MetaFilter

"I came up with a formula for devising your lips’ undertones, but it will take a little bit of computer know how." I Tried 36 Lipsticks to Find a True Red, by Danielle Guercio [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:01 PM PST - 70 comments

Ever wanted one of those Elizabethan wing-looking collars? If so, the Very Merry Seamstress has you covered.
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 6:57 PM PST - 8 comments

Siri talked only to a few limited functions, like the map, the datebook, and Google. All the imitators, from the outright copies like Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana to a host of more-focused applications with names like Amazon Echo, Samsung S Voice, Evi, and Maluuba, followed the same principle. The problem was you had to code everything. You had to tell the computer what to think. Linking a single function to Siri took months of expensive computer science. You had to anticipate all the possibilities and account for nearly infinite outcomes. If you tried to open that up to the world, other people would just come along and write new rules and everything would get snarled in the inevitable conflicts of competing agendas—just like life. Even the famous supercomputers that beat Kasparov and won Jeopardy! follow those principles. That was the "pain point," the place where everything stops: There were too many rules.

So what if they just wrote rules on how to solve rules?

The idea was audacious. They would be creating a DNA, not a biology, forcing the program to think for itself.

John H. Richardson for Esquire
posted by p3on at 5:59 PM PST - 67 comments

"Many of the places and peoples most severely hit were the poorest, those in villages close to the epicenter where homes are made from mud and wood. Homes that collapsed in the earthquake. Homes in regions where there are no vehicular roads, where already weak communication infrastructure is now not operative, where rescue and relief operations are struggling to reach. Some of these villages are known to anthropology students around the world. For better or worse, Nepal has a deep ethnographic literature, much of it centered on the sort of mountain villages so devastated by the earthquake... Some of these villages are gone.

[more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 5:30 PM PST - 6 comments

As a contrast to this thread, here's an article on what it's like to be a contestant on Wheel of Fortune.
posted by DRoll at 5:09 PM PST - 14 comments

nytimes.cat is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their newspaper, or why.
posted by emelenjr at 4:57 PM PST - 17 comments

How old do I look? Upload a photo and this site tries to determine age and gender.
posted by pravit at 4:51 PM PST - 105 comments

Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it : One man's epic journey to possess a wall-sized world map, which he loves.
posted by swift at 3:12 PM PST - 59 comments

Previously on MetaFilter, we discussed a strange new form of propulsion that NASA was investigating. There are variants to the EM Drive, but the basic principle is the same: put lots of microwaves into the right shaped chamber, and thrust appears. Electricity to motion in free space? Much skepticism. But nearly a year and much more testing later - the story is getting weirder.
posted by Devonian at 1:49 PM PST - 161 comments

London, 1971. You sit at your typewriter, typing up a report while reflecting on your mysterious and troubling past. Your hands glide over the keys, but they are no normal hands and no normal keys. They are spy hands and spy keys.
posted by rorgy at 1:45 PM PST - 33 comments

Mud and Blood 2 (flash) from MudandBlood.net, a profoundly unfair sandbox war game based loosely on Operation Lüttich (aka Mortain counter-offensive). You play the Allies and you will lose, screaming. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston at 1:39 PM PST - 10 comments

A Little Girl Riding an Avengers: Age of Ultron Hulkbuster High Chair Is the Childhood Everyone Dreams Of
posted by Lexica at 11:41 AM PST - 7 comments

The dilemma gets figured out at 1m50s. [SLYT]
posted by hippybear at 11:35 AM PST - 41 comments

Real animals have wants and needs -- this chattering hunk of plastic is WAY better! Tired of having to feed and care for a bird? STOP RIGHT THERE, this late-night commercial has you covered -- Perfect Polly will be your plastic pal who's fun to be with! And if the ad is accurate, it's got Never Shuts Up Action until you turn it off! It can sit on your finger! It can even confuse a real bird! (via, of all places, The Dissolve)
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 11:24 AM PST - 35 comments

1967 NBC News Special Report: "Summer of '67"[YouTube]

The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan. It began on a Saturday night in the early morning hours of July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount streets on the city's Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in United States history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot. [Wiki]

posted by Fizz at 10:42 AM PST - 15 comments

Clowes Encounter: an extended interview with Ghost World and Eightball writer/illustrator Daniel Clowes. [more inside]
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:51 AM PST - 5 comments

[EXIF] Metadata: MetaUseful & MetaCreepy [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:26 AM PST - 20 comments

"ICP's intense work ethic and preparation have been essential to their ascension from a second-tier Detroit rap group into the leaders of their own subculture—a feat accomplished by virtually no other group in popular American music, save for maybe the Grateful Dead." Tears of a clown [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 9:13 AM PST - 55 comments

In the late seventies and early eighties TV stations embraced the video game craze by granting lucky viewers the chance to play them on the air by shouting POW! into their phone. [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:16 AM PST - 38 comments

The Washington Post sheds some much needed, highly relevant historical context on "[t]he long, painful and repetitive history of how Baltimore became Baltimore". [more inside]
posted by ourt at 7:59 AM PST - 32 comments

Having trouble getting off the train? Crowds can get in the way, or sometimes an extremely bored bricklayer just seals you in the car.
posted by selfnoise at 6:57 AM PST - 46 comments

Women haven't always gotten to play a big role in the scientific advancements, studies and cultural conversations concerning sexuality. […] But numerous powerful women have elbowed their way in, taking control over female sexuality and introducing innovations that actually what women want and need.

[more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 3:48 AM PST - 15 comments

In the same Nashville auditorium that he once ejected an audience member for repeatedly requesting it, Ryan Adams sings Summer of '69.
posted by pjenks at 3:12 AM PST - 80 comments

agar.io. You are a cell. Move with your mouse, eat things to get bigger, don't get eaten. Press space to split.
Warnings: Requires flash or something. Involves other people and has free-form name entry, with predictable results. [more inside]
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:59 AM PST - 59 comments

The Open Wikipedia Ranking lets you browse Wikipedia pages "by importance". Their primary ranking system is called "Harmonic Centrality", but you can select other methods, including PageRank and raw Page Views. Type an inquiry into the search box or choose from one of the rather whimsically selected front page categories. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:38 AM PST - 9 comments

Episode 1 - In the toughest renovation show to ever hit our screens, New Zealand couple Marwyn and Jess have purchased Australia to turn it into the home of their dreams. Episode 2 - In this episode, our couple finally get a contractor to help them fix the national identity. Episode 3 - In this episode, our couple tackle the climate--and a big air con is beyond their budget. [more inside]
posted by unliteral at 12:10 AM PST - 11 comments

Why read lengthy articles on the history of Atari when you can hear stories first-hand? Hear Nolan Bushnell (and a few others) tell all about how a little company named Syzygy became Atari, in clips both new(ish) and old; tune in for four episodes of Once Upon Atari, featuring Atari staff reminiscing about the good times and bad; and visit Alamogordo, New Mexico, home of rocket sled land-speed records and the grave of Ham, the first chimp in space, with Zak Penn as he digs for the truth behind the legend of the buried E.T. cartridges in Atari: Game Over with fans and Howard Scott Warshaw, the man who made the Atari E.T. game in five weeks. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:50 PM PST - 11 comments

Secret shuts down San Francisco, NYC, and other cities lose weird, raunchy, anonymous zeitgeist
posted by specialk420 at 10:21 PM PST - 62 comments

The Hilltop Steakhouse (1961-2013), which once served as many as three million customers per year, was demolished on Monday, as documented by photographer Brian Cummings. Brian also took photos of the interior a few days before the demoliton. While the 68-foot-tall iconic cactus sign is expected to remain, the steer have migrated to greener pastures. (And not to the top of the Dome of Building 10 at MIT, as one was once relocated in 1979.)
Don't forget to moo at the cows as you drive by, It's part of the fun! :oP
posted by not_on_display at 9:09 PM PST - 27 comments

Comment Is Weird [more inside]
posted by NoraReed at 7:47 PM PST - 23 comments

While scientists have long known that modern day birds are dinosaurs (a fact that is self-evident if you ever look at a cassowary), it now appears that birds were not the dinosaurs' only attempt at flight. It may have had feathers, but the recently discovered Yi qi ("Strange Wing") had wings like a bat.
posted by brundlefly at 5:40 PM PST - 22 comments

Suzanne Crough who played Tracy, the youngest of the Partridge Family has passed on.
posted by jonmc at 4:39 PM PST - 17 comments

The backwards Brain Bicycle "I almost broke my brain with a backwards bicycle for the sake of Science."
posted by dhruva at 2:32 PM PST - 95 comments

Down the Rabbit Hole is a repository of observations about estranged parent support forums (previously). It contains comparisons of forum culture between discussion sites for estranged parents and those for children, themes of discussion found on estranged parent sites, and possible reasons estranged parent forums develop toxic dynamics.
posted by sciatrix at 1:51 PM PST - 81 comments

"Welcome to Moon Drawings. We invite you to contribute a drawing—which will be etched on a sapphire disc, sent to the Moon, and potentially traced by a robot rover into the Moon's soil." [more inside]
posted by oulipian at 1:49 PM PST - 31 comments

Why those 'amazing' macro photographs of frogs aren't what they seem (Previously)
posted by mippy at 1:22 PM PST - 12 comments

"Almost all media coverage depends on a rehash of several myths about this election. Let’s look at them – in no particular order – one by one. -- Eight media myths about the 2015 election and why they're wrong by Alex Grant.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:05 PM PST - 22 comments

Floyd Mayweather is the best boxer of his generation, and a serial batterer. In the lead-up to the biggest fight of Mayweather's career, Louisa Thomas lays out the evidence for both claims, across multiple fights and multiple beatings, and grapples with the question: "What do you do with this?" [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 12:54 PM PST - 72 comments

An Oral History of Radiohead's OK Computer.
posted by kenko at 12:45 PM PST - 29 comments

When Dr. Patrick Moore appeared on cable channel Canal+ to argue for the safety of the widely used herbicide glyphosate he asserted that it would be completely safe to drink right from a glass. When the interviewer challenged him to follow through on the act, he backed down. Recently, Stu Burguiere of The Blaze decided to accept the challenge and drank a glass of the herbicide along with fracking fluid and artificial sweeteners. The cocktail also included a salt rimmed glass and a lemon garnish. It had the neon green appearance of a Vodka and Diet Dew. Don't try this at home. Or anywhere.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:34 PM PST - 46 comments

You Must Remember This (previously) is a weekly podcast by Karina Longworth, documenting the secrets and forgotten histories of 20th century Hollywood. The podcast recently wrapped up "Star Wars," its first themed arc on the subject of movie stars and their lives and careers during times of war... [more inside]
posted by griphus at 10:34 AM PST - 37 comments

The NFL Draft is here and once again you are not in it. Rude! You like football, too. You at least deserve a scouting report just like the soon-to-be pros. Enter the SB Nation Bullshit Draft Scouting Report Generator.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 10:27 AM PST - 23 comments

“an atlas of a specific luxury” (regarding five white male humans i witnessed swiping right repeatedly on the app “tinder” in californian-american public throughout the year 2014) by tim rogers
posted by daisyk at 10:24 AM PST - 77 comments

Marble Soda (live mashup), a song by Shawn Wasabi with samples from 153 sources. [more inside]
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:00 AM PST - 9 comments

Today's Orioles and White Sox game at Camden Yards in Baltimore will be the first game in MLB history played in an empty stadium. However, the phenomenon is more common in football (soccer) because of reasons ranging from punishment for racist fans to fears of contagious diseases. The crew at 538.com suggest that the Orioles might lose the home-field advantage from umpiring calls that teams playing in front of a friendly crowd typically enjoy. If you want to view the surreal scene yourself, the game is MLB.com's free game of the day.
posted by Fister Roboto at 9:36 AM PST - 185 comments

From eagles and robots to wrenches and cruise ships, the artisans of Ghana's Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop ensure decedents will be ushered to the afterlife in meticulously detailed coffins designed to fit the dearly departed's lifestyle, in accordance with Ga-Adangme traditions. [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 8:31 AM PST - 14 comments

BBC: "Huang's new project is based on a similar idea - this time, he asked people to display everything they've ever bought online. The results are a testament to the overwhelming popularity of online shopping, particularly China's most popular internet shopping platform, Taobao." [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 6:48 AM PST - 8 comments

Nicki Minaj caused a bit of a stir with a recent performance at a taxi-tycoon's son's bar mitzvah (no one seemed to care that Hank Aaron and Andrew Cuomo were also there). But Grantland reporter Rembert Browne uncovers the real story - the complicated, intertwined relationships revealed in his in-depth sociological analysis of the after-party group photo.
posted by ericbop at 6:47 AM PST - 97 comments

“I asked, ‘Why are you here?’ He said ‘pot.’ Later I saw him and asked, ‘What did you get?’ He said he got a $150 fine. And for selling maple syrup, I have a $424,000 fine. There is something wrong with this picture.”
posted by Chrysostom at 6:44 AM PST - 43 comments

"I've heard horror stories of audiences guffawing through The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Thing, Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather—c'mon, The Godfather!? And perversely, the same crowds stay quiet during actual classic comedies. It's like modern audiences must one-up the past. But that's a contest where everyone loses: the filmmakers whose efforts go ignored, the hipsters who wasted their money, and the rest of us who wanted to enjoy a good movie without getting distracted wondering how to murder a yukster with a bucket of popcorn and a straw.” (Amy Nicholson writing for LA Weekly)
posted by valkane at 5:44 AM PST - 256 comments

William H. Macy Is Cinema's Number One Loser (SLYT)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:10 AM PST - 23 comments

Unpredictable days, part-time work, and digital scheduling—welcome to the new battle over the clock.

