Inside Bruegel” offers some insight into these questions, by allowing us to pull the painting’s layers apart. The project was developed along with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, for “Bruegel” a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, featuring 87 of the painter’s works, and which runs through Jan. 13, 2019. “It’s a huge advancement if you want to look at Bruegel,” said Ron Spronk, a professor of art history at Queen’s University in Canada, and one of four curators of the exhibition. “You can actually see the creative process. You can follow the artist in how he makes decisions.”” [via: The New York Times]
posted by Fizz at 2:09 PM PST - 6 comments

In a long, entertaining, and somewhat unhinged rant, one Twitter user confronts the horror that is...the imperial measurement system, where nothing lines up and madness rules. (SLTwitter) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:53 PM PST - 249 comments

General Motors recently announced a series of plant closures in the US and Canada, which include its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant. When that plant was built in 1981, it displaced Detroit's Poletown neighbourhood. Left intact was the Beth Olem Jewish cemetery, which now sits on the grounds of the Detroit-Hamtramck facility: A peek inside Beth Olem, the cemetery that was swallowed by a GM plant.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:48 PM PST - 7 comments

Beyond Single Payer: activist Tim Faust gives a talk about the jail to hospital pipeline, the grotesque inequality of the current healthcare system, compassionate care workers, and how a US universal healthcare system could have radical, far reaching effects on the country. (YouTube, 48:00)
posted by The Whelk at 9:10 AM PST - 6 comments

Who Owns Oklahoma? Today the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing Carpenter v. Murphy, reviewing a Tenth Circuit decision finding that the Muskogee Creek reservation has never been formally dissolved. "If the Tenth Circuit’s decision stands—and if courts restore the reservation boundaries for all five civilized tribes—roughly half of Oklahoma will become, at a stroke, Indian country."
posted by dilettante at 8:59 AM PST - 48 comments

Campesinos are driving the evolution of maize in North America [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 8:05 AM PST - 9 comments

Ironically, in telling us to take the pressure off ourselves, self-care discourse can feel as though it’s doing the exact opposite—adding “taking care of our mental health” as yet another task to put onto our plates, alongside finding a fulfilling, well-paid career, doing overtime to prove our worth, networking to maximize our chance of success, getting to the gym five times a week, finding the perfect skincare routine, practicing an interesting and resume-friendly hobby, seeing friends in a variety of glamorous locales, finding a partner, and creating an original yet classic décor theme for our homes. If it’s too hard, and you need something easier for a little bit, you are invited to seek solace in consumption.

Self-Care Won't Save Us
posted by griphus at 7:53 AM PST - 64 comments

“Globally, the [suicide] rate has fallen by 38% from its peak in 1994. As a result, over 4 million lives have been saved—more than four times as many people as were killed in combat over the period.” The Economist reports on the reasons for the worldwide decline in suicide rates. [more inside]
posted by ferdydurke at 7:50 AM PST - 12 comments

I'm a great cook. Now that I'm divorced, I'm never cooking for a man again.
posted by misskaz at 7:49 AM PST - 86 comments

How People Used to Download Games From the Radio
posted by exogenous at 7:31 AM PST - 11 comments

Why Colombia has taken in 1 million Venezuelans (Part of the Vox Borders video series)
posted by gwint at 7:29 AM PST - 2 comments

Have you ever wished for a Fatboy Slim song to be lip-synced by vulva-shaped objects? (no actual vulvas, but still possibly NSFW)
posted by serathen at 6:32 AM PST - 10 comments

Intrepid researchers discover if eating Lego is dangerous.
posted by Stark at 5:58 AM PST - 22 comments

Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies - "A daring effort is under way to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 5:14 AM PST - 47 comments

Ran D. St. Clair Flex 9 Flight: 9 foam board planes, connected by a small piece of soft foam and wired up to work as one (more details in the Ran D. St. Clair Flex 9 Explainer video) [double link YouTube]
posted by filthy light thief at 4:22 AM PST - 7 comments

Thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes are to be released in Burkina Faso as a step towards the world’s first field test of “gene-drive” technology. There are concerns this apparently benign application will be followed by riskier, profit- or military-driven uses.
posted by adamvasco at 3:23 AM PST - 14 comments

People Getting Stabbed In Medieval Art Who Just Don’t Give a Damn
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:06 AM PST - 25 comments

Back in June of this year, Gabriel Kahane (previously) sat down and composed a series of short songs (more like lieder) based on tweets. God's Perfect Killing Machines was the first one, others follow in the comments on the twitter thread, including lyrics by Martha Stewart and Britney Spears, amongst others. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:38 PM PST - 5 comments

It's often women who reinforce supremacist movements. White supremacists talk a lot about differences—they draw lines not just between racial groups, but also among their own. Racist internet trolls insist they’re not the same as the Ku Klux Klan because they don’t don hoods or burn crosses; clean-cut college kids who call themselves “identitarians” point out that, unlike skinheads, they’re not inked with swastika tattoos; Southerners who defend Confederate heritage say they have nothing in common with mass murderers like Dylann Roof; anti-Semitic nationalists dismiss anti-immigration activists who are Jewish. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 5:56 PM PST - 31 comments

"The umbrella of emotional labor has grown so large that it’s starting to cover things that make no sense at all, such as regular household chores which are not emotional so much as they are labor, full stop. " Julie Beck interviews Sociologist Arlie Hochschild who coined the term "emotional labor:" "Emotional labor, as [Hochschild] conceived it, referred to the work of managing one’s own emotions that was required by certain professions. Flight attendants, who are expected to smile and be friendly even in stressful situations, are the canonical example. " [more inside]
posted by cushie at 5:50 PM PST - 99 comments

Your online shopping is polluting this small town
posted by aniola at 3:54 PM PST - 11 comments

Olivia Jaimes, the Mysterious Cartoonist Behind ‘Nancy,’ Gives Rare Interview (NYMag) (previously)
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:39 PM PST - 64 comments

Cats love to groom themselves almost as much as they love to sleep, spending up to one-quarter of their waking hours cleaning their fur. The secret to their self-cleaning success? The spines on their tongues are curved and hollow-tipped, according to a paper published today in the journal PNAS. These tiny spines, called papillae, can transfer large amounts of saliva from mouth to fur, which not only cleanses Fluffy down to her skin but also lowers her body temperature as the saliva evaporates. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:52 PM PST - 25 comments

So Disney Just Gon' Kill Mufasa Again for a Whole New Generation of Kids with This The Lion King Live-Action Remake, Huh? [The Root] “It is officially official: the live-action version of The Lion King, with all of your faves, will hit theaters in July 2019 so we can all excitedly watch Mufasa die. Again. Twenty-five years after he died the first time. There’s no two ways about it, Mufasa’s death in The Lion King is one of the most significant deaths in the black community of all time. It happened way back in 1994, and yet almost all of us who experienced it remember it like it was yesterday. Watching Simba tell his daddy to wake up...lawdt. I’m getting emotional thinking about it now. Sure, I’ve moved on, much like I’ve had to move on from Ricky dying in Boyz N The Hood, but the memories are still there, and it’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday. It hurt then. It hurts now.” [YouTube][Official Teaser Trailer]
posted by Fizz at 1:42 PM PST - 41 comments

NASA is live-streaming the landing of the InSight probe on Mars The InSight probe is landing on Mars at 2PM EST today. You can watch the landing live on NASA TV. Only 40% of Mars landings have succeeded. Mission operators refer to the landing as "seven minutes of terror".
posted by crazy_yeti at 10:38 AM PST - 136 comments

The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember Sheriff Lummie Jenkins as a god or a monster—it just depends on who you ask... They remember in 1962, as the push for black voter registration began 40 miles away in Selma, how the county shut down the Gee’s Bend ferry, turning what had been a short passage across the Alabama River into an all-but-unmanageable journey. “We didn’t close the ferry because they were black,” Lummie supposedly said. “We closed it because they forgot they were black.”
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:36 AM PST - 10 comments

Eight apps with a total of more than 2 billion downloads in the Google Play store have been exploiting user permissions as part of an ad fraud scheme that could have stolen millions of dollars, according to research from Kochava, an app analytics and attribution company that detected the scheme and shared its findings with BuzzFeed News. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 8:21 AM PST - 12 comments

What Happened To All The Steady Jobs? “Louis Hyman’s new book, Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary, shows that this shift in work did not happen on its own, and that it began long before the founding of Uber or TaskRabbit. In this persuasive and richly detailed history, Hyman traces a decades-long campaign to eliminate salaried positions and replace them with contract work.“ (The Nation)
posted by The Whelk at 7:51 AM PST - 53 comments

In addition to deepening an unlikely bond, the gift from Art and Helen Tanderup could help protect the land and drive a wedge into TransCanada’s plans for the pipeline. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 7:36 AM PST - 3 comments

With Christmas Eve four weeks away, your 900 Christmas cards signed, and TV schedules firming, The Guardian examines the toys aimed at the Christmas market while The Independent highlights the Boxer Robot that follows you (without pooing) and The BBC outlines gift card risks. The TRA would like you to buy buy buy them all. Are they as good as Pogs, Furby or Lazer Tag, or the Hatchimals of 2016, or even Mouse Trap? And what is a 'fingerings Dino'? In a prelude to Brexit, as Brits fight over a carrot (profit!), for adults a "relationship expert" warns of the perils of giving sex toys (ad disguised as advice/news). Though if you like a sexy gift a day, it's 125 quid through December (other advent calendars are available, plus economy ones). Too many toys? Maybe donate a few.
posted by Wordshore at 7:22 AM PST - 15 comments

Fragments of a family portrait by Frans Hals have been reunited. The Toledo Museum of Art is hosting an exhibit reuniting three fragments of a large portrait of the van Campen family by Frans Hals. Although the two larger pieces were long suspected to be linked, it wasn't until recent restoration work was performed that conclusive evidence showed them to be of a former, much larger piece -- together with another portrait.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:18 AM PST - 6 comments

How to Read Inca by Daniel Cossins is an overview of current understanding of khipu, the Incan system of encoding information in knots, which has been coming along in leaps and bounds recently. To look at khipu yourself, check out the Khipu Database Project.
posted by Kattullus at 5:58 AM PST - 18 comments

No? Bored Panda can help you with that.
posted by bile and syntax at 5:55 AM PST - 13 comments

The embankment walls of Rome’s Tiber river get covered in grime, as city walls will do. In 2005, American artist Kristin Jones removed some of that grime to reveal some She Wolves. In 2016 she and William Kentridge were back with Tevereterno, featuring Triumphs and Laments, 500 meters of Roman history writ large. Youtube has four short videos on the project. Vimeo has a particularly fine rolling shot of the final work. (I particularly like the homage to La Dolce Vita at the 2:19 mark.)
posted by BWA at 5:41 AM PST - 3 comments

There is much to say when death encroaches. But when you only have a moment, you just say the truth.
posted by gryftir at 1:26 AM PST - 15 comments

The Colors We Eat: Tom Vanderbilt writes for Nautilus on the Official USDA Color Standards for a range of foods (including Tomato, Pumpkin/ Squash, Frozen French Fry, Frozen Cherries, Canned Tomato, Canned Ripe Olive (Munsell), Canned Apple Butter, Canned Lima Beans, Eggs, Canned Pimientos, Canned Clingstone Peaches (Visual Color Systems), and Veal (USDA text-only PDF)) and the scientific studies behind how we taste with our eyes. Beware: the eyes can deceive even the expert tongue. "Even the color of the plate might change our sense of taste: Subjects reported strawberry mousse tasted better on a white round plate than on a black square plate."
posted by filthy light thief at 9:31 PM PST - 36 comments

The ‘feel-good’ horror of late-stage capitalism: "These are dispatches from the darkest, dankest cesspools of late-stage capitalism, where a person enduring a financial hardship through no fault of their own — like, say, you have leukemia — must be wholly dependent on the charity of others, and the spotlight is thrust on the charity, not the circumstances that caused the dependence." (slMedium)
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 7:55 PM PST - 27 comments

After the President escalated an extraordinary dispute with the Supreme Court's Chief Justice, he settled in for a hectic Thanksgiving morning of tweeting, asking perplexing questions of military officers, and pronouncing himself thankful for himself. As the nation woke up to Black Friday, the administration quietly released the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a grim warning of the ongoing and future impacts of climate change on the nation. Moving into the weekend, there was word of a deal to require asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are considered, followed by the closure of the San Ysidro Port of Entry as US authorities fired tear gas across the border. [more inside]
posted by zachlipton at 7:46 PM PST - 1813 comments

On November 26, about 3pm EST, a mole will land on Mars. (SL Oatmeal)
posted by Marky at 6:22 PM PST - 20 comments

In 1866 Nathan Mills gave a lecture, the subject of which was Astronomy. The chart he used was a bed quilt so quilted as to represent the solar system. Perhaps his visual aid looked much like Ellen Harding Baker's Solar System Quilt. Sarah Ellen Harding Baker was living in Cedar County, Iowa ten years later in 1876, the date on this wool quilt. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 5:41 PM PST - 5 comments

Yes' Jon Anderson released his 4th solo album in 1985 -- the holiday-themed album 3 Ships. It's rather 80s, VERY Jon Anderson, and I think it's charming and fun with excellent flow across its runtime [Full Album (recommended), 39m15s]. One of the few holiday albums I might listen to in July. Side One: Save All Your Love, Easier Said Than Done [video], 3 Ships [video (lower quality)], Forest Of Fire, Ding Dong! Merrily On High, Save All Your Love (Reprise) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:57 PM PST - 14 comments

BBC: Marked each year on 25 November, the day is the start of 16-day campaign, calling on people and organisations to address violence. According to the UN, it will affect more than a third of women globally during their lives. The bulk of the support was on the streets, with rallies on Saturday and more to come on Sunday. Here are some of the best pictures. Photos from rallies around the world yesterday and today for the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (Nov. 25). More photos. Finally, 16 Ways, 16 Days: things you can do to end violence against women.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:49 PM PST - 3 comments

The Useless Duck Company has unveiled their new system for releasing air bubbles from the stomachs of infants, using their custom-built, ergonomic apparatus in conjunction with a handy app. Come see the future of child care!
posted by JHarris at 2:24 PM PST - 34 comments

The Inplant Files In 2017, one in five of all medical device adverse event reports in the U.S. was linked to a Medtronic device.
From garage startup to global dominance, Medtronic bent and broke rules in its relentless pursuit of success and denies all wrongdoing.
A global investigation reveals the rising human toll of lax controls and testing standards pushed by a booming industry.
posted by adamvasco at 12:34 PM PST - 18 comments

All in all, Outcast is regarded by many as being a game way ahead of its time. It features open world, top notch orchestral score, compelling storyline, action and adventure, high quality dialogues and voice acting, rippling interactive water [...] For me, Outcast is a game made with passion, with no constraints of being tied to a particular genre, or please a particular group of people [more inside]
posted by smcg at 11:37 AM PST - 4 comments

Naomi Kritzer, "Field Biology of the Wee Fairies" (Apex, Sep. 4, 2018; author interview with photos of her mother, whose high school experiences partially inspired the story): "When Amelia turned fourteen, everyone assured her that she’d find her fairy soon. Almost all girls did." Laura Blackwell, "An Accidental Coven" (Syntax & Salt, Sep. 22, 2018): "One Saturday night six months ago, my husband and I attended a party where we saw three women wearing the same dress."
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:30 AM PST - 14 comments

The Stasi Play Along by Denis Gießler [Zeit Online] “At the time, the Commodore model was the world's best-selling home computer. But had it been up to the West, the computers would never have found their way into East Germany. In 1988, microelectronics were still on the list of embargoed products maintained by the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom). Western states had agreed they wouldn't supply any technology goods to the communist countries of the Eastern bloc. But the C64s had made their way into East Germany nonetheless, and GDR customs officials allowed them to pass. They didn't have a problem with the import of Western hardware. But software, and especially video games, were another matter. Their content was of great concern to East German officials.”
posted by Fizz at 10:28 AM PST - 5 comments

For $3.99 (or less during their black Friday sale), Age Hams will send a tiny pink rubber pig to someone yooh know, courtesy of someone named kathleen. [more inside]
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:43 AM PST - 48 comments

This is a fun and fascinating read, even/especially if you don't know anything about computer memory. It's wonderful to see someone chase down a question and leave such great trailsign for any who might want to follow.
posted by freebird at 11:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Like every other part of the music world, taping has changed utterly in the digital age. Once dismissed as mere bootlegging, the surrounding attitudes, economies, and technologies have evolved. It's been a long haul since Dean Benedetti recorded Charlie Parker's solos on a wire recorder. In the '60s and '70s aspiring preservationists snuck reel-to-reel recorders into venues under battlefield conditions, scaling down to professional quality handheld cassette decks and eventually to DATs. From there, to laptops and finally to portable drives ... The Invisible Hit Parade: How Unofficial Recordings Have Flowered in the 21st Century -- Jesse Jarnow writing for Wired, linking the tech pioneers of the Grateful Dead (also Wired) to NYC Taper and others sharing on Etree.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:27 PM PST - 36 comments

How did Choc, a quirky calligraphic typeface drawn by a French graphic designer in the 1950s, end up on storefronts everywhere? [NYT]
posted by Chrysostom at 7:52 PM PST - 16 comments

Magician, historian, and actor Ricky Jay has died at the age of 70, or thereabouts, his origins being appropriately shrouded in mystery.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:21 PM PST - 103 comments

How the media should respond to Trump’s lies: a linguist explains how Trump uses lies to divert attention from the “big truths.” "George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at UC Berkeley ... recently published an article laying out the media’s dilemma. Trump’s 'big lie' strategy, he argues, is to 'exploit journalistic convention by providing rapid-fire news events for reporters to chase.' According to Lakoff, the president uses lies to divert attention from the 'big truths,' or the things he doesn’t want the media to cover. This allows Trump to create the controversies he wants and capitalize on the outrage and confusion they generate, while simultaneously stoking his base and forcing the press into the role of 'opposition party.'" [ViA] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 5:45 PM PST - 70 comments

Nicolas Roeg, the visionary film director, has died aged 90. Starting as a tea boy, he worked his way up until by the 1960s he was the cinematographer on films such as Fahrenheit 451, The Masque of the Red Death and Far From the Madding Crowd. Performance, which he co-directed with Donald Cammell, was released in 1970 (after a two-year struggle with the studios), his first solo film Walkabout the following year and over the next twenty years he made startling, shocking and hugely influential films such as Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bad Timing and Insignificance. His films were marked in particular by a disorienting editing style, cutting backwards and forwards in time.
posted by Grangousier at 3:53 PM PST - 31 comments

The "crown prince of Hawaiian slack-key guitar" died Nov. 11 at age 68. Pahinui, a National Heritage Fellow, is "widely recognized as one of Hawaii’s most gifted slack key guitarists and vocalists, whose technical virtuosity, rhythmic adaptations, and instrumental harmonics imparted the soul of Hawaiian music, and whose beautiful, emotive voice rendered an intimate picture of his Pacific island home." -- National Endowment for the Arts. Remembrances 1, 2. YouTube
posted by key_of_z at 3:19 PM PST - 16 comments

