March 2017 Archives

March 31

Just one more reason to get yourself a library card

Public Libraries are really expanding on the items you can borrow.
posted by saucysault at 11:44 PM PST - 28 comments

Tin Can Schoolbus

Lively and ramshackle at the same time, the schoolbuses do the job.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:05 PM PST - 2 comments

WHEN HARMONY WENT TO HELL

Then all of a sudden came the crash! That is to say, the incorruptible kodak –and all harmony went to hell! The only witness I couldn’t bribe.
Alice Seely Harris was a missionary in the Congo Free State who photographed the horrors and atrocities[PDF] perpetrated in the colonization led by King Leopold of Belgium. The photos were part of a lecture, the Harris Lantern Slideshow used by the Congo Reform Association to shed light on the brutality of the rubber and ivory extraction in the Congo Free State.
This post most certainly contains some disturbing images. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:59 PM PST - 4 comments

Hint: there's a lot of stuff having to do with chords

Canadian pianist Chilly Gonzalez breaks down recent pop hits for a German media group in his Pop Music Masterclass series.
posted by Shepherd at 6:49 PM PST - 17 comments

Good photographs of lots of eagles with interesting words

Laurel Braitman in The California Sunday Magazine on life in the port of Dutch Harbor in the city of Unalaska: “Dirty Birds: What it’s like to live with a national symbol”, with excellent photographs by Corey Arnold. Previously, Previouslier
posted by Going To Maine at 4:02 PM PST - 10 comments

Art is not born of us, but through us

"Visionary art" is a catch-all term for visual art that aims to express mystical, transcendental, psychedelic and dream experiences. As with other mediums and styles, women are underrepresented but by no means absent. Though select artists such as Amanda Sage, Allyson Grey and Autumn Skye Morrison often collaborate with and have their work displayed alongside male contemporaries, many more artists remain relatively obscure. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 3:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Life is its own answer.

The Martian Chronicles, the 1980 NBC miniseries. (YouTube) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:19 PM PST - 43 comments

The Final Frontier

Spaghetti Donuts & Ube Dragon Fruit Bowls Among The Amazing New Dishes Coming To Smorgasburg This Weekend
posted by bq at 3:01 PM PST - 20 comments

Mushroom, mushroom.

It's Friday, so have a badger burying a calf. Caught on camera.
posted by slater at 1:48 PM PST - 34 comments

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.

Our digital lives are often nothing more than pure escapism, the lure of the perfect moment seemingly captured at will. But what about all those moments where the hum-drum of everyday life simple fills the void? Where you're laying the kitchen table out for dinner, rather than photographing what's on the plate. Where you're actually passed out on the couch instead of being tweeting frantically about the latest Netflix series you've become obsessed with? That's where artist Sally Nixon draws her inspiration for her series of amusing illustrations. More at her website and Instagram.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:21 PM PST - 6 comments

Use It or Lose It

States with nuclear weapons often leave ambiguity in their doctrines to prevent adversaries from exploiting gaps in their proscriptions and to preserve flexibility. But signs of a strategic adjustment in India are mounting. (SLNYT long read, just in case you were sleeping too soundly at night.) [more inside]
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:59 PM PST - 22 comments

“the interactive aspect of the internet of things has been amplified,”

Echo and the Lonely Men: Can Amazon's Alexa Be Your Friend? [Digg] We're so close to a promised future of actually useful digital assistants. But is this the future we want? [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 11:43 AM PST - 81 comments

Backcountry Drug War

Backcountry Drug War The drug war is just nuts--and I wish I could work in it if this is how it goes.
posted by Barbariolio at 11:27 AM PST - 14 comments

Own a skinny piece of Boston history

The Skinny House, one of Boston's great Spite Houses, is for sale. [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:50 AM PST - 31 comments

The quick brown ثعلب jumped over the lazy red الكلب

Mahmoud Tammam illustrates Arabic words. Two portfolios of these illustrations on his Behance page: one two.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:50 AM PST - 8 comments

Oh why, Oh whyyyy-i-i-i-i

You know, Prince's album Sign O' The Times, dropped 30 years ago yesterday, but there's not enough material online to make a good post about it.
posted by hippybear at 10:28 AM PST - 41 comments

And so it has come to this

Do millennial men want stay at home wives? [NYT]. In the U.S., studies seem to indicate so. Or is this just a reflection of inadequate US policies supporting working parents?
posted by Mchelly at 10:17 AM PST - 143 comments

Short and descriptive: Penis seat!

When a new style of seat suddenly appeared on Mexico City's metro system, it was labelled as inappropriate, uncomfortable, humiliating and embarrassing. It was supposed to be. [more inside]
posted by heyho at 8:47 AM PST - 34 comments

Bring Your Own Pie

In the Northern Quarter of Manchester in deepest Yorkshire, a gravy bar is opening. No, gravy bar. What is this? It's a place serving meals focused around, well, gravy. First, select your gravy. Then, select your pie (or hand over one of the pies you carry around with you if you are English), e.g. a hollowed out bread bowl. Finally, add some extras e.g. gingerbread, hundreds and thousands, or a pickled egg, or dipping chips. Customers can bring their own Thermos to be filled with gravy. The Danish press is particularly excited, and crowds are expected for the opening tomorrow. Hashtag mason jar.
posted by Wordshore at 8:38 AM PST - 53 comments

Read, Write, Repeat

The Center for Fiction has been around for nearly two centuries, helping authors and readers and promoting storytelling. They have, among other resources, an extensive set of videos by masters of mystery writing. [more inside]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:26 AM PST - 6 comments

Garçon! Kibble!

Two scientists demonstrate their subject's conditioned response to the sound of a bell.
posted by stinkfoot at 6:57 AM PST - 33 comments

Survival Lilly. Yeah.

Lilly cooks eggs on a shovel, hits the bullseye at 300 meters, explains how to wear a shemagh, makes fire with shoelaces, spends a week alone in the wilderness on Vancouver Island, explains which survival knife is best, snow camps in the Austrian Alps, makes a torch out of a Red Bull can. Bonus: Lilly’s bushcraft dog, a Kleiner Münsterländer named Dax, is adorable.
posted by valkane at 5:57 AM PST - 28 comments

Eating The Sandwich

Andy Riley (writer on Veep, Black Books and many other things) has just updated his glossary of terminology used by (mainly UK TV) comedy writers.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 5:42 AM PST - 19 comments

Endurance cyclist Mike Hall killed during Indian Pacific Wheel Race

Mike Hall, 35 year old endurance cyclist was killed in a collision in the morning of 31st March during the Indian Pacific Wheel Race. He has appeared on the blue before, just after his world-record breaking cycle around the world in 92 days [more inside]
posted by AFII at 4:59 AM PST - 19 comments

Ronaldo or Bust

Besides his soccer prowess, Cristiano Ronaldo is known for being exceptionally handsome, and at least somewhat vain. So what must he have been thinking on Wednesday when he turned up at Madeira International Airport (now renamed Aeroporto Cristiano Ronaldo) for the unveiling of a bust that, well, was not exactly an uncanny likeness? Ronaldo Bust Looks Nothing Like Ronaldo, and the Internet Notices [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:28 AM PST - 45 comments

March 30

Mona

Mona, a homicidal pig. James Taylor. 'nuf said
posted by HuronBob at 10:02 PM PST - 11 comments

Frolic 'n Mae

Frolic 'n Mae, a short film about a girl at a birthday party.
posted by latkes at 8:47 PM PST - 1 comment

"All this preparation is used to charge me..."

Cats and dogs (also with squirrels and toddlers) carrying on dialogue, which is sometimes a door into their worlds (previously) [videos in French with English subtitles].
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:33 PM PST - 11 comments

Adventure Time in the Koji Kingdom

Traditional products made with koji are miso, saki, soy sauce. I wanted to do something completely different, something that hadn't been done with koji. I didn't just want to make a sauce or ingredient, I wanted to make a star.
posted by Michael Tellurian at 5:47 PM PST - 7 comments

Will our first contestant come in and sign in please...

What's My Line was the iconic television game show that ran on CBS from 1950-1967 (and then revived in an altered format in syndication from 1968-1975). If you want to go down the rabbit hole of early TV gameshows, many episodes can be found on the What's My Line YouTube channel. Now you too can relive the many times Steve Allen asked, "Is it bigger than a bread box?" [more inside]
posted by kendrak at 4:56 PM PST - 33 comments

The book came with a warning: “Not for children or morons.”

“The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change,” William Powell wrote. “I no longer agree with this.” William Powell, author of the infamous radical tome The Anarchist's Cookbook, has died. A film about Powell and his book, American Anarchist, premiered on Friday, March 24. His death on July 11, 2016 was revealed in the film's closing credits. [more inside]
posted by mosk at 4:21 PM PST - 50 comments

A museum of cameras that are probably not evil.

"Disclaimer : We disseminate in these pages tangible proofs of an insidious evil that has eaten hundreds of individuals for years. The week they are like you, go to work, study or live peacefully their retirement. Only a very attentive observer would be able to detect in their eyes the glow that lights up as soon as they hear the words "box", "folding", etc."

That's what Google translate tells me, anyway. But if you like old cameras you should definitely head over to Collection Appareils, a French-language, online museum with over 10,000 cameras. And possibly a little bit of evil. (previously)
posted by Room 641-A at 3:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Indexing, National Day of

In our Google era, indexers are the unsung heroes of the publishing world argues Sam Leith, honorary president of the Society of Indexers, on National Indexing Day [pdf]. Among the varied uses of the index Leith highlights is the comedy index, the subject of a blog series by indexer Paula Clarke Bain, so far up to four entries: I, Partridge, Alan Partridge: Nomad, Toast on Toast and Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey.
posted by Kattullus at 2:33 PM PST - 14 comments

Sludge Factory

[mlBandcamp] A little Throwback Thursday sludge for your listening pleasure: Kowloon Walled City/Thou split 7", featuring a cover of Low's July (original version) by Kowloon Walled City with Lisa Papineau, and Thou's world-ending cover of Soundgarden's 4th of July (original version).
posted by Existential Dread at 1:21 PM PST - 9 comments

I Need You To Believe In Me

The new Starz series based on Neil Gaiman's American Gods, headed by critical darling and Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller (previously, trailer) now has character posters and the full opening titles online.
posted by The Whelk at 1:04 PM PST - 81 comments

Welcome to Thimbleweed Park. Population: 80 nutcases.

Today saw the release of Thimbleweed Park (Vimeo trailer), a graphic adventure in the classic LucasArts style developed by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick (creators of Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion). [more inside]
posted by ltl at 12:31 PM PST - 23 comments

Learn design thinking from cats

Think inside the box.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:25 AM PST - 12 comments

Feed the Tamagotchi or democracy dies

New York Magazine's Daily Intelligencer has a round-up of All the Terrifying Things That Donald Trump Did Lately, but unfortunately, there's more! While there are plenty of signs that his presidency is flailing, including less than desired progress on his major promises, but there's plenty that he has done, by executive action and signed legislation. And while Devin Nunes's botched effort to scuttle the Trump/Russia investigation have stalled action in the House, Senate intel holds first public Russia hearing.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:52 AM PST - 2726 comments

Where Have All The Bob Seger Albums Gone?

"But I discover something odd: Bob Seger's old albums are not only missing from my shelves. They seem to be missing from the world." [more inside]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:47 AM PST - 66 comments

Is there space in a creature’s DNA to consider the prospect of no next?

The Sense of an Endling is an essay on the extinction of species and the work toward de-extinction and "making new beasts to tread on the bones of what are not quite their ancestors" excerpted from Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 10:35 AM PST - 6 comments

"I think we could have used less sandwich meat with better nesting"

Laser Cut Vin Diesel Ham and Cheese Sandwich
posted by Copronymus at 10:30 AM PST - 7 comments

The War at Morehouse

"Founded in 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War, Morehouse College is one of black America’s crown jewels.... Black America needs Morehouse. America needs Morehouse. But Morehouse is falling down." An in-depth look at the "yearslong slapfight for the steering wheel of one of black America’s most valuable institutions" from Michael Harriot at The Root.
posted by goatdog at 9:18 AM PST - 8 comments

Autism Doesn’t Make Me Blue

April is coming and so is Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month, with April 2nd the International day of acceptance. Before you light it up blue with Autism Speaks, please find out what actual people on the spectrum think and perhaps look into these other great groups like - Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) Nothing About Us Without Us and the Autism Women's Network (ASN). [more inside]
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 9:13 AM PST - 18 comments

Another late night for the scholars of Cyber Alexandria

A tale of the year 6099: How Does Goofy Reproduce?
posted by JHarris at 8:32 AM PST - 15 comments

The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.

A pup born with a snout abnormality was on a list to be euthanized, but thanks to a rescue shelter in Oregon, hundreds now want to adopt him and his brother. He underwent successful dental surgery earlier this month. More pics of Picasso and other rescues can be found on Luvable's Instagram page.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:04 AM PST - 18 comments

We have to go back!

F9-33 is going back into space! The first booster to successfully conduct a return landing is going back into space, hopefully today, as SES-10. After eight successful attempts to return the first stage booster to a landing pad, SpaceX is ready to go full circle and reuse one of their previously returned booster stages in a commercial flight. The launch window is scheduled for today between 18:27 and 20:57 EDT and will be viewable live on SpaceX's hosted stream.
posted by Talez at 7:32 AM PST - 34 comments

What You Need To Know About Stillbirth: 4 Mothers Living Through Loss

"In an effort to better understand stillbirth, I spoke with a number of women who've experienced stillbirth, parent advocates, and a representative from a company trying to change the way in which families interact with their stillborn infants. I learned more than I could have imagined." [more inside]
posted by juliplease at 6:46 AM PST - 10 comments

Hanging Out in Analemma Tower

Analemma inverts the traditional diagram of an earth-based foundation, instead depending on a space-based supporting foundation from which the tower is suspended. This system is referred to as the Universal Orbital Support System (UOSS). By placing a large asteroid into orbit over earth, a high strength cable can be lowered towards the surface of earth from which a super tall tower can be suspended. Since this new tower typology is suspended in the air, it can be constructed anywhere in the world and transported to its final location.
posted by veedubya at 5:42 AM PST - 58 comments

He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting.

Any terrorist, however socially or physically isolated, is still part of a broader movement.
The myth of the ‘lone wolf’ terrorist.
posted by adamvasco at 4:55 AM PST - 14 comments

March 29

SITE FOR MIXTAPES INNIT.

Matthew Kent’s Blowing Up The Workshop Mix Series has often run towards slightly outside sounds; in a 2014 “best of” list for Pitchfork he spoke of “the art of mixtape” (ostensibly contra “DJ Mixes”).
The series arrived on the map in 2014 with Galcher Lustwerk’s critically-acclaimed 100% GALCHER mix of original material, and has lately been lauded for a jungle mix by Ben UFO and an eclectic and introspective set from DEBONAIR.
The most recent mix comes from Jen Monroe of Listen To This!. It follows the blog’s own focus on esoteric world music LPs and was inspired by “escapism, cinematic déjà vu, anime, hyper-optimistic fantasy about the experience of tourism, courtyards, commercials, and ruins”
posted by Going To Maine at 11:43 PM PST - 3 comments

ting ting tingtingtingting tingtingting tingting ting ting

Ed Sheeran's Shape of You, as performed on caklempong/talempong, a type of kettle gong/xylophone-esque orchestra indigenous to Malaysia and Indonesia somewhat similar to gamelan. Some more examples of caklempong music.
posted by divabat at 10:02 PM PST - 2 comments

Kittens on Demand

Only one thing can justify the internet - live kittens, 24/7/365. Between the Kitten Dorm, the Kitten Academy, and Gaia's Kittens we have you covered. Meanwhile, everyone at TinyKittens HQ eagerly awaits the birth of Evolene and Corsica's kittens.
posted by Deoridhe at 9:33 PM PST - 19 comments

Cool to Be Moderate

Can a Former Islamist Make It Cool to Be Moderate? (New York Times link)
posted by tavegyl at 9:26 PM PST - 3 comments

No, really! I am reading it for scientific research! And the colors too!

Nudi Pixel is a web-based identification tool for nudibranchs [a group of soft-bodied, marine gastropod molluscs] worldwide using photographs as the first point of identification. It is underpinned by up to date scientific classification.
posted by not_on_display at 8:39 PM PST - 6 comments

Come with me, we'll go and see, the big rock candy mountain

Holy Crap Chocolate Geode.
posted by latkes at 8:37 PM PST - 32 comments

The Deck advertising network shutting down

"Things work, until they don't." The Deck Network used by many independent web sites, including Metafilter, to make advertising revenue is shutting down. [more inside]
posted by zeikka at 6:31 PM PST - 56 comments

square grouper

Rosado and Ortiz's mysterious killing on October 15, 2015, sent locals from Key Largo to Islamorada into a panic and left sheriff's deputies scrambling. Detectives would follow a trail of violence and blackmail for months before divining its source: Jeremy Macauley, a fisherman with a troubled past who'd found a bale of pure cocaine floating in the turquoise sea. Months later, a prosecutor's suicide and a surprise jailhouse interview would further muddy the tale.
How a Floating Bale of Cocaine Led to the Florida Keys' Worst Murder in Decades, Tim Elfrinkm Miami New Times
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:29 PM PST - 10 comments

Of and about translated speculative fiction

The inaugural issue of Samovar, a quarterly magazine of and about speculative fiction in translation, has been published, "in which: two sisters create an imagined world where things that are lost can be found. A despot is forced to see the truth he's tried to hide from. An academic finds poetry, science fiction and reality beginning to merge. And the Curiosity Rover turns its gaze on Mars."
posted by mixedmetaphors at 5:04 PM PST - 4 comments

It Is The Flag Of A Hostile Nation, If We Are To Believe Them

The Australian Senator Eric Abetz, who is against same-sex marriage generally, recently raised an objection to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, in which he stated that the rainbow flag should not be flown in the foyer of the Finance Department, as it is the flag of a hostile nation. [more inside]
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 4:42 PM PST - 16 comments

A beautiful work of art, a labor of love, literally

Wait for it. Divers have been mystified by the crop circles that appeared on the ocean floor. Japanese scientists, Hiroshi Kawase, Yoji Okata & Kimiaki Ito discovered, finally, what they were. (Previously & previously) [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 3:14 PM PST - 36 comments

Dinner through the eyes of a photographer and a chef.

MENU — Dinner through the eyes of a photographer and a chef: Eating at a restaurant isn't about the sustenance. It's about the experience. A good menu is a story, with its own narrative arc. Tension is built and released, emotions are evoked and questions are raised. We want to create a visual exploration of this story. To keep it personal, we decided to use a very personal canvas. This is why our menu is not served on a plate, but on a face. And to capture the love and attention that goes into creating a good menu, we avoided any digital intervention. Every ingredient has been attached manually, no photoshop, handcrafted with every attention to detail. Just like in a good kitchen. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 2:45 PM PST - 18 comments

A Serb makes a good wife: she can pull the cart out of mud.

On "Eastern European Women", by Jasmina Tesanovic on BoingBoing.
posted by bq at 2:16 PM PST - 7 comments

Justice evades Slovenia’s ‘erased’ citizens

Over the next years, Beširević lost everything: his apartment; his job at one of Slovenia’s finest 5-star hotels; the health care he needed to keep the thrombosis in his legs at bay. When he began to tell his story publicly, his family told him he was embarrassing them. Eventually he lost them too. He slept on the streets. He went to the Red Cross, only to be told they couldn’t help him, because he didn’t exist.
posted by orrnyereg at 1:21 PM PST - 4 comments

How Walter got his wings

Tired of the mess and obligation of your boring old cats, dogs and whatnot? Why not get yourself a Strange Beast instead? (SLVimeo, under 5 minutes)
posted by maudlin at 12:50 PM PST - 11 comments

A financial incentive to murder fellow tontine annuitants

Tontines are a rather unusual form of investment annuity, and they may be making a comeback. [more inside]
posted by Chrysostom at 11:58 AM PST - 55 comments

The catastrophe that gave humans the upper hand

Modern humans colonised the planet after coming out of Africa, spreadinjg across Asia some 60k years ago, thence everywhere. But how did we do so well, given that genetics suggests we were down to under 10,000 breeding pairs, possibly well under and possibly more than once? And what happened to the other hominids around at the time? [more inside]
posted by Devonian at 11:48 AM PST - 10 comments

“We all float down here.”

It [YouTube] [Teaser Trailer] “The evil clown named Pennywise returns in this first look at New Line Cinema's horror thriller It, based on the classic Stephen King novel. Starring Finn Wolfhard, Javier Botet, Nicholas Hamilton, Megan Charpentier and Bill Skarsgård” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 11:32 AM PST - 135 comments

Walking While Balancing Yourself

Kenyan women routinely walk while balancing 60-80% of their body weight in loads on their heads. Some bioengineers in Kenya wanted to know how they could do this so easily. One thing they discovered is that, when standing on a treadmill, the women showed no energy expenditure at all, until they started to walk. All the things the engineers learned are leading to clever exoskeletons.
posted by MovableBookLady at 11:21 AM PST - 33 comments

The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir: a concept and a challenge

Stephin Merritt likes a concept and a challenge, and here he's set himself up with a big one: To create an album with 50 songs, one for each unfolding year of his life. The result is 50 Song Memoir, made with over 100 instruments, with Merritt and his cohorts playing seven or fewer instruments on every cut, in different combinations on each, with no instrument used more than seven times over the course of five half-hour discs. Stream it all via Apple Music or get a 5 song sampler via Spotify, or 16 tracks on YouTube (though there might be some geoblocking), and another YT playlist of 15 videos, starting with an official unboxing video, then getting to the official music videos. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:51 AM PST - 17 comments

The Richard D. James Washer

Phenomenal new Aphex Twin track. 🔥🔥🔥
posted by griphus at 10:27 AM PST - 38 comments

"The place to discover the history and culture of Chicago."

The Chicago Collections Consortium was founded in 2012 by 12 local libraries, universities, and museums to preserve and share Chicago's rich history and culture with the understanding that "our region's heritage should be available for all of us to explore -- freely, easily, and openly." To that end, in 2015, it launched its "flagship initiative, Explore Chicago Collections — a free, centralized, web-based search engine and record-finding tool that will allow researchers, teachers, students, and the general public to locate or access over 100,000 maps, photos, letters, and other archival materials held at its [now 25] member institutions.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:15 AM PST - 9 comments

Oral Argument

A blowjob, therefore, never occurs in a vacuum. It is related to social expectations, especially to male expectations of productivity and work, but during the act itself these thoughts must fall away to make way for the implicit trust involved. To write a blowjob—within this social context and with the necessary nuance—is therefore achingly difficult. Even many of the great modernists fail to do so. Fellatio and Juliet: On the Hard Task of Writing About Blowjobs [NSFW]
posted by chavenet at 8:41 AM PST - 50 comments

A Titanic survivor, the Tonight Show and porn

The New York Post covers the history of the recently re-opened Hudson Theatre on Broadway.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:49 AM PST - 12 comments

Typographical Error

On one side, Canada's largest independent newspaper, tracing its roots back to Joseph Howe. On the other, one of Canada's oldest unions, one that had never been involved in a labour dispute. Most expected it would be prolonged, but few expected it to be quite this long. [more inside]
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:53 AM PST - 5 comments

A Greek Tragedy

"We Thought the Sun Would Always Shine on Our Lives" Bright, beautiful, and beloved, the young women of Chi Omega had it all—until they didn't.
posted by COD at 5:24 AM PST - 98 comments

sand strikers

"Sand strikers, also known as bobbit worms, are primitive-looking creatures that lack eyes, or even a brain. Despite this, they are savage predators who shoot out grapple-like hooks to reel in passing fish."
posted by dhruva at 3:39 AM PST - 24 comments

March 28

Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.

Nobody's sure why dogs tilt their heads [cheery lecture with music], but everyone agrees it's adorable [intro music, human noises, whining, barking]. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:52 PM PST - 18 comments

The Mostest Horse that Ever Was

Today is the 100th anniversary of birth the Thoroughbred racehorse Man O’War [more inside]
posted by sardonyx at 10:39 PM PST - 22 comments

Are my methods unsound?

Sebastian Gorka is a Trump advisor on terrorism, has ties(?) to Nazi collaborators, and political science PhD from Corvinus University in Hugary. What's his dissertation like? Daniel Nexon reviews: Sebastian Gorka May Be a Far-Right Nativist, but for Sure He’s a Terrible Scholar [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:02 PM PST - 40 comments

"Oh god, it tastes like mashed potato now. Why? I don't know!"

Irish People Try Surströmming (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 4:57 PM PST - 58 comments

Building bridges from the Cold War to Trump

The Daily Beast reports that "Thirty-four years ago, on five consecutive episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, two feuding sects representing Russia and the United States began stockpiling parts for bombs—at one point stripping the neighborhood’s arts funding to bankroll the build-up." [more inside]
posted by eviemath at 4:37 PM PST - 15 comments

One of the most successful invasive species on the planet

"In South Florida, cane toads are so numerous that they seem to be dropping from the sky. They're overtaking parking lots and backyards, can weigh almost six pounds, and pack enough poison to kill pets. Why the surge?" A long article at Outside about an increasing population of cane toads in South Florida. [more inside]
posted by fever-trees at 4:33 PM PST - 36 comments

Completely Meat Chocolate Pie

Research scientist Janelle Shane has been training a neural network to generate cooking recipes, based on 30 MB-worth of recipes. The results thus far have been interesting, to say the least. Would you perhaps like to try Beef Soup With Swamp Peef And Cheese? Or maybe Salmon Beef Style Chicken Bottom? Or maybe some delicious Star * ? [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 4:04 PM PST - 73 comments

Microscopic time lapse films

Stunningly clear video of cell division, followed by tadpole development. [more inside]
posted by lucidium at 2:38 PM PST - 10 comments

Holey felines, Catman!