Previously on mefi: Working anything but 9 to 5
posted by ellieBOA at 3:34 AM PST - 40 comments

ULTRAFACTS
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:52 PM PST - 13 comments

It turns out just about anyone can open a Masterlock combination lock in under two minutes, in eight tries or less. ArsTechnica has the story. See how it's done.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:07 PM PST - 74 comments

Because going to the store buying things online is such a chore. First there was the monolith to put on your coffee table and allow to listen to everything you say. Now comes Amazon's most aggressive move yet towards frictionless purchasing: logo-emblazoned physical buttons that buy things. Plus an SDK that makes your other things buy things, without your input. [more inside]
posted by fifthrider at 7:19 PM PST - 64 comments

Vermont Public Radio reports that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will announce his run for the Democratic nomination for US President. Other sources - among them, the Guardian and the Washington Post - have confirmed the scoop.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:10 PM PST - 209 comments

The news is full of awful things right now, so turn it off and watch this livestream of day-old kittens and their mother. These little guys are being fostered by the people at tinykittens.com, where you will never run out of squee.
posted by desjardins at 5:05 PM PST - 78 comments

The rise and fall of the Bombshell Bandit
posted by andoatnp at 4:27 PM PST - 8 comments

Dancing with Cannibals is an historical novel available as an ebook. From the Mefi Projects description page: "Never before has there been a novel about the genocide in the Congo Free State written in English by an African writer. Dancing with Cannibals would seem to have been influenced by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (which is also set in the Congo during the Belgian regime) and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, but Dicho Ilunga has not read either of those books. Ilunga’s writing is largely absent a European context. Ilunga describes his literary training as coming from the Zairian writers that he read in school and from two novels by Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho who Ilunga says has an African style." [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:59 PM PST - 11 comments

A highly addictive and adorable Japanese Smartphone Game Available for both IOS and Android and exclusively in Japanese, it's pretty easy to navigate, and a clearer explanation of how to play can be found here.
posted by KernalM at 3:02 PM PST - 407 comments

"the lighter you were, the more likely it was that the camera got your likeness right.” "In film photography, color balance has a lot to do with the chemical composition of the film. For many decades, color film in the United States was calibrated to highlight Caucasian skin tones. This was the most fundamental problem. With an unusual degree of skill and attention, a photographer could compensate for the biases in most stages of production. But there was nothing they could do about the film’s color balance. When the famous New Wave filmmaker Jean Luc Godard was commissioned to make a film about Mozambique, he reportedly refused to use Kodachrome film -- the most popular color film at the time. He complained the film, developed for a predominantly white market, was 'racist.'"
posted by minhrootloop at 1:35 PM PST - 58 comments

Following up on the story of the Corinthian 15 (previously on the blue), Corinthian Colleges has formally ceased operations and is selling or shutting down its campuses. In the meantime, the US Department of Education has helpfully provided a list of "viable transfer options" [PDF]. Minor problem: some of those for-profit schools are also under investigation. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:32 PM PST - 32 comments

Lucero Tena (Spanish) has amazing rhythm and control, as seen and heard in her dancing, tapping, clapping and snapping, but she is best known for her mastery of the castanets, used in accompaniment to a solo guitar along with her dancing, and perhaps more impressively, as a solo instrument in front of an orchestra there in a piece specifically written for her and her castanets. She may not dance any more, but her skill with the castanets is still astonishing. If you're lucky, you can catch her in a live performance.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:35 PM PST - 13 comments

"What could you possibly have in common with a mushroom, or a dinosaur, or even a bacterium? More than you might think. In this Lab, you’ll puzzle out the evolutionary relationships linking together a spectacular array of species. Explore the tree of life and get a front row seat to what some have called the greatest show on Earth. That show is evolution." Evolution Lab is a educational game created by the Life on Earth Project and NOVA Labs
posted by brundlefly at 12:25 PM PST - 13 comments

The best video game of the past summer is Gone Home. The best story of the past summer is Gone Home. Consider it the newest addition to the canon of narratives that achieve Munro’s vision—even if it came in a shape no one was expecting.

Why Alice Munro Should Play "Gone Home": The Video Game as Story and Experience -- by Carmen Maria Machado. Bonus: "strange and seductive stories" -- Sofia Samatar on Carmen Maria Machado's own fiction
posted by MartinWisse at 12:13 PM PST - 23 comments

Welcome to the main artery into creative or elite work—highly pressurized, poorly recompensed, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes menial secretarial assistance.
posted by Lycaste at 12:12 PM PST - 25 comments

TEN YEARS TO MIDNIGHT. Jon Bois (previously) follows up on last year's agonizing, slow death of the NBA with its perfect, beautiful opposite. [more inside]
posted by creade at 11:49 AM PST - 14 comments

Imagining a Safer Space: Building Community & Ending Harassment in Punk

I recently got harassed in a pretty terrifying way at a punk venue in Austin, Texas. I used my experience as inspiration for a piece that examines why and how harassers are allowed to continue operating within the punk community, as well as how to establish community norms that holds them accountable for their actions.

[via mefi projects]
posted by griphus at 10:26 AM PST - 35 comments

Lake Michigan is so clear right now that many shipwrecks are visible from the air.
posted by drezdn at 9:49 AM PST - 29 comments

Frankie is a sphynx (hairless) cat. She enjoys treats. Sometimes she is cold and needs a sweater. (MLYT, turn up the volume) [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 9:36 AM PST - 12 comments

Pennsylvania's oldest and largest is 400 acres. The oldest in New Jersey is now "trapped in the 19th century." NYC turned many into parks. What happens when a cemetery goes under? [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:07 AM PST - 26 comments

“But before he emptied the contents of Quinn’s private life into the gaping maw of a bloodthirsty Internet, back before he instigated the most vicious online backlash against feminism in a generation, there was a first date.”
Zachary Jason writes about Eron Gjoni's break-up and his subsequent actions in Boston Magazine: Game of Fear: What if a stalker had an army?
posted by Going To Maine at 8:56 AM PST - 452 comments

Actress and game show panelist Jayne Meadows has passed away at the age of 95. Meadows, whose career spanned over six decades, came from a showbiz family - her husband, Steve Allen, was an early television star and the first host of The Tonight Show, while her sister, Audrey, earned stardom for her role as Alice Kramden on The Honeymooners. [more inside]
posted by DRoll at 8:14 AM PST - 9 comments

"How the Whitney might just solve the impossible problem of contemporary art."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:00 AM PST - 16 comments

Alabama Shakes - Don't Wanna Fight [YouTube] From the new album "Sound & Color", live on Saturday Night Live. Previously.
posted by Fizz at 7:52 AM PST - 19 comments

If there is Guilty Pleasure, this is Guilty Pain. Dylan admits he’s very self-conscious to find emotional refuge in music that “isn’t even good.” It’s embarrassing to admit that during messy, adult heartbreak we often regress back to adolescence, to the same exact tools (even down to the 9-minute Something Corporate song) that helped us get through it the first time.

--When we are heartbroken, why do we turn to the music we loved as teens?
posted by almostmanda at 7:20 AM PST - 39 comments

The Words the Media Industry Prefers MeFi's own Paul Ford ( previously, a few times )writes another article about the internet and media and data and meaning.
posted by DigDoug at 5:01 AM PST - 13 comments

What's it like to be one of the Jeopardy! clue writers? The A.V. Club interviews Billy Wisse, who has worked at Jeopardy! as researcher, proofreader, and writer since 1990, and as head writer since 2011.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:49 AM PST - 23 comments

What's My Starbucks Name is like a bad barrista simulator, showing all the ways they can get your name WRONG.
roasted by dumbbelldupe
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:42 AM PST - 98 comments

Mihai's legacy is that there are hundreds of millions of people using a product, Firefox, that Mihai contributed to, hundreds of thousands of them of them spend a significant proportion of their time in the console that was his responsibility. And there are billions of people using websites created by people directly helped by Mihai's work. [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 10:51 PM PST - 28 comments

The Lives Vaccines have saved in the U.S. in one chart.
posted by storybored at 9:25 PM PST - 78 comments

History Lab has "focused on digitizing, structuring and visualizing large sets of declassified US government documents. This is a starting point for showcasing how computational techniques can aid historical research." Can big-data analysis show what kinds of information the government is keeping classified? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:05 PM PST - 4 comments

Take Nothing, Leave Nothing. How Simon Winchester came to be banned from the world’s most remote island, Tristan da Cunha. Previously.
posted by grouse at 5:37 PM PST - 29 comments

The Governor of Maryland has declared a state of emergency due to the situation in Baltimore. For several days protesters have been highlighting the cause of Gray, an African-American who died after being taken into police custody for making eye contact with an officer, then attempting to run away. Gray's spine was nearly severed at the time of his death, possibly having to do with his seatbelt not being fastened in the police van. [more inside]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:26 PM PST - 1063 comments

"Returning as he did to Winchester right as Bush took office, Joe Bageant stepped into a writer’s dream—a perfect confluence of subject, setting, and personal knowledge—and he responded with fury, writing essay after raging essay, a dazzling output that collectively foresaw the housing crisis and recession, Obamacare, and “the 1 percent” as a rhetorical tool. Yet four years after his death, he’s remembered for one book and a corresponding moment of semi-fame as “America’s Most Literate Redneck,” if he’s remembered at all." From The Baffler: Toxically Pure: Joe Bageant drops out. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:26 PM PST - 9 comments

German car manufacturer Audi says it has created the "fuel of the future" made solely from water, carbon dioxide and renewable energy sources.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:34 PM PST - 81 comments

The borders between butch women, masculine genderqueer people, and trans men are clearer in theory than in practice. In order to find out more about how people in these categories experience gender, I spoke with individuals from across the butch/trans spectrum, from female-identified butches to formerly butch-identifying trans men, and found commonalities, as well as differences, among them.
posted by sciatrix at 2:06 PM PST - 32 comments

"Forbidden from riding bikes, fearless Afghan girls are skateboarding around Kabul." The creation of Oliver Percovich, Skateistan is a grassroots project that connects youth and education through skateboarding in Afghanistan, and over 40% of their students are girls. "I realised skateboarding was a loophole. It was so new that nobody had a chance to say that girls couldn't do it yet."
posted by billiebee at 12:50 PM PST - 16 comments

word.camera generates paragraphs from a photograph. Example: photo of Hillary Clinton. A more detailed explanation at MetaFilter Projects; from Mefi's own TheMadStork.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:22 PM PST - 45 comments

In the Torygraph 5,000 small business owners wrote an open letter supporting the Tories in the UK election. So far so predictable, until people on Twitter started taking a closer look and found some strange discrepancies in the list...
posted by MartinWisse at 12:08 PM PST - 43 comments

Meet Black Summer, Australia's youngest Dubstep DJ.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:25 AM PST - 13 comments

After almost 4 years of development, Kerbal Space Program hit version 1.0. Today, Kerbal Space Program reached a major milestone, declaring the release of version 1.0 and the removal of the "Early Access" label. [more inside]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:13 AM PST - 117 comments

BeeLine Reader makes screen reading easier with multicolored gradients that guide your eyes from line to line.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 8:54 AM PST - 51 comments

Jensen Karp: “I was stumbling through my garage, searching through old storage bins, when I came across some old beat CDs from my days as a signed Interscope rapper. I was shocked to find that two of them, both given to me in ‘01, had the name Kanye West on them.” (via)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:18 AM PST - 25 comments

Six PEN Members Decline Gala After Award for Charlie Hebdo [New York Times]

“The decision by PEN American Center to give its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has prompted six writers to withdraw as literary hosts at the group’s annual gala on May 5, adding a new twist to the continuing debate over the publication’s status as a martyr for free speech. The novelists Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi have withdrawn from the gala, at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.”

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:40 AM PST - 401 comments

A self-proclaimed insufferable asshole named Matt complains about his new luxury watch. Turns out it's the most personal device ever, only not in an insanely great way. Still, he has hopes for the future of his new wearable computer. (MeFi's own mathowie at medium.com.)
posted by valkane at 4:59 AM PST - 176 comments

There's already one big loser in the 2016 Presidental Campaign: Paul Rand, the legendary graphic designer, who has lost more than half of the first-page search results on Google, Bing and GoDuckGo for his name to Candidate Rand Paul. Especially ironic considering that Paul Rand COULD have improved Rand Paul's campaign logo, according to Ernie Smith in his "blog via email" Tedium. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:43 AM PST - 14 comments

How did Europeans become "white"? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:49 PM PST - 44 comments

Want to play Warhammer Fantasy Battle? Not possesed of a Scrroge McDuck style moneypit or willing to sell organs in order to buy figures? Kieron Gillen and Matthew Sheret are here to help with Hipsterhammer. Jump in with guides to building Dwarf, Empire or Vampire Count armies on the cheap! Doubles as a bit of a guide to the weirdo world of Warhammer Fantasy, as distinct from your more generic Tolkienesque efforts. They even have a manifesto!
posted by Artw at 8:10 PM PST - 24 comments

Robert Macfarlane, in The Guardian: In music, literature, art, film and photography, as well as in new and hybrid forms and media, the English eerie is on the rise. A loose but substantial body of work is emerging that explores the English landscape in terms of its anomalies rather than its continuities, that is sceptical of comfortable notions of “dwelling” and “belonging”, and of the packagings of the past as “heritage”, and that locates itself within a spectred rather than a sceptred isle. Such concerns are not new, but there is a distinctive intensity and variety to their contemporary address. This eerie counter-culture – this occulture – is drawing in experimental film-makers, folk singers, folklorists, academics, avant-garde antiquaries, landscape historians, utopians, collectives, mainstreamers and Arch-Droods alike, in a magnificent mash-up of hauntology, geological sentience and political activism. The hedgerows, fields, ruins, hills and saltings of England have been set seething. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 4:07 PM PST - 57 comments

While you were out, your childminders have been entertaining your offspring with dry ice experiments. You're that sort of parent, with those sorts of friends. On your return, you discover that this has gone down very well with junior, and that there's some solid CO2 left over. What could be better than to continue the science fun in the morning? All you have to do is keep the stuff cool overnight. Simple enough? Perhaps not. (Previously)
posted by Devonian at 2:11 PM PST - 65 comments

"Permission to use all or part of this work for personal, classroom, or whatever other use is NOT granted unless you make a copy and pass it to a neighbor without fee, excepting libations offered by the aforementioned neighbor in order to facilitate neighborly hacking, and that said copy bears this notice and the full citation on the first page. Because if burning a book is a sin—which it surely is!—then copying of a book is your sacred duty." [more inside]
posted by yeahwhatever at 1:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Pocket shark caught: Rare shark with 2 big pockets netted off U.S. coast (pics) A pocket shark isn’t like a pocket knife, where it fits into your pocket, it is a rare shark that actually has pockets in its body, one under each fin. “Think ‘Jaws’ meets kangaroo,” [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 1:28 PM PST - 27 comments