"Finnegans Ewok". What I found interesting here was how little I had to change Joyce's original text. Tweak a couple of names and basically leave it otherwise as was. [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 11:16 AM PST - 10 comments

Victorian Culinary Trading Cards Are a Feast for the Eyes. But maybe not for your stomach. In 1983, Nach Waxman sought to stock his new bookstore, Kitchen Arts & Letters, with curiosities that weren’t cookbooks. He soon discovered Victorian-era advertisements known as trade cards. “I thought it would be a really interesting item to have in the store,” he says. “They’re attractive images and they’re small, so people could frame them, put them in their room, and put them on their kitchen walls.” The name “trading cards” is thought to come from the phenomenon of collectors exchanging these cards, which advertised baking powder, Heinz tomato soup, and everything imaginable with images of chefs emerging from giant pickles and poetry-spouting pigs. [more inside]
posted by cynical pinnacle at 10:51 AM PST - 5 comments

Met police driving cars into thieves on mopeds in crime crackdown — To reduce moped crime, London police use tougher tactics including marking spray, remote-controlled spikes to burst bike tyres, and ramming suspects' bikes [The Guardian, 11/24/2018].
posted by cenoxo at 7:38 AM PST - 144 comments

Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson recently partnered with Bay Area musicians for a 3-day performance event that "pulled back the curtain" on iconic pop love songs to reveal the misogynistic worldview they are steeped in. Music and culture writer Emma Silvers reflects on experiencing Romantic Songs of the Patriarchy. "These are the stories replaying in women’s heads, stories of rape and harassment and lechery and violence and condescension and the understanding that our lives do not belong to us. That we are object, never subject." Comments Kendra McKinley, who worked with Icelandic musican Kjartan Sveinsson to arrange the 26 songs for the performance, "“The reality is that patriarchy is inescapable. And you can’t get out of it. It’s in the air we breathe.”
posted by drlith at 5:46 AM PST - 61 comments

Timelapse of a rocket launch as seen from space - Progress MS 10 on 2018-11-16 (SLYT; h/t HN)
posted by Gyan at 1:24 AM PST - 22 comments

Hip-Hop’s Love of Remix Is Influencing Architecture. and How the World's Leading Architects Fell Under the Instagram Spell
posted by MovableBookLady at 2:26 PM PST - 8 comments

99% Off Sale from the folks behind Cards Against Humanity. Literally 99% off items, new items posted every 10 minutes. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 11:38 AM PST - 333 comments

If you face Christopher Nolan, then ... drinking tea ... can be annoying ... if you choose to slurp ... loudly ... and relax afterwards ... though do it gently else consequences ... because this is how you do it ... as this way is unconvincing ... even if it is apparently an art ... and this guy is more convincing ... and she aims for the back of her mouth ... but this is how The Master does it ... though this sounds like tea entering the wrong end.
posted by Wordshore at 11:26 AM PST - 17 comments

• 1 Hour of Crunchy/Soft Eating Sounds (Grilled Cheese) • 2 Hours of Crunchy/ Soft Eating Sounds (Pizza) • 1 Hour of Soft Eating Sounds (Hamburger) • 1 Hour of Crunchy Eating Sounds (Popcorn) • 1 Hour of Soft Eating Sounds (Fried Chicken) • 1 Hour of Crunchy Eating Sounds (Potato Chips) • 1 Hour of Crunchy Eating Sounds (Pickle Biting/Chewing) •
posted by Fizz at 10:53 AM PST - 50 comments

Philosophy was once a woman’s world, ranging across Asia, Africa and Latin America. It’s time to reclaim that lost realm
posted by infini at 8:43 AM PST - 9 comments

"I lived in a subculture that embraced Rand’s virtue of moral intolerance, and saw the devastation. Genuinely smart and nominally rational people were quick to take offense and afraid to ask questions. Indeed, many were so afraid to talk to the “wrong people” that they stayed in their Randian intellectual ghetto, parroting their guru and her appointed successors. Vocal free-thinkers were often purged. As a result, Randians were mired in error. When they were wrong (as they often were), they lacked the cognitive methods and social lifelines to stop being wrong." [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 8:07 AM PST - 99 comments

CW below the fold: sexual assault. From Teen Vogue by Rebecca Ayres: The day of deals hasn’t been around for that long, but has changed in its time: It now stretches well over a week, heralding the busiest shopping period of the year with deep discounts, hype, and hysteria. The National Retail Federation estimates that more than 164 million plan to shop this weekend, with 116 million buying on Black Friday alone. To put that into perspective, that’s the same number of people estimated to have voted in 2018’s midterm elections. So where did this celebration of commerce come from? [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 7:09 AM PST - 26 comments

By countering the racist fixations that have plagued stories of Indian culture, they hope to reverse the “invisibility” that many feel. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 6:52 AM PST - 6 comments

The inimitable Fredric Jameson reviews Karl Ove Knausgaard's "My Struggle: Book 6. The End". [slLRB]
posted by standardasparagus at 5:51 AM PST - 28 comments

Earlier in the summer, he had told me he would prepare for the world championship by drinking five pints the night before. When asked if any other international athlete adopted a similar strategy ahead of a major competition, he disputed the terms: “I wouldn’t say athlete.” The Guardian covers the World Ploughing Championships.
posted by Stark at 2:40 AM PST - 16 comments

@RespectableLaw

There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.

Threadreader link
posted by chappell, ambrose at 10:50 PM PST - 127 comments

Wondering what to do with your earthly remains? Why not join 34,591 others and have 23 grams of your ashes baked into a clay brick and then built into a pyramid in Toxteth, Liverpool by K2 Plant Hire Ltd, also known as Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, also known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, previously (?) known as The KLF. The process is to be known as MuMufication. [more inside]
posted by deadwax at 8:47 PM PST - 34 comments

A day in the life of Lloyd Squires, Vermont's 'best' bagel maker, from Burlington Free Press. (Including a soothing 10 min. sound clip of the bakery before the morning rush)
posted by growabrain at 6:26 PM PST - 22 comments

It started innocently enough: @LeastUsedEmoji was a bot created to find out which emoji (according to Emojitracker) was least popular on Twitter. Suspension railway (🚟) ceded the spot to non-potable water (🚱) after only a day, which after 80 days itself ceded to aerial tramway (🚡). And 🚡 might have been stuck at the bottom for a long time were it not for a large group of rowdy transit-oriented teens. [more inside]
posted by solarion at 5:52 PM PST - 25 comments

Not satisfied with merely calling your employees peasants on an insurance policy? Now you can have them microchipped, just like your pets at home!
posted by eviemath at 3:37 PM PST - 44 comments

Welcome to Christmas in Hallmark Town, where romantic fates are sealed through gaslighting, sabotage and torture. (SLSalon)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:21 PM PST - 43 comments

Lightning licks guitar player and first woman to have her own record label. Jackson founded the Moon Records label in Memphis in 1956 after a few years of recording demos at Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records Studio. Unable to break into the Sun Records label's stable of male artists, she received the advice and assistance of RCA Records' Chet Atkins in forming this new label to release her music. She began releasing and promoting on the label singles she recorded in her home studio, serving as engineer, producer and arranger. The artists recorded included her and a small family of early rock and roll, rockabilly, and country music performers she recruited from several Southern states. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 2:01 PM PST - 3 comments

A beautiful, beautiful short Christmas Video. In this strange time it really helped me focus on what's actually important during this time of year.
posted by JenThePro at 2:00 PM PST - 7 comments

Thanksgiving: The National Day of Mourning. "A Native student on why the holiday is a painful reminder of a whitewashed past." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 1:45 PM PST - 6 comments

A pair of electrical engineering and computer science faculty members in the Case School of Engineering have been experimenting with a new suite of sensors. This system would read not only the vibrations, sounds—and even the specific gait, or other movements—associated with people and animals in a building, but also any subtle changes in the existing ambient electrical field. "We are trying to make a building that is able to ‘listen’ to the humans inside.” The Internet of Ears. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 11:47 AM PST - 17 comments

20 Years On, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is Still Special [Kotaku] “The game begins in Kokiri Village, a training level that is also a masterstroke of simplicity. Rather than a list of instructions and commands, or dropping you in at the deep end, Ocarina begins in an eminently explorable village and tells you to explore it. There are chests to find, people to talk to, a training dungeon – it’s several hours before you even feel a need to look farther. When you do and the world opens its horizons, it is one of gaming’s great moments. Zelda games were always epic, but it was with Ocarina that they achieved a new scale: the central field seems to go for leagues, opening on to a sea, a castle, a fortress, mountains, woods, a ranch. Even the best games hadn’t presented an adventure like this before. If a modern player looks at Hyrule field now, it may seem a paltry thing. In 1998, this was the future.” [YouTube][20th Anniversary Retrospective] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:50 AM PST - 36 comments

Puberty for the Middle-Aged (SLNYT) We need to have The Talk, but for 45-year-olds. Doctors should speak to their patients about the changes that could lie ahead and how to prepare for them. And we perimenopausal women need to talk to one another, and the rest of the world, about what’s happening. Because a lot of it, to me, is really weird, really surprising and really hard to sit comfortably through, from the stray chin hair — O.K., hairs — to the decreasing bone density.
posted by bunderful at 9:08 AM PST - 110 comments

“Public officials have only words of warning to us – warning that we must be intensely peaceable…The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable.” Rose Schneiderman (1882-1972) was a militant trade unionist, socialist activist, and women’s rights leader who helped shape the New Deal despite being decried by conservative New York legislators as i‘the Red Rose of Anarchy’. Schneiderman is most famous for the bloody, 63 day long Lawrence textile Strike (which sent children away to safety in nearby Vermont.) Not for her presence, but for her “Bread and Roses speech” given earlier in the year which became a slogan and chant of the strikes (although its origin have be from popular Italian anarchist writings of the time.) James Oppenheim wrote a poem inspired by the Lawerence Strike, which was then set to music by Mimi Fariña, sister of Joan Baez, who later covered it. Other covers: Ani DiFranco - John Denver - Judy Collins - the movie Pride (Solo version by Bronwen Lewis).
posted by The Whelk at 7:51 AM PST - 7 comments

At the American Military Cemetery in Margraten, large oak trees flanked a path that wound through a sea of crosses and Stars of David. An American flag waved in the distance. Among the dead buried here are 172 African-American soldiers, killed during World War II who helped liberate the Netherlands from the Nazis in 1945. David McGhee's grandfather, Willie F. Williams, is one of them. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 7:48 AM PST - 3 comments

Scott Macaulay, of Melrose, MA, is hosting a free Thanksgiving dinner to anyone who RSVPs to his classified ad. It's his 33rd year. WaPo | alternate link [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:13 AM PST - 16 comments

How Populism Became the Concept that Defines Our Age : an article at The Guardian by Cas Mudde, part of a series on The New Populism ('An investigation into the rise of a global phenomenon'). Other pieces include: Paul Lewis et al. revealing that One in Four Europeans Vote Populist; and Matthijs Rooduijn posing the question Why is Populism All the Rage? There's also a quiz: How Populist are You?
posted by misteraitch at 4:23 AM PST - 45 comments

The History of the Oceans Is Locked in Whale Earwax.
The massive plugs contain spikes and dips of stress hormones that perfectly match the history of modern whaling.
For those of you with a more scientific disposition: Baleen whale cortisol levels reveal a physiological response to 20th century whaling.
posted by adamvasco at 4:10 AM PST - 19 comments

The World According to Garp Was Never Meant to Be This Timeless

In 1978, when Garp was published, I thought I’d written a period piece. Garp is an angry and a comic novel—a feminist novel and an ode to the women’s movement, which is at once exalted and satirized—but, above all (I thought), Garp is a period piece. I was wrong. The World According to Garp isn’t prescient, but sexual hatred hasn’t gone away. It’s not good news that Garp is still relevant. We should be ashamed that sexual intolerance is still tolerated, but it is.

[more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 2:31 PM PST - 34 comments

Debt: A Love Story. In exchange for anonymity, one couple lays out the brutal details of their life in the grip of an epic cycle of debt. Reactions are...mixed.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:08 PM PST - 160 comments

Vardø, Norway, makes Salem look like a walk in the park. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:49 AM PST - 18 comments

"We will have drawn a line in the sand and then watched a rising tide erase it." Bill McKibben updates us on climate change. (SLNewYorker)
posted by doctornemo at 11:26 AM PST - 51 comments

Did the makers of The Deadpool Before Christmas steal their Princess Bride-framing device idea from a cartoonist who tweeted that exact idea to Ryan Reynolds nearly a year ago? [more inside]
posted by UltraMorgnus at 10:23 AM PST - 51 comments

If you want a break from turkey (or the store ran out), you can check out 15 alternative Thanksgiving meat recipes from Babble, or 33 vegetarian main dishes for Thanksgiving. For a broader view, look beyond the more traditional "western" cuisines, and consider multi-cultural meals -- Turkey And Tamales: People Of Color Share Their Multicultural Thanksgivings (NPR), in which Malaka Gharib notes that For many immigrant families, Thanksgiving is a time to take part in an American tradition, but it's also a great excuse to gather and eat the foods of their culture with friends and family. For some POCs, that's the best part of the holiday — a time when you can literally mash the cultures together on your plate....
posted by filthy light thief at 9:51 AM PST - 15 comments

Debuting in July 1991, Wizard: The Guide To Comics quickly became the comic-related magazine of the nineties, often outselling the periodicals it covered. Disparaged then and derided now for fanboy puerility, critical irrelevance, and oh-so-important price guide, it nevertheless provided many readers with their first introduction to what came to be known as 'Alternative Comics' via Palmer's Picks, featuring interviews, profiles, and reviews of indy/alt/lit creators and comics. Now, Tom Palmer Jr. is posting his past columns online, along with commentary. [more inside]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:07 AM PST - 16 comments

15 Patents from the Art Deco era. Radios, vacuums, toasters, clocks, etc.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:45 AM PST - 3 comments

Updated 03/01/2000, but Not Online _{right now} but you can MESSAGE ME ANYTIME or sign our guestbook that would be great This site is best viewed with Netscape. Download v4.7.2 by clicking
website designed by Sammy (I'm Dino's cousin) here
(c)2016 Dino's Tomato Pie
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:20 AM PST - 33 comments

The Addams Family — led by father Gomez (the late and much-missed Raul Julia) and mother Morticia (Anjelica Huston), and expanded by the additional presence of newborn son Pubert (Kaitlyn and Kristen Hooper) — may be socially mal-adjusted, but they’re also genuinely affectionate in ways that screenwriter Paul Rudnick intended as a sharp contrast with the behavior of conservative Americans who rallied behind the George H.W. Bush-era slogan of “family values.” In time for the 25th anniversary of Addams Family Values ’original theatrical release, The Hollywood Reporter spoke to some of the film’s key collaborators about family values, heavy makeup, and dropped eyeballs.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:18 AM PST - 41 comments

"We need to stop treating Fox like a normal media company and start treating it like any other business devoted to actively harming the public. It should be boycotted."
posted by Lycaste at 5:36 AM PST - 78 comments

Inside the booming business of background music
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:57 AM PST - 36 comments

Fallout 76 – a pointless walk in the post-apocalypse [The Guardian] “Fallout 76’s setting is honestly beautiful, with its autumnal forests, irradiated bogs, ski lodges, folktales, and mountains hollowed by mining. It deserves to have a better game attached to it. There are some striking places to find, including a settlement built up from the stripped parts of a nearby crashed aeroplane. Following Vault 76’s overseer’s story is at times heartbreaking, even if it is told through tapes, and a mission that involves a veil, a mansion and a mysterious order was a highlight. But this potential is obscured by the game’s many problems. Previous Fallout games always had something to say about the post-apocalypse and the human factors that led to it; here, it’s reduced to shooting mutants and picking up rubbish.” [YouTube][Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:09 PM PST - 78 comments

Harry Leslie Smith, 95, WW2 RAF pilot and fierce anti-fascist (previously), had a fall while traveling in Canada and is in the emergency room. Things don't look good. His son John has taken over the account and is keeping everyone apprised: "Thank you all for keeping vigil over Harry with me. It truly is less lonely this way for me." [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:22 PM PST - 34 comments

The Baltimore-Washington Superconducting Maglev Project is a 40-mile, $10-12 billion superconducting magnetic levitation (SCMaglev) line that promises a 15-minute trip from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, MD. The project is the first phase of a SCMaglev line between Washington, DC, and New York, City that would reduce travel time from about 3 hours on Amtrak's Acela Express Train to approximately 1 hour. [more inside]
posted by wintermind at 4:17 PM PST - 30 comments

November 20, 2018 is the nineteenth annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance. [more inside]
posted by Pong74LS at 3:59 PM PST - 38 comments

Less than five weeks to Christmas Day! How's it going in the UK? Polar bears are enjoying themselves, unlike viewers of the Swansea Christmas parade (especially drivers), or a preacher in Grimsby. John Lewis advertises Twitter and the other John Lewis hawks pianos that are undercut by Lidl and stollen. Heathrow is oddly quiet, rude elf, and this cheese toastie looks a bit meaty. Other food? Pizza fingers in school, or chocolate turkey with Marmite sprouts - though chicken > turkey. Fashion? Men buy jumpers and beard lights while women buy wreaths. Seasonal coffee? Um, maybe not. You can sort-of get a tree for five quid, or very un-English instant gratification, or teacher something pricey. Or buy a Spanish village through Goop - though Sweden's gift is more sensible.
posted by Wordshore at 3:50 PM PST - 26 comments

Filmmaker Tom Roes tracks down the photographer behind the ubiquitous photo of a red bike in Amsterdam from IKEA and finds out how a very personal image can become a generic commodity. (Make sure to turn the English captions on the YouTube video)
posted by octothorpe at 2:44 PM PST - 22 comments

A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse... Ann Gibbons writes 1300 words for Science.
posted by cgc373 at 2:27 PM PST - 41 comments

After a conspicuous absence from all things SB Nation for what seems like forever, future MacArthur fellow Jon Bois (so many previouslies) has teamed up with Chapo Trap House's Felix Biederman (previously) for an in-depth, five-part deep dive into the history and cultural implications of mixed martial arts. [more inside]
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 2:18 PM PST - 9 comments

"In 2012, there were 292,074 robberies of all kinds, including bank robberies, residential robberies, convenience store and gas station robberies, and street robberies. The total value of the property taken in those crimes was $340,850,358. By contrast, the total amount recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million in 2012. This is almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year. Further, the nearly $1 billion successfully reclaimed by workers is only the tip of the wage-theft iceberg, since most victims never sue and never complain to the government." [more inside]
posted by eviemath at 2:15 PM PST - 22 comments