Stray Cats Are Having The Best Time Playing In These Holes: Nyan Kichi is a Japanese photographer who dedicates his time to hanging out with and photographing stray cats. The cats have come to know and love him, and love to jump around and show off for him — especially in one particular spot that has a lot of drain pipe holes. Also: bleps, butts, and lots of leaping.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:59 PM PST - 16 comments

The Best Art

The Best Art is an ongoing artistic collaboration between the computer (MacBook Air, 13-inch, early 2015), and the human (Nicole He). The computer queries the universe and uses an algorithm to objectively calculate the best art for any given moment in time. The human executes the commands.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:43 PM PST - 17 comments

AD 12,017: Hull Kingston Rovers must play all away matches

East Yorkshire has the fastest-eroding coastline in Europe, already some three miles inland of where it stood in Roman days. More than two dozen towns have disappeared beneath the waves of the North Sea. More details here.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:47 AM PST - 17 comments

Metafilter: The level of hatred was amazing and quite funny.

How we made the typeface Comic Sans. [previously, previously]
posted by Evilspork at 11:43 AM PST - 46 comments

“...it weighs about as much as a refrigerator,”

Thieves Take a Chunk of Change, All 221 Pounds of It, From a Berlin Museum [The New York Times] “ You could never palm it, flip it or plunk it into a vending machine. But apparently it can be pinched: One of the world’s largest gold coins, a 221-pound Canadian monster called the Big Maple Leaf [wiki], was stolen overnight from the Bode Museum in Berlin, the police said on Monday. The coin is about 21 inches in diameter and over an inch thick. It has the head of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and a maple leaf on the other. Its face value is 1 million Canadian dollars, or about $750,000, but by gold content alone, it is worth as much as $4.5 million at current market prices.”
posted by Fizz at 11:19 AM PST - 60 comments

Still on the Payroll

Pitchfork celebrates the 20th Anniversary of Radiohead's OK Computer
posted by artsandsci at 9:28 AM PST - 87 comments

Save us, Spiders Georg

Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to snack on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the voraciousness of their appetites, two European biologists recently wondered: If you were to tally up all the food eaten by the world's entire spider population in a single year, how much would it be? (Please note: the article is illustrated with gifs of spider nests being poked, if seeing those gives you the wiggins.)
posted by rewil at 8:42 AM PST - 38 comments

Women in the Ivy League

How smart women got the chance
posted by tavegyl at 8:35 AM PST - 17 comments

Computer Recreations

If drawing your own Penrose Tilings or Mondrian-style images sounds like fun, or recreating A. K. Dewdney's simulated Wa-Tor World ecology, or solving Word Wheel puzzles; or if you'd just generally like a pool of projects, examples, and exercises to practice Python, then here you go: Learning Scientific Programming with Python. [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 8:22 AM PST - 6 comments

a fairly wonky academic feed

He knows English, German, French, Russian, Korean, Latin, and classical Greek. He's worked for Applebee's and interned for John Boehner. He has a wife and two kids, a job teaching political science and diplomacy, and about 19,000 more Twitter followers than he did a few weeks ago. Robert E. Kelly has been writing and speaking on international relations (especially in East Asia) and US foreign policy for several years. Some pieces of particular interest... [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 8:19 AM PST - 5 comments

The Apathetic Children

Uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome, is said to exist only in Sweden, and only among refugees. The patients have no underlying physical or neurological disease, but they seem to have lost the will to live. The Swedish refer to them as de apatiska, the apathetic. “I think it is a form of protection, this coma they are in,” Hultcrantz said. “They are like Snow White. They just fall away from the world.” [Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker]
posted by neroli at 8:14 AM PST - 17 comments

Home is where the art is

“'Someone very dear to me once said, ‘When I’m in your house or at the Rancho, I feel like I’m walking around inside of your body.’ I love that he didn’t say ‘mind,’ because I don’t create with my head. I create with my heart,” [Sheila Youngblood] says. “What I wear, what my spaces look and feel like—these are expressions of my own heart, and inviting people into a space where you can feel the love and the soulfulness is my goal. It’s an invitation into something deeper. It’s gratifying, inspiring, and undeniably real.'” From Texas Monthly, a lovely photo essay: The Most Colorful House in Texas. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:12 AM PST - 20 comments

Hold My Beer!

Whether you like Carly Rae Jepson or Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson or Johnny Cash, Disney or big movie epics, Brahms or Bizet, the Bottle Boys have it covered.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:51 AM PST - 4 comments

Why Belle Should Have Chosen Gaston

Why Belle Should Have Chosen Gaston, "A PowerPoint presentation by me" (warning: douchey automatic video plays on this page) is a scholarly but accessible look at factors, both personal and socioeconomic, that lead to the controversial and explosive conclusion that Belle should have opted to marry Gaston instead of the Beast.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:43 AM PST - 50 comments

Forbearance

Akira Kurosawa's great advice to aspiring filmmakers (6:40 slyt)
posted by timshel at 2:21 AM PST - 7 comments

$80 mango

Jared Rydelek reviews exotic fruit. Why fruit? Finding exotic fruit that is unavailable to the rest of the world is a bit like a treasure hunt. Finding something I never knew existed is a thrilling experience whether or not the fruit actually tastes good. Some of the fruits I find are tasty, some are disgusting, some are dangerous to eat, but all of them are interesting. Here is his review of the $80 mango. (Via).
posted by growabrain at 12:23 AM PST - 58 comments

March 27

O Fortuna, the WTF? version

August Schram 'flashmobs' Orff in his own style. (Previously)
posted by pjern at 10:41 PM PST - 14 comments

"People are always going 'Why are you doing this kind of stuff?'"

Francesco Albano (no, not that one) creates human body sculptures that shock, disgust and horrify [NSFW]. He discusses his influences and his process in this short film [narration, light music].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:27 PM PST - 12 comments

Live up to your Namesake

Names have power, and nowhere else more than in the world of the comic Namesake. [more inside]
posted by Deoridhe at 10:12 PM PST - 8 comments

Shiny Happy Robots Holding Hands

Rayna meets a "Robot" (SLYT) (via Kottke)
posted by Maecenas at 7:16 PM PST - 22 comments

A Tool for Thinking in Systems

LOOPY (v. 1.0) is a new bowser-based tool from Nicky Case Previously, previouslier, more previously for constructing simple systems dynamics models by sketching; it also makes it easy to publish your work and let others modify it. Give it a try, or look at some examples: basic ecology; depression & anxiety; and automation & job loss.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:36 PM PST - 19 comments

Adapting ASL for music

Vox chats to music/concert ASL interpreter Amber Galloway Gallego (previously: 1, 2) about adapting ASL to fully convey musical experiences.
posted by divabat at 5:35 PM PST - 4 comments

With friends like these....

As repression deepens, Turkish artists and intellectuals fear the worst.
128,398 people have been sacked, while 91,658 are being detained. Turkey Purge logs the daily crackdowns and Human Tragedy.
Artist Zehra Dogan was sentenced to Prison for a Painting of a Kurdish Town Attack.
Meanwhile NATO member Turkey is in a serious diplomatic spat with the Netherlands and sabre rattling with Greece.
posted by adamvasco at 5:27 PM PST - 8 comments

Steel Magnolias: An Oral History

Thirty Years of Steel Magnolias: The untold story of what would become one of the most beloved touchstones of Southern culture.
posted by leesh at 4:38 PM PST - 25 comments

Skateboarding on Frozen Sand

"Ice, driftwood, foamy waves and skateboards? Four skaters head north to the cold Norwegian coast, applying their urban skills to a wild canvas of beach flotsam, frozen sand and pastel skies. The result is a beautiful mashup — biting winds and short days, ollies and a frozen miniramp." [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 4:02 PM PST - 5 comments

Weaknesses: BOB.

As we in 2017 prepare for the May release of the continuation of Twin Peaks on Showtime, let's take a trip back to 1991 when Star Pics issued a series of Twin Peaks trading cards. [more inside]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:28 PM PST - 20 comments

"When I was a resident, this wellness concept did not even really exist"

On Wednesday, August 17, 2016, at about 5:15 in the morning, Kathryn, one of our fourth-year medical students, ended her life by jumping out of her apartment window. [more inside]
posted by sockermom at 12:52 PM PST - 62 comments

Subway dogs of New York, and their obedient and caring human carriers

"Dear USA Today, Can I Travel With a Small Dog in the New York Subway?" "Yes. Transporting a lap-sized pup on the subway is allowed with proper containment." "OK, but whose lap, and what counts as proper containment?" (Urban Dog NYC has more practical tips, but less doggo photos.)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:28 PM PST - 22 comments

The cost of activism in football

Colin Kaepernick, former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers has been in the news for refusing to stand during the national anthem (previously), in silent protest of the song and the United States' racist history and present. He's now looking for a new team and the calls aren't coming. The question is, why? [more inside]
posted by misskaz at 12:23 PM PST - 89 comments

The children knew, though. Children loved her.

Eulogy for a Fairy Princess: Lisa Williams remembers Heather Adels, her girlfriend, who died suddenly at age 41.
posted by tuesdayschild at 11:46 AM PST - 11 comments

1918 redux

By now, almost every major city around the world is witnessing people dying in offices, in public buildings, and right on the streets. Morgues are overflowing with bodies and there is a worldwide shortage of coffins. Developing countries begin cremating corpses in large ditches that are then immediately covered over by bulldozers. In the United States and other First World nations, morgues are forced to supplement with freezer trucks, but the spot shortages of electricity and fuel are forcing some difficult decisions on disposal. -- What the Next Global Pandemic Could Look Like
posted by Chrysostom at 11:39 AM PST - 40 comments

visiting McDonald’s with my Grandmother

visiting McDonald’s with my Grandmother
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 9:56 AM PST - 15 comments

YouTubers: not very well supervised, apparently

The three reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber (by slowbeef, on Polygon)
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 8:47 AM PST - 66 comments

Thank You For Noticing

ThanksforTyping logs cases of academic works thanking (typically) unnamed wives (and sometimes their daughters) for typing their scholarly works. UVA mediaevalist Bruce Holsinger started the hashtag with five tweets [1|2|3|4|5] triggering the discovery of many more examples.
posted by Karmakaze at 8:19 AM PST - 33 comments

Permanent Daylight

At least 16 states in 2017 are considering 24 bills or resolutions related to proposed changes to DST.... In fact, it’s an even split as 12 of the bills would establish permanent standard time, while the other 12 would petition for or otherwise seek to create permanent DST.
However, Indiana warns against it, or at least against being the only state in the neighborhood that does.
posted by Etrigan at 6:47 AM PST - 115 comments

De Stijl Art Movement 100th Anniversary

The Hague's buildings in Mondrian's iconic colors Many buildings in The Hague are using Mondrian's blue-yellow-red-white color scheme to celebrate the art movement's 100th anniversary. I hope they keep it up; it looks great.
posted by MovableBookLady at 6:38 AM PST - 14 comments

Avengers React to Justice League Trailer [SLYT 3min 28 sec]

How might the Avengers react to seeing the Jusitice League trailer?? Exactly what it says in the title. A short fan video/mashup. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 4:34 AM PST - 20 comments

Destroying rock with gyprock

David Byrne posits a fascinating theory that the music of each age is determined by the architecture in which it is performed... Rock’n’roll music is made to be played in pubs and bars, where amplification is needed to be heard over the crowd. And playing with amps and loud drum kits requires musicians to have access to a space where noise can be made. The space where this typically happened was so universal that it defined an entire genre: the garage band. So what happens when there are no more garages? If we assume Byrne is right, you’d expect two things to happen. One, that the loudest music of our age to not come out of inner cities anymore. And two, that the music from cities will not be rock music.
How inner city apartment developments have killed rock'n'roll.
posted by acb at 4:17 AM PST - 88 comments

Climate Change comes Home to Roost

Cyclone Debbie, a Category 4 storm, is forecast to cross the coast of North Queensland early tomorrow morning. Winds of up to 250km/hr (120kn) are predicted in the centre. A storm surge as high as 2.5 metres is expected, inundating thousands of homes. [more inside]
posted by Combat Wombat at 4:11 AM PST - 20 comments

Tiny Town + Big Art

Coonalpyn in South Australia, 200kms out of Adelaide, population 300. Onto a group of 30-metre working grain silos Brisbane artist Guido van Helten, mounted on a cherry picker, has painted huge, astonishingly detailed portraits of five local children. Work commenced in early February and is now complete. "In a lot of small towns," says the artist, "people really want to focus on the past and history of the town or the industry. All those themes I really wanted to avoid. The children represent the future of the town." [more inside]
posted by valetta at 2:27 AM PST - 8 comments

March 26

A shadow shall fall over the universe, and evil will grow in its path…

Terrible, awful, no good really bad heavy metal album covers from all over the world. Many more at Assorted Thoughts From An Unsorted Mind.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:48 PM PST - 47 comments

A 4'3" Comet Blazing across the Firmament

Caroline Herschel never expected to be an astronomer. Her oboeist father indulged her voracious mind, but her strict mother restricted her to housework. In 1772, she followed her beloved organist brother William to England to escape the drudgery and become a concert singer. Before long, she found herself assisting in his astronomical endeavors -- first providing his food, then polishing his mirrors, then doing all of his advanced math, despite having never been educated in the times tables as a girl. In 1781, William discovered Uranus, and in 1782 began earning a salary from George III. In 1783, Caroline made her first independent discovery (M110). In 1787, the British Crown began paying her £50/year for her work, making her the first woman scientist to ever earn a salary for scientific work. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:36 PM PST - 14 comments

Mal de archivo

At his death in 1988, Luis Barragán, the Pritzker laureate Mexican architect of poetic modernist reknown, left his house and library to an architect friend, and his voluminous professional archive to his business associate. This archive eventually found its way to a New York gallerist, from whom it was bought in 1998 and shipped to Basel by a wealthy Swiss businessman for his fiancé - and has been inaccessible ever since. When conceptual artist Jill Magid (previously) heard of the archive's predicament in 2013, she devised her project The Barragán Archives, whose final chapter might bring about a resoluton: in a pact with the architect's family and the Mexican authorities, by way of a transubstantiation of ashes into a diamond, as a participant in "a gothic love story, with a copyright-and-intellectual-property-rights subplot", she would approach the guarded, private owners of Barragán's legacy with a profound, confounding offer about his body of work - she would make The Proposal. [more inside]
posted by progosk at 4:26 PM PST - 4 comments

Rock and roll was atomic powered, all zoom and doom

I can’t say who’s great or who isn’t. If somebody does achieve greatness it’s only for a minute and anyone is capable of that. Greatness is beyond your control – I think you get it by chance, but it’s only for a short time.

Bob Dylan discusses Sinatra, North Minnesota, arrangements, Joan Baez, new CDs, favorites drummers, Rock and Roll, first tracks, playing piano, John Wayne and much more in a broad, fascinating, recently conducted Q&A with Bill Flanagan
posted by timshel at 2:55 PM PST - 14 comments

Your Cat Probably Prefers Your Company Over Food

Probably. We're not in the guarantee business here. (via) Please note that cats in this study were tested after being deprived of food, toys, awesome scents and people for only a few hours. Further study is required to confirm any changes in categorization, motivation and general niceness after longer periods of deprivation. [more inside]
posted by maudlin at 2:27 PM PST - 46 comments

How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

Journalist Jancee Dunn examines the inequality in her own family and does something about it. She documented it for everyone. Dunn, mostly known for her work in Rolling Stone, has a new book How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids. This is a "self-help" book, but better because it is funny and well-researched. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 1:30 PM PST - 41 comments

A Seussian smorgasborg for Sunday

Here's a smattering of musical Seuss from the Seventies: The Hoober-Bloob Highway, an original story about a baby in space being given the option to pick their future, which picked up some elements from Seuss's books, and Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?, another original story about a young fellow and his magical piano, with songs by Joe Raposo. Bonus Dr. Seuss short: "Я жду птенца" (I'm waiting for a chick), a stop-motion Russian animation interpretation of Horton Hatches the Egg from 1966. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:26 PM PST - 8 comments

When in doubt, roll!

So you wanna learn to play the drums? Need some inspiration? Here some sessions from Swedish educational broadcaster UR’s drum school TRUM, featuring Morgan Ågren and friends, for you to play along with. How about starting with some jazz fusion? There’s also jazz funk, experimental metal, blues rock, and more experimental stuff. Grab your sticks and have a go! [more inside]
posted by effbot at 11:45 AM PST - 10 comments

Bitcoin and Venezuela, etc.

Venezuala, Brazil, property transfer Venezuela has a serious food shortage, but electricity is subsidized. People are mining bitcoins because it's worthwhile to use bitcoins to buy food across the border. Bitcoin is a way for Brazillians to get around currency controls and tarriffs. It's possible that blockchains will be useful to make property transfer easier and cheaper-- even in the US, proving ownership can be complicated for real estate and cars.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:26 AM PST - 22 comments

An update to the cloud atlas.

Pretor-Pinney described the formations as “localized waves in the cloud base, either smooth or dappled with smaller features, sometimes descending into sharp points, as if viewing a roughened sea surface from below. Varying levels of illumination and thickness of cloud can lead to dramatic visual effects.” Asperitas clouds tend to be low-lying, and are caused by weather fronts that create undulating waves in the atmosphere.
posted by curious nu at 8:15 AM PST - 16 comments

O: Good

My life with Oliver Sacks: ‘He was the most unusual person I had ever known’
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:18 AM PST - 20 comments

March 25

heart of green

Spinach Leaf Transformed Into Beating Human Heart Tissue "One of the defining traits of a leaf is the branching network of thin veins that delivers water and nutrients to its cells. Now, scientists have used plant veins to replicate the way blood moves through human tissue. The work involves modifying a spinach leaf in the lab to remove its plant cells, which leaves behind a frame made of cellulose."
posted by dhruva at 11:52 PM PST - 25 comments

A Techno-thriller From The Case Files Of Max Remington

What’s The Matter With Covert Action? - The Digital Antiquarian takes a look at The game which Sid Meier considers his most disappointing, and the tension between procedural generation and narrative.
posted by Artw at 10:12 PM PST - 16 comments

Move over big dog 'cause the little dog's movin' in

Great Dane vs. Hyper Dachshund Puppy [vet waiting room noises]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:18 PM PST - 29 comments

The Sofas Of Los Angeles

L.A. photographer finds beauty in abandoned couches: Twenty years ago, [Andrew] Ward left Dublin and, after a stint in Vancouver, came to Los Angeles, where he still works as a Hollywood first assistant director. ~ He was driving home one day when he noticed something he rarely saw in Ireland. Couches ... just left there out on the curb. ~ "And I just for some reason just began photographing them," he says. ~ And now, he says, he can't stop.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:53 PM PST - 42 comments

Daniel Dennett

"As I spent time with my mother, I found that my intuitions were shifting to Dennett's side of the field. It seems natural to say that she 'sort of' thinks, knows, cares, remembers, understands, and that she is 'sort of' conscious. It seems obvious that there is no 'light switch' for consciousness: she is present and absent in different ways, depending on which of her subsystems are functioning. I still can't quite picture how neurons create consciousness." Joshua Rothman on Daniel C. Dennett. [SLNewYorker]
posted by wittgenstein at 1:41 PM PST - 92 comments

The First Solo Exhibition of Frida Kahlo in Florida

Dalí Museum’s Fascinating Frida Kahlo Exhibit Shows Her Enduring Power NSFW [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 11:05 AM PST - 9 comments

How to make nuts secure

The New York Public Library has digitized 100 "how to do it" cards found in cigarette boxes over 100 years ago. [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 11:02 AM PST - 53 comments

Role model

A Day In The Life Of A Female Taxi Driver In The Democratic Republic Of Congo
posted by infini at 11:02 AM PST - 12 comments

“We have to be ready.”

Justice League [Official Trailer] [YouTube] “Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.”
posted by Fizz at 10:37 AM PST - 124 comments

Robert Ek

Robert Ek is a digital artist from Sweden with an unsettling style.
posted by growabrain at 8:11 AM PST - 11 comments

Pass the Heinz

"Fifty years ago, in the fictional world of Mad Men, Don Draper pitched a daring ad campaign to Heinz execs, for the brand’s ketchup, that proposed not showing the product at all. " This month, Heinz has gotten on board.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:22 AM PST - 59 comments

Easter Surprise

Real Easter Bunny found! Warning: cuteness overload. [slyt]
posted by sour cream at 6:03 AM PST - 7 comments

Dystopian dreams: how feminist science fiction predicted the future

Writers of feminist dystopian fiction are alert to the realities that grind down women’s lives, that make the unthinkable suddenly thinkable.
By Naomi Alderman, writer of The Power. [more inside]
posted by moody cow at 3:47 AM PST - 27 comments

I'm afraid something's not right about this, Chris.

YouTube machinist This Old Tony reveals the true story behind Clickspring Chris's Antikythera project (previously)
posted by effbot at 2:50 AM PST - 13 comments

The Hollywood Exec and the Hand Transplant That Changed His Life

It is a beautiful hand: strong, with long, slender fingers and smooth skin, its nails ridgeless and pink. If you didn’t know Jonathan Koch—if you first met him, say, on the courts at the Calabasas Tennis & Swim Club—you might not suspect that his hand previously belonged to someone else.
posted by ellieBOA at 12:21 AM PST - 12 comments

March 24

Talk Talk

Google announces the formal end of Talk come June, formally supplanting it with Hangouts.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:41 PM PST - 33 comments

Lynda Carter's Rock 'n Roll Fantasy

Lynda Carter's Rock 'n Roll Fantasy (SLYT)
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:34 PM PST - 38 comments

Signs of Spring - TOO SOON?

The Seasons Aren't What They Used to Be "In the latter half of the 20th century, the spring emergence of leaves, frogs, birds and flowers advanced in the Northern Hemisphere by 2.8 days per decade. I’m nearly 50, so springtime has moved, on average, a full two weeks since I was born." [more inside]
posted by Miko at 7:53 PM PST - 30 comments

Beast is beast and wet is wet and forever the twain shall meet

The only thing that failed harder than these dogs was the Republican Party today [music at beginning and end].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:48 PM PST - 8 comments

The Young Folks Do Journalism

For years, the Classic had focused on the regular beats of a high school newspaper — — teacher retirements, curriculum changes, bell schedule. It was not an investigative outlet. But with Jahoda's appointment, the very nature of the school appeared to be imperiled, and the paper's staff decided it was time to step in.
posted by Hypatia at 7:24 PM PST - 15 comments

G'day Bushwhackers!!

Nick Fry and Caleb (slyt) are two good bros who love Camping, Wildlife, Hunting, Cooking and Eating stuff from the Aussie bush and ocean. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 4:39 PM PST - 3 comments

Robert Silvers (1929–2017)

Robert B. Silvers, a founder of The New York Review of Books, which under his editorship became one of the premier intellectual journals in the United States, a showcase for extended, thoughtful essays on literature and politics by eminent writers, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 2:55 PM PST - 10 comments

You may be let go...

Friday fiction: A short story by Daniel Orozco. As you leave work for the weekend, think about your first day there, and everybody's first day -- think about Orientation. "You must pace your work. What do I mean? I’m glad you asked that. We pace our work according to the eight-hour workday. If you have twelve hours of work in your in-box, for example, you must compress that work into the eight-hour day. If you have one hour of work in your in-box, you must expand that work to fill the eight- hour day. That was a good question. Feel free to ask questions. Ask too many questions, however, and you may be let go...." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 1:07 PM PST - 19 comments

The Right Answer Is: I Would Run

What happens if you break an artwork? Cautionary tales have been covered in countless articles and immortalized in videos of surveillance footage, though it’s not often told what happens next — or what to do if this happens to you. So what happens when you break a work of art? What would (or should) you do?
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:56 AM PST - 72 comments

Advocacy begins by sharing stories

Women's Voices Now hosts hundreds of films by women around the globe. Free for anyone to view, these films depict "women's struggles for civil, economic, political, and gender rights". [more inside]
posted by galaxy rise at 11:25 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Can’t we talk to the humans and work together? No, because they are dead

The robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to communicate with web crawlers and other web robots, and was first developed by people on the www-talk mailing list in 1994. RobotsTXT.org has information and history, and the similar Robots META tag. As with code in general, you can add silly things in the comments, and Google spoofed the format with their own killer-robots.txt. More recently, robots.txt inspired an alternative file: humans.txt, "a TXT file that contains information about the different people who have contributed to building the website." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:19 AM PST - 18 comments

You can't dismantle capitalism if you have a headache

Some Friday levity for activists Raccoons of the Resistance Activism Self Care Workshop [more inside]
posted by Pocahontas at 9:20 AM PST - 15 comments

A five-minute cop show (SLVimeo)

Standby is a BAFTA-nominated film (From the original site) "Gary and Jenny share the same cramped “office space” as all beat cops: the front seat of a patrol car. Their evolving relationship is an emotional rollercoaster ride that stands in often-comedic contrast to the procession of thugs and criminals filling the back seat." [more inside]
posted by Mogur at 9:05 AM PST - 19 comments

How Les Misérables Was the Biggest Deal in Book History

Hugo, Inc. For only an eight-year license to publish political exile Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, a Belgian upstart entrepreneur paid an unprecedented and unmatched sum of 300,000 francs (~$3.8 million). Relying upon the first ever bank loan to finance a book, translation rights, and an extraordinary embargo and publicity campaign, the risky venture was a triumphant success.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 8:45 AM PST - 14 comments

He's been up all night listening to Mohammed's radio...