When you're sitting on the couch in your snuggie, do you ever wish you could be having sex? When you're having sex, do you ever wish you could be wearing your snuggie? Now you can with the Pokie! Comes with the exclusive Pokie Sutra.
posted by jeather at 12:54 PM PST - 70 comments

"There is nothing borrowed, or blue." As the Sixth Circuit marriage cases head to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, LGBT organizations make their closing arguments via YouTube.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:32 PM PST - 16 comments

Three researchers develop E-Kaia, a phone charger that plugs into a plant. [more inside]
posted by ipsative at 12:16 PM PST - 17 comments

ICBM is a game that allows you to take on the role of a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander. Set in November 1983, during the Able Archer war games, it aims to accurately simulate shifts at a bunker beneath Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. [more inside]
posted by frimble at 10:51 AM PST - 18 comments

[F. Scott] Fitzgerald saw homosexuality as a weakness—less a sexual predilection than something one undergoes in times of emotional distress. [Ernest] Hemingway used fiction to broadcast his virility after a sexually confusing childhood. Both were more sexually fluid than their contemporary reputations suggest. Cody C. Delistraty in The Paris Review
posted by chavenet at 10:37 AM PST - 38 comments

As a music fan, what I find even more worrying is that these “festival fashion” features only perpetuate the myth that women are incapable of enjoying music for music’s sake. More than that: these features are flat-out telling us we’re not allowed to. The subtext appears to be, “Girls: the boys have generously granted you access to their sphere; the least you can do is look pretty.”
posted by acb at 10:16 AM PST - 40 comments

They are designed to disinfect us of our fragility. To cleanse us of our flaws. To disinfect us of weakness. Love, grace, mercy, longing, forgiveness, passion, truth, nobility, dreams. Their objective is to stamp all that out; to eradicate it; to erase it. To replace it with calculation, ruthlessness, self-concern; gluttony; cruelty; anxiety, despair. By using the most sophisticated technology ever made to subjugate, oppress, and goad us into being little torturers ourselves. Our economy doesn't make stuff anymore. So what does it make?
posted by philip-random at 10:03 AM PST - 90 comments

The Random Startup Website Generator is brought to you by a pair of Georgia Tech computer science students. via Slashdot
posted by Little Dawn at 9:01 AM PST - 33 comments

"So what does this curious tale of a mediocre restaurant prove? It proves that in London’s modern restaurant business, the combination of furiously high costs, reputations and big egos can be explosive. Indeed only one thing is clear to me. Right now the people really making money out of Jinjuu are the lawyers." Guardian restaurant critic Jay Raynor reviews Jinjuu - and the ensuing legal storm he accidentally provoked.
posted by Punkey at 7:09 AM PST - 64 comments

Unravel ‘Maybe the water is too expensive to wash them’: a short documentary on how Indian women recast and recycle the clothes the West throws away
posted by dhruva at 7:02 AM PST - 45 comments

Remember Stanley Kubrick's The Shining with Pippin Barr's Let's Play: The Shining, a browser game in Atari 2600 style. Press release.
posted by khonostrov at 5:21 AM PST - 8 comments

At Maralinga, the British Government treated Aborigines, Australian servicemen and even its own troops as scientific guinea pigs. John Keane, whose father was there, looks at the dirty games that were played in the desert of South Australia.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:06 AM PST - 9 comments

Key & Peele's Luther the Anger Translator juxtaposed Obama's calm demeanor with the stereotypical "angry black man." Not seen as much since the Romney debates, Luther is back. But Obama doesn't need Luther anymore.
posted by justkevin at 10:28 PM PST - 61 comments

Remember this? The date-entry form no longer works, but that's okay, because now RAGEagain is here to automate (more than ever before) the process of reliving episodes of the beloved long-running minimalist Australian music video program rage from 1998 onwards, by automatically pulling songs listed on rage's archive of playlists from YouTube. [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 10:18 PM PST - 13 comments

Katha Pollitt believes it's because, unlike gay marriage, "Reproductive rights are inescapably about women." Same-sex marriage is something men want. Lesbian couples account for the majority of same-sex marriages, but even the vernacular "gay marriage" types it as a male concern. That makes it of interest to everyone, because everything male is of general interest. Though many of the groundbreaking activists and lawyers who have fought for same-sex marriage are lesbians, gay men have a great deal of social and economic power, and they have used it, brilliantly, to mainstream the cause. [more inside]
posted by emjaybee at 8:52 PM PST - 132 comments

Short stories. Crime. Hardboiled. Noir. Something like that. 700 words maximum. Make it tight. Make it hum
posted by mrbigmuscles at 6:29 PM PST - 10 comments

"Basically, somebody who worked at Twitter back in 2009 added me to that list, and all of a sudden my online network got upgraded to the kind of numbers that are usually only reserved for rock stars." Nobody Famous — what it's like to have the social network of a celebrity, without actually being famous, by Mefi's own Anil Dash.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:02 PM PST - 47 comments

Bruce Jenner Says He’s Transitioning to a Woman [New York Times]

Bruce Jenner, the Olympic gold medalist and member of the Kardashian family, ended months of speculation Friday night when he announced during an ABC television special that he identified as a woman and was making the transition from male to female.

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:36 PM PST - 86 comments

Tsunago is a pencil sharpener with a clever twist; it can take the stubs of pencils too short to easily use, and join them into a useful sized writing instrument again. [via]
posted by quin at 2:36 PM PST - 69 comments

Angela McRobbie on the rise of the creative economy. Why are young people attracted to creative jobs with low pay, and how does this benefit the neoliberal project?
posted by winterportage at 1:44 PM PST - 36 comments

Heaven Knows I’m Mexican Now: Morrissey's Latino connection goes live “I would hate to see a cheesy Mexican tribute to Morrissey,” he says. “I knew I had to use well-known Mexican artists” – among others, the group features underground icon Chetes, trumpet player Alex Escobar and Cafe Tacuba’s violinist Alejandro Flores – “and to mix it with electronic elements and other non-Mexican elements. To just play these songs with mariachi trumpets would be touristic – we didn’t want to come and dress in ponchos.” [more inside]
posted by betweenthebars at 1:42 PM PST - 16 comments

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 has hit Nepal, killing over 1,000 people. The epicenter was just outside Kathmandu, but the effects have been felt as far away as Tibet, Bangladesh, and India. Regular updates at The Guardian.
posted by lunasol at 11:15 AM PST - 78 comments

Kate Mulgrew tells the Chicago Tribune's Heidi Stevens about giving her daughter up for adoption and reconnecting 20 years later (Video). [more inside]
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:08 AM PST - 13 comments

An oral history of The Littlest Hobo, Canada's greatest TV show.

"My second episode was a few years later, as a DEA agent who was tracking some drug smuggling that was going on in a movie unit. So I was undercover as a vampire in this movie. And the dog was helping me unearth the bad guys."

posted by frimble at 10:40 AM PST - 42 comments

TWO PROMINENT DOCTORS. ONE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN LOOKING FOR ROMANCE. AND A LIKABLE MISFIT WHO SPUN TALL TALES. THEIR LIVES INTERSECTED AFTER AN INTENSE RELATIONSHIP TURNED SOUR, BUT NO ONE GUESSED THAT THE PATH TO LOVE WOULD LEAD TO MURDER. - Texas Monthly: "A Deadly Dance" By Skip Hollandsworth
posted by The Whelk at 10:18 AM PST - 14 comments

Form Follows Function is a beautifully designed collection of interactive mini-experiences, coded in HTML5, and designed to work as flawlessly on mobile as on the desktop.
posted by polywomp at 8:32 AM PST - 14 comments

In just 12 days, the 2015 general election for the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) takes place. On the surface, the math is simple: there are 650 seats, so winning 326 gives you a simple majority. In the previous parliament, governance was through a coalition of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. But this time, predicting who will be Prime Minister, or have the most seats, or what form the government will take, is ... complicated. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 8:18 AM PST - 110 comments

"Usually the kind of sound effects you heard in the earliest cartoons were strictly sound effects produced by musical instruments. What happened with Treg Brown is entirely different; he would bring in sounds that were recorded in the library at Warner Bros. If someone came quick to a stop, he would bring in a car skid from a Jimmy Carney gangster movie that they had recorded. If somebody was hit on the head and flew out a window there'd be a thunderclap followed by the sound of a biplane in a spin recorded for Dawn Patrol. It was this imposition of realistic sounds into the fantasy world of the cartoons which gave them comic impact."

CRASH! BANG! BOOM! The Wild Sounds of Treg Brown, (Part 1 Part 2 [SLYT]) is a short documentary about legendary sound editor Treg Brown.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:54 AM PST - 7 comments

"William Guess was his name - and it was prophetic. When he shot himself while surrounded by the police, he left unanswered the question that had stumped his pursuers: why did an ordinary middle-class Texan turn into the state's most prolific bank robber?"
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:39 AM PST - 3 comments

What It’s Like to Have Down Syndrome—and Care for a Sister With Disabilities While the initial focus was to portray Alyssa as just another member of her family, the project changed slightly when Carly began to lose neurological ability. Although Carly’s condition is still undiagnosed, Lois needed to continue to work in order to keep everyone under the same roof. As a result, Alyssa became one of Carly’s primary caregivers. [more inside]
posted by magstheaxe at 6:57 AM PST - 9 comments

Other Space: A sci-fi workplace comedy created by Paul Feig. Featuring Milana Vayntraub (a.k.a. the lady from the AT&T ad), Karan Soni (a.k.a. the dude from the AT&T ad), and Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu from MST3K.
posted by Cash4Lead at 6:32 AM PST - 27 comments

Associate Professor Rana Dajani describes why she teaches evolution to Muslim students in Jordan.
posted by 1head2arms2legs at 4:58 AM PST - 23 comments

In Grimsby, the former fishing capital of England, sandpipers scurry across the tarmac of derelict streets. The sandpiper isn’t a creature of asphalt and paving. It’s a small white-breasted bird usually to be found foraging on British foreshores in groups of twenty or so, scuttling up and down sandy beaches as the foaming forward edge of the sea roars in and hisses back. I’d come to Grimsby to see why, after seventy years of voting Labour, the town was flirting with the United Kingdom Independence Party. After a while I began wondering what had happened to make Grimsby a wild and lonely enough place for the sandpiper to feel at home. It turns out the reason is the same. Someone, or something, abdicated power in Grimsby, leaving swathes of it to rot. But who, or what? And what will the succession be?

James Meek in the LRB provides an indepth look at the problems of one northern town, featuring the decline of the fisheries, the hopes resting on new offshore wind energy parks revitalising the town, the difference between Victorian local capitalism and contemporary pension fund driven global capitalism, the leftwing grassroots Ukip campaigners trying to end the dominance of Labour and their parachuted in candidate with a campaign manager engaged to the local candidate for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, heardheaded Greens, the withdrawal of the State and the hollowing out of local control of everyday necessities needed for any town to flourish.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:58 AM PST - 21 comments

The Mechanical Monsters was the second in a series of Superman cartoons produced by Fleischer/Famous Studios in the early 1940s. The Last Mechanical Monster is a webcomic by Brian Fies* that is a sequel of sorts (starting here, with a recap of the cartoon here), set over 60 years later as the now-elderly inventor defeated by Superman is released from prison and returns to his old lair and his old tricks... reconstructing one of his 'monster' robots (and with no Man of Steel in sight).

It's nominated for an Eisner Award (previously) for Best Digital/Web Comic, competing with previous winner Bandette by Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover, Failing Sky by Dax Tran-Caffee, Nimona by Noelle Stephenson, and The Private Eye by Brian Vaughan & Marcos Martin. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:23 AM PST - 28 comments

Part of Gershom Hyldreth's job involves moving fridges in his truck by himself. In these two short (and charming) instructional videos, he demonstrates how one person can load a fridge on and off a pickup truck with just a hand trolley, and how to secure a fridge with just a couple of straps.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 2:23 AM PST - 33 comments

Slate's Reincarnation Machine identifies your previous lives. Actually it finds a consistent chain of people through history, each born when the preceding one died, and ending up with you.
posted by Segundus at 12:23 AM PST - 77 comments

360º cutout books by Yusuke Oono
posted by moonmilk at 7:45 PM PST - 6 comments

dogs with tongue sticking out a little
posted by NoraReed at 6:02 PM PST - 62 comments

Brandon Hardesty's [previously] web series, "No Small Parts," celebrates the careers of movie character actors. So far, we have five very touching short biographies of: Anne Ramsey (Throw Mama from the Train, Scrooged, The Goonies), Vincent Schiavelli (Ghost, Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) Scatman Crothers (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Coonskin, The Shining), Warwick Davis (the Star Wars series, the Harry Potter series), and Michael Jeter (The Green Mile, Miller's Crossing, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Bring a hanky. These are love letters.
posted by McLir at 5:57 PM PST - 21 comments

Holy fascist retrograde, Batman! DC Comics announces "The Dark Knight Rises: The Master Race". Because the comics universe apparently needs to have karmic balance for the progress of Bobby Drake (Previously on Mefi), which is why DC is making yet another Miller/Azzarello The Dark Knight comic book. Frank Miller, author of The Dark Knight, Sin City, The 300, and Holy Terror! shall once more be working with Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets, Wonder Woman). Various reactions at Polygon and at io9.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 5:51 PM PST - 84 comments

A girl at the beach, one year before WWI. In 1913, Amateur photographer Mervyn O'Gorman took beautiful, vivid photos of his daughter using an early color photography process called autochrome. [more inside]
posted by Alexandra Michelle at 5:12 PM PST - 29 comments

You have $8 billion. You want to do as much good as possible. What do you do?
[Open Phil's] six full-time staffers have taken on the unenviable task of ranking every plausible way to make the world a much better place, and figuring out how much money to commit to the winners. It's the biggest test yet of GiveWell's heavily empirical approach to picking charities. If it works, it could change the face of philanthropy.