A Portrait of Love and Struggle in Post-Industrial, Small-City America By Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. Shaming people who live in poverty is an old reflex in America. Kenneally reminds us that the fault lines of capitalism are everywhere within our nation, running through the very foundation we keep building upon. Her excavations blast through any attempt to deny it. In her book’s opening essay, she refers to her photographs as “new fossils.” With taking pictures, Kenneally writes, “comes the power to manufacture a record that future generations will consider fact.” Whether we choose to look or not, these images are facts.
posted by bluesky43 at 12:54 PM PST - 3 comments

A new trailer for the latest movie staring Warren G Harding*. Armie Hammer guest stars, along with a surprise appearance. Also starring: William Henry Harrison*, Richard Nixon*, Jimmy Carter*, and Bill Clinton*. Don't miss the previous movie trailers with Warren G and friends. [more inside]
posted by numaner at 12:54 PM PST - 5 comments

There is no credible scientific debate over whether the Earth is flat. But that makes a conference of flat-Earth believers a rather exaggerated lens through which to view a much more mainstream trend. Across the country, established authorities are losing their influence. [more inside]
posted by asperity at 12:53 PM PST - 46 comments

CDC is advising that U.S. consumers not eat any romaine lettuce. In a rather stunning advisory, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are advising people not to eat romaine lettuce and to throw away any such lettuce they have on hand. The Public Health Agency of Canada has issues a similar warning. The reason: Shiga toxin-producing E. coli bacteria. The CDC is advising that consumers do not eat any romaine lettuce because no common supplier or brand of romaine lettuce has been identified.
posted by GuyZero at 12:45 PM PST - 95 comments

Termite mounds that are still in use despite being almost 4,000 years old are spread over an area the size of Britain in a remote Brazilian forest. In the course of digging tunnels over thousands of years, "the termites moved more than 10 cubic kilometers (that’s more than 2.6 trillion U.S. gallons) of earth," and the entomologists investigating them took soil samples that "indicated mound fill dates between 690 to 3820 years ago."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:57 AM PST - 13 comments

Tossing a Bird That Does Not Fly Out of a Plane, Anne Lowrey, The Atlantic - The Yellville, Arkansas Turkey Trot used to involve a live turkey dropped from a plane. " To paraphrase Joseph Stalin, one turkey thrown out of a plane is a tragicomedy; 46 million turkeys killed in a slaughterhouse is Thanksgiving dinner. " [Note: article graphically describes factory farming practices and other animal abuse]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:37 AM PST - 21 comments

“Our own species is having the greatest impact on the park and the quality of the experience is becoming a casualty.”
posted by BekahVee at 11:04 AM PST - 31 comments

With 66% of the US supporting a New Green Deal and congresspeople and activist groups joining forces, a question arises. What can the New Green Deal learn from the old New Deal about how to get the changes we need? (Previously Degrowth/New Green Deal)
posted by The Whelk at 9:47 AM PST - 10 comments

Why Are So Many Guatemalans Migrating to the U.S.? [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 8:56 AM PST - 14 comments

Maybe Graphics Cards will be cheaper this holiday season? Every Major Cryptocurrency has dropped in the last week, as the Crypto meltdown continues. [more inside]
posted by aspersioncast at 8:44 AM PST - 128 comments

"Shortcut Roulette is a game of chicken with your social life built entirely on iOS 12 Shortcuts. When you activate the shortcut, your phone will execute one of [up to] 100 possible functions: maybe it'll send your last five selfies in a PDF to a modelling agency, maybe it'll send your nudes to your boss, maybe you'll get lucky and it'll do nothing." Via HackerNews, where the developer is soliciting beta testers for this wonderful, awful idea.
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:19 AM PST - 31 comments

Here’s what’s astounding: Chiles are native only to Central and South America (Time Magazine, 2007). That means that until Christopher Columbus sailed for the New World in 1492, there were no chiles (Capsicum on Wikipedia) anywhere else. Not in India. Not in Thailand. Not in China or Korea. [...] For the past few years, I’ve been studying the route(s) chiles took around the globe, with an eye to understanding not just when they arrived in different lands but what happened afterward: How did chiles get so deeply integrated into these cuisines? How did that ferocious shift in food alter their cultures? And what do chiles mean to chile eaters today? How the Chile Pepper Took Over the World, an exploration and article by Matt Gross for Medium. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:36 AM PST - 35 comments

First Mark Renton became a DJ manager, then Irvine Welsh reinvent himself as a Techno producer. Soon, at the age of 60.
posted by avi111 at 7:34 AM PST - 8 comments

Surveillance capitalism and targeted advertising have become the norm on the internet, and it's hurting all of us. (slVice)
posted by standardasparagus at 6:58 AM PST - 29 comments

Turkey Microwave Challenge Causes Parents To Lose Their Minds "Parents wonder if their kids are clueless or just plain drunk when they ask how long to microwave a turkey in new social media challenge." [more inside]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:13 PM PST - 92 comments

Psilocybin Could Be Legal for Therapy by 2021: The psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms could soon be legal to use in a clinical setting. "For the first time in U.S. history, a psychedelic drug is on the fast track to getting approved for treating depression by the federal government. Late last month, Compass Pathways, a U.K.-based company that researches and develops mental health treatments, announced the FDA granted them what’s called a 'breakthrough therapy designation' for their trials into psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms. Researchers who pioneered psychedelic science agree — this is a landmark moment for their field." Meanwhile, a millionaire couple is threatening to create a magic mushroom monopoly ... [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 4:25 PM PST - 83 comments

Do You Even Bake, Bro? How the Silicon Valley set fell in love with sourdough and decided to disrupt the 6,000-year-old craft of making bread, one crumbshot at a time - Eater Longform, Dayna Evans

“[In tech], we call it iterative testing because you gradually improve a thing until it’s optimized,” he explained. When a few years ago a friend asked him which recipe he was using, he sent the recipe he’d been keeping in his notes. He had titled it, “Sam’s Version of Michael Ruhlman’s Version of Jeffrey Steingarten’s Version of Jim Lahey’s (According to Steingarten) ‘Miracle Bread.’”

[more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 2:56 PM PST - 103 comments

After Soo Min Kim drinks from a paper cup, he draws on it
posted by growabrain at 1:17 PM PST - 4 comments

In Defense of Puns [The Paris Review] “Despite its bad reputation, punning is, in fact, among the highest displays of wit. Indeed, puns point to the essence of all true wit—the ability to hold in the mind two different ideas about the same thing at the same time. [...] The best puns have more to do with philosophy than with being funny. Playing with words is playing with ideas, and a likeness between two different terms suggests a likeness between their referents, too. Puns are therefore not mere linguistic coincidences but evidence and expression of a hidden connection—between mind and material, ideas and things, knowing and nomenclature. Puns are pins on the map tracing the path from word to world.”
posted by Fizz at 1:12 PM PST - 64 comments

Unprecedented rains decimate surface microbial communities in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert This driest and oldest desert on Earth has experienced a number of highly unusual rain events over the past three years, resulting in the formation of previously unrecorded hypersaline lagoons, which have lasted several months. Here we show that the sudden and massive input of water in regions that have remained hyperarid for millions of years is harmful for most of the surface soil microbial species, which are exquisitely adapted to survive with meager amounts of liquid water, and quickly perish from osmotic shock when water becomes suddenly abundant.
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:23 PM PST - 6 comments

About 50,000 Australian marsupials orphaned by automobiles are rescued from their dead mother's pouches, rehabilitated and released by volunteer wildlife carers every year. Here we have a joey being rescued. (May squick the squickable.) [more inside]
posted by ckridge at 11:22 AM PST - 18 comments

The Million Dollar Drug :: Glybera is a miracle cure for people born with a genetic mutation that causes lipoprotein lipase disorder (LPLD), but at a cost of one million dollars per dose, it is a cure nobody can afford. The drug works. It is safe. But it's no longer available anywhere in the world.
posted by anastasiav at 10:31 AM PST - 37 comments

Of all the many mysteries that surround the common wombat, it is hard to find one as baffling as its ability – broadly acknowledged as unique in the natural world – to produce faeces shaped like cubes. The Guardian's science editor discusses a recent, er, breakthrough in determining how it occurs. (Wombats previously; wombat poop previously)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:03 AM PST - 33 comments

“I’m telling you this story because I imagine there are others, like me, who want to see a better, kinder world, but they’re not sure how to go about achieving it. When I was 24 I thought it was through proper, respectable channels: NGOs and civil political gamesmanship and gradual pressure for reform. I now know that those proper and respectable channels are an illusion, anesthetizing you to the fact that the world is a vicious brawl for resources, with capitalists leading every major offensive.” Why Do Nonprofits Exist? (Popula)
posted by The Whelk at 9:41 AM PST - 64 comments

This study investigates the strains of financial distress on marital quality, and explores gratitude as a mitigating factor in these situations, when escalating spousal relation patterns might become increasingly negative.
posted by TruthfulCalling at 9:02 AM PST - 7 comments

The Best Heist Movies Since ‘Heat’
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:55 AM PST - 64 comments

What Kind of Person Steals Their Co-workers’ Lunch? [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 8:48 AM PST - 98 comments

So, the last election wasn't only about dumb nazis. A new coalition is rising against the right wing. Rio de Janeiro elected four 'other' Marielles [Google translated]. São Paulo elected two black trans women. Roraima state, in the Amazon forest, also made history electing our first-ever indigenous congresswoman.
posted by Tom-B at 8:26 AM PST - 3 comments

Cleveland, Ohio is an underappreciated city at the best of times, and frequently the butt of burning-river and balloon jokes. The portfolio of Cleveland arts and culture reporter Nikki Delamotte focuses on the unique arts and culture scene in northeast Ohio. From her book 100 Things to Do in Cleveland Before you Die to her columns in alternative weekly Cleveland Scene and the Plain-Dealer’s Cleveland.com, Delamotte’s work shines light on new artists, restaurants, music venues, and miniature art galleries located in the last standing phone booth in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood. [more inside]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:42 AM PST - 14 comments

Does what it says on the tin. These Dungeons and Dragons maps are absolutely astonishing.
posted by josher71 at 6:50 AM PST - 27 comments

The West was sure the Chinese approach would not work. It just had to wait. It’s still waiting. (slnyt)
posted by infini at 3:29 AM PST - 44 comments

Jeff Goldblum plays a jazz show almost every week (NPR, 2014). It wasn't until he played piano to back up Gregory Porter on the Graham Norton Show that someone at Decca (The Guardian, May 2018) thought to put Goldblum's jazz to wax (double LP on Amazon). And it's not a solo gig, but rather Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra (22 minute YT video compilation of snippets from their Oct. 22, 2014 show), named after a family friend from his Pittsburgh childhood (Los Angeles Times article from 2000, in which Mildred Snitzer writes to Las Palmas Restaurant and asks for a cassette of the band who plays under her name -- "I love Dixieland jazz, so I hope that's what I'm doing.") Spoiler -- it's not. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:41 PM PST - 13 comments

The rise of the STEM toy (Forbes, Andrew Raupp) means the profileration of STEM Gift Guides: PBS (Danielle Steinberg), heavy.com, The Spruce (Julie Evans), Tom's Hardware (Avram Piltch), Forbes again (Talia Milgrom-Elcott), and the behemoth, the venerable, the original, and the only one that comes with footnotes to current research: the 2018 Engineering Gift Guide from the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering at Purdue University.
posted by bq at 7:40 PM PST - 35 comments

METTA WORLD TEETH
On December 12th, 2011: The NBA player known as Metta World Peace gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times about his recent name change. Metta completely disregarded the reporter’s question and instead decided to talk about his teeth. The following is a dramatic re-imagining of that interview using Metta’s actual audio.
Directed by LAMAR+NIK, starring Matthew Griffin and Michaelene Stephension.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:40 PM PST - 10 comments

A game that teaches kids 20 years of investing in 20 minutes: MeFi's missjenny writes, "High school kids are still learning investing the way I did in the '90s: get a large sum of imaginary money and buy individual stocks for 8-10 weeks. Basically the exact wrong way to learn a lifelong investment strategy," as another source discusses in detail. "We created Stax to take down 'the stock market game.'" [Via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 2:29 PM PST - 64 comments

I love a man in uniform: "Military history buffs come in many flavours – some intrigued by grand strategy, others by the common soldier’s experience. There’s the study of command, technical innovation, weaponry, the nexus between politics and war. But me? I’m more of a Punk Historian, fascinated by military miscellany – the origins of dits, legends, kit and the near-mystical concept of allyness." Dominic Adler, "A Punk History Of Military Cool, or the pursuit of ally – ness." [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:41 PM PST - 18 comments

The bone collector: reviving Finland's pagan past. North Karelian artist Sanni-Maaria Puustinen works with the remains of dead animals to create items that honour their lives in ways that predate Lutheranism and Orthodoxy. Puustinen's other artwork.
posted by myopicman at 1:40 PM PST - 6 comments

My dog didn't forget me when I went to prison
posted by queen anne's remorse at 10:43 AM PST - 29 comments

Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris? [kottke.org] “As John Green explains in this video, a few people are actually getting much better at the NES version of Tetris than anyone was back in the 90s. One of the reasons for this is that a smaller dedicated group working together can be more effective than a massive group of people working alone on a problem. Today’s top players can not only compare scores (as people did in the pages of Nintendo Power), but they get together for competitions, share techniques, and post videos of their gameplay to Twitch and YouTube for others to mine for tricks. The two approaches boil down to ants solving problems vs. deliberate practice. The hundreds of millions of players were able to map out seemingly all corners of the game, but only up to a point. It took a smaller group engaging in a collective deliberate practice to push beyond the mass effort.” [YouTube] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:40 AM PST - 31 comments

Krystalynn Martin is a native of Paradise, California. She wrote this poem about the fire.
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:02 AM PST - 27 comments

November 19th is World Toilet Day: socialism produces The People's Own Organic Power Project, whereas capitalism sniffs an opportunity to strike gold in all that brown. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:01 AM PST - 18 comments

• Reading _Capital_ - "Prices confront each individual price-taker as objective facts, but --- so goes the Walrasian myth --- they are in fact the outcome of a social process, reflecting at once the possibilities of production, the social facts of initial endowments, and the purely subjective wants of everyone."
• Populism and the New Oligarchy - "Political terms, as Pierre Bourdieu insisted, should be regarded not merely as tools but as stakes in the political struggle."
• The idea of intellectual property is nonsensical and pernicious - "Property is a legally constructed, historically contingent, social fact."
• Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Critique - "The state has essentially outsourced money creation in our financial system to private banks."

[more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM PST - 6 comments

Toulouse becomes a labyrinth for this mythological tale. Behind the scenes: with the giant minotaur. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:28 PM PST - 11 comments

Eric Will Eat Anything on Ice Cream Reddit Tells Him to.
It started here.
Background [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 8:51 PM PST - 16 comments

"Broken Face" And All, Becky Lynch Is Suddenly The Biggest Star In WWE: How Rebecca Quin seized the moment to create one of the most iconic photos in women's wrestling history and became one of the biggest things in professional wrestling despite being out of action for an unknown amount of time. (content warning: real blood)
posted by Etrigan at 6:45 PM PST - 31 comments

Former Bon Appetit editor Claire Saffitz is back in the BA test kitchen (at least temporarily), this time making gourmet Sno Balls. [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 4:33 PM PST - 34 comments

On July 31st, known illustrated jocularity Wondermark (previously) posted an innocuous comic strip beginning with the phrase "Check out my sick elephant!" For the next three and a half months, ending(?) only this past Thursday, every Wondermark strip centered around this one phrase, eventually spiraling into a dramatic(??) storyline with numerous recurring characters—including, yes, several sick elephants. In the eighth strip, wordplay based on slight phonetic variation began appearing, and the phrase was no longer relegated to the first panel; in the last strip, over twenty different variations of increasing obscurity appeared in short succession. In-between is only chaos. [more inside]
posted by one for the books at 2:47 PM PST - 23 comments

"It's named for a sun-loving fungus that lives in cow dung, but the dance form of Pilobolus, which has been gaining momentum for more than 30 years, is a lot more exciting, but we'll let you judge for yourself" (an interview and performance segment from 9 years ago, related to Pilobolus' 2007 Oscar performance). How Pilobolus brings shadows to life (Wired Masterminds video). Pilobolus is more than shadow-dancing, but that creativity and whimsy is always present. From early on, the company "made a specialty of playful topsy-turvy entanglements that defied anatomical logic" and which sometimes "gave rise to bizarre imagery" (blurb from an almost hour long Pilobolus Dance Theater performance/ lecture, recorded in 1998 at C. D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge, VA). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:40 PM PST - 9 comments

The growth of yoga and meditation in the US since 2012 is remarkable: The number of Americans who meditate has tripled. Yoga is up 55 percent. "Yoga and meditation, two ancient practices, are now officially the most popular alternative health approaches in the United States, each used by around 35 million adults. That’s the word from a report (PDF) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention out [last] Thursday, which looked at the changes in the use of yoga, meditation, and chiropractors between 2012 and 2017." Mindfulness Is Going Mainstream Because of Science: Mindfulness has gone from hippie-dippie magical thinking to science-based health hack. What gives? ... [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 2:02 PM PST - 81 comments

Roughly coincident with Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker's prequel to Dracula (excerpt 1; excerpt 2) contending for a Goodreads Choice Award for Horror, Philip Spedding at The London Library has announced an intriguing find: "Bram Stoker was a member of The London Library but until now we have had no indication whether or how he used our collection. Today's discovery changes that" (video walkthrough of the evidence). Alternative copies of the sources listed in the article are available online. [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 12:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Ants that collect the skulls of their prey.
"Time-lapse video observation of the interior nest chambers of laboratory colonies found that freshly-killed trap-jaw ants are dragged into the nest like food items and dismembered. Leading to nests filled with trap-jaw ant body parts, as is found in natural colonies."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:39 AM PST - 15 comments

Watch the Star Wars Holiday Special on its 40th Anniversary [YouTube] “You can expect Disney to release a new Star Wars movie every year from now until ... let's be honest, probably long after you and I are both dead and buried. But there's another Star Wars holiday tradition you should be keeping: Making time to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special, a famously atrocious piece of Star Wars history that aired once, and only once, on Nov. 17, 1978. The special was never re-aired; it was never released on video. It's been something Lucas — and ostensibly now, Disney — has been all too happy to forget about.” [via: Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 8:55 AM PST - 76 comments

From All Things Considered, Uri Berliner tells the story of two families who risked everything to help his father escape the Nazis, and the story of the childhood token that reunited two branches of his family decades later.
posted by bq at 8:53 AM PST - 4 comments

‘Cultural Marxism’ might sound postmodern but it’s got a long, toxic history. [slNYTimes]
posted by standardasparagus at 7:40 AM PST - 35 comments

The world of professional darts has been rocked by two players accusing each other of repeatedly breaking wind during a match. (SLGuardian)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:14 AM PST - 25 comments