Nuclear arms tests by Pyongyang / ICE is deporting everyone that they can / Israel’s ambassador says that Jews are Nazis / And President Bannon does whatever he please / Looks like another threat to world peace / Caused by the POTUS [more inside]
posted by jferg at 7:53 AM PST - 3222 comments

"Can you go and get mummy?"

A four year old boy calls emergency services using his mother's phone to report that she's not breathing. Thanks to the call, things work out well for everyone. Police have released a clip of the call to remind parents about the importance of teaching young children their address and how to use 999 (UK) in an emergency. SLBuzzfeed, with transcript and audio clip of heart-breakingly young boy staying calm under pressure.
posted by RedOrGreen at 7:03 AM PST - 33 comments

Eleven Years

Brad is mad online and wants to know why Cracker Barrel fired his wife.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:12 AM PST - 67 comments

A Fictive Flight Above Real Mars

A Fictive Flight Above Real Mars - The anaglyph images of Mars taken by the HiRISE camera holds information about the topography of Mars surface. There are hundreds of high-resolution images of this type. This gives the opportunity to create different studies in 3D. In this film I have chosen some locations and processed the images into panning video clips. There is a feeling that you are flying above Mars looking down watching interesting locations on the planet.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:39 AM PST - 5 comments

The eagle(s) have landed!

Last week, both Hanover Bald Eagle eggs hatched successfully. The young are being fed round-the-clock by their doting parents, "Freedom" and "Liberty." The frequent feedings result in the nest being liberally decorated with the remains of their fish, squirrel, and rabbit repasts. The live cams (Camera 1, Camera 2) allow excellent viewing opportunities. [more inside]
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:37 AM PST - 19 comments

Undergrowth, earwigs, and The Evening Standard

You’re worried that having George Osborne as editor might compromise the paper’s editorial independence. What editorial independence? The Standard is a jellyfish, a parasitic worm, a creature with a hole at each end and nothing inbetween: it thinks nothing, it feels nothing, it floats through the infinite dark and waits for a tide to carry it along. Hence the fury.
Sam Kriss, Against the Evening Standard, Idiot Joy Showland (21 March 2017).
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:44 AM PST - 7 comments

'and the street lights dance in your eyes'

In many towns and cities the familiar orange glow of HPS Sodium street-lighting has given way, or is giving way, to the cooler white glare of LED illumination, giving cost and energy-efficiency savings, and improving nocturnal colour rendition. Many welcome the change: Hal Espen, writing in 2011 for The Atlantic lamented the prevalence of the ‘jaundiced weirdness’ of sodium lighting and looked forward to its obsolescence. But others are unhappy: LED Streetlights Are Giving Neighborhoods the Blues reckons Jeff Hecht at IEEE Spectrum; some complain that ‘LED street lights are disturbing my sleep’ as Brian Wheeler reports for the BBC; research at the University of Exeter suggests LED lighting could have major impact on wildlife; and astronomers, among others, are concerned about the possible effects on the night sky — LEDs: Light Pollution Solution or Night Sky Nemesis? ponders Bob King at Universe Today. Lux Review (‘Your independent guide to lighting’) asks: Will tunable street light breakthrough silence LED critics?, while, at the same site, we learn of a Bird-friendly LED island in the Netherlands. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 3:21 AM PST - 52 comments

March 23

Beyond toques and two-fours

The revised second edition of A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles is now available online for all of your Canadian English needs.

A respectful write-up from The New Yorker.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:32 PM PST - 76 comments

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies

Secret Message Is Only For Dogs (via reddit)—from this years PROSH, a satire newspaper made by students at the University of Western Australia. BONUS: Plunk your doggo in front of the monitor for a SECRET DOG-ONLY VIDEO TO GET DOGS PUMPED [noisy noisy noisy].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:21 PM PST - 14 comments

49 satin wedding gowns... one in each state's boxcar

The Merci Train was a train of 49 French railroad boxcars filled with tens of thousands of gifts of gratitude from French citizens sent to the US in 1949. They were showing their appreciation for the 700+ American boxcars of relief goods sent to them by Americans in 1948 via a project calledFriendship Train. Each of the 48 American states at that time received one of the gift-laden box cars. Many of those boxcars still exist. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 2:53 PM PST - 28 comments

John despises his Alabama town.

From Serial and This American Life comes a seven-part podcast, S-Town. Arriving March 28.
posted by mr_bovis at 2:47 PM PST - 41 comments

bon voyage

He has played his last set --John Thomas “Sib” Hashian who played the drums on arena-rock group Boston's first two albums, has died at 67. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 2:37 PM PST - 15 comments

Sad about Pluto? How about 110 planets in the solar system instead?

Kirby Runyon and five fellow science team members from the New Horizons mission to Pluto are at the 48th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas this week, promoting an alternative planetary definition (PDF, 2 page paper; PDF of their poster). They are offering a drastically different definition from the one the International Astronomical Union (IAU) set in 2006 (previously), one which would increase the planet count from 8 to 110 in our solar system. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:15 AM PST - 71 comments

The Office Chair of the Future -- Today!

You may have heard that sitting in chairs is slowly killing anyone who works in an office. Now, however, you can buy the Altwork Station, an office chair that will definitely not kill the user.
posted by Copronymus at 11:10 AM PST - 60 comments

Killing me softly with Wonderbread...

A Sign Thanking People For Not Feeding Ducks Bread Has Gone Viral And People Are Freaking Out
posted by Amor Bellator at 10:17 AM PST - 117 comments

Syrian Football-World Cup Qualifying

There is no ignoring the control that president Bashar Assad’s regime tries to exert over its citizens and, once again, sport is no different. The relative success of the team is both a passing panacea and a propaganda opportunity, the former for the people and the latter for the president. To present a thriving football culture to the world fits in entirely with the agenda of normalisation, of having quelled the rebellion, of stabilisation and control. However, as we discovered, the reality is far from that... Ultimately, this is a story of 23 Syrian footballers, 23m Syrian people, 4.9m refugees, six years of war and one president.
posted by josher71 at 8:18 AM PST - 3 comments

“If you went in the room when it was switched on, you’d burn directly,”

German scientists are switching on “the world’s largest artificial sun” in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-friendly fuel. [The Guardian] “The Synlight experiment in Jülich, about 19 miles west of Cologne, consists 149 souped-up film projector spotlights and produces light about 10,000 times the intensity of natural sunlight on Earth. When all the lamps are swivelled to concentrate light on a single spot, the instrument can generate temperatures of around 3,500C – around two to three times the temperature of a blast furnace.”
posted by Fizz at 7:31 AM PST - 36 comments

Under the pump and over the moon, with lamb, prawns, and pavlova

Notes on Masterchef Australia, by blogger Adam Cadre (17,500 words)
posted by rollick at 6:12 AM PST - 30 comments

You're going to the top of the mountain, broken legs and all.

"Eden, the ground-breaking Channel 4 project, saw 23 strangers cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves in a corner of the West Highlands ... Instead of being crowned reality TV celebrities and fought over by agents, the 10 who made it through the 12 months have learned that only four episodes have been shown – the last seven months ago."
posted by auntie-matter at 5:10 AM PST - 17 comments

Terrorist Attack in London

Four people were killed and twenty-nine injured in a terrorist attack in Westminster yesterday afternoon. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 5:06 AM PST - 66 comments

March 22

The Rising Tide of Educated Aliteracy

"Not reading, Bayard believes, is in many cases preferable to reading and may allow for a superior form of literary criticism—one that is more creative and doesn’t run the risk of getting lost in all the messy details of a text. Actual books are thus 'rendered hypothetical,' replaced by virtual books in phantom libraries that represent an inner, fantasy scriptorium or shared social consciousness." [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 10:25 PM PST - 77 comments

What Happens At Thinx

"Thinx boss Miki Agrawal wanted to break taboos about the female body. According to some employees, she went too far." "Sexual-Harassment Claims Against a 'She-E.O.'" — New York Magazine, March 20, 2017 [more inside]
posted by Charity Garfein at 9:52 PM PST - 62 comments

The Reign Of The Superman

Before Superman became the hero that we know him as, he was an evil genius.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:02 PM PST - 16 comments

Who would pay $5 to support a website?

Medium is now selling monthly subscriptions
posted by beukeboom at 7:47 PM PST - 32 comments

PMJ covers Metallica with 15-year old Caroline Baran

Nothing Else Matters . Caroline Baran is 15 and has a much older voice. Time After Time (also with PMJ), Hello [more inside]
posted by Gorgik at 7:39 PM PST - 7 comments

Windows’ backwards compatibility is still unrivaled

In 2011, Andrew Tait installed MS-DOS 5.0 and systematically updated it all the way through Windows 7. Now he's done it again, but starting with MS-DOS 3.10 and going all the way to Windows 10.

Cameo appearance by Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time game.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:32 PM PST - 24 comments

The biggest shakeup for dinosaurs since that big space rock.

Ornithoscelida Rises: A New Family Tree for Dinosaurs [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 5:45 PM PST - 16 comments

But you didn't say what type of beans are on the plate!

People Share the Most Pointless Argument They’ve Been Passionately Involved In, inspired by reddit. (Pleated Jeans has a single-page version without the unfunny commentary.)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:38 PM PST - 246 comments

We'll keep on fighting 'til the end.

The World Go Championship is underway in Japan. Organized by the Nihon Ki-in, it is the first international tournament that will include both professional human players and an artificial intelligence Go-playing program. 1st-day coverage is up on youtube, with commentary from Michael Redmond and Antti Tourmanen (commentary begins at 2:53). [more inside]
posted by sfenders at 4:29 PM PST - 11 comments

HI RON!

Retired Microsoftie and video game nerd Ed Fries [previously] tells the tale of how he and former Atari engineers Ron Milner and Michael Albaugh chased down a forgotten Easter Egg in Atari arcade game Starship 1, programmed by Ron and released in 1977, making it a contender for the title of the oldest known video game Easter Egg.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:48 PM PST - 10 comments

You are commissioned to Trinidad. You leave Cincinnati Wedns. and alone.

Rosa Maria Segale was born in 1850 in rural Italy. At age four, she and her family moved to Cincinnati, where as a teenager at a school run by the Sisters of Charity, she decided she would join them. As Sister Blandina, her sights were set on the west. She was sent to a small town in Colorado Territory and she spent two decades in the region, tending to the ill, educating the poor, building schools and hospitals, speaking up for the rights of Hispanics and displaced Indians, facing down known bandits including one* Billy the Kid (PDF) and saving at least one man from hanging, as depicted in "The Fastest Nun in the West," a 1966 episode of Death Valley Days. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:53 AM PST - 8 comments

Eurovision 2017: harmony, unity, diversity, international conflict

With less than two months until 2017s most important cultural and voting event, another major problem has occurred. Against staff resignations, a possible ineligible entry and a hostile backdrop, the Russian selection, Julia Samoylova, has been barred from traveling to the event host due to entering the Crimea from Russia, a decision which may not be surprising. The Russian Foreign Minister is apparently outraged, and the EBU is trying to broker a settlement. Across the bookmakers, Italy is currently the clear favorite to win, with Bulgaria, Sweden and Belgium also receiving much betting, with strong showings from ex-Yugoslav countries and some commentators thinking this could be Australia's year in Europe.
posted by Wordshore at 10:50 AM PST - 22 comments

Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel

Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel. ‘Five years ago, China’s most charismatic politician was toppled from power. His disgrace allowed his great rival to dominate the political stage in a way unseen in China since the days of Chairman Mao. All this was made possible by a murder. And the story of that murder begins not in China but in a British seaside town.’ A BBC News magazine article by Carrie Gracie (also available in podcast form). Previously: i, ii, iii.
posted by misteraitch at 9:00 AM PST - 7 comments

Walking in the Danchi

Walking in the Danchi - a photo-blog of concrete Danchi style buildings in Japan. [via]
posted by Think_Long at 8:21 AM PST - 11 comments

*GONNNNGGGGGG*

RIP Chuck Barris, dead at 87. NYT obit. Forever associated with The Gong Show, he not only created The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, but he was also a songwriter who wrote game show themes and the hit "Palisades Park" for Freddy Cannon. And perhaps he's a CIA assassin as well? He wrote the "autobiography" Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, later made into a film with George Clooney and Drew Barrymore.
posted by Melismata at 7:49 AM PST - 71 comments

Service ADVISOR

Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware - A dive into the thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking.
posted by timshel at 5:52 AM PST - 73 comments

How is babby formed?

Yahoo's defining moment had nothing to do with its accomplishments. When we look back on Yahoo knowing what we do today, it's clear that Yahoo's true self was revealed in a single, stark meme. I'm talking, of course, of the infamous Yahoo Answers query "how is babby formed?"
posted by veedubya at 1:44 AM PST - 66 comments

March 21

There was no putting the jelly back in the jar.

The NBA's Secret Addiction
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:42 PM PST - 123 comments

Tigers are the teetotalers of the cat family.

With 100 different cats, he rubbed the plant matter on a sock or a square of carpet, and set the material in the cats’ line of sight. Then he waited. Catnip Ain’t the Only Plant That’ll Send Your Kitty to Blissville [more inside]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:15 PM PST - 33 comments

Give me absolute control over every living soul

How a Christian movement is growing rapidly in the midst of religious decline A Christian movement led by popular independent religious entrepreneurs, often referred to as 'apostles,' is changing the religious landscape of America.
posted by adamvasco at 6:38 PM PST - 73 comments

A very impressive likeness

A dad turns his six-year-old son's drawings into reality. They're also on Instagram.
posted by suetanvil at 5:33 PM PST - 40 comments

He would later bribe a French morgue attendant to slice off a bit

An early 20th-century journalist and travel writer, William Buehler Seabrook was once among the most successful wordsmiths of his day. He joined camel raids in Arabia, attended voodoo rites in Haiti, and supped with cannibal kings in Africa. Along the way, he became friendly with Aleister Crowley, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and many of the other most notorious figures of his era.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:08 PM PST - 2 comments

Sorgmæddi beinirinn - "Stave for fast Wifi"

"Take your router and carve this stave onto it using the tip of a narwhal tusk. Place the router in a bucket and fill the bucket with Brennivín. Leave the router soaking in the bucket for twenty four hours. Your Wifi will always be super-fast and your house will smell of caraway." [more inside]
posted by auntie-matter at 4:36 PM PST - 44 comments

What annoyances are more painful than those of which we cannot complain?

The Most Unsatisfying Video In The World Ever Made [soothing music, oddly] (unsatisfying video previously). Cleanse your emotional palate with this Previously Satisfying Video.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:19 PM PST - 32 comments

Rebecca Loops

Watch a nerdy girl with a Dad Joke personality do Biggie Smalls with just her voice and iPad. All of Rebecca's videos.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:58 PM PST - 12 comments

"boring ollie north down in the subway dealing drugs and guns"

30 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1987 "Three decades ago, the long-fought Iran-Iraq war had reached a deadly stalemate, the stock markets took a huge hit on Black Monday in October, American politicians were gearing up for the 1988 presidential race, Baby Jessica was rescued from a well, broadcast live on CNN, and much more. Photographers were also busy documenting the lives of Pee-wee Herman, Menudo, Mikhail Gorbachev, Howard Stern, Princess Diana, Donald Trump, Bernie Goetz, and many others. Take a step into a visual time capsule now, for a brief look at the year 1987." (Alan Taylor, The Atlantic)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:47 PM PST - 52 comments

it might just be the penguin idols

I wasn't even paying enough attention to the announcements or the upcoming anime charts to know that what would become the Japanese anime fandom's biggest anime of Winter 2017—a moe animal girls show based off of a defunct mobile game rendered in exceedingly poor CG—even existed. But here we are.
Trying to explain the weird charm of Kemono Friends. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 3:21 PM PST - 9 comments

The Glass Bank

Those with a penchant for 1960's futuristic designs would find a lot to like in the building at 505 North Orlando Avenue. It's swooping glass walls on all four sides gave it a unique profile that seemed thematically linked to nearby Cape Canaveral. Yet this result of the Cocoa Beach development boom would lead a very strange existence for the next fifty years involving unfortunate elevator designs, the savings and loan crisis, hurricanes and a climactic suicide. Welcome to the Glass Bank.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 3:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Unhappily Ever After

"New York animation artist Jeff Hong has created less-than-rosy portrayals of Disney characters as they might fare in today’s world. They are not cheery images, but they are poignant in their depictions of very real challenges, from animal testing and ocean pollution to drug addiction and teen suicide."
posted by brokeaspoke at 2:45 PM PST - 41 comments

Chop and Steele

The Fake Strongmen of Morning News Explain How They Get Away with It -- A chat with Chop and Steele.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:01 PM PST - 7 comments

The Facebookuette Cube

A paper model designer has created a simple tool about posting on Social Media based on an algorithm by Federico Cerioni. Paper model designer, Giuseppe Civitarese, known in the paper model community as Paperpino, has created a simple paper model as a guide for posting on social media. It might even be useful to us here at MetaFilter. The model is based on an algorithm created by italian communications and digital media consultant, Federico Cerioni.
posted by Altomentis at 1:25 PM PST - 5 comments

A play on uncertainty

1941: Werner Heisenberg—aging wunderkind, formulator of quantum mechanics, key scientist in Hitler's nuclear program—has traveled to Denmark to seek out Niels Bohr, his old mentor. Why has he come? What can the two have to say to each other? How much of the world can be preserved or destroyed in the course of a ten minute walk?
A radio adaptation of Copenhagen, by Michael Frayn. With Simon Russell Beale as Niels Bohr, Greta Scacchi as Margrethe Bohr, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Werner Heisenberg. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 12:43 PM PST - 12 comments

Let me live in the house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.

Henry Warren retired from tobacco farming in 1968 and wanted to amuse himself. He started with a single miniature building, but midway through decided to build something more. For the next nine years, he spent every day with a cigarette in his mouth and a Coca-Cola in his hand, building an idealized miniature country town: Shangri-La. [more inside]
posted by infinitewindow at 12:41 PM PST - 5 comments

World Poetry Day

In honor of UNESCO World Poetry Day, I offer up a poem that has been a part of my life for decades: Ithaka, by C.P. Cavafy [translation from Greek, with additional translations linked on the page]. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 12:35 PM PST - 20 comments

I think the secret to doing things is just doing things

Day 87 of Mark Baumer's vlog and blog of walking across the country barefoot is laugh out loud funny. Two months ago, on day 101 of his walk to raise awareness about climate change, the day after the presidential inauguration, he was struck by an SUV and killed. "We would have been better off electing a barrel of burning tires," read the inscription on the photo he had posted to his website the previous day, the last photo he would ever publish. [more inside]
posted by GregorWill at 10:47 AM PST - 20 comments

California super bloom: the desert is never the same

California, including the southern desert region, has received record rainfall this winter, which has lead to a once in a decade "super bloom" that is bringing visitors from as far as Europe, Africa and Asia. If you want to head into Anza-Borrego, California's largest state park and about a four-hour car drive from Los Angeles, KCET has directions to some sights to see, and Desert USA has a wildflower report plus more resources. If you were ever considering a spontaneous trip to the desert, now is your time. Peak bloom for Anza-Borrego wildflowers is expected to occur mid-March and last until the end of the month.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:46 AM PST - 22 comments

I've been thinking about you a lot lately.

Hi Stranger is a brief animated film by Kirsten Lepore. It features sincere affirmations and also a totally benign claymation butt.
posted by cortex at 10:37 AM PST - 24 comments

Bubble Wrap

Supa Hot Fire is still not a rapper but today he's delivering some scorching new flames. [more inside]
posted by fuse theorem at 9:38 AM PST - 7 comments

Lifetime Not Guaranteed

They Used to Last 50 Years
Now refrigerators last 8–10 years, if you are fortunate. How in the world have our appliances regressed so much in the past few decades? ... Now, many appliances break and need servicing within 2-3 years and, overall, new appliances last 1/3 to 1/4 as long as appliances built decades ago. ... Why is this happening, and what’s really going on?
[more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:55 AM PST - 175 comments

Head-mould-shot

"Romances and Play-books too much gratifie the Humours of the Populace; but humble and sincere Christians, with Delight recall to minde Gods Mercies, and with Awfulness tremble at His Judgments," quoth the anonymous editor of London's Dreadful Visitation, a compilation of the weekly bills of mortality collected in the year 1665. While intended to provide a record of the course of that year's plague, these bills inadvertently provide a cross-section of the ways people died in a 17th-century metropolis, including Kingsevil, Grief, Wormes, Lethargy, Griping in the guts, Purples, French-pox, Livergrown, Stone, and Suddenly. [more inside]
posted by theodolite at 7:40 AM PST - 17 comments

Gender Budgeting

Why national budgets need to take gender into account - "The government does not set out to discriminate, says Diane Elson, the [Women's Budget Group]'s former chair. Rather, it overlooks its own bias because it does not take the trouble to assess how policies affect women. Government budgets are supposed to be 'gender-neutral'; in fact they are gender-ignorant. Ms Elson is one of the originators of a technique called 'gender budgeting'—in which governments analyse fiscal policy in terms of its differing effects on men and women. Gender budgeting identifies policies that are unequal as well as opportunities to spend money on helping women and which have a high return. Britain has declined to adopt the technique, but countries from Sweden to South Korea have taken it up." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:54 AM PST - 5 comments

Reuniting the lost sheep

Using various techniques both traditional and digital, a 14th-century altarpiece that had been dismantled comes together again...including one lost panel
posted by PussKillian at 6:46 AM PST - 5 comments

You are ruining my beautiful voice!

Bob Robertson, one half of the duo that taught a generation of odd Canadian children their politics on Saturday mornings, is dead.
posted by clawsoon at 5:19 AM PST - 13 comments

Dodododoo dodododoo dodododo doooooo

2 sonic branding experts talk about the psychology of famous sounds - from Nokia and T-Mobile ringtones to intros for Sega and EA Games and even the MGM lion. (SLYT)
posted by divabat at 2:42 AM PST - 22 comments

March 20

Sticks Please!

5 American teenagers showcased their drum skills in their high school talent show-- (slyt) Teen walks onstage for talent show. When friends join, routine is unlike anything you've likely seen.
BOOM Baby! [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 10:00 PM PST - 22 comments

rawr!

ResuREXion on Mt Washington (SLInstagram video)
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:45 PM PST - 15 comments

Men, women, children, omnibuses, carriages, glass coaches

Samuel Butler refused to take sides. ‘It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another,’ he quipped, ‘and so make only two people miserable and not four.’
posted by Chrysostom at 1:40 PM PST - 16 comments

“Listen!”

Zelda: Home Automation - Zelda: Ocarina of Time [YouTube] YouTube tinkerer Allen Pan, created a smart home automation system based off the Zelda series using the ocarina from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. [via: The Verge]
posted by Fizz at 1:01 PM PST - 10 comments

political commands have always had their dissenters

"The only way to stay sane under its light is to not look at it, to almost pretend that it doesn’t exist. All the old rites and superstitions that once warded off mystical evils have been condensed into one single command, so vast and monolithic we’ve forgotten that it’s even possible to disobey: Don’t look directly at the sun."
posted by griphus at 11:09 AM PST - 70 comments

Coffee rust and Panama disease: the problems with monocultures

What started as a drink for social gatherings of nobility and the wealthy spread, and by the 1800s, the British were big fans of coffee with densely planted plantations in Ceylon satisfied their desires for caffeine. But then came coffee rust (previously), and soon after, so did a Scotish grocer, Thomas Lipton, who had Camellia sinensis shrubs planted to replace blighted Coffea trees. Given such a notable history, you would imagine other produce empires might learn some lessons from reliance on a monoculture, but not so the United Fruit Company, who replaced the popular but Panama disease-plighted Gros Michel with the look-alike Cavendish. Around a decade ago, the Cavendish first faced a similar threat to the Gros Michel: humans made the perfect banana, and soon it'll be gone. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:18 AM PST - 55 comments

"People talk of Utopia in the present tense when they discuss it."

British conspiracy thriller Utopia [ previously / fanfare ] aired from 2013-14 and won an International Emmy for Best Drama. The Media Experiences project recently released the results of their production & audience research [pdf] into the cult drama. Drawing on over 70 interviews, the report highlights the show's transgressive aesthetics and its moral questions as appealing to an international audience that's remained in ongoing conversation with the show and its themes. In illustration, fanmade video essay "Utopia: Reinventing Onscreen Violence" analyzes how the show disrupts usual cinematic narratives of violence and stokes anxiety by disorienting binaries. (Links contain graphic violence & spoilers for the entire show.)
posted by mixedmetaphors at 9:17 AM PST - 12 comments

Meet Julia

via Sesame Street: "We’re very excited to announce that a new friend will be joining us on Sesame Street! Our new friend is Julia; she is a 4-year-old with autism! " "Julia started last year as a character in Sesame's books and digital offerings. Sesame decided on a two-fold mission for the related campaign "See Amazing in All Children," to give children with autism and their families someone to identify with — and those that don't a window into their world." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:05 AM PST - 20 comments

The Best Damn Thing In Each State

The absolute best thing about each of the 50 states. Yes, it's Thrillist clickbait. But at least it's on one page, and relatively snark-free (sorry Florida).
posted by Etrigan at 8:58 AM PST - 108 comments

Trigger Warning

Theresa May to trigger Article 50 on 29th March: “Theresa May will trigger article 50...the prime minister’s spokesman has confirmed.” [more inside]
posted by pharm at 7:54 AM PST - 211 comments

F.U.W.