Previously: GiveWell in Metatalk.
posted by andoatnp at 4:56 PM PST - 62 comments

If you happen to be in the right place at the right time, Jason Alexander will record a personalized version of his famous "Believe It Or Not, I'm Not Home" Seinfeld voicemail greeting just for you.
posted by Servo5678 at 4:43 PM PST - 23 comments

Lesser-Known Trolley Problem Variations There’s an out of control trolley speeding towards Immanuel Kant. You have the ability to pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so it hits Jeremy Bentham instead. Jeremy Bentham clutches the only existing copy of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Kant holds the only existing copy of Bentham’s The Principles of Morals and Legislation. Both of them are shouting at you that they have recently started to reconsider their ethical stances. [more inside]
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:23 PM PST - 51 comments

What if Man of Steel was in color? (SLYT)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 3:57 PM PST - 65 comments

The archive of Leiden's Holy Spirit Orphanage holds a small collection of medieval name tags that were pinned to abandoned babies. Written in Middle Dutch on slim slips of paper, they still have visible holes from the pins that fixed the tags to the foundlings.
posted by pleasant_confusion at 2:00 PM PST - 19 comments

Men's Neckties: How-to tie necktie knots - from Mefi's own xingcat, posted from MeFi Projects. Selection: How to tie a bow tie.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:34 PM PST - 42 comments

Bernard Stollman, founder of the influential, otherworldly ESP-Disk label, has passed away this week at 85. New York Times obituary. The independent label was home to blazing, provocative recordings from avant-jazz greats like Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra, as well as underground rock outsiders like the Godz, the Holy Modal Rounders, and the Fugs. The label's discography is deep, strange, and still largely unexplored by everyone but hardcore music geeks (who tend to be highly passionate about it). From Stereogum: Remembering Bernard Stollman: 10 Essential ESP-Disk Albums.
posted by naju at 12:17 PM PST - 24 comments

Scans leaked from next week's issue of the Marvel Comic All-New X-Men have revealed that original member Bobby "Iceman" Drake is gay. While the character has been written as straight for the past fifty years, some readers have read otherwise between the panels. Director Brian Singer sees parallels in the movies. [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:49 AM PST - 141 comments

Why not just read every single Karl Lagerfeld interview ever and wear out both the "command" and "F" keys searching for every single instance in which he's literally uttered the word "hate"? (via)
posted by gladly at 8:28 AM PST - 81 comments

1977 changed everything in Hollywood. "I'm not here to wonder whether Star Wars: Rebels is legacy pop culture — like DC and Marvel superheroes — that parents might be forcing on their kids the way white boomer dads evangelize Steely Dan. Instead, as the Avengers kick off another summer of mighty Marvel mook-blasting, I just want to ask: Why do we (mostly) agree, today, that this material is appropriate? And is something lost when pew-pew action/adventure follows the trajectory of soft drinks and fast food — going from occasional treat to everyday staple? In short, how did the decapitations of orcs and robots become the very center of our media culture?"
posted by tunewell at 8:27 AM PST - 109 comments

What a 39-year-old English adjunct learned by taking up cage fighting. [more inside]
posted by mrbigmuscles at 8:02 AM PST - 56 comments

Building a stove is simple. Building a good stove is hard. Building a good, cheap stove can drive an engineer crazy
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:32 AM PST - 26 comments

"For the sake of argument, here are the best and most reasonable ways to improve [the White House Correspondent's Dinner]." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:11 AM PST - 25 comments

“It would be so affirming to just know that the man that I set out to be is somebody that people think is a good man,” Dowling says about possibly being on the cover of Men’s Health. “To break those stereotypes, but still be a man. Feel pride in masculinity, but not putting down femininity. That would be so important to me.”

--Meet Aydian Dowling, the Trans Hunk Aiming for a ‘Men’s Health’ Cover
posted by almostmanda at 6:34 AM PST - 44 comments

Here's a neat browser toy where you can play with gravitation interaction and make planetary orbits...or horribly destabilize them.
posted by polywomp at 4:22 AM PST - 44 comments

Sally Mann's Exposure An essay by Sally Mann about the publication, and subsequent reaction to, her second book of photographs, Immediate Family. [Many of the photographs featured naked images of her young children.]
posted by OmieWise at 3:24 AM PST - 44 comments

In light of the Lilly Pulitzer for Target frenzy, The Atlantic asks, "Why do people hate Lilly Pulitzer?" and postulates some less-than-peppy, preppy, charming answers. [more inside]
posted by ourt at 3:22 AM PST - 99 comments

You're at a crossroads in a shallow valley with fields of wild flowers on all sides. A large road goes north-south and a smaller road goes east-west. Although the gently rolling hills that surround you make it hard to see very far in any direction you can see a small, round hatch in the ground standing open nearby.

Before Adventure, before Colossal Cave, there was Peter Langston's Wander, a lost mainframe text adventure, lost no longer. More games may still await discovery locked inside mouldering computer tapes.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:23 AM PST - 17 comments

In 1923, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his shortest Sherlock Holmes story and one that is considered "non-canon" or "self-parody": "How Watson Learned the Trick". [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 AM PST - 27 comments

Free speech is so last century. Today’s students want the 'right to be comfortable' in British Universities. The New York Times chimes in on this side of the Atlantic. Popehat offers a possible explanation.
posted by meowzilla at 11:56 PM PST - 328 comments

In February of this year, Human Fly Alex de Laszlo's "lost" 1978 short film featuring The Cramps, was posted to Youtube. [more inside]
posted by louche mustachio at 11:55 PM PST - 7 comments

“Hey, I need you to hold the giraffe so I can reach the crystal chandelier.” [more inside]
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:25 PM PST - 21 comments

A writer watches all 10 episodes of the live-action Richie Rich sitcom on Netflix so that you will never have to
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:20 PM PST - 43 comments

DC is partnering with Mattel, Lego, Random House and others to launch DC Super Hero Girls universe for girls. Here's seven things CBR hopes they can acheive.
posted by Artw at 9:39 PM PST - 32 comments

William Deriesiwicz takes a contrarian point of view on Knausgaard's critically lauded series of novels: The term “hyperrealism” derives from the visual arts, where it refers to paintings that are designed to look like photographs. To call writing like Knausgaard’s hyperrealistic, to enthrone it as the apotheosis of realism, is to cede reality to the camera. It is to surrender everything that makes literature distinct from the photographic and the televisual: its ability to tell us what things look like, not to the eye, but to the mind, to the heart...How sad it is to imagine that some of our most prominent novelists look at My Struggle and think, That’s the book I wish I could have written. How depressing to suppose that just as modernism culminated in Joyce, Proust and Woolf, the literature of our own time has been leading up to… Knausgaard.
posted by shivohum at 8:46 PM PST - 43 comments

In 1963, a new volcanic island called Surtsey (previously) was born south of Iceland. In the summer of 1969, botanist Ágúst Bjarnason, who had been monitoring the progress of plant growth on the new island, made a discovery that he has kept secret until now.

"Once when I was in Reykjavík I received the message from Surtsey that a mysterious plant had been discovered in the lava. Those who discovered the plant, three or four foreign nature scientists and one Icelandic botanist, weren’t able to identify it..."

posted by Blue Jello Elf at 6:58 PM PST - 30 comments

Corpses are no longer decaying in many German cemeteries. Instead, the deceased become waxen, an uncanny process that has become so rampant it can no longer be ignored. When bodies don't decompose, their graves can't be reused -- a common practice in Germany. Contrary to many other countries, where final resting places are traditionally maintained in perpetuity, Germany recycles cemetery plots after a period of 15 to 25 years. Experience has shown that the earthly remains of the deceased rot away almost entirely in this amount of time, but only under favorable soil conditions.
posted by sciatrix at 6:27 PM PST - 48 comments

Native Actors Walk off Set of Adam Sandler Netflix Movie After Insults to Women and Elders. "The actors, who were primarily from the Navajo nation, left the set after the satirical western’s script repeatedly insulted native women and elders and grossly misrepresented Apache culture." [more inside]
posted by chococat at 6:15 PM PST - 118 comments

24 Images That Prove Cats Are Liquid
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:49 PM PST - 19 comments

Ricardo Baliardo played, his couisin Jose Reyes sang and Salvador Dali sketched.
It was a 1967 concert in honor of Human Rights at the United Nations in New York.
Ricardo Baliardo aka Manitas de Plata played regularily at Saintes Maries de la Mer in the Carmargue for the fiestas of Sara la Kali.
With the help of Lucien Clergue, the photographer (previously), Alan Silver made one of the first recordings in 1963.
De Plata was illiterate and practically monosyllabic his greatest inspiration was the late Django Reinhardt (previous). [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 4:06 PM PST - 3 comments

If you live outside New England, you've probably seen some ridiculously oversexualized fast-food commercials from Hardee's, Carl's Jr., or both. This isn't some weird cooperation between chains -- the two are owned by the same parent corporation, CKE Restaurants. CKE was originally just Carl's Jr., but bought Hardee's in 1999, and decided not to rename the nearly 2,000 Hardee's locations, instead gradually merging menus and changing the Hardee's logo to the Carl's Jr. star. And so, there is a distinct northwest-southeast line between the two chains, with a surprisingly interesting story behind where the two franchises tend to cluster.
posted by Etrigan at 4:03 PM PST - 76 comments

Steam has released news that they will be adding a paid marketplace to one of their most popular workshops (meaning mod database): Skyrim. This GameSpot article has more details about the specifics of what the new mod monetization entails. VentureBeat rounds up the distressed reaction from fans. Here is the FAQ provided by Steam for payments through Workshop if you would like to draw your own conclusions. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 3:52 PM PST - 32 comments

K.J. Parker’s Identity Revealed

For 17 years - since the publication of Colours in the Steel - the identity of K.J. Parker has been one of fantasy literature's most tightly-kept secrets. Now, after a dozen novels, a collection of short stories, a handful of essays and two World Fantasy Award wins, K.J. Parker has stepped forward...

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 3:25 PM PST - 37 comments

Congressman Steve King of Iowa has introduced an innovative way of settling any marriage-related court cases that may crop up in the United States. Not all analysts agree with the approach, though.
posted by Evilspork at 3:09 PM PST - 66 comments

Artist Cal Lane uses an industrial plasma-cutter (called a "blowtorch" in the links) to convert salvaged metal into lacy and delicate sculptures. [via] [more inside]
posted by quin at 2:40 PM PST - 11 comments

Foundation: Public Goods and Options for the Bottom Billions - "Human beings just don't handle the very long run well" and that's where government increasingly comes in... (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 2:34 PM PST - 6 comments

My mother is like another country I used to live in, familiar but no longer a place I call home. When I visit, I don't stay long; dysfunction is the official language, the terrain is a desert of constantly shifting emotions, and the weather is grey when it's not dark and stormy. Estrangement is so much easier.

posted by divined by radio at 11:59 AM PST - 14 comments

Lois Lilienstein, of Sharon, Lois & Bram fame, died at age 78. She was probably best known in Canada for The Elephant Show.
posted by jeather at 11:22 AM PST - 55 comments

The Oregon Trail Generation: Life Before and After Mainstream Tech A big part of what makes us the square peg in the round hole of named generations is our strange relationship with technology and the internet. We came of age just as the very essence of communication was experiencing a seismic shift, and it’s given us a unique perspective that’s half analog old school and half digital new school.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:21 AM PST - 114 comments

Eureka Springs is an improbable place.
Thirty-five miles from blood-red Rogers, on the way to Klansville in Harrison, up mountain roads straight out of Kubrick's "The Shining," the hairpins pitching out over leafy chasms that make you imagine the smashed and undiscovered hulks of Hudsons and Packards secreted somewhere far below, gloveboxes full of field mice and grinning skeletons at the wheel; then, at last, from that white-knuckle highway, down into a deep and shady valley that would have surely been given over to deer and the occasional nutty hermit if not for the Victorians' faith in magic water. The trees open up, and there before you is the original hamlet of Eureka Springs, old hotels and slanting lanes, gingerbread mansions clinging to the rocks like orchids, easily the most liberal small town in the state.
posted by nadawi at 11:16 AM PST - 20 comments

The signature image in Little Boy, a colossal miscalculation in audience uplift, is of the title character stretching out his arms, scrunching up his face, and groaning with intense concentration. Small for his age, hence the nickname, 7-year-old Pepper Flint Busbee (Jakob Salvati) performs this ritual several times throughout the film, always when attempting to move an object with the sheer power of his belief. More often than not, it actually works: Onstage, during a magic show, he appears to slide a glass bottle across a table, Jedi-style. Later, in a far grander display of his apparent gifts, he wows a crowd of skeptics by seemingly creating an earthquake while trying to nudge a mountain. What Pepper really wants, though, is to bring his father back from the war. And so he stands on a dock and points his hands in the direction of the Pacific Ocean, defying the setting sun, focusing all his desire on one point in the distance, until…

Little Boy: The Film That Goes There [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 10:36 AM PST - 193 comments

Inside Argentina's Blue Dollar Market. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:14 AM PST - 7 comments

ORCWANKER - "A generator of excellent swears. Text is NSFW, obviously." From Mefi's own NoraReed and juv3nal, via mefi projects.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:21 AM PST - 68 comments

Master barrel maker Alastair Simms speaks with Clare Finney about the history, skill and significance of his craft at his Yorkshire-based cooperage
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:28 AM PST - 17 comments

Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" — not to be confused with the J. Howard Miller poster — received mass distribution on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell's illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her penny loafer a copy of Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf. Mary Doyle, a 19-year-old telephone operator who lived in Arlington, Vermont, and made $10 for posing for Rockwell's iconic image, was no where near as brawny in real life. Mary Doyle Keefe passed away on 21 April at the age of 92.
posted by terrapin at 7:26 AM PST - 19 comments

"Got a hundred dollar bill / You can keep your pills, friend / It's all goin' to pot" Willie and Merle clearly having just altogether way too much fun.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:19 AM PST - 25 comments

"We applied recycled LAN cables, which we call Mojamoja – to describe its shaggy, wooly look – and what is called acrylic ball (left-over melted acrylic byproduct pieces) to everything from interior materials to furniture."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:26 AM PST - 15 comments

The legacy of Father Ted 20 years on. (SlTheGrauniad)
posted by Kitteh at 4:13 AM PST - 52 comments

In 2012 Tevis Thompson (writer of Saving Zelda, previously) and David Hellman (illustrator of Braid) had a Kickstarter for a graphic novel. (Previously.) What had been assumed to be "a comic book about Zelda pedantry" has turned out to be something rather different. The graphic novel is now available for purchase on Fangamer, but 20 pages of it (one-sixth of it by length) can be seen as a free preview on the project website. Second Quest is about a young girl, Azalea, living in a city floating in the clouds, but burdened with dreams of the world below and visions of an age before.
posted by JHarris at 1:14 AM PST - 11 comments

Since 2007, the Karachi Central Jail has been running an art school for prison inmates. Their works have been displayed at exhibitions at the Karachi Alliance Francaise, among other venues. More samples of the work can be seen on the art school's Facebook page.
posted by bardophile at 12:51 AM PST - 3 comments

After years of grief and demands for improvement and ineffective response on their side(previously, previously, previously, etc), which led to the creation of solutions like GG autoblocker(previously), Twitter has updated their user policy in a fairly significant way. They've also added a system which will attempt to algorithmically identify harassment. Victims of previous online abuse are on board with the concept. The response isn't completely positive, however.
posted by emptythought at 12:13 AM PST - 45 comments

Alton Brown answers 23 questions.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:20 PM PST - 40 comments

A short story about DMT by Scott Alexander

“Transcendent joy,” said the big green bat.