I suspect that the Coen brothers would not regard a ranking of their films with much respect. For nearly 35 years, the duo from Minnesota have been making movies that celebrate and undermine genre, thumbing their noses at convention and trends, and exploring the meaninglessness of existence with the depth and absurdity worthy of the cause. Joel and Ethan Coen’s 18 films—including The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the anthology Western debuting on Netflix this week—represent one of the truly unified American accomplishments in the arts.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:26 PM PST - 152 comments

Before I had PND, I already had a psychotic illness. I knew I'd get postnatal depression. The reality was nothing like what I expected. While I was pregnant, I’d already conceded defeat, getting my black dog a new bed and a fancy ceramic bowl. But I had got it all wrong. PND didn’t just blend into the depression I already had. I didn’t just become “more depressed”. It was a whole distinct illness with its own symptoms and its own treatments. Anna Spargo-Ryan in The Guardian.
posted by mosessis at 3:22 PM PST - 5 comments

Jerome Motto's research found that simple acts of showing people that someone was there for them, and expected nothing in return— would make suicidal patients feel less isolated, less in conflict with themselves. So his team wrote letters, simple and direct, without clinical jargon that demanded nothing. Motto's goal was to convey a genuine sense of kinship—“simply what one might say to a friend.” Motto's data found that the suicide rate of the control group was nearly twice as high as that of group his team had contacted. The Best Way To Save People From Suicide is a Single Link Huffpost from their Highline series by Jason Cherkis. [more inside]
posted by zenon at 1:06 PM PST - 24 comments

Canadian researchers have discovered a new kind of organism that doesn't fit into the plant, animal, or any other kingdom of known organisms. Two species of the microscopic organisms, called hemimastigotes, were found in dirt collected on a whim during a hike in Nova Scotia by Dalhousie University graduate student Yana Eglit. Hemimastigotes were first seen and described in the 19th century, and about 10 species have been described over the past 100 years. But up to now, no one could figure out how they fit into the evolutionary tree of life. Based on the Dalhousie lab's new genetic analysis, it looks like you'd have to go back a billion years before you could find a common ancestor of hemimastigotes and any other known living thing. [more inside]
posted by heatherlogan at 12:36 PM PST - 24 comments

Dolly Parton has recorded a new, stripped-down, strings-only version of her 1973 hit Jolene. Happy Friday. [more inside]
posted by mhum at 12:20 PM PST - 53 comments

How famed U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, at the age of 82, became an internet entrepreneur, and why his namesake website burned out, fast. (from Ernie Smith's excellent Tedium newsletter)
posted by Etrigan at 11:46 AM PST - 9 comments

Jay-Z Is The Rolling Stones: A Dad Rock-To-Dad Rap Conversion Guide (slUproxx)
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:18 AM PST - 48 comments

Art students at SUNY Purchase had a good thing going behind a paper towel dispenser in a bathroom, until someone tweeted about the Danny DeVito shrine hidden back there and it went viral. Despite the school issuing a statement praising their students' creativity, the shrine has been shut down because we cannot have good things. However, DeVito himself has addressed the matter with some words and a mission for us all.
posted by rewil at 10:53 AM PST - 37 comments

"Frederick Banting discovered insulin but he was more than just a Nobel prize-winning scientist. He was also an artist and he painted the lab where he made his famous discovery." The painting will be put up for auction on November 21. Banting's papers and more can be found via the University of Toronto's Insulin Collections.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:23 AM PST - 4 comments

Follow along as Jimmy Diresta builds a cedar strip canoe. [more inside]
posted by bondcliff at 10:20 AM PST - 5 comments

Tire technology has come a long way since the Ford Model T first rolled out of the factory in 1908. Modern tires are not only different in dimension, compound, and overall structure, but they’re also a different color. That’s because early tires were white, and only around World War I did they turn black. Here’s why. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:03 AM PST - 20 comments

“The American commonwealth is shockingly impoverished. Ask anyone who’s compared the nine-plus-hour train ride from Pittsburgh to New York with the barely two-hour journey from Paris to Bordeaux, an equidistant journey, or who’s watched the orderly, accurate exit polls from a German election and compared them with the fizzling, overheating voting machines in Florida.” The Lie Americans Tell Themselves (TruthDig)
posted by The Whelk at 9:23 AM PST - 92 comments

Currently showing through 19 JAN 2019, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Toward A Concrete Utopia showcases Yugoslavian architecture from 1948 to 1980 [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:13 AM PST - 3 comments

I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It. A reporter reflects on his responsibility. Should we all start keeping quiet about hidden gems? [more inside]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:05 AM PST - 158 comments

The Manhoff Archives Stalin's Soviet Union comes to life in full color with the discovery of a long-hidden collection of images. Major Martin Manhoff spent more than two years in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, serving as assistant army attaché at the U.S. Embassy, which was located just off Red Square at the beginning of his time in Moscow. [more inside]
posted by Man with Lantern at 7:04 AM PST - 6 comments

"I have been informed by friends of the family that William Goldman died last night. He was 87. Goldman, who twice won screenwriting Oscars for All The President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, passed away last night in his Manhattan home, surrounded by family and friends. His health had been failing for some time, and over the summer his condition deteriorated." [more inside]
posted by gauche at 6:58 AM PST - 92 comments

Pilot programs to help young people get onto land and monitor fishing, tourism activities [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 6:47 AM PST - 1 comment

In coverage of the recent fires in California you may have seen a Boeing 747 being used to drop fire retardant. Here's a behind the scenes look at how a 747 and DC-10 are refuelled and reloaded during firefighting operations, along with some insight into how the retardent equipment functions. The turnaround is very fast.
posted by carter at 5:42 AM PST - 22 comments

I hope a FPP from mathowie doesn't cause some sort of weird self-link ban loop that destroys the site, but his account of visiting the Whitney Plantation/Slavery Museum is absolutely the best of the web.
posted by COD at 5:34 AM PST - 33 comments

Back of the Class: Julia Bell recalls her admission interview for Oxford University [TLS]: "I wonder now about all the other kids like me, the ones at odd angles, the queer and working class and black, or even just Northern, or Welsh, or provincial. This is not a place for them, however loudly they might be knocking on the door." Julia Bell writes about her 1988 interview for admission to Jesus College, Oxford University, touching upon class, elitism, social control and how the mind reacts in high-pressure situations. In response other people have shared similar experiences on twitter. [more inside]
posted by ocular shenanigans at 2:30 AM PST - 40 comments

The other day, YouTube's algorithm decided to present me with a gentleman called Özgür Baba playing a tune called Dertli Dolap on a cura outside what is possibly his home. Neither his cat nor his chickens are much impressed, though. I have no further context to provide. I just wish you to enjoy a peaceful 14 minutes in the countryside this Friday morning.
posted by Harald74 at 11:32 PM PST - 19 comments

FCC tells SpaceX it can deploy up to 11,943 broadband satellites — Initial launch of 4,425 satellites to be followed by 7,518 closer to the ground. [Ars Technica, 11/15/2018]. SpaceX "proposes to add a very-low Earth orbit (VLEO) NGSO [non-geostationary satellite orbit] constellation, consisting of 7,518 satellites operating at altitudes from 335km to 346km," the FCC said in the draft of the order that it approved unanimously today. The newly approved satellites would use frequencies between 37.5 and 42GHz for space-to-Earth transmissions and frequencies between 47.2 and 51.4GHz for Earth-to-space transmissions, the FCC said. More details, WP, Elon Musk on making Starlink (YT).
posted by cenoxo at 11:03 PM PST - 34 comments

Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! [Nintendo Life] “Acting as a reimagining of Pokémon Yellow – an already enhanced version of the series’ first titles Pokémon Red and Blue – Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! have taken all of the nostalgia-filled loveliness of their origins, added a healthy sprinkling of modern flavourings and preservatives and cooked up a brand new entry full of fan service, bold changes and plenty of intrigue.” [YouTube][Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:31 PM PST - 9 comments

The legendary guitarist has died at age 85. His starring stint on the at times deliberately corny “Hee Haw” television show belied his stellar musicianship and deep pedigree as a country-music pioneer, particularly the “Bakersfield” sound of the late 1950s and early 1960s in which he was deeply involved with fellow picker Buck Owens, who also appeared on the show. With the later rise of country stars ranging from Emmylou Harris and Dwight Yoakam to Brad Paisley and Keith Urban, Clark’s vast influence has received its proper due.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:01 PM PST - 51 comments

In 2002, Ikea released an ad about a lamp that had an interesting stinger. 16 years later, they released a follow up. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:44 PM PST - 86 comments

Some Kind Of (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:54 PM PST - 16 comments

Interdisciplinary artist Suzanne Jongmans recycles packaging materials to create elaborate Renaissance costumes. [more inside]
posted by merriment at 11:38 AM PST - 10 comments

For no apparent reason, TVGuide.com has chosen to rank all 77 scripted live-action shows aired by the WB over its 11 years, 8 months, and 7 days of broadcasting.
posted by Etrigan at 11:14 AM PST - 75 comments

Aidan got a Star Destroyer.
How Andrew Guy built it.
Via Coudal.
posted by growabrain at 10:37 AM PST - 8 comments

Two cats that have spent the past two years trying to enter an art museum in western Japan – only to be politely turned away at the door – have become online celebrities with a global following willing them on in their attempts to see at least one exhibit up close.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:42 AM PST - 51 comments

Why Aren't U.S. Workers Working? - "Labor force participation among U.S. men and women ages 25 to 54 has been declining for nearly 20 years, a stark contrast with rising participation in Canada over this period. Three-fourths of the difference between the two countries can be explained by the growing gap in labor force attachment of women. A key factor is the extensive parental leave policies in Canada. If the United States could reverse the trend in participation of prime-age women to match Canada, it would see 5 million additional prime-age workers join the labor force." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:44 AM PST - 69 comments

What is killing Mexico’s rich indigenous languages? [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 5:31 AM PST - 9 comments

A thread of images from a Japanese illustrated history of America from 1861. Nick Kapur posts images from "Osanaetoki Bankokubanashi" (童絵解万国噺): "A Child's Illustrated Book of All Countries". Including: John Adams battling an enormous snake, Ben Franklin's impressive squat and more. [more inside]
posted by dill at 4:47 AM PST - 35 comments

Emoji builder. Build your own emoji, from individual components.
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:24 AM PST - 24 comments

Banana, peanuts, mushrooms and curry powder on a pizza? It's maybe not everyone's can of pineapple (previously) or tin of Dr. Pepper flavored baked beans, though some like banana topping occasionally in Plymouth, with blue cheese in Iceland or nutella in Belfast or chilies and bell peppers in India or with dulce de leche and caramel popcorn in Adelaide. The taste test? "This is like someone forced a smoothie on a pizza." Best covered in coleslaw and eaten on a plate with a knife and fork. But hey, healthy pizza such as Granola Crust Fruit Pizza is good for you so maybe switch? The future of hot dogs? Recipe for Mini Fruit Pizza. (also previously, some New Yorkers have opinions)
posted by Wordshore at 12:07 AM PST - 56 comments

A collection of maps intended primarily to influence opinions or beliefs - to send or reinforce messages - rather than to communicate objective geographic information. Browse by subject. [more inside]
posted by peeedro at 12:01 AM PST - 10 comments

After performing a breathtaking solo dance to Hozier's hit Take Me to Church in a video directed by David LaChapelle, ballet dancer Sergei Polunin stars in the official music video to Hozier's newest single Movement (dir. Chris Barrett and Luke Taylor), only this time, he's not quite dancing by himself. [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 9:43 PM PST - 13 comments

Jello Biafra’s Incredibly Strange Interview and dance party with furries
posted by Artw at 8:01 PM PST - 14 comments

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web, has some regrets. He has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it. "The power of the Web wasn’t taken or stolen. We, collectively, by the billions, gave it away with every signed user agreement and intimate moment shared with technology. Facebook, Google, and Amazon now monopolize almost everything that happens online, from what we buy to the news we read to who we like. Along with a handful of powerful government agencies, they are able to monitor, manipulate, and spy in once unimaginable ways. Shortly after the 2016 election, Berners-Lee felt something had to change, and began methodically attempting to hack his creation." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 7:15 PM PST - 42 comments

Descendants of the field mustard, call 'em cole crops, brassicas, crucifers, or one of their many, many names, "It is the cabbage which surpasses all other vegetables":
Of Cabbages and Kings. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:11 PM PST - 31 comments

Where, exactly, did the idea of ancient aliens building the pyramids begin? Since the late 19th century, science fiction writers have imagined Martians and other alien lifeforms engaged in great feats of terrestrial engineering. Earlier alien theories surrounding Atlantis may have spawned fantasies about alien building. The most substantial evidence for non-earthly creatures arrived in the wake of H.G. Wells’s success. Capitalizing on the fervor surrounding Wells’s The War of the Worlds, astronomer and science fiction writer Garrett P. Serviss penned a quasi-sequel titled Edison’s Conquest of Mars in 1898.
posted by MovableBookLady at 6:58 PM PST - 30 comments

Trans Women, Glamour, and Death by Denny discusses the space she occupies as a trans woman and how small the space between being fabulous and being dead can get.
posted by bile and syntax at 6:43 PM PST - 3 comments

Inside an annual contest of brains, brawn, and library logistics. For the sixth time, an elite squad of 12 professional New York sorters—the fleet-fingered men and women who feed books into the machine—will compete with their counterparts from Washington State’s King County Library System to see who can process the most books in an hour. [more inside]
posted by cynical pinnacle at 4:51 PM PST - 14 comments

Vivian Maier, known mostly for her black & white photography, also did color...
posted by jim in austin at 2:45 PM PST - 14 comments

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite [YouTube] Here's Your First Look At Pokémon GO Dev Niantic’s Upcoming Harry Potter AR Game.

“Please resist the urge to panic. Traces of magic are appearing across the Muggle world without warning and in a rather chaotic manner. We worry it is only a matter of time before even the most incurious Muggles catch wind of it. We call on all witches and wizards to help contain the Calamity or risk the worst of times since You Know Who. Brush up on your spells, get your wand ready, and enlist immediately.”

[Official Website]
posted by Fizz at 1:11 PM PST - 42 comments

RIP Katherine MacGregor, 93, best known as Harriet Oleson on the Little House on the Prairie TV show. Interview posted in 2012. She had an uncredited role as a mother in "On the Waterfront." Nellie offered her condolences, as did Laura. Fun fact: the character was never given a first name in the book, and was Margaret Owens in real life.
posted by Melismata at 11:46 AM PST - 22 comments

Cartoonist Matthew Thurber (...) takes on the art world in his latest book Art Comic, a series of interrelated stories about the trials and tribulations of would-be artists. Megan Liberty reviews for Hyperallergic.
posted by bq at 11:41 AM PST - 1 comment

The best television episode of the 1990s starred a short, blond man and his band. On November 18, 1993, at Sony Music Studios in New York City, Nirvana took on MTV Unplugged. That night, the biggest group of the decade staged one of the most hypnotically intimate rock concerts ever captured on film.

posted by Etrigan at 10:54 AM PST - 82 comments

At the time of writing, Theresa May's cabinet is meeting to discuss a draft Brexit deal between the UK and EU, that has emerged from the "tunnel" of secret negotiations. Will it be acceptable to her cabinet, or will there be resignations? Will it pass parliament, or will it fall afoul of, well, pretty much everyone? (DUP; Scottish Tories angry over fisheries; Moderate remainer Tories; Labour; frothing crazy ERG Tories; LibDems) [more inside]
posted by chappell, ambrose at 10:15 AM PST - 553 comments

It's that time of year when a young person's fancy turns to thoughts of turkey. It's important to note, then, that brining turkeys is out. Low on oven space? Maybe cook that turkey outdoors. Or skip roasting it entirely. Or a bunch of other ways. Should you buy a fancy new gadget to fry your bird? Just be careful, there's a salmonella scare going around right now.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:53 AM PST - 77 comments

Here's 17 minutes of an old steel vice being quietly, painstakingly restored.
posted by cortex at 9:36 AM PST - 36 comments

There are interesting attempts to procedurally generate realistic cities, though it turns out to still be a hard problem, as all the most famous cities in games are built by hand. The exceptions are often interesting to play with, like Wave Function Collapse [PC only] which lets you walk through an infinite and beautiful Mediterranean-style city. If you prefer overhead maps, here is an interactive in-browser fantasy generator or this approach, which generates random navigable cities. Developers keep teasing new approaches to city building however, you can see some animated GIFs generated by another interesting approach to creating a cyberpunk city, along with some procedural brutalism.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:10 AM PST - 12 comments

Getting in a Van Again (A Fruit Bats Documentary) A short film about the making of the Fruit Bats new album, featuring unwatered plants percussion and a Bastards of Young video homage in front of curtains.
posted by malphigian at 7:45 AM PST - 1 comment

With a new preview trailer HBO have announced the date of the final season of Game of Thrones as April 2019. George R R Martins' Wildcards series of books is to get a couple of television adaptations... and the next book in A Song of Ice and Fire...? Er... er... well, there's a new history of Westeros book!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:44 AM PST - 108 comments

"Something’s gone terribly wrong. Doctors are among the most technology-avid people in society; computerization has simplified tasks in many industries. Yet somehow we’ve reached a point where people in the medical profession actively, viscerally, volubly hate their computers." (SLNewYorker) [more inside]
posted by Stark at 5:45 AM PST - 114 comments

You know about Fallout 1 through 4, but what else happened on the long road to Fallout 76? Rock Paper Shotgun, a PC gaming news, review and article site since 1873, has asked actual real games historian Nate "Regular "FrogCroakley" Frog" Crowley to write, one tweet at a time, the history of Fallouts 5 through 75. Even if he weren't already two tweets in, we'd still be getting in a few floors above the ground floor, because of your previously-mentioned knowledge of Fallout 1 through 4.
posted by BiggerJ at 4:27 AM PST - 13 comments

For more than half a century, Dear Abby—America’s longest-running advice column, first penned by Pauline Phillips under the pseudonym Abigail van Buren, and today by her daughter, Jeanne—has offered counsel to thousands of worried and conflicted readers. Syndicated in more than 1,200 newspapers at the height of its popularity, it offers an unprecedented look at the landscape of worries that dominate US life. The column has been continuously in print since 1956. No other source in popular culture has elicited so many Americans to convey their earnest concerns for so long.