It may be a F.U.W., but this video by Jussie Smollett nails it in many, many ways. (SLYT)
posted by HuronBob at 4:29 AM PST - 8 comments

March 19

An intellectual disguised as a barroom primitive

Jimmy Breslin, Pulitzer-winning New York City newspaper columnist, dies at 88. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 11:09 PM PST - 31 comments

Your Favorite Fictional Band or Fictional Athlete Sucks!

     Who's in the Fictitious Athlete Hall of Fame? The Hanson Brothers sure as %!*& are, and so is Harry Doyle. But what about Amanda Whurlitzer? and Dukes? Maybe not yet, but you can vote for them!
     Same with the Fictitious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Spinal Tap, The Monkees, and the Blues Brothers were shoo-ins for the inaugrural year – but Wyld Stallyns, The Rutles, The Banana Splits and The Richie Cunningham Experience are waiting for you to seal their place in fake rock-n-roll history!
posted by not_on_display at 10:24 PM PST - 51 comments

Welcome to the Grosh

User "Mazdeuce" on the Grassroot Motorsports forums bought a house near Houston with his wife thirteen years ago, and it included a somewhat collapsing detached garage. Being a stay-at-home dad, the time finally came that he tackled the menace in 2013. [more inside]
posted by mrbill at 7:32 PM PST - 43 comments

Myron Rolle Will Open Your Mind

What happens when a player chooses academics over immediate NFL success? (Mefi previously) In the case of Myron Rolle, dreams come true- after four years of medical school, he learned Friday he had been matched for his long-dreamed of residency in neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:52 PM PST - 6 comments

3,6-dichloro-2-methoxybenzoic acid

There's something in the air in the Missouri bootheel, and it's the auxinic herbicide dicamba. Dicamba has been around since the 1940s, but it's increasingly in the news thanks to Xtend, Monsanto's "crop system" comprising (a) genetically-modified dicamba- (and glyphosate-) resistant broadleaf crops and (b) a dicamba formulation resistant to drifting away on the wind. With the EPA only approving the reduced-volatility dicamba last November, farmers who planted the already-approved Xtend crops sprayed existing (volatile) dicamba formulations anyway last year, harming adjacent non-resistant plants. In the aftermath, Missouri's largest peach farm is suing Monsanto for millions, and a dicamba drift dispute seems to have driven one farmer to murder. [more inside]
posted by tss at 4:28 PM PST - 15 comments

Rebellion has its roots in government's indifference and incompetence.

The Big Deal this week is Neil Gorsuch's nomination hearings. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has trouble understanding why its revised immigration ban was blocked (it also has trouble distinguishing praise from satire). [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:32 PM PST - 2416 comments

IT'S TOO BIG

A lazy Sunday passes on social media and all the people want to know is : WHY IS THE CHICKEN SO BIG?
posted by The Whelk at 2:07 PM PST - 98 comments

“The terror threat is significant"

“We are going to be having an increase in the movements of weapons in coming years and we should be worried,” said Robert Alvarez, a former deputy assistant Energy secretary who now focuses on nuclear and energy issues for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. “We always have to assume the worst-case scenario when we are hauling nuclear weapons around the country.”
posted by Chrysostom at 1:37 PM PST - 7 comments

And so it went.

NBC News Overnight, a live one-hour news program, aired for about seventeen months starting on July 5, 1982. Its debut coincided with a lunar eclipse, and despite science reporter Robert Bizel’s disappearance during the live broadcast (he went for some coffee), it was a success from the first night. It was probably the best-written, best-executed news program ever produced. It never talked down to its viewers because, from day one, it never assumed that the lowest common denominator was the way to go. Entirely the opposite, in fact. The writing was crisp, witty, and smart. Overnight closed its doors in the first week of December 1983, after NBC management dropped it because of low ratings. -- Never mind Jon Stewart, I still miss NBC News Overnight [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 12:27 PM PST - 30 comments

Gene-mapping Dreamtime

Over the last decade, bearing out what archeological evidence already implied, several DNA studies (previously) have established that Australian Aboriginal peoples belonged to a single migrant group who departed Africa around 72,000 years ago, arriving in Sahul about twenty millenia later. Now a new study of mitochondrial DNA maps out the philogeography of this first peopling of Australia, showing the group rapidly encircling the continent - and then essentially staying put, each subgroup in their area... for fifty thousand years. [more inside]
posted by progosk at 12:07 PM PST - 20 comments

“See if I’m wrong.”

“The first few hours of Mass Effect: Andromeda are… well they aren’t good.” [Rock, Papers, Shotgun] “The first few hours of Andromeda are a gruesome trudge through the most trite bilge of the previous three games, smeared out in a setting that’s horribly familiar, burdened with some outstandingly awful writing, buried beneath a UI that appears to have been designed to infuriate in every possible way. I had gone in assuming this would be more BioWare pleasure. So far – and let’s be clear, there’s lots of room and time for it to pick up and turn things around – the first few hours have been just awful.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:34 AM PST - 186 comments

ooOOOoohheeeerrrrRRrrRrrrRRah aha ha hannnnnnngg

Make some weird noises through manual speech synthesis, with the utterly goddam wonderful Pink Trombone. (via waxy.)
posted by cortex at 10:22 AM PST - 24 comments

A Modern Prometheus

Comics artist and illustrator Bernie Wrightson has passed away after a struggle with cancer. Best known as the co-creator of Swamp Thing and for his astounding illustrated version of Frankenstein, he was a huge influence of many artists and will be sorely missed.
posted by Artw at 9:33 AM PST - 35 comments

Irony doesn’t negate sexism, it just helps it dodge accountability.

Emma Pittman's article, Ironic Sexism: the Male Gaze of Hipster Spaces, discusses the ways that hipster spaces try to rebrand sexism as ironic and therefore acceptable.
posted by bile and syntax at 9:26 AM PST - 38 comments

Shrink your waste.

Zero Waste: coming soon (hopefully) to a grocery near you. Valérie Leloup, a French-born 45-year-old was an executive with food giant Danone for several years in Germany and then in Montreal. Inspired by Bea Johnson's book Zero Waste Home, a gift from her mother last Christmas, she set out to start NU, a zero waste bulk grocery store in Ottawa. [more inside]
posted by yoga at 8:08 AM PST - 26 comments

... but Baseball is pretty good too (dogfilter)

ESPN's E:60 series tells the story of The Trenton Thunder's family of Bat Dogs. From the perspective of one of the dogs. [more inside]
posted by DigDoug at 5:59 AM PST - 7 comments

home is wherever I'm with you

Charlie Peck records a duet cover of Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: between himself on the first day of testosterone treatment and himself 9 months later.
posted by divabat at 4:06 AM PST - 16 comments

"The future is here, it just hasn't finished melting yet."

Utopia in the Time of Trump - "Written before Trump's election and released just after his inauguration, [Kim Stanley Robinson's] New York 2140 stands as the first major science fictional artifact of the Trump era, anticipating even in its articulation of the conditions of victory the fragility of progress and the likelihood of reversal." (via) [previously] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:12 AM PST - 13 comments

March 18

Sit and relax.

Let this guy work his craft. (slyt) A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaf, rolled in a series of types and sizes, that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 7:55 PM PST - 6 comments

This Article Won’t Change Your Mind

In one particularly potent example of party trumping fact, when shown photos of Trump’s inauguration and Barack Obama’s side by side, in which Obama clearly had a bigger crowd, some Trump supporters identified the bigger crowd as Trump’s. When researchers explicitly told subjects which photo was Trump’s and which was Obama’s, a smaller portion of Trump supporters falsely said Trump’s photo had more people in it.
The facts on why facts alone can’t fight false beliefs
posted by AFABulous at 6:23 PM PST - 65 comments

Roll over Beethoven, make room for Johnny B. Goode

Only a few months after releasing a new album at age 90, rock legend Chuck Berry has passed away. He was one of the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:38 PM PST - 147 comments

Col. Ben Skardon march

Tomorrow Colonel Ben Skardon will participate in the Bataan Memorial Death March for the 10th time. Skardon is a survivor of the actual Bataan Death March, when about 75,000 Filipino and U.S. soldiers were surrendered to Japanese forces. Colonel Skardon is 99 years old.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:02 PM PST - 13 comments

A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.

Phillip Kremer creates disturbing and creepy portrait collages. More on Instagram and tumblr. (Unsettling portraits previously.)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:13 PM PST - 9 comments

Which BFFs are the best?

Which teenage best friends in literature, television, and movies are really the best? Play along in Forever Young Adult's March Madness. [more inside]
posted by Margalo Epps at 12:26 PM PST - 26 comments

A lettuce grows in Hong Kong

Farming the skies of Hong Kong.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:22 PM PST - 9 comments

Why'd you eat that leaf?

Kirby, an ode to a kitten by rap artist Aesop Rock, for his 2016 album The Impossible Kid, featuring clever rhymes, winsome puppetry, and an unbelievably cute kitten. The Impossible Kid on Genius.com.
posted by merriment at 11:25 AM PST - 26 comments

Behold the Precious Wings

Saori Kobayashi is best known as the composer for the Panzer Dragoon series of games and its kind-of-cousin Crimson Dragon, but in addition to numerous other soundtracks, she also produces original music albums as a solo artist and with Yumiko Takahashi (Suikoden) as "AKANE." Soaring, strange and anachronistic, Kobayashi's music blends traditional Japanese composition with electronic elements to create a dreamlike future folk music from that borderless country, Imagination. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 11:04 AM PST - 4 comments

We'll add some happy little clouds

Did you know there's a database of all of Bob Ross's paintings from The Joy of Painting on the Internet? You do now, so no excuses! Includes some fan-made art and helpful lists of colors used, etc.
posted by pjern at 10:15 AM PST - 17 comments

"tantalizing for what they show, but also what they don’t show"

Cornell recently digitized its Loewentheil Collection of African-American Photographs, 645 images spanning the century from the Civil War to the 1960s. These images are largely of unknown individuals, such as an elegantly dressed African-American woman from the 1870s; a late nineteenth-century man with a cane; and three small children. (Note that there is at least one image of a lynching and others of child slave labor.)
posted by praemunire at 9:37 AM PST - 10 comments

we call it weed now

What Happens When a Priest, a Rabbi and a Gay Atheist Smoke a Joint Together? (slvideo) [more inside]
posted by beisny at 7:45 AM PST - 13 comments

How Stores Are Designed To Fat Shame

How Stores Are Designed To Fat Shame: Store layouts often discriminate against plus-size shoppers, writes professor Kathryn Anthony. What can be done about it?
posted by Room 641-A at 7:36 AM PST - 70 comments

March 17

Yo La Tengo WFMU All-Request Marathon TODAY

Yo La Tengo are once again playing requests for pledges beginning at 3pm US EDT TODAY (Sat March 18) on WFMU. Every year, Yo La Tengo perform requests live on-air in exchange for pledges, to help keep freeform noncommercial radio station WFMU (91.1 FM in Jersey City, NJ) on the air. This year is no exception. They will begin playing at 3pm US EDT today, and will be playing listener requests for several more hours.
posted by trashflow at 10:48 PM PST - 35 comments

No more whining about cheap wines.

Ignore the Snobs, Drink the Cheap, Delicious Wine. "...This technological revolution has democratized decent wine. Thanks to pumps and powders, drinkers who can’t splurge no longer have to settle for plonk. The gap between fine wine and commercial wine is shrinking as producers use chemical shortcuts not only to avoid blatant flaws, but also to mimic high-end bottles. They can replicate the effects of oak for a fraction of the price of real barrels, correct for inferior climates and keep quality high in crummy vintages." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 5:06 PM PST - 102 comments

How much wood would a woodcock cock if a woodcock would cock wood?

Dancing woodcocks: Walk like an EgyptianMilkshakeSmooth CriminalWhat is LoveShine. And one jack snipe: Rubber Ball
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 4:24 PM PST - 14 comments

The GIGABORE: A decade of cultural blandness

What do you get if you compare the culture of 2007 to 2017? The GIGABORE is an interesting (if bare bones) attempt to compare a decade of cultural change which identifies both the strengths and weaknesses of the last 10 years of culture.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 3:29 PM PST - 33 comments

Xeno-Futurism

Sino-Futurism (SLVimeo) [more inside]
posted by R.F.Simpson at 2:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Who gets what degree where?

Educational Attainment in America. Kyle Walker used US Census data, OpenStreetMap, and some programming to produce the visualization. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 2:32 PM PST - 27 comments

Danielle Steel's Dark and Stormy Night

"She started her first book off “It was a gloriously sunny day and the call from Carson Advertising came at nine-fifteen.” She’s never looked back. Nearly half her of introductions involve weather—mostly benign, positive weather (“perfect deliciously warm Saturday afternoons,” “perfect balmy May evening”, “absolutely perfect June day,” or simply: “The weather was magnificent.”)," from Danielle Steel Loves the Weather and Elmore Leonard Hates Exclamation Points: Literature by the Numbers, excerpts from Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve: And Other Experiments in Literature by Ben Blatt.
posted by palindromic at 1:55 PM PST - 7 comments

i like big mutts and i cannot lie

Snapchat isn't just for human animals, y'all. Here are 26 snapchats from your dog. Here are many, many more. If your tastes are a bit a lot more twee, here are 15 dogs on Snapchat that you need to add now. (animal snapchats previously.) BONUS: Shiba Singception [howling howling howling howling howling].

What? Okay fine, whatever, here are some cats.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:34 PM PST - 8 comments

Dana Crawford, urban preservation pioneer

Around the same time Jane Jacobs was going toe-to-toe with Robert Moses in New York, Dana Crawford was fighting to preserve a historic part of downtown Denver, Larimer Square, from the "clean slate" style of "urban renewal" that was popular in the 1960's. How Dana Crawford’s heart saved the soul of Denver. "I’m attracted to beautiful places, and, a lot of times, they happen to be places that have been ignored. When I go around the country on consulting jobs and I get to the towns, I always say, ‘Take me to your pigeons and your pensioners,’ and then I find the beautiful buildings." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:45 AM PST - 9 comments

March Fadness

From the team that brought you March Sadness (previously), March Fadness "features one-hit wonders of the 1990s pitted against each other in ridiculous and possibly pointless games, all in search of understanding the 1990s and its culture as well as the uses and failures of memory." [more inside]
posted by carrienation at 11:32 AM PST - 55 comments

the white moon’s filaments wane

Derek Walcott, Poet and Nobel Laureate of the Caribbean, Dies at 87 [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 10:54 AM PST - 17 comments

Tat Tvam Asi

Everything. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:44 AM PST - 10 comments

"I fell in love with this wild, vibrant whore of a language"

Longreads has “Hrafnkell,” the first chapter of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, by Kory Stamper. (Previously)
posted by gladly at 10:18 AM PST - 12 comments

Hog-wilding

As any motorcycle rider knows, some of the greatest fun you can have is a nice, sedate ride along a twisted mountain road. Sports bike enthusiasts sometimes like to make that ride a little more exciting. But every now and again, you get a big boy who shows the sports bikes how to do it.
posted by hanov3r at 9:41 AM PST - 62 comments

True Dreams of Wichita

Plungers work: After anonymous stunt, Wichita makes bike lane protection permanent
posted by aniola at 9:36 AM PST - 20 comments

"When gender differences are ignored in health studies"

How the assumption that males* are the "gold standard" has led science to ignore women, with harmful and even fatal results. [more inside]
posted by John Cohen at 9:28 AM PST - 26 comments

Irish Slavery

This Saint Patrick’s Day essay will briefly review Ireland’s anti-slavery history before focussing on the more representative and troubling issue of slave ownership among those of Irish descent. What could be more appropriate? - “Kiss me, my slave owners were Irish”
posted by Artw at 8:51 AM PST - 13 comments

Strange Beasts in Poison Cave

Strange Beasts in Poison Cave
posted by Dim Siawns at 8:46 AM PST - 21 comments

The Roots of Cowboy Music

The Search for a Black Self in the American West - Carvell Wallace, MTV News [via]
posted by Think_Long at 8:29 AM PST - 3 comments

A harvest underneath the ice

Watch Inuit mussel gatherers in Kangiqsujuaq, Quebec descend into caves that are created under Arctic ice during low tide.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:40 AM PST - 15 comments

Caaaaaaaaaaarrrrrlllllll!!!!

Paul and Carl are roommates. There's just one problem: Carl is a "dangerous psychopath with a history of violence." Also, they are llamas. Llamas with Hats. [This tastelessly funny series of animated shorts is probably NSFW.]
posted by Room 641-A at 4:49 AM PST - 21 comments

Circular runways?

Will circular runways ever take off? (autoplay video) Maybe not. [more inside]
posted by zanni at 2:10 AM PST - 45 comments

March 16

Aux urnes, Citoyens

Who will win the French presidential election? According to current polls, center-left outsider Emmanuel Macron is likely to become the next French President, winning 60-65% of the votes against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, but many things could happen between now and April 23. French presidential elections used to be a simple thing, decided by a run-off between the candidates of the two major (socialist vs conservative) parties. The system was upset in 2002 when Le Pen's father trounced the socialist candidate in the first round, only to be crushed in the second round by Chirac. The situation was back to normal in 2007 and 2012 (with Sarkozy embracing far-right rhetorics), but in 2017 the two candidates most likely to win are outsiders unaffiliated to mainstream parties. A round-up of the main candidates below the fold. [more inside]
posted by elgilito at 7:32 PM PST - 32 comments

The Massacre of Mankind

The pioneering 1898 novel The War of the Worlds has inspired many tributes. There was the infamous 1938 radio play by Orson Welles. The rocket scientist Robert Goddard was inspired by it's concepts of space travel. Many films have been made, from the Sputnik era classic to the Tom Cruise era film in which Dakota Fanning screams. In 1978 it was set to music in the best-selling Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. And now you can read the official sequel. Authorized by the HG Wells Estate, The Massacre of Mankind is by Stephen Baxter.
posted by adept256 at 7:30 PM PST - 27 comments

“If it’s not properly poured it’s not presented to you properly,”

Vancouver Bar’s Poorly Poured Guinness Draws Ire [The Toronto Star] A Vancouver restaurant provoked the ire of the Irish after sharing a photo of a poorly poured pint of Guinness to promote their St. Patrick’s Day party. Railtown Café’s photo of an overflowing drink with foam oozing down the glass was meant to be artsy, said owner Dan Olson. But it “was a little too artsy and it really struck a chord with some of our Irish clientele out there,” admitted Olson, who woke up Tuesday morning to a barrage of emails and comments on the restaurant’s social media profiles. What they thought was an inoffensive photo had quickly caught the attention of Guinness connoisseurs from as far away as Ireland, the home of the beloved brew.
posted by Fizz at 7:03 PM PST - 81 comments

Under-Proved or Worth a Hollywood Handshake?

When The Great British Bake-Off moved to Channel Four, it lost both color hosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins and baking queen and UK treasure Mary Berry. (Insert sad baking pun here.)
At long last, their replacements have been announced: for color, we have Noel Fielding of frenetic comedy show The Mighty Boosh and current-host-of-QI-but-also-many-other-things Sandi Toksvig; for baking expertise we have Prue Leith. (That’s two CBEs in exchange for one OBE, for those keeping score.)
One take from Radhika Sanghani at The Telegraph, another from Marissa Martinelli at Slate.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:32 PM PST - 42 comments

Pay Us For Your Execution: US Calls In Cambodian War Debt

Impoverished Cambodia is being pressed to repay a half billion dollar debt dating back to the US mass bombings of the early 70s. The debt was incurred by a US-installed dictator, allegedly in the form of (mostly dumped) food supplies. But Cambodia's food supplies were being disrupted by a "secret" US bombing campaign against the neutral nation. Nearly as many tons of explosives were dropped on mostly civilian targets, causing two million to flee rural areas and according to most analysts leading directly to the rise of the brutal Khmer Rouge insurgency.
posted by blankdawn at 4:47 PM PST - 34 comments

A Whole New World

A Musical History of the Search for Exoplanets
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:58 PM PST - 15 comments

I've got boxes full of Pepe!

David Dockery brings us Pepe Silvia with drums.
posted by komara at 2:38 PM PST - 16 comments

Mitt Romney once called Battlefield Earth his favorite novel

A long, detailed look at L. Ron Hubbard as science fiction author.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:19 PM PST - 47 comments

Please help our class as we study surveys and graphs

Mrs. Porter's 2nd Grade Class Survey
posted by OverlappingElvis at 1:46 PM PST - 108 comments

"Then I found tricking."

Tricking is a training discipline that combines martial arts, gymnastics and breakdancing. Ingun Yoo, a.k.a. Kick Gun, is a master of the taekwondo form [music and voiceover] whereas Michael Guthrie and Jacob Pinto go for the flash [driving music and cheering]. Tricking previously. BONUS: how to clear some room for yourself in a crowd [whooshing and cheering].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:31 PM PST - 11 comments

An Omnivorous Tour of the 2017 Whitney Biennial

See highlights from the 2017 Whitney Biennial, which opens to the public later this week.
posted by bq at 1:19 PM PST - 7 comments

A Luncheon Dish for every day in the year!

365 Luncheon Dishes, a cookbook from 1902. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 11:55 AM PST - 75 comments

Norway's beautiful new "pixelated" money

Norway has unveiled its new banknotes, which have a sea motif (50 krone, "The Sea That Binds Us Together"; 200 krone, "The Sea That Carries Us Forward") and "digitized" reverses designed to follow the Beaufort wind force scale, with the blocks lengthening as the denomination rises. (via kottke)
posted by Etrigan at 11:50 AM PST - 40 comments

I want my organdy snood and in addition to that…

Any day can be Do-Mi-Do Day. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:22 AM PST - 11 comments

"Every wrinkle has to be elaborately made"

It’s thought that oil-paper umbrellas originated in China over 1,000 years ago, but they quickly spread throughout Asia, including to Thailand and Japan (where umbrella culture is a pretty big deal). [more inside]
posted by cellar door at 10:07 AM PST - 7 comments

Your prohibitive favorite is Logan Handsompants

Corgi Races. (SLYT, ~12 min). (But trust me you will not have 12 happier minutes today.) [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 9:22 AM PST - 29 comments

In the future, Hot Plates are HOT Plates

Vaseline Glass, gets its name from the Vaseline color typically associated with the original pieces. It’s original name was Uranium Glass, as Uranium dust was typically ground up and added to the glass as a colorant. Josef Reidel is the name often thrown around for inventing it in 1830, however this is up for debate. Oh, also, yes, URANIUM DUST IS IN DECORATIVE FLATWARE [more inside]
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 8:55 AM PST - 27 comments

fair wages and equitable support

"The U.S. Women's National Hockey Team — the reigning world champions — won't be defending their title this year. They announced Wednesday that they will be boycotting the championships later this month as a protest against USA Hockey, citing stalled negotiations for "fair wages and equitable support" from the organization."

Twenty-one players tweeted a statement announcing the boycott yesterday along with the hashtag #BeBoldForChange. In the words of star forward Hilary Knight, "Good luck getting a suitable No. 1 competition to represent our country on a world stage. I kind of dare them."
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:52 AM PST - 86 comments

If your theory doesn't agree with the data, stop the flow of data.

The Trump Administration's NASA budget request cancels four climate science missions [more inside]
posted by Major Clanger at 8:35 AM PST - 51 comments

Books that "capture the acute pleasures and pains of being human"

The Wellcome Book Prize announced its 2017 shortlist, recognizing the best books--across all genres of non-fiction and fiction--actively engaged with the life-defining forces of medicine, health, and illness. Commenting on the books honored this year, Chair of Judges Val McDermid says, "What these six challenging, diverse and enriching titles have in common is their insight into what it means to be human. Together they form a mosaic that illuminates our relationship with health and medicine. It spans our origins, our deaths and much that lies between, from activism to acts of human kindness." [more inside]
posted by mixedmetaphors at 8:04 AM PST - 5 comments

Loving

The Loving Project talks with interracial couples about their experiences with race and being together. We are the Fifteen Percent, inspired by the Cheerios ad, [previously] publishes user-submitted photos of interracial families on its tumblr. [more inside]
posted by Margalo Epps at 7:52 AM PST - 15 comments

Take care, Gerard

Gerard Vlemmings, a long-time blogger from the Netherlands, was the one behind Presurfer, a daily dose of diversion for more than a decade, and mentioned around here many times over the years. He took a short vacation, his first in 16 years, back in January, and then there was another hiatus in early February, which turned out more serious than anyone hoped. On February 25, 2017, Gerard passed away, and his final post on Presurfer has become a memorial wall of sorts, with readers and fellow bloggers paying their respects.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:00 AM PST - 17 comments

Tag yourself I'm the chubby cat crawling from behind the Toffifee

The best German discount grocery store commercial featuring cats you will see all day
posted by Kitteh at 6:53 AM PST - 26 comments

Anxiety is a way of life for Gen Y.