“Right,” I said. “I’m absolutely in favor of both those things. But before we go any further, could you tell me the two prime factors of 1,522,605,​027,922,533,​360,535,618,​378,132,637,​429,718,068,​114,961,380,​688,657,908,​494,580,122,​963,258,952​,897,654,000,​350,692,006,​139?”

posted by frimble at 10:45 PM PST - 24 comments

Hobos in the digital era.
posted by mokin at 9:30 PM PST - 47 comments

“Of the Devil’s Party” — The Art of Barry William Hale
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:15 PM PST - 3 comments

"Lots of people were like “oh, I recorded a car backfiring & pitched it down & combined it with some bees buzzing & 100 plugins to make a kick drum” & I just decided that this was really stupid when you could use a 909 & it would sound way better."
In 2004, Donnacha Costello released the Colorseries, a collection of ten 12-inch singles that became a building block in the rise of minimal techno. In 2007, Costello released a single CD, best-of compilation version to mixed but generally positive reviews; it's crime was being an abridged collection. (2007 interview)
Now, you can stream the entire collection at Costello's bandcamp. Or, for a curated digest, you can listen to Ryan Elliot's 2005 Mix that blends all twenty tracks over the course of an hour.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:05 PM PST - 19 comments

This is a blog about all things pencil. Sometimes pens. Paper, too.
posted by phunniemee at 9:04 PM PST - 21 comments

The answer is most definitely shhp. [more inside]
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:34 PM PST - 4 comments

"Showing up as Rube’s granddaughter, you’re kind of like this strange mascot," she told me. "It’s like being mother to many, many children." What she saw there upset her. "Some of those machines were so spectacularly beautiful, but beautiful in a way that a car is a beautiful machine," George recalled. "The winning machine was basically a glorified marble run," she said, repeating her criticism of Iowa’s machine. "A beautiful, precision marble run. But it was not a Rube Goldberg machine. There was nothing about it that was a Rube Goldberg machine."
posted by sammyo at 8:05 PM PST - 8 comments

No, this is not a snarky article about privileged kids at Harvard. It's a serious article about 1st generation college students from lower income backgrounds at prestigious schools, that are outstanding academic students on full ride scholarships, yet struggling to fit in on a campus where the vast majority of their fellow students come from privileged backgrounds.
posted by COD at 6:41 PM PST - 32 comments

A great interview with Diana Kennedy , who knows more about the traditions of Mexican cooking and the ingredients involved than I ever will! Her book The Art of Mexican Cooking is not just a collection of recipes. Kennedy intersperses anecdotes and explanations of processes. Her descriptions of the ingredients she uses are worth the price of the book.
posted by Agave at 6:27 PM PST - 21 comments

Scientists create toe cheese from human toe bacteria. "Cheese is known for its stinky odor. But, cheeses at one exhibit at the Science Gallery Dublin in Trinity College Dublin come from an especially smelly source -- human toe, armpit, belly button and mouth bacteria.

"Selfmade, which is part of the Grow Your Own…Life After Nature exhibition, features different “microbial sketches” of cheeses created with bacteria samples from various people. Each cheese supposedly smells similar to the donor’s body odor."
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:06 PM PST - 63 comments

Anyone else could have saved her: Life is Strange gave my personal tragedy a score

What I do want to suggest, however, is that far more than any other form of media, creators of video games need to be aware that this medium not only increases engagement but also increases the emotional burden on affected players in a unique way. I have watched films and read comics in the past that dealt with themes of unprevented suicide and, while difficult for me to get through, passive forms of media have never left me this distraught. By giving me control of the situation in Life is Strange, developer Dontnod Entertainment suddenly forced me to inspect my own agency in my life. That has an emotional price attached. This is the power and beauty of games; what feels like an echo of pain in other art forms feels like a punch in the gut when the same topic is explored in a well-made game. (emphasis added)

[more inside]
posted by Frayed Knot at 4:59 PM PST - 27 comments

In an interview with Lucky Peach, Lockhart Steele (previously) talks about "flooding the zone" in the blog era:

One of the things that I try to say to the team at all of our sites is, Hey, let’s not be afraid to still be weird. Because as you get bigger, you can get forced to just be so mainstream. You have more people coming to your site, so you have more readers who are going to be confused by your obsessions, who are going to be like, What’s the joke, I don’t get it. And you have to be okay with people not getting it.

via Super Punch
posted by Little Dawn at 4:41 PM PST - 7 comments

The one percent isn’t some amorphous boogeyman inside all of us... It’s a very real class. And we don’t need a list of cultural “symptoms” of one-percent-style privilege to figure out who they are. Just run the numbers. If your household — or to be generous, the one you grew up in — makes an adjusted gross income of at least $343,000, you are, in fact, the one percent. Even if you smoke meth, went to boot camp, and are on your third marriage. Yes, even if most of your friends didn’t finish college and live kinda far from a Whole Foods. Now, if you or the household you grew up in make an adjusted gross income of less than $340,000, you are, technically, the 99 percent.

Let Them Eat Privilege
posted by y2karl at 4:23 PM PST - 60 comments

Paul Morley conducts arguably the worst ever Brian Eno interview sometime in 1992. "A boring question is when you already know the answer" and other throwaways. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 3:50 PM PST - 16 comments

Chris Rock on HBO's Real Sports explaining why Black People Do Not Watch Baseball, and Why It Matters
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:23 PM PST - 27 comments

Will Pope Francis Break the Church? [The Atlantic]

“Told this way—conservative Jesuit fights post–Vatican II radicalization, finds himself shunned by left-wing confreres, gets rescued by a John Paul appointee—the story of Francis’s rise and fall and rise sounds for all the world like The Making of a Conservative Pope. And indeed, a number of Catholic writers greeted Bergoglio’s election—some optimistically, some despairingly—with exactly that interpretation of his past’s likely impact on his papacy. But it seems fair to say that this interpretation was mistaken. So how, exactly, did the man who fought bitterly with left-wing Jesuits in the 1970s become the darling of progressive Catholics in the 2010s?”

Previously. Previously.
posted by Fizz at 3:16 PM PST - 23 comments

American Reflexxx is a short film documenting a social experiment that took place in South Carolina. Alli Coates filmed performance artist Signe Pierce as she strutted down a busy oceanside street in stripper garb and a reflective mask. The results are horrifying.
posted by floatboth at 3:14 PM PST - 32 comments

This all happened a long time ago, at a time when Baker was smoking a lot of weed. All the strange interactions he had with Doc over the years have blurred together. At a certain point, things began to feel inevitable, all Baker’s small choices gaining momentum until it felt as though there were no more choices to make. And while he insists that he has no regrets about what took place later — it happened the way it should have, the way it had to — maybe if he’d made a different decision that afternoon, he wouldn’t be in prison right now. Because it can all be traced back to that very first time they met, when Doc turned to him and asked, straight-faced, as if it was the most normal thing in the world: “Have you ever thought about killing someone?”
posted by mudpuppie at 2:59 PM PST - 7 comments

Southwark Park Tube Station has been rediscovered after 100 years. Workers uncovered the 'ghost station' during construction of the new Thameslink line. Although Network Rail knew the location of the site, which closed in 1915 due to the war, it was still a surprise that so much of the original 1902 structure remained intact. Southwark Park was only open for 13 years but had already made it into transport history as the home of Corbett's Lane signal box, said to be the first regular signal box in the world. [more inside]
posted by Gin and Broadband at 1:18 PM PST - 25 comments

Happy Earth Day! Courtesy of a mad man and a mad man (who just happens to be the father of Serial host Sarah Koenig!).
posted by ericbop at 1:11 PM PST - 8 comments

Alice Barker is 102, but when she was young, she was a chorus dancer in Harlem. Watch and listen to more American vernacular music and dance at Celluloid Improvisation (autoplays swing music. via).
posted by ChuraChura at 12:42 PM PST - 6 comments

At the age of 50, Maya Plisetskaya danced to Ravels Bolero, choreographed by Maurice Bejart. At 61 and with arms like flowing ribbon she danced the Dying Swan [more inside]
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 11:52 AM PST - 5 comments

Collage (Some NSFW) by Franz Falckenhaus, a prolific self taught Polish artist who lives in Warsaw.
Much of his output has a decidedly retro feel to it.
Then there is his Flickr page and his web.
posted by adamvasco at 11:25 AM PST - 5 comments

"But, Coach—we play football!" Inside Amy Schumer does a parody of Friday Night Lights and certain aspects of football culture.
posted by emjaybee at 11:24 AM PST - 131 comments

Renowned not-evil search engine company Google just formally announced its long-rumoured MVNO: Google Fi. [more inside]
posted by entropicamericana at 11:09 AM PST - 84 comments

The Singamajig Symphony sings Journey's Open Arms. The Singamajig Symphony sings the Beatles' Hey Jude.
posted by cortex at 10:49 AM PST - 8 comments

Meet Georgia’s Christy Plott Redd, the self-proclaimed monarch holds court from the bayous of Louisiana to the posh boutiques of Paris. Her calling card? The skins of the American alligator.
posted by Frank Grimes at 10:32 AM PST - 5 comments

"We wanted to kill the game," says Eirik Fatland, a Norwegian interaction designer who has spent over twenty years creating, participating in, and theorizing about these types of forward-thinking LARPs. In 1999, he and some others started a movement called Dogma 99. Modeled after Lars Von Trier's Dogme 95 and Jerzy Grotowski's minimalist, impulse-driven notion of a "poor theatre," the movement included a ten-point "vow of chastity" intended to maximize LARP's dramatic immersion, while removing pretty much everything else.
posted by josher71 at 10:17 AM PST - 31 comments

For the first time in its 63 year history, MAD Magazine has just put out an issue with a Guest Editor: "Weird Al" Yankovic. And he's not just a figurehead*; the issue includes "Pages from Weird Al's Notebook", several of Al's celebrity friends including Patton Oswalt and John Hodgman as guest writers, and caricatures of Al from 11 different MAD artists. The best online collection of sample pages is here. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:17 AM PST - 28 comments

When it comes to college, the central challenge for most Americans in the 21st century is not going; it’s finishing. Thirty-five million Americans now have some college experience but no degree. Amanda Ripley in The Atlantic follows a group of Starbucks employees taking advantage of the corporation's partnership with Arizona State University, and discovers some of the reasons why so few low-income students graduate on time, or ever get a degree at all. The Upwardly Mobile Barista.
posted by suelac at 10:04 AM PST - 25 comments

A trio of Haruki Murakami's Advertorial Short Stories: In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Onward spent massive sums on advertising J. Press in the print media. The classic ad format, often seen on the back cover of lifestyle magazine Popeye, showed a Japanese or American man telling a colorful story about their favorite trad clothing item. In 1985, as Japanese pop culture went in more avant-garde directions, Onward came up with a new idea — asking up-and-coming novelist Murakami Haruki to write a very short story inside each month’s advertisement for magazines Popeye, Box, and Men’s Club. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 9:43 AM PST - 2 comments

The 2015 Lyttle Lytton results are in. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 9:39 AM PST - 20 comments

The story of Navinder Singh Sarao, futures trader who might have caused the flash crash of 2010 (previously), arrested yesterday for wire fraud.

The futures exchange wrote to Sarao on the day of the flash crash, telling him to stop spoofing, and he called them back "and told em to kiss my ass." And then regulators pondered that reply for five years before deciding that they'd prefer to have him arrested in London and extradited to face criminal spoofing charges. One conclusion here might be that rudeness to regulators really works.

[more inside]
posted by maskd at 9:03 AM PST - 19 comments

Before someone gets in and asks, "do we have to have a Metafilter post every time Janelle Monae does something?" I'll just point out that yes, yes we do [elmer benson]. Metafilter loves Janelle Monae, and now she's back with her "dexterous flow" and fellow musician Jidenna for Yoga, the second single from Wondaland Records's upcoming The Eephus.
posted by katrielalex at 8:46 AM PST - 43 comments

Just like in those horror films NSF people-who-hate-spiders-or-who-hate-killing-spiders via cbcnews.ca [more inside]
posted by bitteroldman at 8:25 AM PST - 49 comments

The Contemporary Conformist. "The contemporary conformist attempts to exude wealth. The contemporary conformist is a pseudo-affluent lifestyle where you attempt to rationalize ‘taste’ as your ticket to luxury." From Carles.buzz. [more inside]
posted by Corduroy at 8:22 AM PST - 251 comments

Yesterday, the organizers of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival announced that this summer's festival will be their last. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:04 AM PST - 52 comments

29 Dogs Who've Just Made Poor Life Choices
posted by griphus at 7:51 AM PST - 30 comments

An Oral HistoryOf ‘Mad Men’ - as recounted to Clickhole by Matthew Weiner and the cast. May contain spoilers and inaccuracies.
posted by Artw at 7:30 AM PST - 49 comments

Yascha Mounk at the utopian conducts An Interview with T.M. Scanlon: I: Free Will, Punishment and The Significance of Choice

The Utopian: One of philosophy’s oldest worries is causal determinism: the fear that, if what we do and think is determined by physical processes beyond our control, then we should abandon moral categories like praise and blame and choice. But I take it that you’re less worried about that than many of your colleagues? Tim Scanlon: I think there are three ways in which this problem arises – the problem being the possibility that a causal explanation of a reaction we give would undermine its significance in one way or another.