A data-driven analysis of 30 years of 'Dear Abby'.
posted by secretdark at 12:48 AM PST - 22 comments

Eggs Benedict for later? Or tiny packets of Nutella? Adam Buxton asks Louis Theroux “What about twenty rolls?” While non-guests eating the hotel buffet are less shameful, is there exhilaration in filling ziploc bag and tupperware (or a holdall and trouser pockets) with cheeses and waffles? (where you can, unlike here and here) If you are more buffet and less fine dining, with a nod to a 2008 mumsnet debate, opinions are divided. For: logistics and room service charges make this the only fair option for some; better milk than in your hotel room; excess food left is thrown away or rehashed. Against: “It's all you can eat, not all you can fit in your car.”; moderation and nutrition. Related: other hotel items (slippers: yes, but flatscreen TV: no) and airport lounges with buffet-style food.
posted by Wordshore at 12:02 AM PST - 47 comments

Pattie Gonia Is the World's First Backpacking Queen. A Nebraska-based photographer is bringing positivity and drag culture to the great outdoors—in six-inch heels. [more inside]
posted by Grandysaur at 11:51 PM PST - 11 comments

On March 8, 1979 seasoned Iranian photographer Hengameh Golestan (one of only a few women working as a photographer in the country) captured a protest of 100,000 Iranian women protesting the new Islamic government’s hijab law, which ordered women to wear a headscarf to leave the house.
posted by Mitheral at 10:07 PM PST - 2 comments

Want to Know Where Intersectional Queer Radicalism Is Thriving? Look to Appalachia.
posted by standardasparagus at 9:01 PM PST - 12 comments

"Ma! Yo, there's a stray cat outside!" [SLYT, NSFW language]
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:42 PM PST - 44 comments

Enjoy the mesmerizing fun of Hatsune Miku vocaloid improvisation with bonus music-synced visuals. Click or tap around, or if you're on a computer, try hitting random keys!
posted by Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra at 6:26 PM PST - 17 comments

In Disney's Golden Age, a Modernist Pioneer Designed the Perfect Animator's Desk. In his latest book, Kem Weber: Mid-Century Furniture Designs for the Disney Studios, author and former Disney animator David A. Bossert offers fresh insights into the Disney-Weber relationship, particularly in the way it affected the half-dozen or so different desk styles Weber designed for character animators, layout artists, and animation directors. Naturally, Weber received a steady stream of input from Disney, but Weber also solicited ideas from one of the greatest animators of the 20th century, Frank Thomas, who used the prototype of the desk he helped Weber design—built by the Peterson Showcase & Fixture Company—to complete his work on “Pinocchio.” [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 6:20 PM PST - 4 comments

Oliver Latta, who goes by @extraweg online (IG, FB, YT) is a German 3-D artist whose "animations are disturbing but at the same time strangely beautiful and hypnotic." A few examples: Human Paste, Daily Routine, Face Crumple, Breadxit-Discobolus On Toast
posted by Room 641-A at 4:44 PM PST - 2 comments

Anna Trupiano is a first-grade teacher at a school that serves deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students from birth through eighth grade. Recently, a six-year-old child farted so loud in class that some of their classmates began to laugh. The child was surprised by their reaction because they didn’t know farts make a sound. This created a wonderful teaching moment for Trupiano. [more inside]
posted by Dr Ew at 3:50 PM PST - 27 comments

Long Read: A mission for journalism in a time of crisis.
In a turbulent era, the media must define its values and principles, writes Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner.

posted by adamvasco at 2:59 PM PST - 5 comments

What Do Our Oldest Books Say About Us? "On the ineffable magic of four little manuscripts of Old English poetry." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 1:44 PM PST - 19 comments

Robert Koch discovered the tubercle bacillus in 1882 (National Institutes of Health). As germ theory became better understood, medical professionals knew that isolation was key to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. A person’s best hope for recovery was to live somewhere with plenty of fresh air, sunlight, rest, and nourishing food. The standard of care (Harvard Library) for TB was primarily environmental—and the design of sanatoria influenced Modernist architecture (NIH). How the Tuberculosis Epidemic Influenced Modernist Architecture (Elizabeth Yuko for CityLab)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:19 PM PST - 8 comments

The golden age of menstrual surveillance is great for men, marketers, and medical companies. [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 11:53 AM PST - 72 comments

Clothing brands have been smuggling Spandex onto the legs of unsuspecting men. “I definitely didn’t explicitly understand what I was buying,” Austin Ray, a 36-year-old writer in Atlanta, told me. What he was buying were Gap Soft Wear Jeans in Straight Fit with GapFlex, which is a nine-word phrase to describe a two-word trend: stretch jeans. “Apparently I didn’t think too hard about what those words meant,” he said. The Sneaky Way Clothing Brands Hooked Men on Stretch Jeans
posted by everybody had matching towels at 10:32 AM PST - 101 comments

Puzzle Montage Art by Tim Klein
"Jigsaw puzzle companies tend to use the same cut patterns for multiple puzzles. This makes the pieces interchangeable, and I sometimes find that I can combine portions from two or more puzzles to make a surreal picture that the publisher never imagined. I take great pleasure in “discovering” such bizarre images lying latent, sometimes for decades, within the pieces of ordinary mass-produced puzzles."
Some favorites: Timekeeper; The Mercy Go-Round (Sunshine & Shadow); Thaw (Warm Breath on a Winter Window); Bow Wow
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:22 AM PST - 14 comments

One night in June 2014, Derek Broaddus went outside to check the mail. Derek and his wife had closed on the house at 657 Boulevard three days earlier and were doing some renovations before they moved in, so there wasn’t much in the mail except a few bills and a white, card-shaped envelope. It was addressed in thick, clunky handwriting to “The New Owner,” and the typed note inside began warmly: “How did you end up here? Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within?” [more inside]
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:01 AM PST - 47 comments

Amazon's HQ2 to be split between New York and Virginia, with a smaller hub in Nashville [The Verge] “Amazon has announced that its second US headquarters will be split between two cities, with smaller-than-expected offices in the New York City borough of Queens and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia. The announcement caps a year of deliberations that saw over 200 frenzied proposals offering billions in incentives to the e-commerce giant. Amazon had promised 50,000 jobs and $5 billion of capital spending for the so-called HQ2, which will now be split equally between the two chosen locations.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:52 AM PST - 100 comments

So, how well did Democratic Socialists Of America backed candidates do in the midterms anyway? (DSA USA) How well did criminal justice reform do at the ballot? (Twitter) 2018, The year the Democrats met the Democratic Socialists. (America Magazine) “This year, a majority of House Democratic candidates endorsed Medicare for All, according to the union National Nurses United.” (Splinter) Capitalism only works for the rich (USA Today) Regardless of elections, the American Socialist Movement isn’t going away (City Lab)
posted by The Whelk at 9:22 AM PST - 46 comments

Wells Fargo says its promises to restore consumer trust were just ‘puffery.’ But they look more like lies. (SL LATimes by Michael Hiltzik)
posted by crazy with stars at 9:13 AM PST - 20 comments

A short twitter story about a girl and her demon.
posted by ChuraChura at 9:07 AM PST - 12 comments

"Sir, I'm gonna ask you to remain grounded at this time until we confirm cookies onboard your aircraft." (SLYT)
posted by overeducated_alligator at 8:01 AM PST - 37 comments

Do you like hot sauce? I mean, do you really like hot sauce? No, I mean, do you have a collection of more than 8,600 bottles of hot sauce in your living room?
posted by Etrigan at 7:57 AM PST - 32 comments

There have been jokes made about a version of the board game Monopoly made specifically for Millenials: Millennial Monopoly: Modern Horror Stories Comedy Central UK; Monopoly: Millennial Edition The Feed; Monopoly for Millennials Chance cards Readers Digest; Twitter... but they were just jokes, until now... [more inside]
posted by Laura in Canada at 7:26 AM PST - 27 comments

The Hopeless Mission Of The Only Ship Still Rescuing Refugees: Can the Aquarius continue saving people from drowning in the Mediterranean? [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 6:45 AM PST - 11 comments

Extreme economic concentration creates conditions ripe for dictatorship - "In the 1930s it contributed to the rise of fascism. Alarmingly, we are experimenting again with a monopolized economy." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:25 AM PST - 15 comments

While there are a few ideas floating around these days for removing pollutants from the air, it's still a Sisyphean task. So, how do we do the smart thing and stop creating smog in the first place? [SL Guardian]
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 5:37 AM PST - 2 comments

The research, based on scans of five different beatboxers, was presented Wednesday at the Acoustical Society of America. The scientists, with specialties in computer science, engineering and linguistics, are comparing the movements in beatboxing to those used to make speech. They hope to learn more about how the human body produces language and to develop algorithms that can accurately describe the dynamics of the vocal tract.
posted by ellieBOA at 4:38 AM PST - 2 comments

A few nights ago I saw Jack White in concert. It was a wonderful night, and a big part of that was due to a new rule he has imposed on all his tour dates: no phones.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 1:45 AM PST - 122 comments

The Australian freakshake (drink, dessert and topping presented colourfully in and over one glass) can contain up to 39 teaspoons of sugar, say health professionals and campaigners. BBC News: "The Toby Carvery Unicorn Freakshake is made with grape and raspberry flavoured ice cream, blackcurrant jelly pieces, milk, freshly whipped cream and topped with marshmallow, skittles and almond macaroon." Toby Carvery have also launched a Yorkshire Pudding freakshake. Though not always lucrative, other variations include Nutella (Dublin), Crème Egg (Chelmsford), 1.5 litres of thick chocolate milkshake (Dubai), cheesecake (Manchester), doughnuts (Somerset), red velvet cake (Aberdeen), vegan freakshakes and a Baileys cake-version. Best eaten with eight slices of pizza.
posted by Wordshore at 11:31 PM PST - 47 comments

Here’s a huge directory of megalithic sites big and small around the world with maps, pictures, and news.
posted by bq at 10:24 PM PST - 6 comments

Today is World Kindness Day (previously). It's a good day to perform random acts of kindness, or maybe become a kindness advocate. Or at least learn about The World Kindness Movement. (Random acts of kindness previously)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:23 PM PST - 6 comments

Windows is awesome. Linux sucks forever. Programmers are evil. (YouTube, 40-50min each). Bryan Lunduke at LinuxFest Northwest
posted by flabdablet at 8:28 PM PST - 93 comments

How Harley Davidson's All-In Bet On Its Past Crippled Its Future , Erik Shilling [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:37 PM PST - 159 comments

POKÉMON Detective Pikachu - Official Trailer The first-ever live-action Pokémon movie, “POKÉMON Detective Pikachu” stars Ryan Reynolds as the titular character in the first-ever live-action movie based on the iconic face of the global Pokémon brand—one of the world’s most popular, multi-generation entertainment properties and most successful media franchises of all time.
posted by Pendragon at 3:44 PM PST - 82 comments

The Stories War Tells Me
Washington has spent between $900 billion and $2 trillion in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11 and certainly killed tens of thousands of Afghans in that never-ending war. Yet, just about everything that happens there is generally ignored here. That’s perplexing in a way. After all, we could have paid for the college education of every student in America for the last 25 years with $2 trillion. [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 2:54 PM PST - 21 comments

Thanks to the internet’s meticulous record-keeping, journalists are rethinking the ethics of publishing the identities of nonviolent criminals. There is a growing movement in newsrooms across America to end the tradition of naming and shaming people for minor crimes. The advent of online news has prompted journalists to consider how such reporting can perpetuate the criminalization of nonviolent offenders far into the future, thanks to the meticulous record-keeping practices of search engines like Google.
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:55 PM PST - 26 comments

Stan Lee is dead at 95.
posted by mightygodking at 10:57 AM PST - 230 comments

Amnesty International has withdrawn its highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, from Aung San Suu Kyi for actively being involved in the commission or perpetuation of multiple human rights violations against the Rohingya but also for her government's attacks on freedom of speech and other human rights. What caused Aung San Suu Kyi's fall from grace? [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:29 AM PST - 28 comments

‘Tampopo’: Celebration of Food, Friendship, Sex and Hope Still Satisfies [The Tyee] “Juzo Itami’s film, first released in 1985, was one of the first major art house hits. Certain scenes became iconic almost instantly, like a gangster and his moll sliding an egg yolk back and forth between their open mouths like a bright yellow sex toy. Or the same gangster, in a different scene, cutting his lip on an oyster shell, and a bright red drop of blood falling into the still pulsing folds of the sea creature within. Equating sex and food is a logical connection (we are all creatures of appetite), but at the time it seemed a revelation. Upon watching the film again, different things revealed themselves, namely that food is the vehicle through which we tend to each other. We feed the ones we love — tenderness, care, and compassion — all carried in a bowl of warm broth. This idea, marinated in humour and shot through with slivers of bittersweet pain, feels new all over again. The other thing I’d forgotten about the film was the plain old notion of human goodness. It ain’t fancy; it’s basic, humble and unassuming, but also resplendent in unexpected ways. ” [YouTube][Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:51 AM PST - 69 comments

In The Concrete Jungle, Wildlife Evolves Astonishingly Fast. "Menno Schilthuizen is a Dutch biologist based at Leiden University, in a country whose population is more urban than rural. In other words, he inhabits the future. His new book, Darwin Comes to Town alerts us to new evidence about the pace of evolution. By watching the evolutionary play as it runs in urban theaters, not just wildish ones, Schilthuizen and some colleagues—you might think of them as postmodern biologists, making the best of highly urbanized twenty-first-century landscapes—have noticed that evolution’s tempo can be surprisingly brisk. Fast evolution in cities is the theme here, unfolding toward a suggestion that perhaps new species are being born in our time, while many older ones are being driven to extinction." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 3:54 AM PST - 14 comments

"The inventing minds of the Silicon Valley are just destroying their own society, but as long as you see them just as apes that's ok, because this is how naturally apes behave", Yuval Noah Harari promotes his new book at the NY times.
posted by avi111 at 11:25 PM PST - 81 comments

The Food Dictator declares: My Citizens, we are in the home stretch of our 7-day blowout of ‘recipes from famous closed restaurants’ – and with this one, we have now entered the murky waters of fast food from the days of yore! When I was a child, my grandmother Helen used to take me out to enjoy my favorite meal when we visited her in Manhattan – to Howard Johnson’s for a big plate of fried clam strips! [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:01 PM PST - 35 comments

Douglas Rain, the versatile Canadian actor most famous as the voice of the computer HAL-9000, has died at age 90.
posted by New Frontier at 7:21 PM PST - 56 comments

Welcome to the wonderful, unseen world of lichen.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:00 PM PST - 17 comments

Decopix, the Art Deco architecture website, has an exhaustive history of the highly collectible Lawson Clocks, its patents, technology, manufacture, and designers. One of the contributors to this effort also wrote a historical articleon the topic recently for the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors.
posted by bq at 6:34 PM PST - 4 comments

The past and future of America’s black press. From its inception, the black press has been fighting. Fifty years after the American Revolution, while the country built its wealth and global prominence on the basis of violent chattel slavery, free black people living in northern coastal cities, particularly New York and Philadelphia, came to sense that their ongoing struggle for human rights and dignity would need a platform. Black churches and social societies aimed at self-improvement were not enough to improve the conditions of a people. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:34 PM PST - 3 comments

GameHut is the personal YouTube channel of industry veteran and Traveller's Tales founderJon Burton, featuring short, yet thoroughly explained programming tricks and behind the scenes material from his career, such as how TT accomplished the FMV intro on Sonic 3D for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and the super smooth SEGA logo on the same game, the origins of the bizarre game cartridge wobbling "cheat" to select levels, how they squeezed the minimum possible space to draw Sonic, and well as coming back to the game to fix some common grievances towards the game, and releasing those changes as an xdelta patch as the Directors' Cut. [more inside]
posted by lmfsilva at 10:56 AM PST - 7 comments

Having a physical body is a luxury we don’t often get. We’ve not squandered it. (SLNYT) [more inside]
posted by The Hamms Bear at 9:23 AM PST - 25 comments

You've bought the "most powerful" computer - but what now? For over half a century (here's Star Trek from 1972), people have gradually entered a BASIC program, and ... hoped. Ruth from Sinclair Research explains entering a program on a ZX80 keyboard; a VHS guide to a ZX Spectrum keyboard. "After an hour or two of typing in BASIC code, my father would lean back from the computer, type RUN, and hit return." Greg reminisces about TRS-80 BASIC, while Morten remembers the trauma of a ZX81 ram pack. Listings for a 1K ZX80 game, ZX Spectrum zombie game, BBC Basic game, some VIC-20 code - and here's a budget planner. Or slowly create the MAD logo on an Apple. While on an Amstrad, BASIC became complex. For hardcore coders, some Z80 and some 6502 assembler.
posted by Wordshore at 9:19 AM PST - 60 comments

Finding the Heart - Elaine Pagels: "Religion often frames suffering as punishment. A family tragedy taught me otherwise."
posted by kliuless at 8:33 AM PST - 12 comments

In discussions of great American writers who were also military veterans, the name Edgar Allan Poe is unlikely to come up. Yet it should: the iconically doomed poet and inventor of the modern detective story served as a soldier for several of his formative years. Furthermore, in considering a life often marked by painful loss and failure, it might surprise many readers to learn Poe was something of a successful and motivated soldier—that is, until he wasn’t. Novelist (and veteran) Brian Van Reet writes on Edgar Allan Poe's brief career in the U.S. Army.
posted by Cash4Lead at 7:24 AM PST - 8 comments

So growing marijuana is now legal where you live, and you want to grow your own. Joe Lstiburek, ASHRAE fellow, has some advice for you re: avoiding a mold disaster and getting good results.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:07 AM PST - 27 comments

As if God had swept His omnipotent finger across the scene of world carnage and cried, ‘Enough!’ At 11 am the guns of the Western Front fell silent, all at once, for the first time in four years of continuous and brutal warfare. After a false alarm four days earlier, Allied and German delegations agreed to an armistice. Facing general defeat, mutiny, and domestic revolution, Berlin sought an exit from the war. Kaiser Wilhelm II had abdicated two days earlier; the Weimar Republic was struggling to be born. Sixteen million people had been killed. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 6:56 AM PST - 56 comments

Young black men determined to serve their country – men who had left jobs and uprooted families in pursuit of a military unit that might accept them – were being rejected by recruiters from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. One commanding officer in New Brunswick turned away 20 healthy black recruits at once because he believed his white soldiers should not "have to mingle with Negroes,” according to a letter he wrote to his superiors in Halifax. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 4:30 AM PST - 4 comments

Unexplained brain injuries afflicted dozens of American diplomats and spies. What happened? (The New Yorker)
posted by standardasparagus at 3:21 AM PST - 29 comments

Most of us love dogs, but let’s face it some of their behavior can be pretty strange, and if you didn’t think so before it’s time to put yourself in their paws. Hot Paper Comics creator Martin Rosner created a series that allows you to do some hilarious role reversal, wherein he depicts scenarios that answers the question “what if people acted like dogs.” (SLBoredPanda)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:36 PM PST - 20 comments

Farming While Black "She made it her goal to start a farm for her neighbors, and to provide fresh food to refugees, immigrants and people affected by mass incarceration. She calls the lack of access to fresh food "food apartheid" because it's a human-created system of segregation." [more inside]
posted by jj's.mama at 7:22 PM PST - 11 comments

A huge trove of information and original documents about Victorian London. A little difficult to navigate but stick it out for such gems as original ads, maps (some links broken), cartoons,and an entire serialized penny dreadful.
posted by bq at 6:22 PM PST - 6 comments