As we face what has become an epidemic of anxiety disorders, we must confront the social conditions behind it.
posted by ellieBOA at 4:22 AM PST - 85 comments

How to survive gaslighting

"How to survive gaslighting: when manipulation erases your reality" "Right now, many Americans listening to their president are experiencing what I experienced frequently a child. Nothing means anything, and reality is being canceled. There is confusion, there is chaos, everything is upside down and inside out. When facts and truth are being discredited, how is it possible to know what to believe, especially when it comes from someone we expect to embody both ethics and etiquette?"
posted by HuronBob at 4:02 AM PST - 45 comments

When she passes

Guardian long read: "It is such a long time since the death of a monarch that many national organisations won’t know what to do. The official advice, as it was last time, will be that business should continue as usual. This won’t necessarily happen. If the Queen dies during Royal Ascot, the meet will be scrapped. The Marylebone Cricket Club is said to hold insurance for a similar outcome if she passes away during a home test match at Lord’s. After the death of George VI in 1952, rugby and hockey fixtures were called off, while football matches went ahead. Fans sang Abide With Me and the national anthem before kick off. The National Theatre will close if the news breaks before 4pm, and stay open if not. All games, including golf, will be banned in the Royal Parks." [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 3:19 AM PST - 68 comments

Growing Up Intersex, All I Wanted Were Breasts

But I Don’t Know If I Want Them Anymore [more inside]
posted by moody cow at 2:35 AM PST - 4 comments

Remembering Latasha Harlins (July 14, 1975 – March 16, 1991)

As its subtitle suggests, part of the project of Brenda Stevenson’s The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Race, Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots is to recover the central role that Harlins’s death and Du’s light sentence played in the lead-up to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.  Although a different legal ruling — the not-guilty verdict for the LAPD officers who were filmed brutally beating Rodney King — provided the riots’ immediate instigating event, Rodney and Latasha’s names were often invoked in the same breath: “Tell me what’s a black life worth / A bottle of juice is no excuse, the truth hurts […] Ask Rodney, Latasha, and many more,” Tupac Shakur rapped in “I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto". -- Common Ground: Brenda Stevenson’s “The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins” By Rachel Monroe [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 1:42 AM PST - 3 comments

March 15

"now it's all about pushing myself"

In 2012, Mark Seacat went Searching for West [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:28 PM PST - 1 comment

If He's So Turned On, Why Aren't I?

[TW: sexual trauma] In 1970, Berkeley-based Freudian analyst Bernard Apfelbaum gave an interview with the Berkeley Barb in which he outlined Freud's late-career revision of his theory of defenses and the failure of the analytic community to catch notice. Says Apfelbaum following the interview,
That led to a call from a woman attempting to work as a surrogate, on her own, after reading Masters and Johnson’s description of that work. She was having trouble and needed a consultant. The Barb interview made me look like a possible resource.
Together they formed the Berkeley Sex Therapy Group and the surrogate, known as Andrea, wrote about her work and the insights gained from it in a one-of-a-kind article: If He's So Turned On, Why Aren't I?
posted by Taft at 10:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Original Comic Book Guy

"Pop" Hollinger was arguably the first comic book store owner. In the late 1930's, he quit his full time job and concentrated on selling used comic books and used paperbacks. Part of his business plan included "rebuilding" the comics by gluing brown paper to the spines and edges of his comics. Pop ran a comic book mail order service, for 25 or 30 cents you could receive 5 to 10 golden age comics in the mail. Many of his comics still circulate among collectors. More information and pictures of his comics at the bottom of this page. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 7:01 PM PST - 3 comments

“Most shocking is the muscularity of the animal's legs and butt —”

Two Men's Quest for Florida's Mysterious Skunk Ape by Bill Kearney [Miami New Times] “They have, however, encountered the inexplicable. "Last time we were out — I'm not kidding you — we heard a female," Conner says. Barton adds, "They want to get close to you is what we think, because they're familiar with us. They have a great curiosity." The "they" Conner and Barton refer to are skunk apes, Florida's slender, hairy, and pungently scented seven-foot-tall version of the legendary Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch. Conner claims he and his sister as children saw one when they were playing near the swamp in an area that later became a subdivision. The image of the huge creature loping along a line of banana trees and into the untamed forest has haunted him for decades.” [Previously.]
posted by Fizz at 6:44 PM PST - 13 comments

The story of Percy begins, as all great stories do, at a rest stop in OH

Paul Robertson's trucker cat, Percy: lost and found.
posted by holmesian at 6:44 PM PST - 9 comments

You ask what real change might look like

Adam Curtis on realizing real social change. From an episode of the Chapo Trap House podcast. [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:10 PM PST - 69 comments

Declassified US atmospheric nuclear test footage

For the past five years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) weapon physicist Greg Spriggs and a crack team of film experts, archivists and software developers have been on a mission to hunt down, scan, reanalyze and declassify films of the 210 US atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1962. Around 4,200 films have been scanned, 400 to 500 have been reanalyzed and around 750 have been declassified. An initial set of these declassified films -- tests conducted by LLNL -- were published today in an LLNL YouTube playlist.
posted by figurant at 4:24 PM PST - 25 comments

"extraordinary disobedience for the benefit of society"

The MIT Media Lab is seeking "both expected and unexpected nominees" for its first Disobedience Award. The award will carry USD$250,000 and reward "action that seeks to change society in positive ways" via disobedience consistent with principles such as "non-violence, creativity, courage, and taking responsibility for one’s actions". The request for nominees (deadline: May 1st) comes with a 4min27sec video and a timeline of some historical role models in disobedience, such as Mary Edwards Walker and Sitting Bull. [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 2:38 PM PST - 26 comments

Officer Darren Wilson's List of Admissions

The Washington Post has a Request for Admissions court document in which Darren Wilson admits, among other things, that Michael Brown never went for his gun, that he shot at Brown while Brown was fleeing, and that, at the time, he was engaged to his training supervisor who watched as he destroyed evidence.
posted by AceRock at 1:57 PM PST - 43 comments

Coming home to roost

The Ides of March isn't (aren't?) just known for stabbing. March 15th is also the day that the buzzards make their annual migration(link is from 2016) back to Hinckley, Ohio. How do they measure up against their more-famous avian cousins, the March-19th-migrating swallows of San Juan Capistrano? And will this year's snow storm keep them away?
posted by Mchelly at 1:41 PM PST - 11 comments

I told you we were going in deep.

You can use "r_eyes 0" to disable eyes on the characters completely, and while you're at it you can use "r_teeth 0" to disable teeth. But wait, there's more!
posted by Evilspork at 1:33 PM PST - 13 comments

Who gives a $#%@ about an Oxford comma? Dairy delivery drivers.

A Maine court ruling in a case about overtime pay and dairy delivery didn’t come down to trucks, milk, or money. Instead, it hinged on one missing comma.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:18 PM PST - 54 comments

"I often panic while making sandwiches."

Ranking Every MST3k Episode, From Worst to Best
posted by Chrysostom at 12:38 PM PST - 94 comments

Vitamins, minerals, very high number

Reggae legend Macka B offers up some fresh and salad-friendly bars on the subject of the humble cucumber (SLYT)
posted by auntie-matter at 12:22 PM PST - 8 comments

♫Dah-na-na-na-naaaaaaaa!♫

Nintendo has released three behind-the-scenes videos about the phenomenal Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. Part One - The Beginning. Part Two - Open-Air Concept. Part Three - Story and Characters. Each video runs about 10 minutes long. [more inside]
posted by Diskeater at 12:21 PM PST - 43 comments

The Black Blood of the Earth

At some point, all of us start wondering how much coffee we can drink before our hearts explode. This typically happens when we are up, very late, in college with either the panic of a final the next day or have nothing particularly better to do than try to achieve acute caffeine poisoning... Thus was born Black Blood of the Earth
posted by Karmakaze at 11:27 AM PST - 52 comments

"WE have considered it right and proper to give up the Throne"

100 years ago today Russian tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The emperor, last Romanov ruler, beset by military catastrophes and social unrest, stepped down. He tried to offer the throne to his son, who was too fragile, then his brother, who demurred, paving the way for a provisional government. Within a year Russia would experience revolution and civil war, the Soviet state would be born, and Nicholas and his family all killed. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 11:18 AM PST - 30 comments

Everyone needs a scritch.

Pets can be jealous, too: Dogs tend to be whiny and needy, whereas cats often try to take out the competition. (Sometimes cats get overprotective.) [all videos contain ambient noise only]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:10 AM PST - 12 comments

the big joke was an accent and too much cologne

Kal Penn (actor, former White House staffer, currently acting as a White House staffer) found a bunch of scripts from his early career in the long-ago 1990s and tweeted up a storm about how racist some of them (and the experiences of filming them) were.
posted by Etrigan at 11:01 AM PST - 15 comments

It's all right

"An Electromechanical Sound Machine That Makes Music With Rocks." From Colossal: "A rolling stone gathers no moss as they say, but this collection of stones manipulated by electromechanical devices are capable of performing George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” thanks to artist Neil Mendoza. Titled Rock Band, this kinetic sound art installation is actually four different instruments including a xylophone, a buzzing base, two spinners, and a pair of slappers."
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:27 AM PST - 21 comments

Time is so cruel // Today we fight

봄날 Spring Day // Not Today [more inside]
posted by one teak forest at 7:00 AM PST - 10 comments

Election day in the Netherlands

Today are the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, with 28 parties vying for the 150 seats (out of 81 parties originally registered). Everyone is watching Geert Wilder's far-right anti-immigration anti-muslim PVV party, who has been called "the Dutch Trump" and is said to be "even more toxic than the real thing". He has attracted support from US billionaires and even US congressmen, although VVD leader and current minister-president Mark Rutte says the VVD will not form a coalition with the PVV no matter how many seats they gain. This election is viewed as a bellweather for European populism in the coming French and German elections. [more inside]
posted by autopilot at 6:52 AM PST - 113 comments

Love Deliciously, Baby Carrot

The witch now, in its most modern iteration, seems almost to embody the “Pussy Grabs Back” mentality, the act retaliatory self-empowerment. As one of Elaine’s fellow witches in Biller's film states, their kind have long been perceived as dangerously powerful entities; feared by the men who, for centuries, attempted to subdue them by burning them at the stake or shackling them to loveless marriages, reducing them to nothing but “servants, whores, and fantasy dolls”.
The Love Witch and witchcraft's appeal in the era of Trump [more inside]
posted by mannequito at 5:58 AM PST - 48 comments

MyBodyGallery: How real human bodies look

http://www.mybodygallery.com/ Female Gallery. Male Gallery "In a world full of images of how we "should" look it can get difficult to tell how we DO look. Our hope is to build a site where men and women can see what real people look like. What we really look like. Most people have spent so many years looking at themselves in mirrors that we can no longer see what's really there. The My Body Gallery project's goal is to help people objectively see what we look like and come to some acceptance that we are all beautiful. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 5:29 AM PST - 18 comments

None of us are fully immune to the ideas of the past we grew up with

For over two centuries, American slaveholders, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Nazi Germany, and today’s white supremacist self-styled “alt-right” have all promoted a twisted idea of the Middle Ages that props up their white-supremacist fantasies. And unfortunately, their view of the Middle Ages has trickled into the groundwater of the broader popular historical consciousness.
But the truth is, these Middle Ages are not the Middle Ages: in response to fascist abuse of Medieval history, The Public Medievalist has published a series of essays explaining the real Middle Ages and their ideas about race. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 4:39 AM PST - 48 comments

Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth. They play tennis.

Woonyoung Jung is an illustrator who worked as a visual development artist for How to Train Your Dragon 2. His recent illustrations fall in two series, one of witches in the modern world, and one of women and dinosaurs playing sports. Tumblr/Instagram/Older work at Blogspot
posted by J.K. Seazer at 1:14 AM PST - 12 comments

March 14

Diving elk and Princess Trixie, the world's wisest horse, in Denver

We previously reviewed the unusual history of diving show horses, but did you know that a prime attraction in one of Denver's oldest amusement parks, a large water park called The Chutes or Chutes Park, was a troupe of diving elk? Depending on what you're looking for in animal tricks, they may be of lesser interest than Princess Trixie, whose autobiography promoted her as the Wisest and Most Highly Educated Horse in the World, where she didn't have many kind words for her fellow four-legged proteges of Dr. W. H. Barnes. (via a passing note from Historic Denver)
posted by filthy light thief at 11:07 PM PST - 2 comments

Well isn't this the pits

Lucky Peach likely to close in May "Lucky Peach, the six-year-old indie food media outfit from writer Peter Meehan and restaurant mogul and Momofuku founder Dave Chang, is going through a major upheaval. The entire staff learned on Monday afternoon that their employment would end in May." The magazine won nine James Beard awards — including Publication of the Year in 2016 — and a National Magazine Award for General Excellence. [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 9:46 PM PST - 20 comments

My Jetpack

Cartoons for New Scientist, New Yorker and more. Tumblr posts by Tom Gauld, cartoonists website, Linked before here, but worth another look. previously, previouslier, even previouslierer.
posted by Death and Gravity at 9:09 PM PST - 10 comments

Surfboard repair, and shop cats

Websurfing? Yeah, there's fascinating stuff out there I knew nothing about this, happened on it while looking up heat damage on computer boards. Delightful stuff here, whether you're into it or not.
posted by hank at 8:55 PM PST - 7 comments

Bird whistles, flutes, percussion

Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass.
This long out-of-print 1983 album by the Japanese percussionist and composer has finally seen the light of day with a reissue on We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want To Records and Palto Flats Records.
Andy Beta at Pitchfork has a thorough review that helps provide context. [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 6:12 PM PST - 14 comments

Darkness is good.

The 1930s were humanity's darkest, bloodiest hour. Are you paying attention?
The Guardian takes a special look back at an era bookended by the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the outbreak of the second world war, and asks: what lessons can be learnt from this 'low, dishonest decade'? which was for Roald Dahl a golden age for chocolate.
posted by adamvasco at 5:28 PM PST - 13 comments

If you run that world, that's on you.

Raph Koster , celebrated game designer/creative director (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies) and author (A Theory of Fun for Game Design), discusses the ethical obligations of creators toward their online communities at this year's Game Developers Conference. [more inside]
posted by longdaysjourney at 4:49 PM PST - 24 comments

Who, Indeed?

Many people, when presented with a speech-driven software agent, are tempted to ask the big questions, to see how smart the system actually is. For example, "Who poop?" The answer provided by Amazon's Alexa may suprise you!
posted by murphy slaw at 4:17 PM PST - 27 comments

Home is the mouth of a shark

When migrants are apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection their personal items are confiscated. A janitor found mountains of these items in the trash. Being a photographer, he did the only thing he could: he took pictures.
posted by Cobalt at 1:35 PM PST - 25 comments

Picasso at Work

A supercut of Pablo Picasso painting, drawing, sculpting, engraving, and puttering around in his studio.
posted by Copronymus at 1:33 PM PST - 7 comments

Rule 2: You are a GODDAMN BEAR

Honey Heist is a free tabletop roleplaying game that can be played with a single six-sided die in which your band of hardened criminals must organize the heist of the century during HONEYCON 2017, hampered only slightly by the fact that they are literal bears. (SLimgur)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:32 PM PST - 41 comments

O'Flannagan's (est 2017)

How *do* you go about outfitting your fake Irish pub, anyway?

Fake Irish pubs previously
posted by Chrysostom at 12:37 PM PST - 83 comments

Get Ur Teletubbies On

The Teletubbies perform Missy Elliot's Get Ur Freak On
The Teletubbies perform Die Antewoord's I Fink U Freeky
(previously)
posted by Room 641-A at 11:40 AM PST - 17 comments

Just Short of Being a Con Man, But No More Than Anyone in the Art World

An artist who created precise drawings of money and then used them in actual transactions as a way to question notions of value, J.S.G. Boggs died [January 23rd] at a hotel in Tampa, Florida, according to friends and reports on social media. (ArtNet) [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:38 AM PST - 13 comments

A world with real monsters

Guillermo del Toro at MIA - Metafilter’s own Max Sparber takes a look at the "At Home With Monsters" show, fascism, and the importance of del Toro’s work right now. Previously.
posted by Artw at 11:21 AM PST - 11 comments

Meritocracy rewards bad people for writing good code

It is well-know that the tech industry has a problem with women. Is it any surprise that the alt-right is involved?
posted by Lycaste at 11:12 AM PST - 72 comments

EveryName.info | An unordered list of every name

An unordered list of every name. All the names there are. [via mefi projects]
posted by bondcliff at 11:04 AM PST - 57 comments

Gender-bending vintage photography

Transgender and gender non-conforming people aren't new, of course. Vintage photos show that people have been defying norms for a long time, even if only in the photo studio. It's not clear which of these people are actually transgender, cross-dressing, doing it for political reasons, or just having a lark. But they're fun and sometimes glamorous. (more Paris glamor) [some outdated terminology, potential misgendering] [more inside]
posted by AFABulous at 10:01 AM PST - 16 comments

"You're not planning to go to the lighthouse, are you, Lily."

Lighthouses engulfed in ice
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:48 AM PST - 13 comments

Mad libs, but for fashion

It's hard to be a busy mom, always crawling after your adorable and impeccably attired #babiesofinstagramand getting mud all over the knees of your high-end designer #momjeans. Luckily for you, Nordstrom has taken a quick break from not suffering at all from Twitler attacks to introduce Clear Knee Mom Jeans.
posted by Etrigan at 8:34 AM PST - 53 comments

AT&T dismissed the idea that providers would redline

The Digital Redlining Of Cleveland A new report from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance finds that AT&T systematically deployed high speed technology to wealthier homes, while relegating poorer neighborhoods to the slowest connections. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 7:14 AM PST - 32 comments

So many good dogs!

On Sunday, Crufts 2017 international canine extravaganza awarded Best In Show to an American Cocker Spaniel named Afterglow Miami Ink, accompanied by the inevitable grumbling from naysayers and celebrity comparisons. Miami is a very good dog, but that's not why we're here today. [more inside]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 7:08 AM PST - 21 comments

Listen to the clouds

Live transmissions from airports around the world set to ambient music. For even more ambiance, combine with Astronaut. [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:08 AM PST - 15 comments

Understanding e to the pi i, reprise

Euler's formula with introductory group theory [slyt] - "How some perspectives from group theory shed light on a way the formula e^(pi i) = -1 can make intuitive sense."
posted by kliuless at 2:34 AM PST - 18 comments

March 13

When I was a child, I spake "WTF?!"

Unsettling times deserve unsettling toys. Your kids can shave the baby. Or maybe they'd prefer a lollipop that you eat by making out with Jar Jar Binks. Wait, here's something that's not creepy at all: Poo-Dough.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:12 PM PST - 41 comments

Paul Shaffer – “Happy Street” ft. Bill Murray

Smiling at the folks you meet, when you're Walking down Happy Street.
posted by jenkinsEar at 7:34 PM PST - 20 comments

The Trump administration dons a tinfoil hat

A Washington Post Op-Ed today states: It’s hardly just coincidence that the Trump executive branch is rife with beliefs that are wholly disconnected from reality. The Congressional Budget Office today projected that 24 million Americans will lose health insurance in 10 years. And a late-breaking Politico scoop: the executive branch analysis forecast that 26 million people would lose coverage over the next decade,. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:15 PM PST - 2593 comments

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...

Stuck in the Middle with You: On Reservoir Dogs and the Soundtrack to Savagery (Electric Literature) | 6 Classic Songs That Were Supposed to Be Jokes (Cracked)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:22 PM PST - 27 comments

Abraham Zapruder. Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin. Kip Smithers.

National treasure and erstwhile Madden-breaker Jon Bois dives deep into the (figuratively and literally) blurry history of Troy State's record-shattering 258-141 victory against DeVry University's basketball team. Except it was actually...253? But DeVry really did have a basketball team. Sometimes. Depending. It's complicated.
posted by cortex at 3:42 PM PST - 17 comments

Picturing Math

Displayed together, the historical and contemporary works in the small exhibition chronicle centuries of sharing and considering mathematical knowledge through art, design, and publishing.
posted by bq at 3:17 PM PST - 10 comments

Ghosts of Jonesboro

March 24, 2017 marks the 19th anniversary of the Westside Middle School Shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas. BuzzFeed interviewed several survivors and their families in anticipation of the 15th anniversary, and it's a haunting read.
posted by PearlRose at 2:05 PM PST - 12 comments

Grieving the loss of sex

After Alice Radosh’s husband of 40 years died in 2013, she received, in addition to the usual condolences, countless offers of help with matters like finances, her car and household repairs. But no one, not even close friends or grief counselors, dared to discuss a nagging need that plagues many older women and men who outlive their sexual partners.
posted by standardasparagus at 1:27 PM PST - 23 comments

Internet of shit indeed...

Levi's® Commuter™ x Jacquard by Google Trucker Jacket [YouTube] “The jacket, which will cost around $350 when it goes on sale, is the first commercial product containing ATAP’s Project Jacquard technology, which uses conductive fabric to turn a standard article of clothing into a connected device of sorts that can send instructions to your smartphone, like pausing or skipping a song that’s playing by double tapping your wrist. Think of its functions as similar to those of a smartwatch, but less obtrusive and certainly a lot more stylish.” [via: The Verge]
posted by Fizz at 1:08 PM PST - 61 comments

"Kalanick began courting Levandowski this spring…"

The Uber Bombshell About to Drop
posted by overeducated_alligator at 12:43 PM PST - 111 comments

Project Under-Horse

Under-Horse is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their horses wedged into their scanners, or why. (Non-English video w/optional English YouTube Subtitles)
posted by radwolf76 at 11:54 AM PST - 21 comments

Mr. Toad's Wild Hat

- A Toad Kept Visiting This Guy’s Porch So He Made It Some Hats
- 64 Photos Of Animals Wearing Hats
- 20 Awesomely cute animals wearing tiny hats - Lindsey Bonnice makes hats for her farm animals
posted by Room 641-A at 11:33 AM PST - 25 comments

March 13, 1845

Discovering Music: Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto - and a full performance by David Oistrakh with The Philadelphia Orchestra.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:37 AM PST - 4 comments

I am republican, but Beyoncé is the only queen I have time for.

Curious about what Irish politicians think about Queen Bey? A journalist asks the important questions.
posted by threetwentytwo at 10:37 AM PST - 16 comments

Kept you waiting, huh?

Drew Scanlon is more than just a pretty face perpetually blinking in surprise at you. He has just cashed in his meme money to launch a new solo project called Cloth Map, a travel documentary series. [more inside]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:53 AM PST - 24 comments

SF Masquerades 1967-2000

My Life as a Costumer 1967-2000 - Science Fiction Masquerades and Fashion Shows - A Youtube history by Kat Bushman.
posted by Artw at 9:45 AM PST - 5 comments

New research changes our understanding of who built ancient Silk Roads

"Previous studies used the wrong algorithm and missed an obvious hypothesis. [A] new study in Nature suggests the trade routes may be 2,500 years older than previously believed and its origins much humbler than the rich cities it spawned. [more inside]
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:34 AM PST - 11 comments

Boaty, it's cold outside...

The RRS Sir David Attenborough is still under construction. But Boaty McBoatface is already on the job. The UK's Natural Environment Research Council has announced Boaty McBoatface's first mission: It would have been a travesty to cast aside a name that had captured the imagination of so many people around the world. And so, at the NERC National Oceanography Centre, Autosub Long Range Boaty McBoatface was born. Boaty McBoatface previously and previouslier. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:28 AM PST - 17 comments

Crimson Tide: A Period Piece

On March 18, Melbourne based feminist book club turned water ballet group The Clams are putting on a special performance called Crimson Tide: A Period Piece. The show will feature tampon-shaped pool floats and a 15 metre piece of red fabric. All proceeds will go to Share The Dignity, an Australian nonprofit that distributes menstrual supplies to homeless and vulnerable women and has protested the 10% luxury tax charged on menstrual products in Australia. All funds raised will be matched by Tsuno, a social enterprise that makes sustainable bamboo-based pads. As the Clamstagram says, "Tampons (pads, mooncups ...) are a RIGHT, not a privilege. Period."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:50 AM PST - 17 comments

let the subtle beats flow...

Axian mixes together lofi, chill hiphop mixes. (YT Playlist of 14 mixes including track / producer info) (Axian's YT Channel, with other collected videos and mixes) (Axian on Soundcloud) [more inside]
posted by rebent at 8:43 AM PST - 4 comments

If at first you don't secede...

Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, has announced that she will seek permission to hold a referendum on independence between the Autumn of 2018 and the Spring of 2019 (speech in full). The lack of consultation with the Scottish Government over Brexit, with Article 50 possibly being triggered within days, is a major factor in this decision, which has come as a surprise to some. A small possibility of Holyrood-Westminster compromise remains open. In 2014 Scotland voted 45% Yes, 55% No. One poll is currently close; the official Pro-Leave website. Previously on MetaFilter. (Title apologies)
posted by Wordshore at 7:25 AM PST - 137 comments

The Outsiders at 50

A look into the museum and the author as "The Outsiders" turns 50, and Coppola's movie version is 35. (SLNYT)
posted by k5.user at 7:08 AM PST - 25 comments

Probus vir, parvo contentus

The colorful and influential career of Reginald Foster, Vatican Latinist.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:37 AM PST - 12 comments

Coming to Tehrangeles

Back then, I didn’t like Persian Palaces much. From what I knew, rich Persians built those swanky homes in Beverly Hills, spending a pretty penny—those columns were said to go for four figures a pop in their heyday. Maybe those Persians longed for centuries-old kingdoms, but the Iran my parents were nostalgic for wasn’t the one of the ancient era, but of the recent past, colored by memories of road trips to the Caspian Sea and the comforts of being raised in large families and always having them close, before the Islamic Revolution and an eight-year war with Iraq scattered the living generations of Iranians all over the world. Now, I wonder if Persian Palaces should have meant a little more to me then, and to Los Angeles, before they went out of vogue.