T.M. (Tim) Scanlon is Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard, a moral philosopher, expert in contractualism, and the author of What We Owe To Each Other [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:17 AM PST - 6 comments

For decades, Maui was the whaling capital of the world. Whalers descended upon the islands in vast numbers as a port of supply and resting in between six-month jaunts to the Arctic North. The Candian and American whalers influenced Hawaiian culture, of course, bringing potato farming and prostitution in their wake. But the transfer wasn't all one way--Hawaiian-born whalers visited Nantucket, and Nantucket papers certainly reported on Hawaiian politics.
posted by sciatrix at 6:29 AM PST - 12 comments

Eena, meena, mina, mo, / Cracka, feena, fina, fo, / Uppa, nootcha, poppa, tootcha, / Ring, ding, dang, doe. "Losing Count: “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo” and the ambiguous history of counting-out rhymes," from The Paris Review.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:22 AM PST - 29 comments

How to pronounce hexadecimal numbers
posted by Stark at 5:12 AM PST - 41 comments

California's crippling drought has prompted conservation efforts, such as replacing grass lawns and minding how long you leave the tap water running. But what about the food on your plate? Agriculture uses 80% of California's water supply, and producing what you eat can require a surprising amount of water. The LA Times' Interactive Water Footprint tells you How much water is used to produce your food? [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:49 AM PST - 42 comments

Star Wars Galaxy fans, you have no idea what the game was supposed to be like, and how weird it feels to hear adoration for features which to me ended up being shadows of their intent. Don’t get me wrong, the team did heroic, amazing work. All of these issues end up being my fault for overscoping or mismanaging, the producers fault for not reining me in, or the money people’s fault for not providing enough time and budget. The miracle is that we pulled it off at all.

Raph Koster, former creative director on Star Wars Galaxies, writes about the Jedi system in the former MMO. [more inside]
posted by Diskeater at 9:20 PM PST - 65 comments

We're sorry, the FPP you have posted has been replaced by an intercept message. Please check the URL and try again, or contact your moderator for assistance. This is a recording.
At the tone the time will be...
posted by not_on_display at 8:26 PM PST - 23 comments

A Good Tunnel Is Hard To Dig. Difficult, yet satisfying! By Alan Hazelden.
posted by rorgy at 8:23 PM PST - 19 comments

In the case, Rodriguez v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled (6-3) today that a police officer may not extend a traffic stop beyond the time needed to complete the tasks related to that stop for the purposes of allowing a trained dog to sniff for drugs. Supremecourt.gov pdf, Washington Post article.
posted by meta87 at 6:33 PM PST - 44 comments

"Do Not Track is a personalized web series about privacy and the web economy. If you share your data with us, we'll show you what the web knows about you."
posted by no mind at 3:44 PM PST - 36 comments

Corley Miller of Eight by Eight magazine writes a wonderful piece about Arsene Wenger.
posted by pasici at 3:14 PM PST - 7 comments

Fuck Shit Up is a Chrome extension that semi-judiciously sprinkles some "fuck"s into whatever web page you're reading. Not enough fucks? Hit the button a few more times. Gets interesting results when applied to news, dry technical stuff, Wikipedia, and Twitter at the least. [via mefi projects]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:43 PM PST - 50 comments

Taffy Brodesser-Akner interviews Don Lemon for GQ. The results are amazing. [more inside]
posted by lattiboy at 11:36 AM PST - 95 comments

"I’ve been interrogated by police more than 50 times—all because I’m black." Desmond Cole writes in Toronto Life about his experiences with being carded and harassed by police.
posted by orange swan at 11:31 AM PST - 78 comments

How to appear smart in meetings
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:03 AM PST - 103 comments

Shotgun Seamstress of Maximum Rocknroll on the best of black punk rock.
posted by josher71 at 9:37 AM PST - 20 comments

In Chicago's early years, city politics were a dull non-partisan affair. That changed in 1855, when a coalition of temperance advocates and anti-Catholic Know Nothings took advantage of low voter turnout to seize city hall.

Once elected, Mayor Levi Boone and the new council majority hiked liquor license fees while also shortening license terms from one year to three months. Expecting resistance, Mayor Boone “reformed” the city's police force: tripling its size, refusing to hire immigrants, requiring police to wear uniforms for the first time, and directing them to enforce an old, previously ignored ordinance requiring the Sunday closing of taverns and saloons. These were intentionally provocative acts aimed at Germans and Irish accustomed to spending their leisure hours in drinking establishments. [...] Prosecutions clogged the city courts and attorneys scheduled a test case for April 21. This, in effect, scheduled the riot.

Today is the 160th anniversary of the Lager Beer Riot, Chicago's first civil disturbance. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 9:08 AM PST - 20 comments

The 1964 NYC World's Fair. Period photos. Then and now. What remains. Video of the Futurama II ride. Stock footage at the Fair. NBC's ' A World's Fair Diary'.
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 AM PST - 34 comments

Located in the heart of the Bible Belt, South Carolina is a deeply conservative state where men have ruled for centuries. The state elected its first female governor four years ago, but men continue to dominate elected offices, judicial appointments and other seats of government and corporate power. In many respects, the state's power structure is a fraternity reluctant to challenge the belief that a man's home is his castle and what goes on there, stays there.

The 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service has been awarded to Charleston, South Carolina's Post and Courier newspaper for their seven-part special investigation on domestic violence and femicide in a state that consistently places in the top ten nationally in the rate of women killled by men: Till Death Do Us Part. [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 9:05 AM PST - 26 comments

Newly discovered glass frog looks just like Kermit
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:28 AM PST - 27 comments

That Street Fighter II car smashing bonus stage in real life.
posted by griphus at 7:11 AM PST - 27 comments

For every 100 black women not in jail, there are only 83 black men. The remaining men – 1.5 million of them – are, in a sense, missing. Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity.
posted by OmieWise at 6:57 AM PST - 52 comments

Behind the scenes of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:57 AM PST - 14 comments

Calculating the Speed of Light Using a Microwave and PEEPS (or other melty things) from National Geographic's Education Blog and NPR's Skunk Bear videos (showing some history of calculating the speed of light... with peeps as historical scientists, of course)
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:42 AM PST - 16 comments

What's that? You say you missed out on Record Store Day 2015? No prob, Bob: Homestar Runner has you covered. [YT] And if you missed the Brothers Chaps' April 1st 2015 shindig, they've gotcha covered there, too [YT].
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:41 AM PST - 9 comments

Edouard Pozerski de Pomiane was a physician and biologist with a particular interest in gastronomy and cooking. Long before thirty, twenty, and fifteen minute meals, de Pomaine made La cuisine en dix minutes. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:34 AM PST - 5 comments

There is little in English about the Basque artist Nicolas de Lekuona who was killed in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War aged 24
Photographer, Collagist; some of which are definitely unsettling; whilest others explore the humanform. He also painted.
He was killed in bomb attack by the nationalist forces that he had recently joined as a stretcher bearer. Some of his works, many still in private hands can be viewed here.
( not a very user friendly website, use control + to set new default )
posted by adamvasco at 6:07 AM PST - 2 comments

Even though Lorenz, who, like Downey, is blind, can't see the space before her, she knows exactly what to expect. On her desk at the ILRC's current office on Mission Street, she keeps a tactile floor plan that Downey printed for her. The plan's fine web of raised lines looks like an elaborate decorative pattern, suggesting a leaf of handmade stationery or a large sheet from which doilies are about to be cut. Though Downey has consulted on other architects' projects since going blind six years ago, this one marks a turning point for him. The community center is the first space he's designed since losing his sight. The center recently opened its doors to the public with a celebration to inaugurate the new space, located on Howard Street in the city's Yerba Buena district, just down the block from the Moscone convention center. But on this May afternoon, the walls are just beginning to go up.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:57 AM PST - 4 comments

At work, [Bennie Lydell] Glover manufactured CDs for mass consumption. At home, he had spent more than two thousand dollars on burners and other hardware to produce them individually. His livelihood depended on continued demand for the product. But Glover had to wonder: if the MP3 could reproduce Tupac at one-eleventh the bandwidth, and if Tupac could then be distributed, free, on the Internet, what the hell was the point of a compact disk? SLNYer.
posted by chavenet at 3:54 AM PST - 29 comments

"The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000", reports Spencer S. Hsu for The Washington Post.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:44 AM PST - 75 comments

In 1991, Daniel Dumile was part of KMD, a trio with his brother and another kid from their neighborhood, when they released their first album on Elektra, Mr. Hood (YT playlist). Dumile's next album wouldn't come out until 1999, and on an independent label. Operation: Doomsday was not released under the name he used with KMD, Zev Love X, but M(etal) F(ace) Doom, and he only appeared while wearing his metal mask. The transition from an upbeat youth to a cartoon villain was not clear at the time, unless you got your hands on the unreleased (except as a bootleg) second album of KMD, Black Bastards (full album on YT). Here is the story of that transition: KMD's Black Bastards and the Birth of MF Doom, a chapter from Brian Coleman's Check the Technique Volume 2, "more liner notes for hip-hop junkies." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:34 PM PST - 13 comments

Kill Screen Daily has an interview with FM Towns Marty (NSFW), who posts images and gifs from otherwise inaccessible retro Japanese computer games. His images were controversially used in Jon Rafman's video for Oneohtrix Point Never's song Still Life (Betamale) (NSFW).
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:23 PM PST - 8 comments

...MIT Media Lab announced the launch of the Digital Currency Initiative. The goal of this initiative is to bring together global experts in areas ranging from cryptography, to economics, to privacy, to distributed systems... previously previously-er more-previously more-er-previously oh-heck-kittens-in-boxes
posted by sammyo at 4:46 PM PST - 33 comments

Editorial guidelines from Spicy Detective magazine, 1935:
posted by Confess, Fletch at 4:39 PM PST - 31 comments

How to Pronounce UK Place Names (SLYT) "Anglophenia's Siobhan Thompson teaches Science Friction's Rusty Ward—and the rest of America—how to pronounce difficult British place names."
posted by Michele in California at 3:45 PM PST - 141 comments

Philadelphia — 1912. In a matter of hours, college student Allan Travers, 20, went from having never pitched a game in his life to starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. [more inside]
posted by starman at 12:57 PM PST - 28 comments

1,825 days after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Perrin Ireland (@experrinment) and the Natural Resources Defense Council ask: Where'd the oil go?
posted by ChuraChura at 12:31 PM PST - 31 comments

He had always wanted his suicide to be high drama , but in the end he said nothing to anyone; he simply disappeared from sight and silently returned to the sea. Oliver Sacks looks at the last years of monologuist Spalding Gray's life, and the accident that precipitated a decline before his death. (Previously.)
posted by maxsparber at 12:29 PM PST - 36 comments

Moving to Mars. "The volunteers perched in the lava fields of Mauna Loa on the HI-SEAS (Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) mission are as close as Earthlings will get to Mars in the foreseeable future." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:25 AM PST - 12 comments

The Ghost of Cornel West. President Obama betrayed him. He's stopped publishing new work. He's alienated his closest friends and allies. What happened to America's most exciting black scholar?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:36 AM PST - 181 comments

"It's completely alone," I said. That baby, that poor baby. What had it done? "Nobody is coming for it."

Softly she asked, "Would it be OK if we called it 'her'?"

It was then as though my therapist's finger grew very long. It arced through the air, crossing the space between us, and touched my chest, the tip of it pressing into my heart, and my body collapsed around it, folded in on itself from pain, the worst pain I had ever felt because it had no source. I was the pain. I saw that baby on her back, alone, and I understood that she was me. In that moment I was flooded—intellectually, emotionally, physically—by the very knowledge I had so long barricaded myself against: that someone had given birth to me. And worse: that I had not been fit to keep.

A meditation on adoption, heartbreak, and healing, by Sarah Church Baldwin for The Rumpus: Build-A-Bear.
posted by divined by radio at 8:06 AM PST - 29 comments

Meet the lawyer taking on Uber and the rest of the on-demand economy. Shannon Liss-Riordan has filed lawsuits against five of the largest "sharing economy" start-ups (Uber, Lyft, Homejoy, Postmates, and Caviar), contending that they pay the people who supply the equipment and manpower that power their businesses like independent contractors, while burdening them with the work expectations of employees. Previously.
posted by exogenous at 7:59 AM PST - 180 comments

A tax incentive in Maine is being used to funnel money from tax dollars directly into corporate pockets. [more inside]
posted by idiopath at 7:01 AM PST - 26 comments

“The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme” was written by Harvard biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London in 1979. Their critique of their own field of evolutionary biology spilled out of the Ivory Tower onto the pages of general intellectual forums such as the New York Review of Books. I talked by phone with Lewontin on March 2 2015. In his mid-eighties, he is still scientifically active and could recall his collaboration with Gould in detail. Our conversation is highly relevant to the “Just so story” critique that is frequently leveled against Evolutionary Psychology.
posted by sciatrix at 6:34 AM PST - 15 comments

The Problem with Satisfied Patients
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 6:29 AM PST - 35 comments

Once in awhile an unusual voice shows up on one of the many TV talents shows these day, a countertenor. Greg Pritchard first appeared on Britain’s got talent in 2007. Though he has disappeared from limelight, he brought the existence of Countertenors back onto the public radar. Since then every few years one pops up, causing confusion, disbelieve, then applause from the audience and judges.

Andrew De Leon Singing starts at 2:05.

Travis Pratt Singing starts at 1:05

Artur Vasiliev This version only shows the judges reactions.

Last but not least, the professionals.