"Nursing in World War One was exhausting, often dangerous work and the women who volunteered experienced the horror of war firsthand, some paying the ultimate price. But their story is surrounded by myth and their full contribution often goes unrecognised, writes Shirley Williams." World War One: The many battles faced by WW1's nurses [more inside]
posted by supercrayon at 6:15 PM PST - 8 comments

The world’s oldest figurative drawing depicts a wounded animal [Ars Technica] “New radiometric dating identifies the oldest known figurative drawing—not a stenciled outline of a hand or an abstract design, but an actual attempt to depict a real object in an image. As far as we know, a cave wall in Indonesian Borneo was the site for the first time a person drew something, rather than just making abstract marks. The drawing is at least 40,000 years old, based on uranium-series dating of a thin layer of rock deposited on top of the drawing since its creation. It’s a large animal of some sort, outlined and colored in with reddish-orange pigment, but after 40,000 years, parts of the image are missing. Griffith University archaeologist Maxime Aubert and his colleagues say it appears to be a large hoofed mammal with a spear shaft sticking out of its flank.” [High Resolution Images] [YouTube]
posted by Fizz at 5:52 PM PST - 5 comments

CURRICULUM VITAE OF YURI ORLOV (PDF). @davidkelliher: "Wow, this accelerator physicist's CV is something else..." [Note: this is not an obit.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 3:39 PM PST - 9 comments

"A List of Books for Home Reading of High-School Pupils" was published in 1912 by the National Council of Teachers of English, a group that formed the year before and still makes recommendations to teachers today. Forerunners to the NCTE list include the NEA's report on college entrance requirements (1899), Franklin T. Baker's "Bibliography of Children's Reading" (1908), and the Newark Free Public Library's popular list of "A Thousand of the Best Novels" (1904-1919). But many NCTE members would also help shape a thorough recommendation for the "Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools" (1917) and contribute to The English Journal, issues of which from 1911-1922 are free online. [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:09 PM PST - 9 comments

Counting Crows made a big splash some 25 years ago with the release of their debut album August And Everything After. Their 1993 release has sold over 10 million copies worldwide and fostered several hits. Side A: Round Here, Omaha, Mr. Jones, Perfect Blue Buildings, Anna Begins, Time And Time Again [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:28 AM PST - 81 comments

Courtney Dauwalter takes on Big's Backyard Ultra Gary Cantrell clanged a bell at 6:40 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, signaling 70 runners to jog off into the woods on his farm in Tennessee. They had an hour to complete a 4.1667-mile loop trail. Easy. Most of the group finished with 15 minutes to spare. The bell clanged again at 7:40 a.m., and they ran it again. And at 8:40 a.m., and 9:40 a.m., and every hour after that until, one by one, they quit. There was no known finish line. The race went on, day and night, until the bell clanged and only one runner answered. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:25 AM PST - 35 comments

At XOXO, Natalie Wynn (ContraPoints on youtube) talks about talking about fascists online [yt]. Features internet culture (the bad parts), personas, what hurts and what doesn't, and transitioning in public. [more inside]
posted by postcommunism at 10:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Triforce is a short puzzle game by Patrick LeMieux (@alt254) and Stephanie Boluk (@chouxsalad) inspired by paradoxical places from the original Legend of Zelda. For Windows, Mac, and Linux.
posted by Shitty Baby Animal at 7:36 AM PST - 3 comments

Catalogs of the Hirayama Fireworks Company with line and color illustrations of the company’s products are provided by the Yokohama Public Library. [via Present/&/Correct and other people …]. [more inside]
posted by carter at 4:35 AM PST - 13 comments

Reading the Old Testament of Sonic The Hedgehog

Let me tell you about a little thing known as “The Sonic Bible,” a beautiful, wonderful and bonkers version of Sonic lore developed by Sega of America. The Sonic Bible was an internal document made during Sonic the Hedgehog’s localization that invented a backstory for the world and characters of the game. Sega of America developed the document because Sega’s Japanese headquarters hadn’t provided them with any original lore—a common situation at the time, but possibly a result of the ongoing disputes and rivalry between the two branches.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:11 PM PST - 11 comments

• Natalie Portman's Step-by-Step Guide to Toppling the Patriarchy
• The actor's address to Variety's Women of Power event borrows from classical techniques
• Natalie Portman: Voice of Light

posted by kliuless at 9:06 PM PST - 22 comments

The 2018 US elections have gone into overtime. [more inside]
posted by Chrysostom at 8:54 PM PST - 908 comments

2018's strangest toy trend has to be Yellies, spider toys who respond to your child's voice, and run faster the louder they yell, which keep inexplicably selling out. Or maybe not so inexplicably.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:10 PM PST - 87 comments

After Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned on Wednesday at Trump’s request (Washington Post), Trump installed loyalist Matthew Whittaker as Acting Attorney General (New York Times). Whitaker has a tangled history with the Mueller probe (NBC)—and a reputation as a crackpot (WaPo Opinion) and "a f*cking fool" (Daily Beast) who worked for scam firm that threatened victims with Krav Maga-style beatdowns (Vanity Fair), claimed judges should have a "biblical view of justice" (Des Moines Register), said he'd indict Hilary Clinton (USA Today), held a dark money–funded executive position at an anti-Clinton group (Slate), called the courts "the inferior branch" (NYT), and supported Trump Jr.'s Russia meeting (CNN). Legal experts are calling the appointment unconstitutional (Neal K. Katyal and George T. Conway III, NYT)… seriously, unconstitutional (John Yoo, Axios)… honestly, "Is he legally qualified to be the acting attorney general? No." (Andrew Napolitano, Fox News). Now Trump says “I don’t know Matt Whitaker,” despite several Oval Office visits (NYT), and telling Fox & Friends "I know Matt Whitaker." (CNN) [more inside]
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:49 PM PST - 2003 comments

Cassandra Fox, a Canadian-Jamaican belly dancer, recently posted her first dance video since injuring her ankle a few months ago. To her astonishment, it has been viewed 75 million times on Facebook. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:38 PM PST - 14 comments

From the UK, the Christmas TV advert for Mr Kiplings cakes from 2003. This was shown three times, quickly racked up nearly 800 complaints, and was pulled from TV but shown in the cinema (with a 15 certificate). Their "These are the monkeys!" ad was a popular one from 2016; other (less controversial) Mr Kipling ads about apple and custard pies (contains innuendo), from 1987, apple pies without custard, 1982, 1978 (Bakewell Tart), a Manor House cake and Grandma's tin and a wall of cake. Also, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring make a Mr Kipling cake advert.
posted by Wordshore at 2:25 PM PST - 18 comments

Do you suffer from insomnia? Here's Ellen Forney's illustrated survival guide. You can also try the US Army's (alleged) 2 minute sleep technique, recently featured in Teen Vogue and Fast Company.
posted by bq at 1:09 PM PST - 53 comments

Refusing to stay in place, a roiling mass of carbon dioxide and slurry-like soil is migrating across the state at a pace of 20 feet a year. So far, it’s carved a 24,000-square-foot basin out of the earth, and it’s set to continue its crusade until whatever’s driving it dies out. [more inside]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:04 PM PST - 48 comments

Flynn Nicholls’ “Who’s Left” comic series explores concepts on the Left via interviews with activists and advocates. Disability + Healthcare (Part 2) Immigrants, Unions, And Tenant Organizing. Prison Abolition.The Labour Manifesto.
posted by The Whelk at 12:54 PM PST - 2 comments

„Fake band“ Threatin just played a UK tour to...pretty much no-one. It‘s a weird story of paid Facebook likes, non-existent pre-paid tickets, duped venues and long shiny hair. Don‘t miss the link to Threatin‘s official music video „Living is Dying“. [more inside]
posted by Omnomnom at 12:52 PM PST - 17 comments

I have recently started therapy. And axe throwing. My husband found me crying in the bathroom and asked how he could help. Vote. Donate. Teach our son to dismantle the white cis hetero patriarchy. “I would like to throw axes,” I said. We got a babysitter.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 10:02 AM PST - 52 comments

Eric Chien Just won the 2018 International Federation of Magic Societies World Championships with a routine called Ribbon. [youtube]
posted by Uncle at 9:55 AM PST - 42 comments

Audrey is an artist and industrial designer who creates hilarious images and stories of her cats. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Snapchat | YouTube
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 8:38 AM PST - 2 comments

It has been 15 years since Buddy The Elf smiled and twirled and sang his way to becoming a modern Christmas classic. In honor of Elf’s anniversary, a Chicago restaurant has put its saccharine train wreck—the syrup- and candy-topped spaghetti breakfast Buddy created in the movie [YouTube]—on the menu. [...] the pasta is topped with strawberry and raspberry sauces, marshmallows, s’more Pop-Tarts, M&Ms, Oreos, Fruity Pebbles, coconut flakes, syrup, and chocolate sauce.” [via: The Takeout]
posted by Fizz at 8:29 AM PST - 24 comments

Say you're Mary Queen of Scots, or Galileo, or Machiavelli, or Marie Antoinette. Say you want to send a tamper-evident letter, but the mass-produced envelope hasn't been invented. You could still secure your message using letterlocking: a system of folds, slits and seals that made a letter its own security system . [more inside]
posted by zeptoweasel at 7:52 AM PST - 5 comments

Author Terese Mailhot on leaving the reservation, breaking silence, and embracing complicated cross-cultural love. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 7:51 AM PST - 5 comments

Seville was able to boost daily cycling in the city from around 6,000 to over 70,000 journeys. It did this in just under four years. The planner Manuel Calvo recently shared some of the secrets behind this success.
posted by Stark at 7:01 AM PST - 13 comments

Two great singers bring their eyebrows A-game: First a young Bryn Terfel in 1989 singing Non piu andrai from Figaro's Wedding and then a slightly more contemporary Cecilia Bartoli rendering Voi che sapete in 1998.
posted by Harald74 at 6:30 AM PST - 11 comments

British supermarket Iceland's Christmas ad [YT link], originally created by Greenpeace, has been banned for being too political. [more inside]
posted by threetwentytwo at 2:43 AM PST - 60 comments

‘Dempsey was an itinerant jobbing artist without any formal training who created ‘Likenesses of Public Characters’ in London and the provincial cities of England [in the 1820s], as he travelled around in search of commissions for portrait miniatures and silhouettes.’ [more inside]
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 1:13 AM PST - 12 comments

Mozart wrote three dozen of the things; Beethoven composed ten; Charles Swann was obsessed with M. Vinteuil’s. The violin sonata (and is cousins featuring the viola, or the cello, or, much less often, the double bass) is a commonplace of the classical repertoire: below the fold you’ll find links to more of them than you’ll have time to listen to. For those in a hurry, try investing 6½ of your minutes on the finale of the Violin Sonata in A major by César Franck. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 1:00 AM PST - 19 comments

Vipassana Live [more inside]
posted by Gyan at 11:19 PM PST - 11 comments

OVERALL Winner: High Wire Distilling Co. Each item has a nice write-up about what makes the item worthy of the award. DRINKS runners-up: a rye whiskey from Kentucky; Blackberry Farm's Imperial Stout; Castle Hill Cider. FOOD winner: White Oaks Pastures Ibérico Pancetta. Runners-up: sweet cured jalapeños from Jed's Finest; magnolia vinegar from Lindera Farms; Blackberry Patsh's satsuma syrup OUTDOORS winner: Hollifield Bamboo Fly Rods. Runners-up: firepit from Deus Modern; landing nets by HeartWood Trade; axes from Richardson Axeworks. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:40 PM PST - 11 comments

What do you get when life gives you lemons? If you are Sprice Machines, Hevesh5, DrComplicated, DoodleChaos,TheInvention11, 5MadMovieMakers and SmileyPeaceFun, you get The Lemonade Machine
posted by growabrain at 6:11 PM PST - 18 comments

You, yes, YOU! The World Chess Championship begins tomorrow, the 9th of November, pitting Norway's Magnus Carlsen against the U.S.'s (or Italy's) native son Fabiano Caruana. Like the last time, we're going to discuss it here. [more inside]
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:55 PM PST - 165 comments

Tutankhamun’s tomb, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Dunhuang Library, the 20th centuries greatest (re)discoveries. The first two are commonly known, and the third was opened in 1900 by Wang Yuanlu, an itinerant Taoist monk, appointed himself their caretaker of the Dunhuang or Mogao caves. Once found, news of the Dunhuang Library set off a manuscript race among the European powers. In the century since the Dunhuang Library was discovered, a whole academic discipline has sprung up around the materials it contained, with much of it undergoing digitization by libraries around the world. A Secret Library, Digitally Excavated (Jacob Mikanowski, New Yorker, 2013) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:08 PM PST - 10 comments

Spend 15 minutes with original anchorman John Cameron Swayze as the Camel News Caravan (press release) brings you the news of the day for September 19, 1952. [more inside]
posted by Krazor at 11:43 AM PST - 16 comments

An SFM-animation from NDY re-imagines the Mario Bros's classic struggle with Bowser over the Princess Peach using higher quality 3D models.
posted by subversiveasset at 11:01 AM PST - 4 comments

Since the beginning of last season, ESPN hockey writer Greg Wyshynski has been writing a weekly column called The Best Player in the World of the Week. Starting with 45-year-old former NHL defenseman Darius Kasparitis, who managed a goal and two assists for the Lithuanian national team, Wysh profiles great players from around the hockey world. Sometimes he picks NHL players, but more often the top spot goes to someone with a great story, like 16-year-old goalie Jason Williams, who managed to score a goal in the middle of the game; UK player Patrick Dwyer, who completed a hat trick when the puck got stuck in his pants; Canadian Women’s Hockey League goalie Noora Räty, who earned a shutout in the longest Clarkson Cup game in history; and 11-year-old Riley Scorgie, who scored 50 goals in 19 games after being treated for Guillain-Barre Syndrome (that week’s runner-up list includes a dad who nominated his eight-year-old daughter for getting through practice without crying). [more inside]
posted by goatdog at 10:54 AM PST - 5 comments

A new resource list curated by Bruce Schneier. As technology—especially computer, information, and Internet technology—permeates all aspects of our society, people who understand that technology need to be part of public-policy discussions. We need technologists who work in the public interest. We need public-interest technologists. From NGOs and academic departments to programs and fellowships, what resources are there out there for those aiming to work on technology with an eye towards the public interest?
posted by redct at 10:22 AM PST - 2 comments

Do Australia's strict defamation laws help protect high-profile abusers? "While the strict nature of Australia's defamation laws helps stop the media publishing material that is false and potentially damaging to an individual's reputation, it also creates a major barrier for victims of harassment or abuse at the hands of a high-profile individual, for instance, to coming forward." As #MeToo has continued across Australia, the question of defamation law is one that has risen again and again. While the law in theory serves to protect against media excess, it has also been leveraged frequently to quash criticisms and accusations, and many more never see the light of day because of it. [more inside]
posted by AnhydrousLove at 8:35 AM PST - 13 comments

In the RPG podcast "Film Reroll", folks take the plots of movies like Jurassic Park and Jumanji and roleplay through them. In the most recent installment, Paulo Quiros told players they were playing college students on a weekend trip to a lake house, rerolling an 80s sex comedy none of them had seen -- but it was actually Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter. Part 1 (1hr49min), Part 2 (1hr45min). (Via dinkywinks and northdakotaisamyth and thetransintransgenic on Tumblr.)
posted by brainwane at 7:50 AM PST - 24 comments

Hatis Noit is a Japanese singer/vocal artist whose music is (almost) entirely composed of looped vocals and overdubs. [more inside]
posted by dng at 6:54 AM PST - 6 comments

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, better known for crass humor like the D.E.N.N.I.S. System, finished off its 13th season with an spellingbinding dance between Mac and professional ballerina Kylie Shea. [more inside]
posted by unannihilated at 6:39 AM PST - 58 comments

A new podcast from the Creator of Anxious Machine - Exploring individual epsiodes of This American Life Stoked to stumble into this in my feed this morning. As a lover of both TAL and Anxious Machine - Give a listen to this new podcast that delves into the making and backstory of old episodes of This American Life.
posted by jayz at 6:25 AM PST - 14 comments

Memphis Minnie — Guitar Queen, Hoodoo Lady and Songster is a site by guitarist Del Rey dedicated to blues musician Memphis Minnie. It has a biography, telling her story from her birth as Elizabeth "Kid" Douglas in 1897. It also includes an appreciative review from 1942 by Langston Hughes. Memphis Minnie recorded over 200 songs, most of whom are available on Spotify and other streaming services, but Del Rey curated a list of 28 songs on the website, and made a DVD tutorial on how to play the guitar like Memphis Minnie. She passed away in 1973, shortly after Led Zeppelin reworked one of her early recordings with Kansas Joe McCoy, When the Levee Breaks. Other well known songs by her include Me and My Chauffeur Blues, Hoodoo Lady Blues and Bumblebee.
posted by Kattullus at 4:01 AM PST - 4 comments

The world is a dumpster fire, so now is a good time to enjoy the new single and music video from queer pop icon King Princess, Pussy is God. Featuring fun with chromakey, joyous toplessness, and A-grade dance moves.
posted by nerdfish at 3:57 AM PST - 12 comments

How many ducks do you think are gonna be in this video? wrong its more. (turn the sound up) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:08 PM PST - 45 comments

Benedict Cumberbatch is ‘sick of camomile tea being called tea’. Is he right? [The Guardian] “When is tea not tea? That is, inarguably, a question. According to the Sherlock actor and exceptionally unlikely sex symbol Benedict Cumberbatch, it’s when it comes in a fey little sachet and smells of newly mown lawn. “Shall I really vent now? I’m sick of camomile tea being called tea,” said Cumberbatch – sounding a little like he had drunk too much coffee – on Absolute Radio’s breakfast show, before delineating at some length the scientific reasons why camomile, and other herbal drinks, shouldn’t be called tea.”
posted by Fizz at 7:42 PM PST - 200 comments

David Cardelús, architectural photographer, presents this 1885 summer house. El Capricho is a small and beautiful hidden gem surrounded by a very unusual landscape, one of Gaudí’s few buildings outside Catalonia and that, like all the works of the architect, displays a great richness of detail and symbolism. Surely one of the most surprising elements of is the constant presence of ceramic tiles with sunflowers, a plant impossible to find in the rainy region of Cantabria (near Comillas, northern Spain).
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:37 PM PST - 14 comments

The Cell Block Mansplaingo
posted by jacquilynne at 6:49 PM PST - 11 comments

This part of our story, I have shared before. I wrote a letter thanking the doctors and nurses who tried to save Laura’s life that The New York Times decided to publish. “Every single one of you,” I wrote to the medical staff, “treated Laura with such professionalism, and kindness, and dignity as she lay unconscious.” The letter was featured on NBC Nightly News, shared across Facebook, and republished on websites across the world. Less than three weeks after Laura’s death, millions were touched by her life. But that was not the whole story. Far from it.