Learning to love the ‘Persian Palaces’ of Beverly Hills – What these boxy mansions taught me about being Iranian-American
posted by timshel at 3:59 AM PST - 17 comments

March 12

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.

Even though tattoos are frowned upon in South Korea, Seoul-based artist Jiran will design and ink a cheerful tattoo of your pet (more at his Instagram). Rival Sol Tattoo does cute cats.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:02 PM PST - 16 comments

Well there ain't no time to wonder why, Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Although there has been no major combat between the great powers since the Second World War, there are three key fronts emerging that make the prospect of a third global conflict alarmingly conceivable. [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 8:06 PM PST - 57 comments

These Days Are New

Spookey Ruben - Mr. Everywhere (English Version) | Spookey Ruben - Mr. Everywhere (German Version) | Spookey Ruben - Mr. Everywhere (Japanese Version) | Spookey Ruben - Mr. Everywhere (Spanish Version) | Spookey Ruben - Mr. Everywhere (French Version)
posted by Sys Rq at 5:16 PM PST - 12 comments

"The flatter the landscape, the flatter the accent"

Our understanding of Edwardian Britain is dominated by images from flickering footage and formal family portraits. But a remarkable discovery has been made which for the first time gives voice to the Edwardians. Hundreds of recordings have come to light which reveal the accents and dialects of British Prisoners of War held in German camps and recorded during World War One. This archive presents a unique glimpse into the way ordinary men spoke at the time.
[more inside]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 3:20 PM PST - 11 comments

The crowdfunding paradigm is not itself fair

Buzzfeed longform on who gets funded and who gets left behind in crowdfunding healthcare costs.
posted by ActionPopulated at 3:10 PM PST - 18 comments

"#Resist March for LGBTQIA and POC Equality"

Christopher Street West has announced that this year's LA Pride Parade will be a protest march instead, joining with a planned national LGBT Resist March scheduled for June 11th. It's worth noting that due to construction projects in West Hollywood, the annual Pride festival has roughly 70% less space available to it for this year's activities, and is facing a drastic scaling down of its events for Pride Weekend.
posted by ApathyGirl at 3:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Consider heavy metals, and parking lots

Puheenvuoro (Have the floor) is a 9 minute cringe documentary with english subtitles. Edited from a marathon city council meeting in Tampere, 2nd largest city in Finland on topic of constructing a tram line. [more inside]
posted by Free word order! at 1:14 PM PST - 20 comments

The Mask of Deception: The Ultimate Test to My Recovery From Porn Addict

Novelist Benjamin Obler was feeling secure in his recovery from porn addiction. Then along came Franny, to test it. [more inside]
posted by holmesian at 12:27 PM PST - 73 comments

Building The Sound They Would Have To Later Chop Down

Thirty years ago, March 9, 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree [YouTube Playlist, mostly lyric videos, ~50m] and changed their lives and the world forever. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:33 AM PST - 108 comments

Passing the Baton

An essay by Perry Anderson on the transition from the Obama to the Trump presidency
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 9:20 AM PST - 27 comments

Spring forward, bike safely

Mapzen (previously) has released a new map for cyclists, with roads and paths which have been categorized into four tiers based on safety. Map overlay technical details. (Note: The map is randomly international and some cities might only have a few road segments highlighted.)
posted by Room 641-A at 8:58 AM PST - 30 comments

“What does unfounded mean to anybody? It means ‘You’re lying,’.”

Unfounded: Why Police Dismiss 1 in 5 Sexual Assault Claims as Baseless by Robyn Doolittle [The Globe and Mail] In a 20-month-long investigation into how police handle sexual assault allegations, The Globe and Mail gathered data from more than 870 police forces. The findings expose deep flaws at every step of the process. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:37 AM PST - 11 comments

Video response to whitewashing in "Ghost in the Shell"

From Buzzfeed, These Asian-Americans Made A Powerful Video About The Effects Of Whitewashing In "Ghost In The Shell"; on Kotaku, some comments from internet users in Japan (in English); and some of Constance Wu's comments on whitewashing and (lack of) diversity in film.
posted by bile and syntax at 6:39 AM PST - 142 comments

Maybe just turn the Web off then on again?

Writing in The Guardian, Mr Tim Berners-Lee, a web developer of some repute, is concerned. "...over the past 12 months, I’ve become increasingly worried about three new trends, which I believe we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool that serves all of humanity." More on TimBL: WWW page, Wikipedia, Twitter.
posted by Wordshore at 6:16 AM PST - 23 comments

Sorry I burned down your village. Here's some gold.

Magic: the Gathering: Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned – Magic: the Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater shares twenty lessons learned over twenty years of designing one of the world's most popular collectible card games.

Also in article form: part 1, part 2, part 3 [more inside]
posted by timshel at 1:31 AM PST - 15 comments

March 11

Don't worry! It's going to be OK!

CHICKEN ATTAAAACKKKK!! Your daily dose of yodelling chicken ninjas.
posted by Sebmojo at 11:06 PM PST - 10 comments

The Philosopher Queen: Rebecca Solnit

Keziah Weir profiles Rebecca Solnit for Elle [more inside]
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 10:00 PM PST - 3 comments

George Clooney in a trenchcoat

Murder, She Wrote trading cards.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:41 PM PST - 22 comments

The phrase “Franken Berry Stool” appeared in a serious medical journal.

Peeps Oreos & 7 Other Things That Turn Your Poop Strange Colors (poop previously).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:21 PM PST - 54 comments

What does it mean to be American?

The Making of a Mexican American Dream. [Many second-generation Mexican Americans'] understanding of what it means to be an American derives not so much from the symbols and institutions of mainstream white culture but from a powerful sense of in-betweenness. For them, Americanness is less a sweeping mythology to which they must submit and more a framework for seeing, thinking, blending, reinventing.
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:13 PM PST - 3 comments

It's Bat Season!!!

Texas State Flying Mammal. The Mexican free-tailed bat became the official flying mammal of the State of Texas when Governor George W. Bush signed Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 95 - The Mexican Free-tailed bats' wings are actually "hands." The long ridge across the top is like our index finger and the ribs on its wings are the rest of its "fingers."
From March thru October, come see the official flying critter of Texas.
World Famous Austin Colony
Largets Colony in Bracken"
Catching the Little Feller By Hand
[more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 5:02 PM PST - 14 comments

Anonymous was a woman.

Sisters doing it for themselves: radical motets from a 16th-century nunnery. Laurie Stras hypothesizes that a 1543 book of 23 anonymous motets (which she describes as "dense, intense and sometimes startlingly dissonant") may have been written by Lucrezia Borgia's youngest daughter, a 16th century abbess and musician. [more inside]
posted by snorkmaiden at 2:52 PM PST - 10 comments

Only 35 people will read this thread, but they'll all make VU posts

NPR: 800 Copies: Meet The World's Most Obsessive Fan Of The Velvet Underground and Nico

AV Club: The Velvet Underground & Nico at 50: Monumental album or just “fine”?
posted by porn in the woods at 12:41 PM PST - 52 comments

If this future can be described in detail, maybe it won’t happen

Margaret Atwood on What ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Means in the Age of Trump [SLNYT]
posted by chavenet at 11:08 AM PST - 27 comments

'What does it take to be a good person in a monstrous age?'

By Immigrants, For Immigrants: Why "Casablanca" Still Matters (Los Angeles Review of Books, Noah Gittell)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:05 AM PST - 7 comments

Jose Chung's From Shady Pines

"The Golden Girls theme song with the X-Files intro was everything I thought it'd be and more."
posted by griphus at 8:48 AM PST - 46 comments

Can I Cook It? Yes, You Can!

A Tribe Called Quest co-founder Jarobi White has a second career as a professional chef. In this Billboard interview, he chats with longtime friend, chef, and hip hop fan, Marcus Samuelsson. Jarobi also provides his recipe for honey yuzu chicken wings.
posted by terooot at 8:24 AM PST - 9 comments

"Maybe you should have some newfound respect for Duran Duran"

In which Christian James Hand breaks down Duran Duran's song Rio, examining it track by track and sort of blowing your mind. [18m12s]
posted by hippybear at 8:21 AM PST - 59 comments

The probability we are living in simulation is between 0% and 99.999%...

...depending who you ask. Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall leans toward Zero. Elon Musk leans more towards the 99.999% probability. Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom from the University of Oxford, who introduced the thought experiment that sent some very smart people thinking, seems to be somewhere in between, or at least greater than zero. [more inside]
posted by otto42 at 4:17 AM PST - 206 comments

Monopoly Cost Disease

The Misunderstanding at the Core of Economics - "In a system where virtually all resources are available for a price, economic power can be translated into political power by channels too obvious for mention. In a capitalist society, economic power is very unequally distributed, and hence democratic government is inevitably something of a sham." [1,2] (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 2:01 AM PST - 22 comments

"You come at the king, you best not miss." ~~ Omar

"Omar comin'!" 2 hours 43 minutes 32 seconds supercut featuring Omar Little from all 5 seasons of HBO's "The Wire". Indeed.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:09 AM PST - 23 comments

March 10

shiny

Design's Iridescence Craze "Rainbow hues, color-changing films, and iridescent glazes have been steadily coating the design world for years."
posted by dhruva at 11:06 PM PST - 20 comments

SOMETHING METAPHOR SOMETHING SOMETHING LATE CAPITALISM

Inside the cruellest RollerCoaster Tycoon park ever created.
posted by Sebmojo at 9:38 PM PST - 24 comments

Losing it all

Paul Mason was the world's heaviest man. He lost the weight - but now what?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:21 PM PST - 24 comments

🎶 I failed so hard/I saw stars 🐶 🐱

Equal opportunity humiliation from BuzzFeed:
30 Dogs Who Failed So Hard They Won
29 Cats Who Failed So Hard They Won
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:20 PM PST - 23 comments

Deconstructing Space Oddity, one dimension at a time

Space Oddity – a visual deconstruction, AKA Oddityviz, is a data visualisation project on David Bowie’s Space Oddity by designer Valentina D'Efilippo and researcher Miriam Quick. The project visualises data from Bowie’s 1969 track Space Oddity on a series of 10 specially engraved records. Each 12-inch disc deconstructs the track in a different way: melodies, harmonies, lyrics, structure, story and other aspects of the music and lyrics are transformed into new visual systems. A poster accompanies each record, containing an image of the engraving plus a key. Read about the process, examine the raw data, or just sit back and watch this video which explains it all. [via Dangerous Minds]
posted by Room 641-A at 6:18 PM PST - 8 comments

"carry these pictures in thine eyes till a suitable time comes"

Kipling and Kim, Rasoul Sorkhabi, The Himalayan Journal [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:23 PM PST - 5 comments

The Night Ocean

The Complicated Friendship of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Barlow, One of His Biggest Fans
posted by Artw at 2:14 PM PST - 32 comments

Researchers present time crystals made of quantum mechanical oscillation

Ions oscillate in synchrony, but will do so only if there is some noise. Now, if all of this comes together in the right way, the ions start to oscillate between the ground state and their excited state at their natural frequency again. They cannot do this if only the original kick laser is used, nor if any two of the driving components are used. No, this only occurs if all three processes—a drive, coupling between the ions, and noise—are present. [more inside]
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:31 AM PST - 20 comments

Thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail with a one-year-old

Say hello to Bekah, Derrick, and Ellie Quirin, who are planning to begin their Appalachian Trail "flip-flop" this month. They have a blog and an Instagram account.
posted by liet at 8:40 AM PST - 116 comments

Meet Professor X's newest Beast

This week has been an exciting one for Sir Patrick Stewart, as he once again embarks on an exciting adventure with a hairy friend with claws. I'm talking, of course, about Stewart and his wife Sunny Ozell fostering an adorable pit bull named Ginger (video of just them meeting Ginger here) with the help of the Wags And Walks rescue organization. Even if she snores and isn't much of a swimmer, Patrick and Sunny are obviously delighted to have her around. [more inside]
posted by zombieflanders at 8:10 AM PST - 28 comments

"And what will it mean, er, for the wider region ..."

An expert on South Korean politics gives his opinion on the current turmoil in the government, and is briefly joined by small surprise guests. (SLYT, 43 seconds, cute)
posted by Countess Elena at 6:53 AM PST - 216 comments

They do a little education on the side.

. . .Which brings us back to all those strange Harvard Crimson corrections, appended in 2013 and 2014 to articles dating back to 2005. Each one reads: “An earlier version of headline of this article and statements in the article stated that the DoubleTree Suites hotel is Harvard-owned. To clarify, the company is housed in a Harvard-owned building.” Harvard’s sudden reticence to claim its property stemmed from a straightforward labor dispute that would last three years and, in the end, lay bare the tension between a burgeoning corporate feminism and the rights of working-class women.
posted by eotvos at 6:32 AM PST - 23 comments

A confounded box of whistles

Robert Götzfried has taken some amazing photographs of church organs. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 4:21 AM PST - 15 comments

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

Now where could my pipe be? Lasagnacat: John Blyth Barrymore digests Garfield with a side of Philip Glass.
posted by loquacious at 4:01 AM PST - 8 comments

March 9

"Buffy Summers, Class Protector"

10 March 2017 marks the twentieth anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's TV debut, an occasion for many, many articles, touching on empowerment and life lessons, and resonance with adolescence and adulthood:
... [Buffy] reflected the universal struggle to figure out how to be human in an increasingly unfeeling world, ... even after your heart has been shattered in ways one could not have predicted.
[more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:18 PM PST - 118 comments

At last, an excuse to wear make-up!

@SimpsonsFilms is a Twitter account that posts stills from Simpsons episodes that recall famous films.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:03 PM PST - 22 comments

Sometimes dreams can come true

I really, really, really like this image [catchy music—h/t Miss Cellania].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:10 PM PST - 23 comments

This is what separates us from the animals. AND THE FOOD. (Pepsi Blue)

Tumblr: Food With Eyes
Scary Anthropomorphic Foods Promote the British Food Standards Agency
Orbit Threatens Consumers with Anthropomorphic Food
Mail shrimp
Lost In Space - Dr. Smith turned into a giant celery stalk
More examples plus direct links to embedded videos inside. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 6:09 PM PST - 9 comments

Leeloo Dallas. Multipass.

Michael Moreci looks back at The Fifth Element on Tor.com as it approaches its 20th anniversary. "The more I think about The Fifth Element, the more I realize it’s a movie that shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does." [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 2:09 PM PST - 266 comments

At times they sounded like villains from a Michael Crichton novel.

Two Russian scientists are fighting to save the earth from climate change by restoring the Pleistocene grasslands in the Siberian Arctic. This includes re-establishing herds of bison, musk oxen, wild horses -- and woolly mammoths.
posted by suelac at 2:06 PM PST - 14 comments

Welcome, neighbors!

Tricolored yard signs have begun to appear in communities around the USA and beyond. They carry a simple message “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor,” in three languages: Spanish, English, and Arabic. [more inside]
posted by Herodios at 1:54 PM PST - 52 comments

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him

A bitter battle is raging within the mole-catching community over the kindest way to carry out their deadly work.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:22 PM PST - 21 comments

From Minuscule Spirits To Gigantic Cosmic Monsters

A Book of Creatures is a sprawling illustrated guide to monsters of myth and folklore from around the world, with non-Western creatures heavily featured. Updating on a tri-weekly schedule, it aims to provide a comprehensive database of legendary creatures, accompanied with art and thoroughly sourced. Sadly I can't find a way to look at all the creatures at once - however, in the sidebar you can search by creatures by country or region of origin, type, and theme. Just to get you started, there's Animate Inanimates, Deadly Gaze, and Creatures of Darkness and Night; Iceland, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China; Whales, Unicorns, and Insects. And so very much more.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:46 AM PST - 13 comments

Characters from Renaissance paintings photoshopped into the present

In an ongoing series entitled "Art History in Contemporary Life,” artist Alexey Kondakov skillfully photoshops characters from Renaissance paintings into present day photos he has taken around Europe. (via Twisted Sifter) [more inside]
posted by aka burlap at 9:49 AM PST - 20 comments

Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

Annie Lowrey: "In your speech, you said something provocative: That you think you might be better off living below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line in a country like Bangladesh rather than here. I wouldn’t think that would be true."
Angus Deaton: "I’ve been struggling with it... if you had to choose between living in a poor village in India and living in the Mississippi Delta or in a suburb of Milwaukee in a trailer park, I’m not sure who would have the better life. That’s the point I’ve been pushing."
A conversation between Angus Deaton, Nobel laureate and emeritus Princeton economist, and Annie Lowrey for the Atlantic. [more inside]
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:47 AM PST - 44 comments

Maybe grow some leeks too

Why a German lab is growing tomatoes in urine
posted by Artw at 9:41 AM PST - 27 comments

Justice League Super Antics

Super Antics of the Justice League, drawn in retro style. By Kerry Callen. [more inside]
posted by ShooBoo at 9:09 AM PST - 28 comments

The Food of the (Northern) Gods

Wigan (a seaside resort in the north of England) is the home of the Pie Barm, a delicacy and Cuisine of the North, and ideal corporate identity and enemy to bearded eaters. This is sometimes known as the Wigan Kebab, though occasionally as the Wigan Slappy, Wigan Butty or simpler Wiganburger which may or may not exist like the Wigan wedding cake, and should not be confused with a cob, barmcake, stotty or oven bottom or, especially, a growler butty. Distant cousins exist in Belfast and Australia. An instructional video on making one, and a descriptive Teletext page. Legal: court proceedings may be taken, other variations exist, are occasionally available to southerners, and consult your doctor before commencing a Pie Barm-centric diet.
posted by Wordshore at 8:07 AM PST - 44 comments

chiromurder

chiromurder 😧 RIP neck 😧wrestling time 😧canine chiromurder 😧hoofer version 😧 cat not enjoy 😧 baby cracking 😧 his own baby 😧 exotic full gonzo
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:32 AM PST - 72 comments

i hope you have the TIME of your LIFE

some dumb smarty made a digital clock out of Conway's Game of Life and you can run it yourself if you actually follow the instructions [more inside]
posted by beerperson at 7:30 AM PST - 27 comments

Melting Mountains: An Urban-Rural Gathering

Urban Seattle residents visit rural Oregon. "The people who took part in the discussions told each other whom they’d voted for, revealed their stance on some big issues, talked about the hopes and concerns they had about their country over the next few years, and practiced listening to each other for minutes at a time (with instructions to not interrupt one another)." [more inside]
posted by gsh at 6:58 AM PST - 68 comments

Chondrichthyan Tree of Life

The Chondrichthyan Tree of Life is an incredibly detailed and lovely-to-navigate phylogenic tree of sharks and rays. Click on one to drill down to families, genera, and species.
posted by tchemgrrl at 5:57 AM PST - 9 comments

Appraising the Brady Bunch Art Collection

Pork Chops and Apple Sauce: Appraising the Brady Bunch’s Art Collection. A very comprehensive examination of the art on the Brady Bunch home, and of mass produced mid-century modern art.
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:31 AM PST - 83 comments

It's Year Sheero for the UK singles chart

If the problem were just “too many Ed Sheeran songs in the Top 40” then it’s easily fixable – just cap the number of tracks which can chart from any individual LP. But that’s not really the problem. (If you like Ed, it’s not even *a* problem). It’s of a piece with the sclerosis of the chart, that deathly slow turnover of new hits which started in the download era and has been accelerated by the dominance of streaming. And Ed or no Ed, there’s no real sense that the singles chart has a role to play any more.
Loathe him or hate him, Ed Sheeran's near dominance of the UK singles chart is a problem that's bigger than him, as Tom Ewing explains.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:36 AM PST - 23 comments

A Voice Of Reason In A Time Of Troubles

Neal Conan (former host of NPR's Talk Of The Nation) returns to doing regular interviews full of intelligence and insight with his new weekly show/podcast Truth Politics & Power. The trial-ballon first episode in early January was An Inaugural Special, with Robert Kagan and Volker Ullrich. Starting last Friday, it began weekly programs with Enemies Of The People speaking with Scott McClellan and Ted Koppel. The show is distributed by PRX, can be listened to on its website, and is also podcast on all your favorite podcatchers.
posted by hippybear at 4:33 AM PST - 6 comments

March 8

Music Detective, Baroque Edition

A lost Baroque Mass by an unknown composer was rescued from a merchant using the discarded paper to wrap vegetables by Kapellmeister Innocenz Achleitner in 1870. He sent it to the Mozarteum, who assigned it to the Italian composer Orazio Benevoli, 1628. It sank once more into obscurity until in 1969 a recently-minted Ph.D. glanced at it and recognized the handwriting of "Copyist no. III," who could not possibly have copied it in 1628. Chasing down handwriting, paper mills, watermarks, and the availability of large ensembles in European capitals of the 17th century, Ernst Hintermaier showed the Missa Salisburgensis was most likely the work of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, a prolific and innovative Baroque composer who remains to this day unknown to many Baroque fans. Links to music within! [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:37 PM PST - 18 comments

Fur and Loathing in The Yukon

You know, I don't normally read sites like "Buzzfeed." But when I do, it's because This Woman Makes The Most Delightful Taxidermied Squirrels.
posted by not_on_display at 10:27 PM PST - 15 comments

Whose Streets? NYC 1980-2000

Whose Streets? Our Streets!, a website to accompany a photography exhibit to accompany a book.
posted by latkes at 9:33 PM PST - 1 comment

Yikes!

Good: Cat startled by cat sneeze. Better: Prairie dog startled by human sneeze. Best: Dog startled by human touch and gas. More: startled animals reddit.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:50 PM PST - 30 comments

She Shreds, changing the way women guitarists and bassists are depicted

She Shreds Magazine is the world’s only print publication dedicated to women guitarists and bassists. In print form, there are 11 issues out to date, and online, there's much more content, including features, news and interviews, plus videos covering nuts and bolts of guitars and basses and the way, multi-faceted approaches to learning and playing guitar. For your listening pleasure: Idle Bloom's Little Deaths (related interview) and Shannon Wright's Division (related interview)
posted by filthy light thief at 6:54 PM PST - 10 comments

Blue Whale Tale

"In May 2014, a small ROM [Royal Ontario Museum] team travelled to Newfoundland to salvage a Blue Whale that had washed ashore. This unfortunate event presents an unprecedented opportunity to study one of the more endangered species of marine mammals -- blue whales are listed as endangered under Schedule 1 of the federal Species at Risk Act." Here’s how the ROM turned the tragedy of a blue whale death into one massive teachable moment. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:45 PM PST - 3 comments

Kilted Yoga

"From cat yoga to paddle board yoga, we thought we’d seen about every niche yoga class out there. But then, we stumbled across kilted yoga." [Huffpo][NSFWish] [more inside]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 5:30 PM PST - 10 comments

One Hatchback, 68 Tons of Meat

Swiss customs officials have ended the career of a smuggler who admitted spiriting thousands of kilos of meat into the country over the past 15 years. While the 41-year-old man is accused of illegally transferring a total of 27 tons (59,000 pounds) of lamb, 18 tons of beef, 12 tons of chicken and 11 tons of pork, it was just 80 kilograms of fresh meat that tripped him up as he crossed the border in his hatchback car in the mountain town of Morgins. (TW: horses involved below the fold.) [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 3:39 PM PST - 15 comments

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's ... a whale shark?

In Hawaii the green sea turtle is considered a symbol of good luck and prosperity. So it makes sense that when ANA bought some new Airbus A380s to fly on the Tokyo/Honolulu route, they are to be painted to resemble a flying turtle. Decorating large airliners to look like animals isn't new, Southwest have "Shamu", the airborne Orca, Russian carrier Transaero have a Jumbo tiger, JAL have a whaleshark, Alaska Air a flying salmon. Azores Air have gone for, against all probability, a sperm whale, but sadly no sign of it's attendent pot of petunias. Then of course there's the Pokejet (one of several)
posted by auntie-matter at 2:52 PM PST - 21 comments

What's important to you? Where will you steer us?

But budget decisions aren’t only about fiscal sustainability. They also shape the kind of country we live in. To win the game, you need to find a combination of policies that match your values and priorities AND set the budget on a sustainable course. How do you get people to understand the difficulty of balancing the federal budget with national values? How do you get people to see the long-term budgetary effects of policy decisions... and more importantly, how the hell do you get people to care? Turn it into a game.
posted by sciatrix at 2:34 PM PST - 44 comments

"...history is just a collection of who everyone was sleeping with..."

One from the Vaults is a podcast series on trans history by performance artist and academic Morgan M Page. [more inside]
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 2:17 PM PST - 4 comments

daughters don't touch their elder's feet for respect

A mother throws her daughter a surprise party for her first Women's Day. (In Hindi, English subtitles available)
posted by divabat at 2:05 PM PST - 18 comments

I insist on the word feminist or feminism

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has a new book out - Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions. Adichie has shaped her thoughts around 15 suggestions for raising a feminist first developed as a letter to a friend on raising a daughter. The book is partly written to “to reclaim the word feminism from its abusers and misusers, a category within which she would include certain other progressives”. An extract published in the Guardian, along with an interview, includes Adichie’s realisation “in my anger about sexism, I often feel lonely". [more inside]
posted by roolya_boolya at 1:38 PM PST - 7 comments

No fancy title here. The art speaks for itself.