Previously on the blue:
Machismo is basically a drag act
Deller on the Threshold
posted by KaizenSoze at 5:43 AM PST - 18 comments

As Archie Andrews turns 75, Archie Comics releases a "new look" flagship series, Archie #1. Archie #1 will be released in 2015 from writer Mark Waid, known for his work for DC and Marvel comics, and artist Fiona Staples. The series will "reenergize the story of Archie and his friends, presenting for the first time ever the origins of everyone’s favorite redheaded teen and his friends while showcasing the beginnings of the historic love triangle between Archie, Betty and Veronica". [more inside]
posted by Ziggy500 at 4:20 AM PST - 62 comments

Liberty Reserve was like PayPal for the unbanked. Was it also a global money-laundering operation? By Jake Halpern at The Atlantic (previously).
posted by valkane at 3:39 AM PST - 3 comments

For an artist with amnesia, the world takes place through her pencil.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:37 AM PST - 1 comment

...authorities have lost sight of domestic extremists and failed to prevent acts of terrorism, while the violence is metastasizing and the threat is growing. - Kansas City Star [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:41 AM PST - 37 comments

And I find it amusing that this “they’re fans of MOMENTS but won’t buy anything” complaint was being made at fans who were at a comic convention. Look, cons ain’t cheap. If someone’s spending their time and money to go to a con or make their own Captain Marvel costume or whatever, they clearly have some kind of passion and fondness for what they’re seeing. No one goes to a con just because they reblogged Unbeatable Squirrel Girl a couple times.

Is Tumblr fandom ruining comics because Tumblr fans "love the characters and love MOMENTS of stories, but don’t read the actual comics ever"? The answer may not surprise you.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:00 AM PST - 85 comments

Retrontario remembers Johnny Cash advertising for Canada Trust, along with several other advertisements from the 80s.
posted by frimble at 10:38 PM PST - 12 comments

The music video for Charlie XCX's "Famous", directed by Eric Wareheim, for the YouTube Music Awards. Previously
posted by Going To Maine at 7:58 PM PST - 29 comments

It was just a dumb thing. Then we put a chip in it. Now it's a smart thing.
posted by koeselitz at 6:41 PM PST - 96 comments

Three YT's showing how to fly a P-51C Mustang.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:16 PM PST - 48 comments

On April 19, 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman took a momentous bicycle ride home. His discovery influenced pop culture, psychotherapy and even the CIA..
posted by sleepy psychonaut at 5:10 PM PST - 37 comments

Hundreds Feared Dead After Boat Filled With Migrants Capsizes in Mediterranean [New York Times]

"For the past several years, Europe has been confronted with hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving illegally from Africa and the Middle East, many of them fleeing war and poverty. Italy has been in the vanguard of rescue efforts, with its Navy and Coast Guard ships rescuing more than 130,000 people last year in a widely praised program known as Mare Nostrum."

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:43 PM PST - 36 comments

An estimated "40 percent of all Long Island [grade] 3-8 students refused to take last week’s ELA Common Core state tests. Numbers in some districts reached well over 70 percent, with at least one district exceeding 80 percent....It seems clear that the final 2015 tally will well exceed 200,000 students. New York State will likely not make the minimum 95 percent federal requirement for testing.... What will happen to New York schools then? " [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:36 PM PST - 128 comments

The Los Angeles Times in 1943 further declared that “Only an old-school Southerner who thinks Appomattox was a shocking bad show could go for Pakistan.” The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between India And Pakistan, the latest book by long-time Middle East observer Dilip Hiro, is a grim assessment of the current state of relations.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:28 PM PST - 17 comments

Why Facebook’s Internet.org amounts to economic racism. [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 11:58 AM PST - 76 comments

Lessthan100 is a traveling pop-up shop that sells artwork. Customers are charged a price that corresponds to the local gender pay gap.
posted by eotvos at 11:34 AM PST - 19 comments

The Machines Are Coming by Zeynep Tufekci

Machines are getting better than humans at figuring out who to hire, who’s in a mood to pay a little more for that sweater, and who needs a coupon to nudge them toward a sale. In applications around the world, software is being used to predict whether people are lying, how they feel and whom they’ll vote for. To crack these cognitive and emotional puzzles, computers needed not only sophisticated, efficient algorithms, but also vast amounts of human-generated data, which can now be easily harvested from our digitized world. The results are dazzling. Most of what we think of as expertise, knowledge and intuition is being deconstructed and recreated as an algorithmic competency, fueled by big data. But computers do not just replace humans in the workplace. They shift the balance of power even more in favor of employers. Our normal response to technological innovation that threatens jobs is to encourage workers to acquire more skills, or to trust that the nuances of the human mind or human attention will always be superior in crucial ways. But when machines of this capacity enter the equation, employers have even more leverage, and our standard response is not sufficient for the looming crisis.

[more inside]
posted by p3on at 10:57 AM PST - 47 comments

Radiohead's Creep covered in a wonderful mid-20th century style by Haley Reinhart and the band Postmodern Jukebox. [previously | via]
posted by quin at 10:56 AM PST - 36 comments

The Town That Creep Built
In Hollister, Calif., fault creep shows that no matter what we create the earth will keep on doing what it wants. If we're lucky, our concrete will serve to mark the changes we cannot stop.
posted by dame at 10:30 AM PST - 31 comments

Vintage Gas Mask Carrier & Handbag Patterns
posted by bswinburn at 8:08 AM PST - 10 comments

A short documentary (30min) that introduces ten of the worlds most ambitious megaprojects currently under development and paints a picture of the astonishing scale and political landscape of ongoing globalisation (SLYT). [more inside]
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 7:09 AM PST - 25 comments

A New Whitney It has been interesting to watch the High Line progress from nothing more than a dream to its current wonderful reality mixing green, gleam and grit. Jason's early unauthorized foray introduced many around these parts to the High Line. Now the Whitney moves in.
posted by caddis at 6:17 AM PST - 11 comments

A professional photographer for more than 20 years, and published in Q, Melody Maker and Rolling Stone, Pat Pope has worked with many of the biggest names in pop and rock music, including Oasis, David Bowie and Radiohead. One act with whom he has worked several times are 90s indie titans Garbage. Indeed, they admire Pope’s work so much that recently, as they put together a forthcoming self-published book, their management asked his permission to use one of his pictures of them. So far, so good... Pat Pope’s row with Garbage.
posted by michswiss at 1:58 AM PST - 93 comments

Retrogaming blog VGJunk has just turned 5, and celebrated with a post about the gonzo Capcom beat em up classic Captain Commando. Over the last half-decade, VG Junk has uncovered a hidden Treasure with McDonalds, helped NSync get to their show and imagined what Re-Animator would look like on the NES. He's also investigated the national stereotypes that hide in fighting games, with his probing look at the fighters of Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, and Spain. So put on some Queen, watch out for Jack the Ripper, and enjoy a stroll down memory lane.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 12:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Frank Wilczek: Physics in 100 Years [pdf] - "Here I indulge in wide-ranging speculations on the shape of physics, and technology closely related to physics, over the next one hundred years. Themes include the many faces of unification, the re-imagining of quantum theory, and new forms of engineering on small, intermediate, and large scales." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:21 AM PST - 11 comments

Beautiful by Night is a short documentary by James Hosking about veteran drag queens in San Francisco. [more inside]
posted by frimble at 10:03 PM PST - 3 comments

Over a mere 22 episodes between 1994 and 1995, a rag tag group of adventurers, thrown together by a shadowy government conspiracy explored a strange new world, ruled by an underground government and populated with strange new creatures. [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 8:50 PM PST - 29 comments

is a new fractal discovered by mathematician Edmund Harriss.
posted by boo_radley at 7:46 PM PST - 29 comments

40 years ago, a clerk in Boulder, Colorado let 6 same sex couples get married. One of them was a couple with an Australian national facing deportation. This is their story. Imagine falling in love and then being told that no, your relationship isn't good enough to qualify to keep your partner with you. Now imagine that this takes place 40 years ago and you're a gay man. This actually happened, and the decision from immigration was effectively 'f***ots can't have a real marriage.'
posted by NotATailor at 7:27 PM PST - 14 comments

"I am in the depths of despair." Jonathan Crombie, the raven-haired actor best known to a generation of literature lovers as Gilbert Blythe in the classic Anne of Green Gables miniseries(es), has died at age 48 of an apparent brain hemorrhage.

Bridge scene (ending) in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel [more inside]
posted by St. Hubbins at 7:13 PM PST - 30 comments

The one work of art by James Hampton was the The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly. He built it when not working as a janitor for the General Services Administration. What does it mean? Good question. Everything Hampton ever wrote about it is in a single manuscript, St James: The Book of the 7 Dispensation... and it is in code.
posted by dfm500 at 7:02 PM PST - 11 comments

An Iraqi (intelligence) officer planned Islamic State's takeover in Syria and SPIEGEL has been given exclusive access to his papers. (by Christoph Reuter) [more inside]
posted by Golden Eternity at 6:33 PM PST - 16 comments

As a historic constitutional showdown over gay marriage looms this month at the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys are fighting over another bitterly disputed issue: their fees. In some cases, the fee requests run well into seven figures and are submitted on behalf of powerful law firms that a Reuters examination found have outsized access to the Supreme Court. Individuals and advocacy groups that file lawsuits aimed at the high court sometimes retain big-firm lawyers who specialize in arguing in that forum and boast remarkable success rates in getting their cases heard.
posted by sciatrix at 6:31 PM PST - 14 comments

Would You Want to Smell BBQ All the Time? [New York Times]

"Over the years attempts by states and municipalities to regulate odor have led to a patchwork of legal guidelines subjectively enforced by inspectors who sniff the air and determine whether to make a stink about a stink. In the past the offenders were typically livestock operations and wastewater treatment plants, but more recently odor inspectors are getting calls about smells emanating from ethnic restaurants, coffee roasters and candle and bath shops."

posted by Fizz at 2:58 PM PST - 194 comments

What happens when you put a red hot ball of nickel on a huge novelty jawbreaker (Red hot nickel ball previously)
posted by The Whelk at 1:48 PM PST - 113 comments

Dear Brothers in SA Hip Hop: a letter by Ntsiki Mazwai/Women In South African Hip-Hop: 6 Leading Female Rappers
posted by josher71 at 12:10 PM PST - 2 comments

As John Denver's US prominence waned into the 1980s, opposite the rise of new wave and harder rock, he kept touring internationally for some notable firsts. In 1979, Denver was one of the performers to welcome Chinese Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping to the US, and six years later, Denver was the first western artist to tour in the USSR, where he performed alongside Kermit the Frog. In 1992, he had another first for a western peformer, when Denver toured mainland China, to find that many of his audiences already knew his songs. Two years later, he was the first US act in Vietnam since the Vietnam War. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:32 AM PST - 44 comments

For much of the 1930s, organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) had been searching in vain for ways to rehabilitate a public image that had been destroyed in the Great Depression and defamed by the New Deal. In 1934, a new generation of conservative industrialists took over NAM with a promise to “serve the purposes of business salvation.” How Corporate America invented Christian America.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:15 AM PST - 21 comments

The family shows up at Hank’s house unaware that they’ll be sharing it with assorted wildlife whose collective attitude toward humans ranges from playful to scarily aggressive. Oh, and all the animals are real, and largely untrained, and when they paw and pounce on their human costars, you can see real terror in the actors’ eyes — like actual Oh shit please God no terror.

The making of Roar, possibly the Most Dangerous Movie of All Time.
posted by Artw at 10:33 AM PST - 24 comments

YoutTube: The story of Bitter Sweet Symphony | Andrew Oldham Orchestra - The Last Time (1965) | Original video | 2010 studio performance for Radio 1 Presents | 2008 concert performance | Live at Glastonbury 2008 | Glastonbury 2011 | potted history of The Verve at BBC News
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:33 AM PST - 15 comments

Czech competitive firefighting (known as požární sport) involves such events as the obstacle course and the tower climb, but none is more prestigious (nor thrilling) than the famous hose race.
posted by theodolite at 10:28 AM PST - 8 comments

The Four Worst Types of TV Critics In all four cases—the Theorists, the Activists, the Purists, and the Partisans—we’re treating the inherently subjective fields of art and art criticism as things we can be objectively right about. We’re taking work that’s complex and capable of conveying multiple contradictory meanings and reducing it to a simple either/or, yes/no proposition. In other words, we’re fucking up.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 10:04 AM PST - 18 comments

7 Most Overused Props In Hollywood History (SLYT)
posted by griphus at 9:03 AM PST - 43 comments

Eighty years ago, New York City needed another tunnel under the Hudson River. The Holland Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge could no longer handle the mounting traffic between New Jersey and Manhattan. Thus began construction of the Lincoln Tunnel. But this is not a story about the Lincoln Tunnel. This is about the men who made it. The Sandhogs.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:48 AM PST - 10 comments

Full stack employees have an insatiable appetite for new ideas, best practices, and ways to be more productive and happy. They’re curious about the world, what makes it work, and how to make their mark on it. It’s this aspect above others that defines and separates the full stack employee from previous generations. Full stack employees can’t put blinders on once they land a job; instead they must stay up on developments in their industry and others, because they know that innovation is found at the boundaries between disciplines, not by narrowly focusing in one sphere.

Is the Full Stack Employee the future of workers, the glorification of privileged generalists or maybe just another expression of anxiety in the New Economy (tm)?
posted by dame at 7:20 AM PST - 74 comments

Déjà Lu republishes locally-selected scholarly articles from journals connected to regional anthropological associations around the world. The result is a PDF-heavy but fascinating collection of long reads on obscure topics. Via. [more inside]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 4:56 AM PST - 4 comments

If 4-year-old Ava is the Queen of Vine (previously), then 23-year-old Zach is the King. That's his name, Zach King, and he has gotten 2.9 million followers with his skillful use of practical and digital effects to cheerfully do the impossible in 6 seconds. Here's a five-minute compilation of his most popular Vine bits, and here, as part of a Red Bull promotion is "How He Makes a Vine", a Rube Goldberg process with several impossible transitions. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:30 AM PST - 18 comments

And this is significant: not just because it enables a deeper, more thorough analysis of visual media, but because it makes that analysis both overt and accessible in a way it wasn’t before. A well-constructed gifset is a thing of tremendous beauty, and the more of them I see, the more I’m convinced that we’re in the midst of an academic paradigm shift. It’s not just that gifsets let us contrast the dialogue, cinematography, composition and acting of various visual narratives side-by-side in unprecedented ways, or even the fact that anyone, potentially, can make one; it’s the that this tremendously useful ability is online-only at a time when the vast majority of academic writing, even when digitally accessible, is stuck in static, access-restricted, locked-in formats, despite the fact that most everyone else is using free blogging platforms.