This is the story of how my wife’s life was wasted by the actions of people whose job it is to save lives. It is the story of how our entire emergency-response system can completely fail us [...] And it is the story of how there will be no justice through our legal system for what happened to Laura.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 6:35 PM PST - 55 comments

Long-time Canadian Conservative MP Tony Clement, who has held a number of ministerial roles in provincial and federal Conservative governments (including a stint as health minister in which he tried to shut down harm reduction programs), first resigned his Commons duties and was then kicked out of caucus after sending sexually explicit images to someone he says was trying to extort him. Many young politically-active women in Canada are talking about his history of creepy online behaviour.
posted by clawsoon at 5:00 PM PST - 15 comments

Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration has some lovely narrated videos about the restoration process, and an interesting Instagram feed as well.
posted by bq at 4:18 PM PST - 5 comments

A kiki is a party, for calming all your nerves. We're spilling tea and dishing just desserts one may deserve. [previously]
posted by Evilspork at 3:33 PM PST - 14 comments

How a 27 year old unemployed lawyer became a professional tennis player (for a very, very short time).
posted by smoke at 1:49 PM PST - 12 comments

A Thing About Chords. A very short video about how different chords under the same melody change the feel of the melody. From Louie Zong, a cartoonist, musician, and storyboard artist on We Bare Bears. YouTube
posted by Shitty Baby Animal at 12:53 PM PST - 13 comments

On November 1 of each year, dubbed National Jealousy Day*, Finland Bares Its Citizens’ Taxes. Esa Saarinen, a professor of philosophy at Aalto University in Helsinki, described it as “a fairly positive form of gossip.” (NYT) The annual orgy of financial voyeurism might raise eyebrows in other parts of the world, but it remains an important national event in Finland (Finnish news broadcaster Yle Uutiset). Finnish journalists trawl through the data to discover the highest-paid Finns, to uncover what celebrities are paid ... and to shame those who haven’t been paying their fair share of taxes (HuffPo). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:47 PM PST - 20 comments

A new proof from the Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan and a 2011 proof anonymously posted online are now being hailed as significant advances on a puzzle mathematicians have been studying for at least 25 years. 1600 words from Erica Klarreich in Quanta Magazine.
posted by cgc373 at 12:36 PM PST - 25 comments

Kitchen Butterfly - your definitive guide to Nigerian cuisine - describes how to perfectly cut and fry plantains. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 11:30 AM PST - 17 comments

Simply executed but deceptively complex logic puzzles. Connect all the matching numbers in the grid using every space and without crossing lines. That's it. Choose your skill level and you're ready to go. Caution advised: these are highly addictive.
posted by genesta at 9:52 AM PST - 41 comments

James McClean's Refusal To Wear The Poppy Has Made Him The Most Hated Man In English Soccer (Deadspin)
posted by josher71 at 9:48 AM PST - 48 comments

For thousands of years, ancient Maya kings ruled a vast inland empire in Mexico and Belize. But just how inland was it, really? [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 8:04 AM PST - 6 comments

The theme of the past century of Western fashion is this: We take clothes designed for activity, and we adapt them for inactivity. And that’s true beyond the world of sports. For decades, Levi Strauss jeans were worn mostly by men working in factories and farms; today, denim is for loungers. Wristwatches were pioneered in World War I to keep soldiers punctual; today, we embrace them as peacetime jewelry.

Single link The Atlantic [more inside]
posted by jeather at 7:24 AM PST - 65 comments

It made me laugh, because Benny Hill makes everything funny. so I put a dollar. Previously with Andy Rehfeldt, the disney version of Slayer.
posted by avi111 at 1:42 AM PST - 12 comments

While producers like Max Martin get most of the credit for shaping the sound of pop music, equal credit if not more belongs to topliners like Sia. As demo vocalists, they shape the sound of pop most directly; their bodies literally generate it. Pop singers often mimic these demo vocalists exactly, and no one notices (unless some enterprising leaker posts the demo to YouTube). But when that vocalist has a voice as distinctive as Sia's, you notice.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:25 PM PST - 22 comments

We've survived the midterms (more or less), and a distraction is needed. This was originally posted to MetaFilter in 2004, 14 years ago... so, yep, it's a double...but, tonight, it might be just what you need.... where else will you find 10 naked men? (full frontal nudity, don't say I didn't warn you!)
posted by HuronBob at 10:01 PM PST - 18 comments

NPR has a lengthy article about, and an even more lengthy [1h23m] First Listen of Hanson's new album String Theory -- a double album, career spanning retrospective recorded with a symphony orchestra playing arrangements by David Campbell, who amongst other things of note is Beck's father. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:59 PM PST - 9 comments

If you can't handle the stress right now, veg out by watching odd photos without any context. "The pics must succeed or fail on their own merit. No sob stories. No stories of any kind."
Frog train
Polizei
See through fish
A sea horse carrying a Qtip
Wall cleaner
$3.20
Lamborghini Ankonian
Country road
From photographer Zacharie Gaudrillot-Roy
[more inside]
posted by growabrain at 7:58 PM PST - 25 comments

Roy Orbison in Cling Film: the Movie. At last, a live-action adaptation of the classic and perplexing short story. Featured on MeFi many times in the past.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 5:56 PM PST - 18 comments

Diablo Immortal and How Hype Culture Can Negatively Impact Game Reveals [Dual Shockers] “Last weekend saw the reveal of Diablo Immortal, a brand new game in Blizzard’s long-running series. Unfortunately, it was met with overwhelming negative reception upon its reveal by fans, as it was for iOS and Android and announced when fans were expecting a Diablo remaster or the next main entry in the franchise, Diablo 4. As Diablo Immortal doesn’t even look that bad, the negative response to it highlights a larger recurring problem with hype culture and how it can prevent fans from seeing the bigger picture or giving something potentially good a chance.” [YouTube][BlizzCon Reactions] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:16 PM PST - 72 comments

With the exposure of sexism and sexual harassment at Riot Games (previously) having resulted in corporate gladhanding and not much else, a former and a current employee have sued Riot for gender discrimination and sexual harassment. (SLKotaku) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:13 PM PST - 8 comments

When you live with chronic pain, choosing when and where to experience pain can be a gift, and an act of control.

Selecting the pain meant it was not only bearable, but almost pleasurable. And, unlike the chronic pain from my rebellious meatcage, this hurt left me with a visible trophy to celebrate. Something about being able to run my fingers over the colorful artwork now permanently emblazoned across my skin felt like I’d come away a winner.

By Ace Ratcliff.
posted by Lexica at 4:46 PM PST - 9 comments

A monumental work of land art in the Sahara Desert
posted by bq at 3:13 PM PST - 10 comments

Can biodiverse Bijagos fend off evangelical threat? For centuries, traditional religious practices have preserved the sacred forests of this archipelago off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. Now missionaries are muscling in.
posted by MovableBookLady at 3:13 PM PST - 2 comments

Idris Elba has been named People's Sexiest Man Alive. In Daniel Mallory Ortberg's ongoing story, he confronts the one from last year, Blake Shelton. (previously)
posted by numaner at 2:30 PM PST - 24 comments

How should Paraguay invest it's Energy wealth? In bitcoin ‘mining’ or fighting poverty?
Bitcoin Mining Turns Electricity Into Money but this is, as posted previously, what happens when Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town .
How much power does it take to produce Bitcoin which could consume 7.7 gigawatts by the end of 2018.
posted by adamvasco at 11:55 AM PST - 13 comments

GREEN’S DICTIONARY OF SLANG TO GO FREE -- In an ideal or perhaps older world, the work might have gained institutional backing, the usual means being a publisher. But I have come long since to accept that no publisher, even including the one who (reluctantly, as they made clear) put out the print edition in 2010, feels that the work is of value or worth. No matter; death will see me off, dismissal will not. I have no choice but to continue alone and in so doing, what truly matters is visibility. Jonathon Green's Dictionary previously
posted by chavenet at 11:42 AM PST - 3 comments

After the political races are run, there's the need to deal with election litter (Wikipedia) and post-election clutter. Beyond being reused in the next election cycle (CTV), there are plenty (Tennessean reader ideas) of creative (HackALife) and different uses (Houston Chronicle listicle, deslidified), including turning sturdy corrugated plastic into free materials to help people with disabilities (PBS News Hour). [Not a political thread]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:38 AM PST - 15 comments

Researchers looked deep into the eyes of a predatory spider to learn what it was looking at. "But as accurate as the main eyes are, they only see what is in front of them. If they had to find prey, it would be like using a narrow flashlight beam to explore a dark room. Not very efficient."
posted by dhruva at 10:28 AM PST - 34 comments

Baby capybaras are arriving at zoos across the world. October 27 - At the Wellington Zoo, capybara septo-mom gives birth to twice as many pups as usual. Keepers note she is "a bit exhausted but she’s doing well". Their father, Pepe, was Wellington's most eligible bachelor this January. The pups have already slept through a small earthquake. [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 10:14 AM PST - 27 comments

What Is Globalization? After centuries of technological progress and advances in international cooperation, the world is more connected than ever. But how much has the rise of trade and the modern global economy helped or hurt American businesses, workers, and consumers? Here is a basic guide to the economic side of this broad and much debated topic, drawn from current research.
posted by infini at 9:56 AM PST - 20 comments

“Debs happened to be campaigning for president in Louisiana and Texas at the time, and he took the opportunity to criticize not only local bigots but the international culture of white supremacy that Rudyard Kipling celebrated four years earlier in his poem “The White Man’s Burden.” Drawing on works by African-American contemporaries including W.E.B. Du Bois, he insisted that the Socialist Party would be untrue to its mission unless it welcomed “the Negro and all other races upon absolutely equal terms.” Something To Offer, Eugene V. Debs, The American Socialist Party And Black Liberation. (Jacobin) Bernard J. Brommel discusses his book "Eugene V. Debs: Spokesman for Labor and Socialism" (Studs Terkel Radio Archive) Mark Ruffalo reads the speech that put Eugene Debs in prison. (YouTube) The Eugene Debs House In Terre Haute, Indiana (Buckeye Muse) “When I think of the millions who have suffered in all the wicked wars of the past, I am shaken with the anguish of a great impatience. “ Helen Keller’s letter to Debs in prison. On Industral Unionism, Eugene V. Debs 1905.
posted by The Whelk at 6:13 AM PST - 19 comments

• The Truth About Algorithms | Cathy O'Neil
• Algorithms rule us all - VPRO documentary - 2018

[more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:11 AM PST - 30 comments

The Onion AV Club's "Best SF movies since Blade Runner..." ...AKA something we can point to and shriek at, getting into arguments that would terrify passersby, until we start getting election returns tonight.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:08 AM PST - 303 comments

NPR says that we have SEVEN seldom-seen new Prince videos for old songs posted online to watch. They're basically all SLAVE-era videos. Endophorminmachine; Dolphin; Rock And Roll Is Alive! (And It Lives In Minneapolis) [Ed note: !!! (Ed. note to Ed. note: !!!)]; Eye Hate U; Gold [Ed note: !]; Dinner With Delores; The Same December [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:01 PM PST - 9 comments

Today is Election Day in the United States.

In the wake of the most disastrous election in United States history, and after nearly two years of unfettered corruption and a dangerous trend towards strongman rule (see Metafilter potus45 threads passim), the American people now have their last best chance to halt Trump's incipient fascism by capturing at least one chamber of Congress. Democrats' chances look strong in the House, as well in the state races, but dicey in the Senate. [more inside]
posted by Chrysostom at 9:00 PM PST - 2147 comments

Good Gods, why did ye thus make ill Godzilla? Book One of the Godziliad, by Adam Roberts (previously).
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:26 PM PST - 6 comments

Kitty O’Neil, deaf daredevil who became ‘world’s fastest woman,’ dies at 72 [more inside]
posted by Toddles at 7:51 PM PST - 6 comments

Red Letter Media Re:Views Hackers , the 1995 computer action movie, with their new friend, Macaulay Culkin (pictured here with the President of the United States)
posted by riruro at 6:23 PM PST - 68 comments

A List Of Weird Names Luke Plunkett's Kid Calls His Video Games [Kotaku] “You and I, as adults, know to call things by their actual names. My kid is four, and does no such thing. For reference, he’s been playing some of these systems and games for around 18 months now. Which is why, despite now being a four year-old kid who can actually do a fairly good job of speaking like a human being, he persists with his cute lil’ baby names for the systems and games he was familiar with back then. They’ve stuck, and I just don’t have the heart to correct him, because there is nothing better in the world than hearing somebody be convinced a game is actually called “Mario Build It”.”
posted by Fizz at 4:49 PM PST - 26 comments

What omission? Well let’s look at what the explorers reported of the Aboriginal agricultural economy and see if you can remember any priest, parent or professor alluding to it. Lieutenant Grey in his 1839 ‘exploration’ of parts of Western Australia, so far unseen by Europeans, saw yam gardens more than five kilometres wide and extending a distance past the horizon and because the land had been so deeply tilled he could not walk across it. Sir Thomas Mitchell in the country that is now the Queensland–New South Wales border area rode through 17 kilometres of stooked grain that his fellows described as being like an English field of harvest. Isn’t that word ‘stook’ interesting when applied to what we thought we knew about Aboriginal history?
posted by the duck by the oboe at 4:15 PM PST - 34 comments

Plans for the company’s vast new ‘gathering place’ have been shelved after a backlash. But Apple is growing bolder in its designs on public space There were around 1,800 responses to the city’s consultation on the project. Almost all of them were negative. "This is very important for democracy because it has to do with power, symbolically and spatially."
posted by abtaylorxo at 3:12 PM PST - 38 comments

Amanda Giese runs Panda Paws Rescue, home of the two-legged boxer Duncan Lou Who (previously), among others. Now she has a show on Animal Planet, "Amanda To The Rescue." She talked with Jacob Nierenberg of the Columbian about her life's work.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:51 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Daniel Cormier is the UFC heavyweight champion, one of the most successful fighters in MMA history, and he’s (possibly) a few months away from retirement. You’d never guess any of that by looking at him. He smiles so genuinely when fans approach him that you’d swear he’s known them his whole life. In fact, if you tell him he’s great, he thanks you in a way that suggests you’re probably wrong. There is almost nothing menacing about Daniel Cormier. [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 1:56 PM PST - 8 comments

It has been found that the heart actually suffers a malfunction and can only move a fraction of blood after a heartache. Once mentioned as a non-medical term, a broken heart is now medically proven to have life-threatening effects.
posted by Yellow at 1:52 PM PST - 18 comments

The 1975 - "Love It If We Made It"
posted by reductiondesign at 1:35 PM PST - 7 comments

"Reporting on the IPCC, and climate change more broadly, is unbalanced. It’s fixated on the predictions of climate science and the opinions of climate scientists, with cursory gestures to the social, economic, and political causes of the problem. Yet analysis of these causes is as important to climate scholarship as modeling ice-sheet dynamics and sea-level rise."
posted by smoke at 12:12 PM PST - 50 comments

Demand growing in Canada for Indigenous food, eateries [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:43 AM PST - 13 comments

The most disgusting food in the world. From The Museum of Disgusting Food, which has opened in Malmö, Sweden. More and more. WARNING: DISGUSTING FOOD INSIDE!
posted by growabrain at 10:00 AM PST - 77 comments

Perhaps you've noticed, as I did on a recent short road trip, that Google Maps welcomes you to a new state with a cute little icon. They've done a good and amusing job of capturing what each state is known for in icon form. Maine in a lobster costume, Wisconsin is wearing a cheesehead, Oregon has a bearded lumberjack, New Jersey a diner waitress. The internet has stepped up to catalog them all here.
posted by brookeb at 9:41 AM PST - 96 comments

Andrew Marzoni grew up in the Living Word Fellowship, but left the church to go to college. He would eventually earn a PhD before leaving the world of academia, which he now likens to the cult he left behind [SLWaPo].
posted by Etrigan at 8:52 AM PST - 61 comments

The CIA's communications suffered a catastrophic compromise. It started in Iran. How did Iran find CIA spies? They Googled it:

According to one former official, the Iranian double agent showed Iranian intelligence the website that the CIA was using for their communications. By using Boolean search operators like “AND” and “OR”, stringing together characteristics of the communications and websites, Iranian intelligence was reportedly able to locate multiple other websites that the CIA was using for its communications. From there, Iran could track who was visiting the sites and from where — eventually exposing a large swath of the CIA’s network in Iran.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:44 AM PST - 22 comments

When Artificial Intelligence works as intended, Silicon Valley types often say it's "like magic". But it isn't magic. It's Brenda, a 26-year-old single mother. In her eight-hour shift, she creates training data. Information - images, most often - prepared in a way that computers can understand
posted by infini at 7:16 AM PST - 30 comments

Erin Groans: A Gormenvast Review of Every Adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Titus Books: Erin Horáková has written a review of (nearly) every adaptation of Mervyn Peake's series of fantasy books, commonly called the Gormenghast trilogy. Published by the fantasy and science fiction magazine Strange Horizons as part of their 2018 fund drive, this covers theatre adaptations, board games, radio plays and television mini-series, both the BBC one (in wonderful detail) and the forthcoming Neil Gaiman adaptation. [more inside]
posted by ocular shenanigans at 6:49 AM PST - 20 comments

With a playful twist, this piece imagines the scenario that developed to produce one of Leonard Cohen's earliest hit songs. [more inside]
posted by TruthfulCalling at 5:05 AM PST - 9 comments

Make or bake: familiar faces at the Cake International show [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:19 AM PST - 17 comments

EVA Air introduced a new safety video earlier this year. EVA describes the video as "a work of art that’s as captivating as it is informative." Choreographed by Bulareyaung Pagarlava, a member of Taiwan's indigenous Paiwan community, it's really like no other airplane safety video I'd ever seen before. [more inside]
posted by potrzebie at 10:31 PM PST - 12 comments

Fold your own wallet. [more inside]
posted by misozaki at 4:51 PM PST - 32 comments

“If you wish to understand a person’s character, you should observe and examine his house with attention.”
posted by bq at 4:33 PM PST - 8 comments

they build a cow-powered carousel [YT] in the middle of a river (can also be powered by a rugby team)
posted by moonmilk at 1:45 PM PST - 25 comments

"His parents told him 'it’s time to go bye-bye', so he gave every stranger a hug." Twitter | Threadreader
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:26 PM PST - 26 comments

Josh Fauver, the "longest running bassist" for indie-rock darlings Deerhunter, died yesterday at the age of 39. No cause of death has been reported, with the band posting a photo of them on Instagram with the caption "Very difficult times now". Fauver was in the band from their debut album, 2005's so-called "self-titled" album (named after a taunt hurled at the band during one of their live shows), 2007's Cryptograms, 2007's Fluorescent Grey EP, 2008's Microcastle, as well as the 2008 follow-up Weird Era Cont., 2009's Rainwater Cassette Exchange, and finally 2010's Halcyon Digest. [more inside]
posted by gucci mane at 1:11 PM PST - 16 comments

Every year, hundreds of students come to the American Academy McAllister Institute to learn the art of taking care of the dead and their families.
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:59 PM PST - 14 comments