The Art of Movie Stills
posted by brokeaspoke at 1:33 PM PST - 7 comments

I Love You So So So So Much

Listening to this song makes you feel wonderful. [more inside]
posted by jbenben at 1:23 PM PST - 17 comments

Dinner and a movie

The Best Food Scenes from Oscar-Nominated Movies of Yesteryear 🍒 The 50 best food-on-film moments of all time 🍔 Definitive Ranking of the 10 Funniest Food Scenes on TV 🍰 32 Movies With The Most Memorable Food Scenes 🍜 Top 10 Food Preparation Scenes in Movies 🍕 Bonus: The Ultimate Food in Movies - Supercut
posted by Room 641-A at 1:15 PM PST - 39 comments

Writer, With Kids

Author Cari Luna asked fellow writers to describe how they manage their lives as working artists while raising children. She shared the results on her blog in a series of posts called Writer, With Kids. The 70 respondents included Jane Smiley, the Yarn Harlot Stephanie Pearl McPhee, Susan Choi, and Elizabeth McCracken. The series ran between 2012 and 2015.
posted by terooot at 1:05 PM PST - 3 comments

Intersectional foodies of PDX

Started as a reaction to the (mostly) so-white Portland Oregon food scene, Racist Sandwich is a podcast where Soleil Ho, Zahir Janmohamed, and a variety of guests take on both the local scene and broader topics exploring the intersection of food, race, gender, and class. They also maintain the PDX POC Food Directory of restaurants and grocery stores owned and operated by people of color.
posted by janell at 12:26 PM PST - 8 comments

Tale as old as time

‘Beauty and the Beast’: Inside Disney’s $300 Million Gamble"Disney already had other live-action remakes of animated classics on its assembly line, including “Cinderella” and “The Jungle Book,” which would both become critical and commercial hits. But “Beauty and the Beast” was special. The imagery and music from the 1991 version have never faded, in part because Disney used the score as the foundation for a blockbuster Broadway musical that ran for 13 years and toured 20 countries. “Beauty and the Beast” also parted with Disney’s princess formula — she saves him — and it has come to symbolize a creatively fertile period from 1989 to 1999 known as the Disney Renaissance." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:24 PM PST - 42 comments

A Daily Data Feed For The US Treasury

Every day at 4pm, the United States Treasury publishes data tables summarizing the cash spending, deposits, and borrowing of the Federal government. These files catalog all the money taken in that day from taxes, the programs, and how much debt the government took out to make it happen. It comes from a section of the U.S. Treasury called the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
We have created the first-ever electronically-searchable database of the Federal government's daily cash spending and borrowing. (Treasury.io) It updates daily and the data can be exported in various formats and loaded into a variety of systems.
Created back in 2013 by @csvsoundsystem, maintained on GitHub.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:04 PM PST - 2 comments

Nevertheless, she posted

Flash fiction for International Womens Day: Inspired by the phrase "Nevertheless, she persisted", Tor books is presenting some short stories by women authors throughout the day today. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:27 AM PST - 5 comments

Mise en abyme.... mise en Fieri

Is there something more behind the bleached hair, tattoos, rock n' roll, and diner food of Guy Fieri? "True things have depth" answers Fieri in a longform piece from Vice. [more inside]
posted by zenon at 10:42 AM PST - 49 comments

"I thought it would be a nice lark. It wasn't."

In 1955, at the age of 67, Emma "Grandma" Gatewood told her children she was going for walk. Then, wearing her Keds sneakers and carrying an army blanket in a homemade denim bag slung over her shoulder, she became the first woman to thru-hike* the Appalachian Trail. (TW: domestic abuse) [more inside]
posted by bondcliff at 10:30 AM PST - 8 comments

It was Bitcoin that first caught the attention of IBM researchers

What uses could the Bitcoin-style blockchain have beyond digital currency? How about tracking supply chains?
posted by Chrysostom at 10:26 AM PST - 19 comments

Running in the theater is still prohibited

People aren't going to the movies enough? The Cinepolis theater chain has a solution: Why not put playgrounds in the theater? [more inside]
posted by Mchelly at 9:52 AM PST - 45 comments

We should check for traps again.

Sue The T-Rex Is Running A D&D Game On Twitter & It Is Freaking Amazing. Come for the brigands. Stay for the dinosaur facts. [more inside]
posted by ursus_comiter at 7:58 AM PST - 17 comments

Now they've gone too far!

Google's Algorithm Is Lying to You About Onions and Blaming Tom Scocca for It: It was one thing when Google's "featured snippets" (a.k.a. the One True Answer feature) was giving people obviously wrong answers to queries like "Is Barack Obama planning a coup?" or "Is MSG dangerous?" But telling people it only takes five minutes to caramelize an onion, citing as evidence an article (previously) that says the exact opposite? At long last, Google, have you left no sense of decency?!
posted by Cash4Lead at 6:32 AM PST - 80 comments

Did you see the politics? It made me angry.

The President and his party continued their path of destruction, announcing a new travel ban, suspending new visas for citizens of six majority-Muslim countries and all refugees, along with a poorly-received new health-care plan, amid a string of unforced errors, including the President's explosive no-evidence wiretapping tweets (which we shouldn't take too literally), his staff's scramble to try to defend their boss's latest mess, and the continuing efforts to investigate Russia's role in the campaign and Attorney General Jeff Sessions for providing false testimony. [more inside]
posted by zachlipton at 12:48 AM PST - 2261 comments

March 7

So you wear a hat...that's funny

the live podcast is a tresure Norm MacDonald Live is a weekly podcast hosted by Norm MacDonald and co-host Adam Eget. The show features interviews with comedians, actors, and other members of the entertainment community.
Adam Sandler
Bill Hader
Jokes
Carl Reiner
And much more. Worth a look. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 9:19 PM PST - 11 comments

Three women recall their first vote in the NZ election of 1893

Listen to three women, Mrs. Dickson, Mrs Hills and Mrs Mankelow recall their first vote in the general election on November 28, 1893. Recorded in 1963. [more inside]
posted by Start with Dessert at 7:51 PM PST - 8 comments

The friendship of a dog is precious.

Dogs, amirite? Use them for a pillow once and the next thing you know they're up in your grill trying to be your friend [music and cat snark]. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:44 PM PST - 21 comments

Whale Lifts Up Kayakers With Its Back

Two kayakers paused to take a closer look at some whales off the coast of Argentina, but got an unexpected surprise when one of the giant creatures lifted their boat onto his back. The two very surprised humans on its back are taken along for the ride, but manage to keep their cool.
posted by grobertson at 3:50 PM PST - 25 comments

Masterpieces from the Kermitage

"If you raised the pig a smidge to adjust her relationship to the house, that threw off the balance of the frog to the pitchfork." Michael K. Frith, former Creative Director for Jim Henson Productions, on the making of Miss Piggy's American Gothique.
posted by verstegan at 3:34 PM PST - 7 comments

Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered?

Some people think that to make an advance in mathematics is to invent something (perhaps it is to invent new uses for language). Others think that to make an advance in mathematics is to discover something (perhaps it is to discover facts about abstract objects that live in Plato's heaven). In Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered?, Season 7, Episode 9 of the interview documentary series Closer to Truth, Robert Lawrence Kuhn talks with Roger Penrose, Mark Balaguer, Gregory Chaitin, Stephen Wolfram, and Frank Wilczek about whether mathematics is invented or discovered. [more inside]
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 1:00 PM PST - 133 comments

The villain in your history

The Hamilton Hustle. Why liberals have embraced our most dangerously reactionary founder
posted by no regrets, coyote at 12:52 PM PST - 97 comments

The Mail Order American Dream

Kit houses, once a staple of suburbia, were complete, easy-to-assemble houses you could order from a catalog and have shipped via rail to your building site. Via the always-excellent McMansion Hell, you can learn more about the history of mail-order houses in America, and tips and tricks for identifying them in the wild. [more inside]
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:39 PM PST - 30 comments

Imagine aquatic animals the size of elephants that we just can't find

The first underwater video (Washington Post article with embedded video) of True's beaked whales (Mesoplodon mirus) show a cohesive group of three adult or subadult whales swimming together in the Azores. The video was released in conjunction with a detailed new study in the journal PeerJ that combined data from strandings and sightings with genetic analyses of individual whales from both the northern and southern hemispheres (full paper online). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:33 PM PST - 6 comments

of salary men, ikumen and lunchbox boys

Sweetness and Lightning's Counter-Hegemonic Masculinity -- Youtuber Pause and Select examines how one of lat year's most adorable anime series showcases the changing nature of masculinity in Japan.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:59 AM PST - 3 comments

Wheelchair man: Turning myself into a superhero

Mohammad Sayed was abandoned by his family in Afghanistan after his house was bombed and he was left paralysed. Now he has become a US citizen, and designed a comic book superhero - Wheelchair Man - based on his own life story. [more inside]
posted by cynical pinnacle at 10:01 AM PST - 6 comments

Iceland, Poland ...and America?

On March 8th ..."The International Women’s Strike or “A Day Without a Woman” is asking women to walk out of their jobs (if they can), abstain from both paid and unpaid labor, and take to the streets to emphasize the importance of their contributions to society and what is lost when they elect to withdraw them. No home-cooked dinners. No meetings. No cleaning". - The Only Way To Know if Striking Works Is To Do It (NyMag)
posted by The Whelk at 9:48 AM PST - 93 comments

I'm a groan woman!

Ziek immediately fired back: “That was a measle-y pun.” Not only was he confident, with a malleable voice that was equal parts game show host and morning-radio DJ, but his jokes were seemingly fully formed. Worse, he was nimble enough to turn your own pun against you. “Well, I had a croup-on for it,” I responded. Whoa. Where’d that come from? (previously)

ReflexLOLogy: Inside the Groan-Inducing World of Pun Competitions -- Peter Rubin, Wired [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 8:06 AM PST - 40 comments

Let the teaching begin!

Speech, protest, and violence at Middlebury College. On March 2nd, Charles Murray, American Enterprise Institute fellow and author of The Bell Curve (1994), visited Middlebury College to give a talk on Coming Apart (2012). [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 7:48 AM PST - 200 comments

There is nothing illusory in this tiny heaven.

Before illustrator and writer Maira Kalman's And The Pursuit of Happiness was made into a book, it was a series of opinion pieces for the New York Times. Starting with Celestial Harmony, Kalman pursues happiness, hats, dogs, uncertainty, history, loss, and cake. [more inside]
posted by Mchelly at 7:12 AM PST - 3 comments

にゃんごすたー

i have no idea what this is, but it fuckin owns [more inside]
posted by naju at 6:46 AM PST - 25 comments

Nothing is New: 500 year old economic theory works great for hedgefund

500 years ago, the School of Salamanca to the west of Madrid, reformulated the concept of natural law; stating that all humans have the same nature and the same rights to life and liberty. This was dismissed as a novelty (particularly in light of the views of Europeans towards the indigenous people of the Americas). But this post is not about their take on ius gentium (rights of peoples). This post is about a 500 year old concept that a hedge fund in 2017 is using to achieve the best returns of it's peers. [more inside]
posted by larthegreat at 6:22 AM PST - 22 comments

Single Cell Life

Peaceful protists [YT, 5:22, classical music] [more inside]
posted by bobobox at 6:18 AM PST - 10 comments

Musings on Iraq

Musings on Iraq. Since 2008, journalist Joel Wing has kept a comprehensive, often day-by-day account on the politics and military actions surrounding the ongoing war in Iraq. His blog entries are at length, detailed, and thoroughly cited. [more inside]
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:12 AM PST - 1 comment

Western depictions of women in power from the Ancient Greeks onwards

If the deep cultural structures legitimating women's exclusion are as I have argued, gradualism is likely to take too long for me, thank you very much. We have to be more reflective about what power is, what it is for, and how it is measured. To put it another way, if women aren't perceived to be fully within the structures of power, isn't it power that we need to redefine rather than women?
Women in Power by Mary Beard, also delivered in an extended version as a lecture, and she took questions afterwards. She discussed her essay and modern politics on the Talking Politics podcast (starting at 16:00).
posted by Kattullus at 4:47 AM PST - 11 comments

What writers really do when they write

An artist works outside the realm of strict logic. Simply knowing one’s intention and then executing it does not make good art. Artists know this. According to Donald Barthelme: “The writer is that person who, embarking upon her task, does not know what to do.”
posted by roolya_boolya at 4:47 AM PST - 18 comments

F-rated

IMDb introduces classification system to highlight work by women.
posted by ellieBOA at 4:30 AM PST - 4 comments

"Trapping the icky smell of your devil's doughnuts."

This product is both absurd and reprehensible. But the ads aren't bad: V. I. Poo; PooPourri.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:29 AM PST - 16 comments

March 6

Imagine a petrified Jello mold made by Wilma Flintstone for a dinosaur.

Right now, in a vault controlled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, there sits a 752-pound emerald with no rightful owner. This gem is the size of a minifridge. It weighs as much as two sumo wrestlers. Estimates of its worth range from a hundred bucks to $925 million. Over the past 10 years, four lawsuits have been filed over the Bahia emerald. Fourteen individuals or entities, plus the nation of Brazil, have claimed the rock is theirs. A house burned down. Three people filed for bankruptcy. One man alleges having been kidnapped and held hostage. Many of the men involved say that the emerald is hellspawn but they also can’t let it go.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:05 PM PST - 32 comments

Bubba’s Book Club

Neil Peart, OC, is a Canadian-American musician and author, best known as the drummer and primary lyricist for the rock band Rush. He also reviews books. [more inside]
posted by misterbee at 8:43 PM PST - 35 comments

They are but little but they are fierce

Cats take dogs' beds whenever they wish [music and outraged woofing]. It's so widespread that there's a subreddit devoted to it. (via HuffPo)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:15 PM PST - 49 comments

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Improve any novel by changing its second line to “And then the murders began”, a proposed addition to Elmore Leonard's rules for writers, though possibly more related to Raymond Chandler's (possibly not serious) "When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." - Some more rules of writing.
posted by Artw at 3:41 PM PST - 300 comments

How things end

So what happens? An absolute diaspora of ending models. Games where you're expected to die. Games where you literally have to die. Games which remember your past achievements into future tries. Games which try to delete themselves when you're done. Games with permadeath, games with semi-permadeath, games with undeath. Idle RPGs which you play when you're not there, and never finish. Roguelikes and roguelites and roguelikelikes. The only way in which a game is guaranteed to end is when the player abandons their device. Everything else is game design: Alexis Kennedy (Fallen London) on the progress of progress and the history of endings.
posted by not_the_water at 1:35 PM PST - 8 comments

"Hi, I'm Robert Osborne"

Robert Osborne, Turner Classic Movies Host and Film Historian, Dies at 84 As TCM’s primary on-air personality, Osborne occupied something of an unique position in the history of television: Where once it was common for channels to provide hosts for the movies they programmed, TCM is now the last U.S. movie network to regularly feature hosts who offer information about a film before it begins. [more inside]
posted by stopgap at 11:40 AM PST - 66 comments

The Future of Body Horror

"The body horror genre is not just for those of us whose sensibility is tickled by the grotesque. Far more than being merely stomach-turning, it runs fantastically and viciously rampant with the anxieties we all have about our own physical vulnerability." In The Future of Body Horror: Can Our Art Keep Up with Our Suffering?, Davey Davis revisits The Thing and contemplates the genre's role in reflecting sociopolitical dynamics and fears of individual & collective safety, vulnerability, violence, and embodiment.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 9:47 AM PST - 17 comments

Oh, no, it’s Dave again.

David Letterman in Conversation
posted by jacquilynne at 8:59 AM PST - 60 comments

Lesson one: People will flush anything down a toilet

What I Learned About Life by Becoming a Landlord
posted by ShooBoo at 8:39 AM PST - 154 comments

Building hyperrealistic sculptures of insects that don’t exist

"Japanese artist Hiroshi Shinno builds hyperrealistic sculptures of insects that don’t exist." Via Colossal: "...perfect forms of imaginative species that look as if they were built from vibrant leaves and delicate flower petals. Even this aspect of the creatures are false, as each leaf or petal was cast from resin and painted with acrylic paint before being placed on the model’s brass base. [more inside]
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:29 AM PST - 12 comments

“you can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat”

"Meat Cakes" Are A Thing [Kotaku] Who said cakes have to be made of sugar and spice and crap like that? Behold, meat cakes.
posted by Fizz at 7:53 AM PST - 32 comments

One week, 100 people 2017

Every aspiring artist has heard the advice, ‘Carry a small sketchbook at all times!’. We’re all told ‘Practice drawing every day!’. This is of course great advice. But sometimes we need a little extra motivation.
OneWeek100People is an annual sketch challenge first proposed by Marc Taro Holmes, in an effort to encourage urban sketchers to get more practice including humans in their art. The challenge: Sketch 100 people in one week. [more inside]
posted by rebent at 7:05 AM PST - 5 comments

Seeing Stars

Grieving is knowing something to be true without fully accepting it. My phone proved a necessary distraction. I played endless rounds of solitaire, placing a jack on a queen, moving a six here, putting an ace up, unfurling new cards. Shockingly soon, a trophy popped up on my screen. I’d played 1,000 games.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:59 AM PST - 12 comments

March 5

Come From Away

September 11, 2001: US airspace is closed to plane travel after the WTC attacks, and nearly 40 planes were diverted to the small Newfoundland town of Gander, stranding around 7000 people in a town of ~10,000 for several days. An unlikely subject for a Broadway musical, you might say. But NPR has a first listen of the Original Cast Album for the show Come From Away, and it's a fun, witty, soulful work that is worth a listen.
posted by hippybear at 11:33 PM PST - 23 comments

Automobubbling, You and I

Follow the bouncing ball, kids, and sing along with 1905's most risqué tune, set to animation in a (pre-Hays-Code-enforcement) 1932 short intended for movie palace singalongs in the earliest days of the talkie: In My Merry Oldsmobile.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:52 PM PST - 12 comments

A gender-swapped version of the recent presidential debates

Actors did a meticulous recreation of excepts from the debates, and there was discussion from the audience afterwards. "Salvatore cast fellow educational theatre faculty Rachel Whorton to play “Brenda King,” a female version of Trump, and Daryl Embry to play “Jonathan Gordon,” a male version of Hillary Clinton, and coached them as they learned the candidates’ words and gestures."
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:39 PM PST - 39 comments

Marooned Among the Polar Bears

And it is then, fifteen minutes since the belt snapped, as he stands on the ice floe in nothing but his running shoes and underwear, that the situation becomes clear. Sergey Ananov is trapped on a slab of ice in the Arctic Circle. He has no locator beacon, no phone, and barely any water. The fog will hide him from any rescuers. Night will come. Hypothermia will come. And whatever large, powerful creatures that scratch out their existence in this primordial world—maybe they will come too.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:03 PM PST - 5 comments

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.

Tired of reading about the monsters wreaking havoc in Washington, DC? Here are 25 other places to see yetis, sea monsters, Sasquatch, and other cryptids.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:48 PM PST - 18 comments

Horace Parlan (1931-2017)

American Jazz Pianist with a partially-disabled right-hand from polio. NYT and a documentary, Horace Parlan by Horace Parlan
posted by falsedmitri at 4:31 PM PST - 10 comments

A long-shot campaign in a tough town

On Tuesday, citizens of St. Louis go to the polls to choose their first new mayor in sixteen years. Progressive city treasurer Tishaura Jones is running against the outgoing mayor's legacy, the entrenched culture of the city's Board of Aldermen, and a well-funded front runner who once said panhandlers prefer begging to regular employment because it's "more lucrative." [more inside]
posted by roast beef at 3:49 PM PST - 12 comments

"Aim high, and you won't shoot your foot off." Phyllis Diller

"Ever since I heard of the inclusion of Archie Bunker's chair in a Smithsonian display I have wondered if the Institute might have interest in something of mine.... I have kept the dress I wore with Bob Hope in his 1966 Viet Nam Expedition. (YT, Bob Hope Special January 18th, 1967) Even if I end up in the zoo or with the mammals, I would be honored. Congratulations on your gigantic projects. Godspeed. Phyllis Diller" That's how the National Museum of American History ended up with Diller’s 48-drawer metal filing cabinet, each drawer filled with neatly organized cards that contain 50,000 jokes—give or take a knee slapper or two. And now you can help transcribe Phyllis Diller's gag file.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:24 AM PST - 19 comments

Ten years of instrument-a-day

Ten years of instrument-a-day From the original Projects post: Every February, I try to make a new musical instrument (in the loosest-possible sense) every day of the month. Nearly all of them are documented in photos and/or video. I just finished the tenth year of instrument-a-day. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by xingcat at 10:47 AM PST - 5 comments

I think we'll be able to create a species. I think long term.

Deep Elon Musk is a twitter bot and an AI trained on Elon's transcripts.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:18 AM PST - 7 comments

mind controls snake mind

SNAKISMS by Pippin Barr (previously on mefi): 21 variations on the classic game of Snake, based on 21 different philosophical isms. Barr wrote about the process of developing SNAKISMS.
posted by moonmilk at 10:07 AM PST - 14 comments

How to kill a Japanese hornet: cook it with bees

European honeybees have been seen for the first time "bee-balling" Japanese yellow hornets: swarming around a hornet, forming a tight vibrating ball and then cooking it to death with their own body heat. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:34 AM PST - 31 comments

Time for the Political Compass of the Revolution!

Who are you in 1917 Russia? Товарищи! We are about to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the February Revolution. Time to brush up on your knowledge of the rather eventful months that followed it or, if you find yourself in London, go admire the art that sprung from it. But isn't the most important question to answer, as times of trouble seem to arise again in Europe and America, what would we have done 100 years ago in the unbelievably complex political landscape of revolutionary Russia? Knowing that for sure, wouldn't we be better armed to face today's struggles and determine who to ally with, who to banish and who to summarily execute? Take that test, comrades, and you shall have that knowledge.
posted by susuman at 8:40 AM PST - 56 comments

Red Families and Blue Families

A new study suggests "the crowded life is a slow life." The study concludes that increased population density may encourage people to adopt a slow life strategy. Such a strategy focuses more on planning for the long-term future and includes tactics like preferring long-term romantic relationships, having fewer children and investing more in education. [more inside]
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:40 AM PST - 19 comments

"A Sea Change in the Politics of Northern Ireland"?

"When the dust finally settled Saturday on Northern Ireland's snap assembly election, it became clear a new political reality now awaits voters there. . . . The result, which also handed fewer seats to a smattering of other parties, leaves unionists without a firm majority — and thus without veto power — for the first time since Ireland was partitioned in 1921, according to Reuters. The Irish Independent reports that all told, the assembly now has '40 unionists and 39 nationalist/republicans, with the remainder of the 90 MLAs affiliated to neither tradition.'" (via NPR) [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 7:22 AM PST - 37 comments

Janoschs Traumstunde

Das kleine Krokodil - a gentle, 11-minute cartoon from the fondly-remembered German series Janoschs Traumstunde, good for a quiet Sunday morning. You can turn on good German subtitles or adequate automatically-translated English ones. The series ran for years, so there are plenty more if you like. There is nothing extreme, insane, or intense about any of it whatsoever.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:22 AM PST - 11 comments

The Canoe

The Canoe - a film by Goh Iromoto. [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave at 5:46 AM PST - 8 comments

:P

Squee! Animals sticking out their tongue.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:37 AM PST - 22 comments

March 4

“This is not what normal birding is like”

That night, after hours of human pushing and oxen pulling, the jeep is freed. And with more pushing and pulling, it is rolled backward, and pop-started. But it cannot make it up the now rain-slicked mountain rock, though the driver tries for a terrifying 20 minutes with all the equipment and group again loaded inside. There is a Cuban military outpost a ways back down; the group makes its way there in the downpour, in the dark, and begs a patch of concrete floor to sleep on in a dwelling containing what Gallagher will refer to for the rest of the trip and maybe the rest of his life as The Worst Toilet in the World.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:01 PM PST - 15 comments

B is for Boxers & Babies

Astrid adopts her new baby human. Nikki and her baby human Kai have known each other longer and are more demonstrative. If you liked those, please enjoy this compilation of boxers and their baby humans.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:29 PM PST - 12 comments

Second Life Photography

The art of Second Life photography. Getting started.
posted by Evernix at 4:14 PM PST - 25 comments

A book of discoveries like an unlooked-for comet blazing in the empyrean

A Journey Round My Room by Xavier de Maistre (1871 [1794]; 152pp.): "No longer will I keep my book in obscurity. Behold it, gentlemen; read it! I have undertaken and performed a forty-two days' journey round my room. The interesting observations I have made, and the constant pleasure I have experienced all along the road, made me wish to publish my travels." (As mentioned in "The Aleph" [PDF] by Jorge Luis Borges and previously on AskMe: True tales of adventure and Unknown book about a man who decided to be a tourist in his own home.)
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:45 AM PST - 9 comments

Garfield, set in a scene of the Sabertooth Tiger Volcano Hell Dimension

"Most of the stories in His 9 Lives are light-hearted comics about Garfield's past incarnations throughout history (for example, as a cave cat or a viking). But in "Primal Self" — which features art by Jim Clements, Gary Barker, and Larry Fentz — things go off the deep end without warning. I read "Primal Self" when I was seven, and it messed me up for a solid week." Holy crap, this is the most terrifying Garfield strip ever published. If you need something to lighten you up* after that, here's a playlist of the animated version of His 9 Lives**, which doesn't include "Primal Self," two others. The noir Garfield's Babes and Bullets was it's own short special, and for a final bonus, here's Garfield's Feline Fantasies, for another "alternate universes/lives" Garfield video. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:03 AM PST - 26 comments

“The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”

Carson McCullers at 100: A Century of American Suffering [The Guardian] “Where truth fails, fiction flourishes. In The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, who would have turned 100 years old on Sunday, distilled all of these consternations, enabling in literature the self-reckoning that had been avoided in reality. Set in a southern mill town much like her own Columbus, Georgia, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter [wiki] traces the hapless lives of five townspeople, all of whom are inexplicably drawn to a deaf-mute named John Singer. There is the young Mick Kelly, a teenage girl who dreams of making it big; Biff Bannon, the middle-class owner of a local cafe; Jake Blount, the most overtly political character and Dr Benedict Copeland, the town’s African American doctor who rails against the inequities of a racist society, but is helpless against them. As they all interact with Singer, they fail to notice his pain or that he is mourning a loss of his own: the banishment of his friend Spiros Antonapoulos to an insane asylum.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:01 AM PST - 14 comments

"it's a rather astonishing message which might do the trick"

100 years ago this week, the Zimmermann telegram went public. In January 1917 the German government invited Mexico to attack the United States, and suggested Japan play a role. While Mexico demurred, Britain's signals intelligence office caught and decrypted the coded message, then gave it to American diplomats, who soon published it in newspapers. Several weeks later Arthur Zimmermann, Germany's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, publicly confirmed the telegram's authorship and contents. In a few months, based on the telegram and other issues, president Wilson took America into World War One. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 1:06 AM PST - 10 comments

March 3

The Walled Off Hotel

Banksy has opened a hotel in Bethlehem...
posted by dfm500 at 9:20 PM PST - 53 comments

Menus of the sixteenth century Vatican

His banquets were the talk of royal and ecclesiastical courts throughout Christendom; one of them comprised hundreds of dishes, including seventy-seven different desserts and edible statues of weird beasts from the Orient, Greek gods, and cavorting nymphs. Once their bellies had been filled, guests were presented with posies of silk flowers attached to stems of pure gold.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:43 PM PST - 7 comments

Camera Shutter Synced with Helicopter Rotor

Give it a spin! [slyt]
posted by naturalog at 6:59 PM PST - 30 comments

Rachel Dolezal: ‘I’m not going to stoop and apologise and grovel’

A long interview with Rachel Dolezal (who has since changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo) Topics discussed include her past, present on public assistance, and future memoir In Full Color.
posted by koavf at 6:21 PM PST - 184 comments

"Facts just twist the truth around, facts are living turned inside out."

Why We Believe Obvious Untruths. "The situation is vexing because it seems so easy to solve. The truth is obvious if you bother to look for it, right? This line of thinking leads to explanations of the hoodwinked masses that amount to little more than name calling: “Those people are foolish” or “Those people are monsters." Such accounts may make us feel good about ourselves, but they are misguided and simplistic: They reflect a misunderstanding of knowledge that focuses too narrowly on what goes on between our ears."
posted by storybored at 5:27 PM PST - 22 comments

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.

Dog Breath Photography is the place to go for great pictures of good doggies. Owner Kaylee Greer "is fueled by the joy, whimsy and unrelenting happiness that is so uniquely canine." Many more pictures can be found on her blog. [The pages on both sites are quite large, datawise.]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:52 PM PST - 12 comments

"You can, AND MUST, see more photos here."

PoPville, self-styled as "DC's Neighborhood Blog," often posts real estate listings to informally survey readers on whether they're a "Good Deal, or Not?" If you like eclectic and retro interior design, today's feature is indeed a good deal. The best deal.
posted by capricorn at 1:29 PM PST - 75 comments

Groot's oldest friend

A nice short comic about Groot. [slimgur from Groot #6 (2015, Marvel); Jeff Loveness (script), Brian Kesinger (pencils, inks, colours), Jeff Eckleberry (lettering)]
posted by crocomancer at 12:19 PM PST - 25 comments

We're Going to Build a Wall (No Guarantee It Will Hold)

Roughly an hour after President Donald Trump said he had "total" confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Sessions recused himself from present and future investigations of the Trump campaign. Sessions repeated his assertion that his meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were done in his capacity as Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but then the Wall Street Journal revealed that he had used campaign funds to pay for the trip to Cleveland, contradicting the claim he was there on official business. The standard line seems to be that nobody recalls meeting with Kislyak. [more inside]
posted by fedward at 12:18 PM PST - 2602 comments

Music for weird black girls

Cameroon-born Lætitia Tamko is the sole force behind indie experiment Vagabon. Her just-released LP Infinite Worlds is getting some attention, which surprises her. Her opening track - The Embers - puts her as a small fish in a big pond, and in the music video her petite dark frame dances next lanky white men. It's a fitting metaphor for the girl who never thought she'd be on the radio. She embraces her position in indie music with raw talent, but wishes there was more space for young black women.
Her lyrics draw from other sources, always personal. She compares herself to the well where her village got their water : "People don’t always check to see if there’s any more left after they’ve taken what they need. No one looks down a well."
posted by FirstMateKate at 12:18 PM PST - 14 comments

We don't know what Poki is....

but he is very persistent! Rescuing the world's most annoying cat (slyt)
posted by mortimore at 11:34 AM PST - 35 comments

30 Years Later, Steamboat-Savage Is Still the Pinnacle

On March 29, 1987, the then-World Wrestling Federation held WrestleMania III. Everything about it was big, from the venue (the Pontiac Silverdome, which allegedly held more than 93,000 fans for the event) to the literally gigantic main event (Hulk Hogan defending his World Championship against Andre the Giant). But the ninth match on the card stole the show, and some say the decade: Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat wrested the Intercontinental Championship from Randy "Macho Man" Savage after nearly 15 minutes and 22 false falls in one of the greatest matches in wrestling history.
posted by Etrigan at 10:52 AM PST - 16 comments

Exciting power stations of Denmark

Denmark leads the world on new approaches to efficient, low carbon energy generation. Here are some of the most interesting. Spoiler: The most exciting one has a ski-slope on top. [more inside]
posted by biffa at 10:13 AM PST - 9 comments

Some reflections on overlooked rural black music in the 19th century

"For years the emphasis of those studying black American folk music has been directed to religious music (the first really respectable music to study), to jazz (the first commercially successful brand of music), or to blues. Yet do these three forms really account for all of the rich variety of black music found in folk tradition-or just the most visible ones? What about the rural fife-and-drum tradition, which has lingered unnoticed in Tennessee until this present generation? What about the tradition of black non-blues secular song? And what about the tradition of the rural string band music?" Rural Black String Band Music by Charles Wolfe [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:56 AM PST - 11 comments

Muskrat, muskrat by candlelight

Five delicious animals you can eat during Lent. (SLCracked)
posted by Iridic at 8:57 AM PST - 30 comments

Goodenough is more than Good Enough

The 94 year-old inventor of the Litium Ion Battery is at it again. "[Professor John B.] Goodenough’s latest breakthrough, completed with Cockrell School senior research fellow Maria Helena Braga, is a low-cost all-solid-state battery that is noncombustible and has a long cycle life (battery life) with a high volumetric energy density and fast rates of charge and discharge. The engineers describe their new technology in a recent paper published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science."
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:51 AM PST - 34 comments

A 40 lb. Preemie

Fiona the Hippo was born January 24th, six weeks premature and 25 lbs. too small. Despite a rough start, Fiona is doing well and is learning to be a hippo in her new, bigger pool. The Cincinnati Zoo continues to update her progress. [more inside]
posted by gladly at 7:55 AM PST - 14 comments

KRUMP, A Unique Style Of Dance

Tight Eyez, the originator of "KRUMP" Tight Eyez and his best friend Mijo created this style of dance. KRUMP is an acronym for "Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise". Top 5 Greatest Killoffs Kefton vs Tight Eyez
posted by xplosiv at 7:31 AM PST - 9 comments

You May Want to Marry My Husband

"I have never been on Tinder, Bumble or eHarmony, but I’m going to create a general profile for Jason right here, based on my experience of coexisting in the same house with him for, like, 9,490 days." (SL NYT Modern Love)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:43 AM PST - 62 comments

And this is why we will never have true equality in Britain.

How did the tube lines get their names? A history of London Underground in 12 lines
And so we reach the end of our journey, a line that’s named after the Queen. Or rather, another line that’s named after the bloody Queen, because apparently having one line named after an event in her life, and another after her great great grandmother, wasn’t good enough for her. So instead of Crossrail, the Elizabeth line it will be, even though she’s still alive, because naming transport infrastructure after people who are still breathing in and out is definitely not a creepy thing to do.
[more inside]
posted by Grangousier at 6:33 AM PST - 39 comments

"More than you ever wanted to know about these little charmers."

The Classic Typewriter Page by Prof. Richard Polt is an joyously exhaustive guide to typewriters, covering their history, parts and how to restore them. Prof. Polt's blog is also worth checking out, and his short introductions to various typewriters. Because Polt is a philosophy professor, he also has a short essay on the phenomenology of early typewriters. But typewriters are for using, and few things demonstrate that better than the page Writers and their Typewriters, which has a very long list of writers and the machines they used, with many pictures of said authors with their typewriters, including Dorothy Parker, Stephen King, Italo Calvino, Sylvia Plath, Françoise Sagan, Bob Dylan, Agatha Christie and Stanisław Lem.
posted by Kattullus at 3:23 AM PST - 22 comments

PC killed the Ab Fab show

Did Generation Snowflake kill Absolutely Fabulous? [slThePool]
posted by threetwentytwo at 12:42 AM PST - 75 comments

March 2

"Never has empty space been so full"

Guge rose to prominence in the tenth century following the collapse of the early Tibetan empire ruled from central Tibet. Tibetans speak of a “second diffusion” (chidar) of Buddhism to the high mountain plateaus under the patronage of the Guge kings, who developed a distinctive form of political organization: one of the royal princes would assume what might be called secular power, while his brothers and nephews would take monastic vows; among them, one became abbot of the Tholing monastery and thus emerged as the religious leader of the entire Guge region. Our modern categories should not, however, mislead us.
David Shulman reviews "Peter van Ham’s astonishing new book, Guge: Ages of Gold." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:06 PM PST - 9 comments

Enter your symptoms and figure out what you are for sure dying of.

Hypochondriapp: enter your symptoms. Get the worst disease possible. [more inside]
posted by Uncle at 9:01 PM PST - 46 comments

Born Good?

Babies help unlock the secrets of morality.
posted by dfm500 at 8:55 PM PST - 8 comments

Some ornithologists have very strong feelings about hyphens.

An ostrich is definitely not a bald eagle, nor is a Canada goose a mallard. But the closer you zoom, the fuzzier things get. Are the Striolated Puffbirds of the western Amazon who stutter at the start of their songs different enough from other Striolated Puffbirds to merit full species status? What is a species, exactly, and where do the lines between one and another lie?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:09 PM PST - 8 comments

"Bro, this is wild."

Why are fifteen turkeys circling a dead cat in Massachussetts? [video] Wildlife biologist on flock of turkeys circling dead cat in video: "It’s just really creepy and weird."
posted by moonmilk at 6:18 PM PST - 55 comments

Why didn't gay rights cure gay loneliness?

The challenges of masculinity get magnified in a community of men. “For years I’ve noticed the divergence between my straight friends and my gay friends. While one half of my social circle has disappeared into relationships, kids and suburbs, the other has struggled through isolation and anxiety, hard drugs and risky sex.”
posted by jopreacher at 5:04 PM PST - 107 comments

Marathon Dragon Questing

Twitch streamer Highspirits is attempting to play through all 9 installments of the long running Dragon Quest series in a single sitting. 2017 is the 30th anniversary of the series with DQ XI scheduled to release this year in Japan on PS4, 3DS and Nintendo Switch. The series has an uneven record in the west, but re-releases of DQ VII and VIII in 2016 for 3DS may signal a resurgence. [more inside]
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:54 PM PST - 36 comments

“If I start being a critic, then I’m a critic.”

In the wake of Chicken Connoisseur (previously) and with a rise in populism on both sides of the Atlantic, Navneet Alang contemplates what qualifies someone to be a food critic.
posted by noneuclidean at 3:51 PM PST - 11 comments

Nintendo Switch more like Nintendo Retch amirite

How do you keep kids from eating your tiny video game cartridges? If you're Nintendo, you coat the damn things with the incredibly potent bitterant Denatonium, the compound usually added to things like methanol, antifreeze, and denatured alcohol. Jealous that your old NES carts don't taste so bad? This educational video will help you make your own!
posted by cortex at 3:40 PM PST - 37 comments

One man shining a light on the alt-right

Since 2000, Daryle Jenkins has been tracking the activities of white supremacy groups and individuals linked to white supremacy. Jenkins' organization, One People's Project, has a mission to illuminate the players and activities involved in racist activities in the United States. His slogan: Hate has Consequences. [more inside]
posted by areaperson at 12:36 PM PST - 14 comments

Mind-splitting archive of Lou Reed's life unveiled

Rolling Stone: Today, on what would have been Lou Reed's 75th birthday, Laurie Anderson and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center announced the latter's acquisition of Reed's complete personal archive. It includes 300 linear feet of correspondence, business papers and photographs; more than 600 hours of concert, studio, demo and interview tapes; 1,300 video recordings; and extensive personal memorabilia, including his LP collection. [more inside]
posted by porn in the woods at 12:29 PM PST - 24 comments

You will probably like this. (p<.05)

Seeing Theory is an amazing interactive introduction to statistics and probability. Though the visualizations and interactive toys are really great, the concepts can get complicated quickly. If you are confused, you may be interested in the free Open Intro to Statistics textbook or the video series by the same authors. For a gentle introduction, consider watching this BBC documentary on statistics by the late, great Hans Rosling.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:42 AM PST - 10 comments

Garfield's a boy... right?

How a cartoon cat’s gender identity launched a Wikipedia war.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:40 AM PST - 100 comments

“We [white people] tend to have blind spots about the way it all works.”

The Scene On Radio podcast, produced and hosted by John Biewen at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies has often looked at race over the past two seasons. (More episodes listed inside.) Beginning in 2017, the podcast has started taking on nothing but that one, central issue: [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 11:38 AM PST - 4 comments

Below the thunders of the upper deep

Chock full of cephalopod goodness, Aliens of the Lembeh Strait [forceful music] is an award-winning film by Sascha Janson.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:05 AM PST - 9 comments

An award of this magnitude will continue the healing for many of us.

Now unemployed and living in a caravan in Adelaide, the Indigenous Australian poet Ali Cobby Eckermann says she “pretty much just cried a lot” when she received an email on Thursday notifying her that she had won a literary prize of US$165,000 (A$215,000).
[more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:03 AM PST - 5 comments

Nothing hurts any more

Screened-out by George Monboit:
We are separated from the world by a layer of glass. Climate change, distant wars, the erosion of democracy, the resurgence of fascism – in our temperature-controlled enclosures, all can be reduced to abstractions.
Yuval Harari (Homo Deus, 2016) reminds that reducing the world to abstractions is not a new thing. Religion was the first virtual reality."Providing people with meaning by imposing imaginary rules on an objective reality." [more inside]
posted by nickrussell at 9:39 AM PST - 23 comments

What's in a name? When you're a minority, everything.

This past Sunday night, Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim actor to win an Academy Award—best supporting actor for his tender performance as Juan in Moonlight. [...] God forbid a black Muslim man simply be honored at Hollywood's most glamorous and esteemed event without facing the kind of microaggression that people of color do every single day. [...] During one of the night's comedic bits, Kimmel had the audience shout "Mahershala!" instead of "surprise" to welcome a tour group. As if Ali's name, his identity, is some sort of gimmick.
posted by numaner at 9:07 AM PST - 136 comments

Edison, Essanay, Gaumont, Lubin, Méliès, Pathé, Selig, Vitagraph

Moving Picture World was a weekly trade journal covering the early years of the American film business, 1907-1927. Each issue contained plotline summaries of new films for the benefit of exhibitors and theater musicians. Some unknown hero has uploaded 15,338 of those summaries to IMDb.
posted by Iridic at 8:34 AM PST - 6 comments

Synthesize the Soul: Astro-Atlantic Hypnotica

"Via Bandcamp's Album of the Day blog: 'Synthesize the Soul: Astro-Atlantic Hypnotica From the Cape Verde Islands 1973-1988' By 1975, the Cape Verde islands and Guinea-Bissau were free from Portuguese rule, embarking on the long journey of post-colonial reformation. Throughout the next decade and a half, the cultural life of the Cape Verdean islands exploded, giving birth to a number of bands who took the islands’ traditional/indigenous styles and fused them with Portuguese fado (the folk music of Portugal’s urban poor and working class), while also taking influences from the rock and R&B sounds that had been coming over from the States. [more inside]
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:16 AM PST - 7 comments

criminalized for a legal purchase

An officer told her that the car had over $5,000 in unpaid parking tickets, which the dealer would have to pay off to secure title or ownership. By never forwarding Fowlkes's information to the DMV, the dealer saved money but also turned Markeisha Fowlkes into a target for cops.
posted by BekahVee at 5:39 AM PST - 41 comments

#BringBackOurInternet

Since January 17th, the government of Cameroon has blocked Internet access to two Anglophone regions of the country following a series of protests. [more inside]
posted by metaquarry at 5:03 AM PST - 3 comments

Operation Nanny Goat

Make hackers #1 again, YouTube defcon talk by Chris Rock, 2016 how to overthrow a government . [more inside]
posted by hyram at 4:14 AM PST - 20 comments

The struggle to be British: my life as a second-class citizen

But in the last 15 years, citizenship, participation and “shared values” have been given ever more emphasis. They have also been accompanied by a deepening atmosphere of suspicion around people of Muslim background, particularly those who were born overseas or hold dual nationality. This is making people like me, who have struggled to become British, feel like second-class citizens. [slGuardian]
posted by ellieBOA at 4:03 AM PST - 7 comments

March 1

Simplified and refreshed clusterfuck-in-lipstick

The City of Vancouver (Canada) chose the lowest local bidder to design their new logo. They got what they paid for. Local designers were so horrified they wrote an open letter to the mayor and city council. Yesterday the mayor's office halted the rollout of the wordmark.
posted by AFABulous at 8:09 PM PST - 99 comments

You know there's no point, but you do it out of love

The state of the State Department The once bustling halls of the U.S. State Department are now quiet, as staff find themselves cut out of the loop and without direction.
posted by bitmage at 8:07 PM PST - 30 comments

Conan Without Borders: Made In Mexico

To defuse some of the recent anti-mexican sentiment provoked by 45, talk show host and cheese merchant Conan O'Brien went to Mexico City to tape a show with an all-mexican cast and crew.
posted by Omon Ra at 7:40 PM PST - 11 comments

Bump the lamp

Who Framed Roger Rabbit - The 3 Rules of Living Animation [SLYT by creator kaptainkristian; captioned]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:18 PM PST - 20 comments

Milkshake?

The Before Trilogy: Time Regained - Film writer David Lim's essay on Richard Linklater’s "Before Sunrise", "Before Sunset" and "Before Midnight" - recently released as a Criterion Collection set.
posted by davebush at 7:05 PM PST - 22 comments

RTFA

Norwegian public broadcaster NRK is testing out a novel way to civilize its online comment sections: a multiple-choice quiz about the content. The feature, introduced last month, seems to be successful at keeping the trolls at bay and improving the quality of conversation in the comments section of the site.
posted by roolya_boolya at 5:22 PM PST - 28 comments

No hashtag. Yet.

I look code up on the internet all the time. Some experienced & well-respected programmers find whiteboard algorithm hazing a grueling and not necessarily useful interview process.
posted by theora55 at 2:54 PM PST - 157 comments

Max Martin Interview

Some of the most beloved hit-songs the world has listened to för the past 20 years were written by a swede – Martin Sandberg. He is better known as Max Martin, but few out of the music-business knows who he is. Until now. For the first time Max Martin tells his story in a world exclusive interview.
posted by josher71 at 1:23 PM PST - 23 comments

Beyond Frida Kahlo

Can You Name 5 Women Artists? The National Museum of Women in the Arts is issuing the challenge. With female artists representing only 3-5% of artists collected by major museums, the campaign highlights ongoing issue of sexism and gender parity in the art world. Follow all month on Instagram, Twitter, and participating museum feeds.
posted by Miko at 12:14 PM PST - 109 comments

Explore Your Life in History

Tell us your birthday, and we’ll show you how the world has changed during your lifetime. The Atlantic has released a tool that highlights generational experiences by walking through world events that shaped the thoughts and memories of Americans worldwide. All you need is a birthday.
posted by sciatrix at 12:00 PM PST - 55 comments

The End of the Olympics As We Know It

Only a handful of cities can afford the two-week-long, über-expensive bonanza that is the Olympic Games. Unless something changes, angry citizens who don’t want to pay for a bunch of useless stadiums are going to force the IOC to decide on a semi-permanent set of hosts.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:27 AM PST - 77 comments

A lot of my discoveries seem like tall tales... here's some evidence now

47 ingots of a copper (80%) and zinc (20%) based alloy with small traces of lead and nickel, two Corinthian helmets, archaic amphorae and a Massaliote round-bottom flask (ie., from the ancient Greek colony of Marseilles in France), have recently been recovered off the coast of Bulala, near the ancient Greek colony of Gela, in southern Sicily. This is the second recovery of a collection of this ancient alloy, the first brought up 39 ingots in 2015, when the metal was first called orichalcum, and with it came references to Atlantis. But what is orichalcum, a mined metal or an alloy? [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:14 AM PST - 19 comments

Exploring the mysteries of Mexican sodas

"Sodas south of the border have their own unique quirks and singular traits , drawing tropical inspiration from traditional drinks served in Mexico for millennia."
posted by MrJM at 9:59 AM PST - 37 comments

Fleeing the hermit kingdom just isn’t what it used to be

Erik Thurman's Leaving North Korea, a long-form comic about how difficult it is to escape the Hermit Nation.
posted by Etrigan at 9:23 AM PST - 7 comments

Leslie668 is away: This isn't goodby

AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) is going to disable access to its network for third party messaging apps like Adium as of March 28, likely ending the era of having a single client* for multiple chat platforms and being able to actually tell people you are unavailable. [more inside]
posted by zenon at 8:53 AM PST - 51 comments

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

How much pee is in our swimming pools? A new urine test reveals the truth. Perhaps that's not your biggest worry, however, because in addition to pee, the next pool you dive into will probably contain a wee bit of fecal matter, a dollop of human sweat and some guy’s skin cells floating around. But if you're into that sort of thing, pop on over to the Experience Project and read about the folks who admit they always pee in the swimming pool.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:44 AM PST - 79 comments

“Also this cat is ruining my credit score.”

A startup is working with pet stores around the country on leases for expensive purebred pets. Wags Lending claims that this expands credit to people who would otherwise be unable to afford the pet they want, but lessees are surprised to find they don't own their own pets, and frustrated by monthly payments that total more than double the sticker price. It's also not entirely clear that a lease for a pet is legal. No official word on whether the financialization of the emotional bonds between humans and animal companions is likely to be a good idea in the long term.
posted by Copronymus at 8:33 AM PST - 74 comments

Wenk called it “the Kevin stimulus.”

"...nearly everyone who approached the candy while Kevin was present emitted some sort of noise before opening the jar, even if it was just a primal “oooooh!” or “mmmm.” The sweet psychology behind the office candy jar, including why no one wants to be caught taking the last piece.
posted by redsparkler at 8:12 AM PST - 40 comments

A refreshing and spontaneous talent

The watercolor sketches & captions of Diana Sperling (1791-1862) depict vibrant, witty scenes of comfortable Regency life. Her sketchbook was published as Mrs Hurst Dancing & Other Scenes from Regency Life 1812 – 1823, recording for posterity such moments as her younger sister falling off a donkey and the extended family playing with electricity.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 6:52 AM PST - 11 comments

On Virgin Train Toilets

I mean, why on earth are there two buttons, one for closing the door, one for locking it? When does anybody ever want to just close the door, without locking it? They obviously realised the little red light above the padlock button wasn’t clear enough, so they added a honking great padlock light further up – but I speak from experience when I say, even with the second padlock light, you have absolutely no trust that the door is actually locked.
posted by veedubya at 3:18 AM PST - 87 comments

"It tastes like mothballs and old library books."

A YouTuber named Steve1989 collects, eats (usually), and reviews old and obscure military rations (MREs) from around the world. Far from being stunt posts, they're more like excited unboxing videos with interesting histories. A sampling: 1944 WW2 British Special Ration Type C MRE Review, 1969 Food Packet, Survival, Abandon Aircraft Ration MRE Review, 1985 Dutch 24hr Ration MRE Review, 2015 French RCIR Ostrich & Cranberry Sauce 24 Hr Ration MRE Review [via Munchies]
posted by Room 641-A at 12:59 AM PST - 21 comments