Paul Oakenfold recently produced a retrospective Essential Mix, digging from the Perfecto archives back to his first essential mix from 1993 for Essential Mix's 25th anniversary. Perhaps more notably, it's his 36th mix for the program, where he was the first guest DJ, following Pete Tong's debut hosting, and mixing, on October 30, 1993. If you want to relive the past with days of Oakenfold's mixes, you're in luck! They're (almost) all online! [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:25 AM PST - 14 comments

Kid in Nebraska slays Bohemian Rhapsody after showing of movie. [SLYT]
posted by Mike Mongo at 5:52 AM PST - 17 comments

The Get-Rich-Quick Scheme That Almost Killed a German Soccer Team: An electrician’s odd plot to make $607,933.50.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:36 AM PST - 16 comments

The Masterless People: Pirates, Maroons, and the Struggle to Live Free - "In the 'bizarre and horrifying world' of the early modern Caribbean, maroons and pirates both prized their freedom above all else. And sometimes they worked together to safeguard it."
posted by kliuless at 1:49 AM PST - 11 comments

"BBC Culture polled 209 critics in 43 countries to find the greatest non-English language films in world cinema"– here's the top 100."
posted by Mister Bijou at 1:26 AM PST - 58 comments

Fascism is Not an Idea to Be Debated, It’s a Set of Actions to Fight In a kind of epiphany, I understood that the letter was written in a language I no longer recognized, not least because he was using a dialect and diction far closer to Gorski vijenac than to our past movie arguments. We were now so far apart that whatever I might say could never reach him, let alone convert him back into what I’d thought was the true and original version of my friend.
posted by bitmage at 7:50 PM PST - 94 comments

This summer I found myself grappling with what I know about war and what my daughters know via a children’s book called “War in Afghanistan: An Interactive Modern History Adventure." The book is part of the You Choose series published by Capstone Press, a popular children’s format in which young readers are asked to make decisions throughout the story that lead them down different paths. The “War in Afghanistan” edition, written for children aged 8 to 11, includes a chapter set in Marjah in 2010, in which the reader is a squad leader with First Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment — this was my old unit, on a deployment I was on, as part of the offensive operation I fought in. My daughters’ adventure began with a helicopter insert into the fields before sunrise... [more inside]
posted by Toddles at 7:44 PM PST - 15 comments

Cockroaches deliver karate kicks to avoid being turned into “zombies” [YouTube] “"The cockroach has a suite of behaviors it can deploy to fend off the zombie makers," says Catania. "This starts out with what I call the en garde position, like in fencing." It's also known as "stilt standing." From that position, the roach can track an approaching wasp with its antenna and elevate its body, the better to aim a swift, hard kick at the wasp's head and body. The roach uses its leg almost like a baseball bat. If it puts up enough of a fight, "The wasp usually figures out there's a smaller and less-defensive cockroach out there to be had," he says.” [via: Ars Technica]
posted by Fizz at 6:45 PM PST - 13 comments

María Irene Fornés, RIP: María Irene Fornés, the groundbreaking Cuban-born playwright who was a pivotal figure in the off-off-Broadway movement, died Tuesday at 88 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. [more inside]
posted by frumiousb at 5:38 PM PST - 4 comments

Yesterday on r/Astronomy, somebody posted a .gif of Supernova 1987A's shock wave exploding outward : it shows 25 years of observations tracking the expanding (and heating) cloud of gas and dust blown outward from the supernova explosion of a star some 30 years ago (as viewed from Earth). In reality, this explosion, which happened very close to Earth in cosmic terms, occurred about 170,000 years ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Astronomer Yvette Cendes who co-wrote the paper from which the .gif came from, popped into the conversation, and did an informal AMA about the study
posted by growabrain at 5:18 PM PST - 10 comments

Nick Cave Has Some Wise Thoughts on Death and Grief from Cave's The Red Hand Files, via Deadspin
posted by chavenet at 2:33 PM PST - 11 comments

So there's a growing understanding that current policing practices are untenable. There are Campaign[s] to End Mass Incarceration since prisons manufacture violent people, ballot intiatives to change Police use-of-force, a movement to Abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency)and their immigration prisons, reform police departments, even make radical changes to incorporate community oversight of police. But since one of the Peelian principles is that " the police are the public and that the public are the police":
Do we even need police at all? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:15 PM PST - 56 comments

The LRB continues their very occasional but always interesting series of stories of oil industry corruption from a company lawyer. [more inside]
posted by chappell, ambrose at 1:09 PM PST - 8 comments

Her name is Florence Ilott and, in 1934, she became the first person to run across Westminster Bridge within the twelve chimes of Big Ben at noon. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 11:43 AM PST - 5 comments

The 50 Greatest Movie Dance Scenes of All Time [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:40 AM PST - 58 comments

Of the 70+ people who died during the siege of the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas, in 1993, 24 were British. The eight-part BBC podcast "End of Days" chronicles David Koresh's efforts to recruit followers in England, and the lives of those who crossed the Atlantic to join him at his New Mount Carmel Center.
posted by woofferton at 9:47 AM PST - 14 comments

Art galleries at the CGSociety, a networking platform for professional digital artists: Editors' Pick, Featured, Trending, Recent, Hall of Fame. [Some NSFW, and previously (with inactive links)]
posted by cenoxo at 9:07 AM PST - 2 comments

The most infectious live performance of a song you'll see all month. [more inside]
posted by rorgy at 8:48 AM PST - 21 comments

8 years of detailed blog posts about stone tools
posted by bq at 7:44 AM PST - 5 comments

The man who sets the time for New York City's public clocks. (SLNYT)
posted by 1f2frfbf at 6:42 AM PST - 9 comments

The legendary Hong Kong film producer, who introduced Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan to the world and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the big screen, has died at 91. Chow was a journalist who became a publicist for Shaw Brothers Studios, which churned out hundreds of films and popularised the kung fu genre. He created his own production company in 1970 and soon outmanoeuvred his former employer to grab the actor who would become synonymous with kung fu movies. Chow signed Bruce Lee in 1971 after seeing him on a Hong Kong TV variety show.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:30 PM PST - 20 comments

A lively performance set from the archives: Grace Jones - A One Man Show (full video on Vimeo; Discogs), which partly captures live performances of Jones' A One Man Show tour which was filmed at London's Drury Lane Theatre and at the Savoy Theater in New York City in 1981. Of the ten songs, six were live, and the other four are studio music videos, capturing some of the the classic Sly & Robbie era tracks. The film was directed by Jean-Paul Goude, who included a photo montage intro of some of the most famous [slightly NSFW] images of Jones from the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the "tiger in a cage" portrait and the "arabesque" photo, which he also created. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:37 PM PST - 10 comments

@PopularPups is a Twitter feed of puppy pictures and GIFs. (I know!) The other day they asked followers to post cute pet pics. They're mostly dogs, with the occasional cat or pig.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:01 PM PST - 4 comments

【DIY】Plastic bottle shower for otter bingo - An admirable mix of DIY, bathtime fun, and an otter (Bingo).
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:33 PM PST - 19 comments

Yes. Part of a series on gender, sexism, and the middle ages at The Public Medievalist. [more inside]
posted by zeptoweasel at 4:16 PM PST - 20 comments

An explosive train robbery gives McCree the chance to settle some unfinished business with a few former associates in our latest animated short: “Reunion!” [YouTube] [Introducing Ashe]

“She’s the leader of the Deadlock Gang, a group of rowdy desert dwellers who pull off huge heists. According to her hero page, Ashe is a damage-dealing hero whose semi-automatic rifle fires from the hip or, for precision, from a proper position with aim-down sights. She also carries a coach gun that pushes enemies away from her and propels her backwards. On top of that, she’s got dynamite, which can explode when she shoots at it. When she needs to, Ashe can call on B.O.B, an adorable mustachioed robot sidekick. He was her family’s butler, her lore states. When he arrives, he charges toward enemies and pops them into the sky while firing at them with arm canons.” [via: Kotaku]

posted by Fizz at 2:44 PM PST - 31 comments

The one show that came completely out of thin air was the Gummi Bears. I remember Michael saying that his kids had just come back from camp and all they could talk about was this new candy called gummy bears, which is the German for “rubber bears.” And I'm always kind of amazed by this, because he didn't know who I was or anything, but he turned to me and he said, "Make me a show called Gummy Bears."

An oral history of the Disney afternoon.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:12 PM PST - 58 comments

One of the oldest online RPG forums takes a stance: "We are banning support of Donald Trump or his administration on the RPGnet forums. [...] We can be welcoming to (for example) persons of every ethnicity who want to talk about games, or we can allow support for open white supremacy. Not both." spawning multiple discussions on other online communities like reddit, resetera, hacker news and twitter. Among the media coverage, Mashable has an unabashedly positive article about the decision and Vice's Motherboard reached out to the admins.
posted by Memo at 10:06 AM PST - 95 comments

“One way of being anti-anti-utopian is to be utopian. It’s crucial to keep imagining that things could get better, and furthermore to imagine how they might get better. Here no doubt one has to avoid Berlant’s “cruel optimism,” which is perhaps thinking and saying that things will get better without doing the work of imagining how. In avoiding that, it may be best to recall the Romain Rolland quote so often attributed to Gramsci, “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Or maybe we should just give up entirely on optimism or pessimism—we have to do this work no matter how we feel about it. So by force of will or the sheer default of emergency we make ourselves have utopian thoughts and ideas. This is the necessary next step following the dystopian moment, without which dystopia is stuck at a level of political quietism that can make it just another tool of control and of things-as-they-are.” Dystopias Now, Kim Stanley Robinson (Commune Magazine)
posted by The Whelk at 9:29 AM PST - 29 comments

Western Canada Is Still Struggling to Replace Cancelled Greyhound Service. Here’s what that means for remote First Nations communities who rely on buses for medical travel. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 9:23 AM PST - 15 comments

Flickr, hoster of amateur, professional and historic photographs since 2004, make some significant changes, the most noticeable being that in a few months all but the most recent 1,000 pictures in free accounts will be deleted. Some people are not happy, and some are backing up, but there's also an internet legacy issue. Other changes are enhancements to the Pro account, an increase in maximum picture resolution, and the removal of the requirement to sign in through a Yahoo! email. Flickr will eventually settle inside Amazon Web Services. (post title reference)
posted by Wordshore at 8:16 AM PST - 74 comments

On January 24, 1977, The San Francisco Chronicle discovered the burrito
posted by ckape at 7:39 AM PST - 90 comments

Max Fagin gets a little excited on Twitter about the potential shift in how we define a kilogram. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 6:44 AM PST - 21 comments

Who was the “real” Aladdin? From Chinese to Arab in 300 Years and Who “wrote” Aladdin? The Forgotten Syrian Storyteller are a pair of articles written by Arafat A. Razzaque for Ajam Media Collective about the story of Aladdin. The essays cover a wide range, from next year’s Disney film to how the tale entered the 1001 Nights corpus when the Syrian storyteller Ḥannā Diyāb told it to French translator Antoine Galland. Yasmine Seale has a new translation into English coming later this month, keeping in mind “the particular voices of these two men”.
posted by Kattullus at 6:14 AM PST - 5 comments

After thoroughly studying Action movies, year by year, in his "A History of Violence" series (previously) for AV Club, Tom Breihan began a weekly study of superhero movies called "Age of Heroes" earlier this year starting, naturally, with 1978's "Superman". This week he arrived at the fulcrum year of 2008 where both "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" both reside. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:52 AM PST - 17 comments

A thread about book production and premodern libraries in fantasy (and real world history) (SLTwitterThread)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:19 AM PST - 17 comments

Film maker Adeyemi Michael made a short about his mother and the immigrant experience for the Channel 4 Random Acts strand. The film is called Entitled. Here is Michael talking about Entitled on BBC World/Africa. "It felt like a duty to me, to celebrate the woman, the mother, the matriarch, the immigrant... The film is looking at this idea that all immigrants are conquerors."
posted by glasseyes at 2:22 AM PST - 2 comments

Perhaps they were busy. [SLGuardian]
posted by standardasparagus at 11:30 PM PST - 27 comments

PULSE Nightclub: 49 Elegies is a series by artist John Gutoskey "to honor and commemorate–-with a monoprint–-each of the 49 people massacred at the LQBTQ PULSE nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016... This exhibit addresses not only the loss, the grief and the aftermath of such a tragic event, but also intersects with the current issues of gun violence, homophobia, Hispanophobia, violence against people of color and the transgender community, and LGBTQ rights. The 49 mixed media monoprints in this series combine woodcut, collage, digital images from photographs and scans, stencil, spray enamel, glitter, colored pencil, art paper, gift wrap paper, and alcohol gel transfer decals." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 11:11 PM PST - 4 comments

Taipei's mayor, Ko Wen-je, released a rap video [YouTube] less than a week ago and it's already gotten over 1.2 million views. [more inside]
posted by invokeuse at 10:56 PM PST - 3 comments

Ancient Romans say it's Pork O'Clock. Chaucer says it's Pryme of Day. Pyrenean shepherds say it's time to take the sheep home. Maybe it's time for you to make your own.
posted by bq at 8:43 PM PST - 8 comments

World history is peppered with petty—the small-minded revenge seekers and the even smaller-minded ones, too. A building constructed just to block a neighbor’s light; a lawsuit over a too-short Subway sandwich; a 300-year war started over a stolen wooden bucket. To honor this ignoble part of human nature, we have made the Petty Hall of Fame. It is a massive 60-item mountain of petty, created from humans’ entire history of molehills.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Vol. 14 More Blood More Tracks is completely concerned with the many previously unreleased studio performances from 1974's (some have called it his best album) Blood on the Tracks. This is If You See Her Say Hello (take 1) with the words as they hit the page. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 5:33 PM PST - 21 comments

Imagine watching the Exorcist without any understanding of Satan or Catholic rites.

In Western horror, the vulnerable characters—the virginal women in slashers or children in paranormal flicks—are often in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Thai horror movies are often driven by an idea of karmic justice: you reap what you sow, and the consequences of your intentions (Sanskrit, cetana) can unleash paranormal punishments. Novice explicitly introduces these Buddhist themes, which the remaining four films explore further.

A review in Tricycle magazine of the Thai horror movie Novice, which is part of the five-part Phobia 2 series of films (currently available on Netflix).
posted by Lexica at 3:11 PM PST - 23 comments

Hermione 2020. "I’m going to be very careful about overstepping into rhetorical hyperbole that makes you doubt my ability to process scales of importance or things in relation to other things. But I still have to tell you: There are so few objects in this world that fill me with as visceral and physical a rage as a “Hermione 2020” sticker." (sl Vox, Cursed Child spoilers)
posted by betweenthebars at 2:37 PM PST - 68 comments

40 Designs of paper airplanes with folding instructions. Each one has a difficulty rank and indications for specific use, such as distance or aerobatics.
posted by MovableBookLady at 2:29 PM PST - 7 comments

An interview with Jordan Peterson. [GQ] “As part of our 30th-anniversary dissection of masculinity, Helen Lewis interrogated controversial Canadian academic and bestselling author Jordan Peterson about the patriarchy, #MeToo, the alt-right, gay parenting, fascist ideologies, his all-beef diet and much more...” [YouTube][Full Video of Interview] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:22 PM PST - 185 comments

You might have been taken aback by headlines like "Waymo can test fully driverless cars on California roads" (Engadget), and while it is big news, the official California DMV notice is limited in scope, in part that this permit is limited to Santa Clara County, and requires remote engineer monitoring. The CA DMV also notes that "60 manufacturers are currently permitted to test autonomous* vehicles in California with a safety driver." But autonomous vehicles aren't just coming to Silicon Valley, they're rolling out around the world, as summarized by Synced Review (via Medium), who keep up with self-driving news from around the world, and also pulled from KPMG’s AV readiness index (summary; full PDF report). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:44 PM PST - 48 comments

YouTube music and video fun. By Flasher
posted by josher71 at 12:45 PM PST - 5 comments

Patrick Leahy, senior senator from Vermont, is a serious Batman fan. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 12:41 PM PST - 11 comments

The halogen oven is a relatively new technology that has attracted favorable attention. This innovation provides convection at a fraction of the price of a full-size range and is even cheaper than many toaster ovens. Plus, it looks cool. [more inside]
posted by No Robots at 12:13 PM PST - 43 comments

The Naked Mole-rat Cam at Smithsonian's National Zoo & Biology Conservation Institute
posted by not_on_display at 11:44 AM PST - 9 comments

After heavy criticism for her past statements, Josephine Zhao says she's withdrawn as a candidate for the San Francisco school board. But her name's still on the ballot for next week's election, and her supporters are still campaigning for her. What does it mean to withdraw, and what if she wins anyway? [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 9:47 AM PST - 17 comments

GIFaanisqatsi is a visual remix of the trailer for the 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi using random Giphy 'gifs'. (Previously and previously)
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:41 AM PST - 18 comments

Carly Rae Jepsen has at long last returned with a new single and video (content warning for sex toys). [more inside]
posted by Maaik at 9:38 AM PST - 20 comments

The Song of Abby the Spoon Lady via The Washington Post Magazine. [CW: dv/abuse, mental illness, homelessness] [more inside]
posted by Amor Bellator at 9:15 AM PST - 6 comments

The lives of great artists and thinkers and statesmen are like the lives of the great extinct species, the tyrannosaurs and stegosaurs, while the lives of the obscure can be likened to extinct species of beetles. Six Glimpses of the Past, by Janet Malcolm.
posted by theodolite at 8:35 AM PST - 5 comments

American Libraries: “The show ended in 1994 and Ross died in 1995, but the internet and streaming services have given new life to him and his program. Libraries have taken up the palette, hosting paint-along nights that blend nostalgia and stress relief - and bring new audiences through their doors.” Also covered by Deseret News and Wbur. In Loveland public library, East Brunswick, Cass County, Pima County, Salt Lake City, St. Joseph, Waupaca and this evening in Ann Arbor.
posted by Wordshore at 8:13 AM PST - 10 comments

With 1 word a day, this man is teaching the world how to speak Inuktitut [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 6:17 AM PST - 7 comments

Japanese noodle company Nissin's mascot Hiyoko-chan has done something incredibly dangerous! Oh wait, that when they opened the Ark of the Covenant. I'm talking about when they made an unholy bargain and became some kind of Demonperson. More recently, Nissin's search for a solution continues, but will it just drag on? [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 3:55 AM PST - 10 comments

Noah and PJ's wedding dance. A few minutes of love and levity. This couple absolutely smash their wedding dance mash up (SLYT), with some inspiration from Ex Machina thrown in there!
posted by smoke at 3:13 AM PST - 31 comments

In addition to doing all of her normal work, our programmer also had to train two new hires. These new hires didn't have any of the required technical skills. But once she trained them, which took about a year, they stepped up into management roles. Their trainer, meanwhile, was demoted into an assistantship below them. She succeeded at her job, only to fail in her career.

That the trainer was a woman, and that her trainees were both young men, was no coincidence.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:30 AM PST - 27 comments