Foz Meadows: how gifs are changing critical analysis.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:53 AM PST - 10 comments

The Minister for Men: a web series by Gretel Killeen. As background, it probably helps to know that Tony Abbott, Australian Prime Minister, appointed himself the Minister for Women. But the series is entertaining even without a background knowledge of Australian politics. [more inside]
posted by lollusc at 3:25 AM PST - 12 comments

Robert Eaglestone reviews the first English translation of Umberto Eco's How To Write A Thesis:

Into this bleak picture comes the first English translation of Eco’s How to Write a Thesis, continuously in print in Italy since 1977. That was a long time ago in academia, and, at first sight, lots of this book looks just useless, rooted in its historic and specific Italian context. Who uses index cards any more? (I mean, I used to, but I wrote my PhD on a computer with no hard drive, using 5¼-inch diskettes, when the internet was still for swapping equations at Cern or firing nukes at Russia.) Who has typists copy up their thesis? The sections on using libraries and research sources sound like an account of a lost, antediluvian culture. But.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:11 AM PST - 5 comments

If The White Stripes and Queens of The Stone Age had a baby... Millennials, congratulations. You made something I love. The bludgeoning opener to Royal Blood's self-titled debut, Out of the Black is a riff-fueled onslaught that belies their two-piece status; with just a heavily processed bass guitar and a drum set between them, they make some four-piece rock bands look inconsequential. You're welcome.
posted by bobdow at 8:10 PM PST - 43 comments

We believe the awful truth is out there, it’s just not at background briefings by the National Security Council.
posted by Bella Donna at 6:33 PM PST - 15 comments

This is Suame Magazine. A vast, open-air industrial district in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city. Here, 200,000 skilled workers manufacture everything from bolts to tanker trucks by hand. A million dollars passes through the factories and workshops here every day, and it’s the place where most of the country’s laborers learn their trades: the heart of Ghana’s informal economy.

Photos and Story
posted by infini at 1:41 PM PST - 25 comments

Remember when Captain America had a district attorney alter-ego named Grant Gardner? And he fought The Purple Death Scarab? No? Then you might need to rewatch the original 1944 Captain American Republic Serials! Bonus: The (deservedly) short lived Captain America Cartoon 1966
posted by The Whelk at 1:08 PM PST - 24 comments

Once-Prized Tibetan Mastiffs Are Discarded as Fad Ends in China [New York Times]

“Then there is the Tibetan mastiff, a lumbering shepherding dog native to the Himalayan highlands that was once the must-have accouterment for status-conscious Chinese. Four years ago, a reddish-brown purebred named Big Splash sold for $1.6 million, according to news reports, though cynics said the price was probably exaggerated for marketing purposes. No reasonable buyer, self-anointed experts said at the time, would pay more than $250,000 for a premium specimen.”

posted by Fizz at 12:51 PM PST - 34 comments

"More than sixty years have passed since Israel started its nuclear venture and almost half a century has elapsed since it crossed the nuclear weapons threshold. Yet Israel's nuclear history still lacks a voice of its own: Israel has never issued an authorized and official nuclear history; no insiders have ever been authorized to tell the story from within. Unlike all seven other nuclear weapons states, Israel's nuclear policy is essentially one of non-acknowledgement. Israel believes that nuclear silence is golden, referring to its nuclear code of conduct as the policy of amimut ("opacity" in Hebrew)." A special collection of declassified documents was published by the National Security Archive this Wednesday, that sheds some light on How Israel Hid Its Secret Nuclear Weapons Program.
posted by zarq at 12:51 PM PST - 138 comments

A previously unknown 3-page passage, cut from "A Wrinkle in Time", has been found by Madeline L'Engle's granddaughter, and published by the Wall Street Journal. It provides strong insight into the political thought regarding conformity and security in the book.

“I’ve come to the conclusion,” Mr. Murry said slowly, "that it’s the greatest evil there is. Suppose your great great grandmother, and all those like her, had worried about security? They’d never have gone across the land in flimsy covered wagons. Our country has been greatest when it has been most insecure. This sick longing for security is a dangerous thing, Meg, as insidious as the strontium 90 from our nuclear explosions . . .”

posted by nubs at 11:43 AM PST - 33 comments

An extensive oral history of Airplane!
posted by Chrysostom at 10:09 AM PST - 84 comments

"Come As You Are" an illustrated book review at The Nib and mirrored at Oh Joy Sex Toy [previously] by Erika Moen & Matthew Nolan.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:05 AM PST - 20 comments

Michael Twitty, Black Jewish Foodie, Talks 'Culinary Justice'.
posted by josher71 at 9:59 AM PST - 20 comments

The true crime film Foxcatcher (Trailer, FanFare) starred Steve Carell in an Oscar-nominated role as the self-aggrandizing, eccentric millionaire John du Pont. The plot features a video du Pont commissions to tout the Foxcatcher Farm wrestling team and himself as coach. Here is the real video.
posted by griphus at 8:53 AM PST - 16 comments

Love is the only motivating force, and while love can motivate some pretty awful things, it’s nonetheless impossible to do any good without it. I have no love left for my job or career. Tim Chevalier on tech as a coping mechanism and a place of toxicity and moral stagnation.
posted by Zarkonnen at 8:44 AM PST - 91 comments

"I don't want to bring in the violins, but we all came from hardship," says McCartney. "All of us except for George lost someone. I lost my mum when I was 14. John lost his mum. But Ringo had it worst. His father was gone; he was so sick they told his mum he wasn't going to live. Imagine making up your life from that, in that environment. No family, no school. He had to invent himself. We all had to come up with a shield, but Ringo came up with the strongest shield."

Part of that shield was playing the fool; part of that shield was booze. It led to a lost decade of L.A./London/Monte Carlo partying where Ringo woke up many mornings wondering, "Why are the birds coughing so loudly?" But he's been sober for 26 years, and there's one essential thing that keeps Ringo young: the sticks and the drum kit.

In anticipation of the inimitable Mr. Starkey's imminent (and long-awaited) induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone presents Being Ringo: A Beatle's All-Starr Life.
posted by divined by radio at 8:31 AM PST - 51 comments

In 2000, Luciano Faggiano wanted to open a trattoria in Lecce, in the "boot-heel" of Italy. He bought what looked to be a modern building, but he had to open the floors in 2001 to find a leaking sewer pipes that were causing continuous humidity problems. He didn't find pipes, but a subterranean world tracing back before the birth of Jesus: a Messapian tomb, a Roman granary, a Franciscan chapel and even etchings from the Knights Templar. Instead of opening a restaurant, his family has a museum, which is also available to virtually tour on Google Maps.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:30 AM PST - 13 comments

In 1982, they battled stride for stride for more than two hours in the most thrilling Boston marathon ever run. Then the drama really began.
posted by bq at 8:22 AM PST - 3 comments

The Real Purpose of Libraries , by Ferguson Library Director Scott Bonner (SLReading Rainbow)
posted by box at 7:30 AM PST - 6 comments

Comic-Book Writer Nick Spencer talks about writing the print version of Ant-Man as Marvel releases a second trailer for the movie and Vulture looks at the film's long production history.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:57 AM PST - 93 comments

Adrift in a sea of digital apps for every imaginable function, we often feel our needs are met better today than in any previous era. But consider the chatelaine, a device popularized in the 18th century that attached to the waist of a woman’s dress, bearing tiny useful accessories, from notebooks to knives.

--Chatelaines: The Killer Mobile Device for Victorian Women [more inside]
posted by almostmanda at 6:35 AM PST - 34 comments

"Everybody kind of gravitated towards this idea of a TV turning on, and out of this static comes this resolved HBO logo that lifts itself out of normal television series.” (via Playboy) [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:24 AM PST - 40 comments

What happens when an English reporter live blogs from a German press conference. The Telegraph newspaper sends reporter Ben Bloom to Germany to live blog the resignation of Jurgen Klopp as the manager of Borussia Dortmund football club. Reading from the bottom of the page upwards, at 12:37 it dawns on Bloom that the press conference is in German, which he doesn't understand. Panic and embarrassment levels rise rapidly. Luckily, he becomes an internet phenomenon.
posted by milkb0at at 4:07 AM PST - 46 comments

...And Crafted The Best Seed Portfolio Ever

But his track record is also flecked with broken friendships and hard feelings. While he keeps a relatively low media profile–this story marks the first time he’s cooperating for a major story–his big mouth, incessant name-dropping and blunt elbows cause eyes to roll. “He’s got a bit of a hero complex,” says a peer who knows him well. “He’s an amazing investor, but that’s not enough–he has to do this heroic stuff.” At Google he crashed every meeting he could and then wouldn’t shut up. Twitter eventually had to pass a rule, driven in part by Sacca, barring nonemployees from showing up at all-staff meetings. He and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, once close friends, now barely speak, despite Sacca’s major stake in the company.

posted by ellieBOA at 3:48 AM PST - 28 comments

FoodGawker is basically a food-based search engine, complete with pretty pictures of really good lookin' foods and the links to their recipes. [more inside]
posted by ourt at 3:34 AM PST - 8 comments

The hidden FM radio inside your pocket -- and why you can't use it. [more inside]
posted by flatluigi at 3:06 AM PST - 105 comments

To say that the Earth is a human planet becomes truer every day. Humans are made from the Earth, and the Earth is remade by human hands. Many earth scientists express this by stating that the Earth has entered a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans. As scholars, scientists, campaigners, and citizens, we write with the conviction that knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene. A good Anthropocene demands that humans use their growing social, economic, and technological powers to make life better for people, stabilize the climate, and protect the natural world.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Paying to Win: Battlefield Heroes, Virtual Goods and Paying For Gameplay Advantages -- Ben Cousins, then general manager of Easy, EA's free to play development studio, looks at the controversy surrounding Battlefield Heroes and its "pay to win" model and how the game was (re)designed to deal with those complaints while still getting people to spent money on it. -- More presentations are available from his website.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:25 AM PST - 7 comments

Vengeance is a goal-driven act, sought out to restore a sense of justice to the universe. But what happens when retaliation is targeted at someone other than the original transgressor? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:07 AM PST - 15 comments

If the effort is successful, Gawker Media would be the first major online media company to unionise.
posted by modernnomad at 10:41 PM PST - 28 comments

Army soldier Shane Ortega comes out as transgender as the military evaluates their policies on transgender service members. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the US lags behind other countries in allowing people to serve openly. [more inside]
posted by desjardins at 7:50 PM PST - 3 comments

In 1985, multinational conglomerate Majesco Industries changed its name to MJI. To publicize this change to its employees, subsidiaries, shareholders and partners, it commissioned an industrial video... [more inside]
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:30 PM PST - 6 comments

Sebastian Junger Knows Why Young Men Go to War “I think this is probably the first society in history that actively discourages an intelligent conversation about what manhood should require of men”
posted by Michele in California at 6:14 PM PST - 60 comments

Private armies, and the technology they use, are changing warfare.
Blackwater’s Legacy Goes Beyond Public View.
Facts About Private Military Companies.
Excerpted from "The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean For World Order"
The private military business is a large and growing industry that can be expected to grow larger in the future.
posted by adamvasco at 5:42 PM PST - 20 comments

A forensic psychiatrist and first cousin, once-removed, examines the sad case of a dreamer who left behind riddles, explanations, and a confession to a series of unsolved murders.
posted by maggieb at 5:32 PM PST - 3 comments

The Passport Index is an interactive tool, which collects, displays and ranks the passports of the world, based on how many countries their holders can visit without obtaining a visa before arrival or at all.
posted by damayanti at 4:29 PM PST - 50 comments

Museum Dance Off 2. 28 participating museums have created videos showcasing their staff/interns/volunteers etc. dancing and lip-syncing to their melody of choice. Voting begins on April 20 and runs through April 29, with several museum dance videos highlighted each day, out of which viewers choose one favorite. Those favorites will ultimately battle it out in the next rounds, until only one is left standing. Anyone can vote, from anywhere in the world. Voting rules and videos are at the main link. Here is the official trailer. Smithsonian Magazine article on the competition.
posted by gudrun at 4:09 PM PST - 3 comments

A bioethicist, at her son's request, sat in on his public high school sex-ed class -- which taught "abstinence only" -- and livetweeted it. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 3:38 PM PST - 118 comments

How I lost My Soul in AdVenture Capitalist
posted by backseatpilot at 12:15 PM PST - 30 comments

Ultra Orthodox Traditions and Beliefs, Photographs by Yaakov Naumi
posted by andoatnp at 12:05 PM PST - 28 comments

Last year, Laser Unicorns raised over $630,000 to create their 80s-inspired kung fu cop movie that involved time travel, ancient gods, dinosaurs, and Nintendo Power Gloves. All made with virtual sets and a shoestring budget. They've now released the movie's theme song, starring David Hasselhoff. How much more 80s could it be? None. None more 80s. Previously on MetaFilter
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 11:36 AM PST - 33 comments

The Force Awakens, Teaser Trailer #2
posted by Lucinda at 11:32 AM PST - 568 comments

Wolf Proverbs is a twitter bot that posts lupine dicta and apothegms. [via mefi projects]
posted by kenko at 11:02 AM PST - 16 comments

Journalist Felix Salmon brings us up to speed on the increasingly strange and complicated saga of The Cooper Union School For The Advancement Of Science And Art, one of the last historically free schools in the US for Art, Architecture and Engineering, which may be brought down by shameless trustees, incompetent management, the State Attorney General, or pure greed. (Cooper Union charging tuition previously. Cooper Union students occupying the president's office previously)
posted by The Whelk at 10:49 AM PST - 21 comments

How a pro-domme, a Russian diplomat, U.S. intelligence and Mary Tyler Moore’s landscaper conspired to create a dance classic.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:28 AM PST - 12 comments

If you’ve driven Ritchie Highway where Baltimore spills into Anne Arundel County, or vice versa, you’ve probably seen her shaking her money maker and stopping traffic. Britney Girl Dale, the alter ego of Dale Crites, has become something of a celebrity here in Baltimore and she now has herself a short documentary, courtesy of filmmaker Dan Bell. The film, now showing on YouTube and embedded below, shows Britney Girl Dale and her pal Anthony doing what they do best within their South Baltimore and Anne Arundel County stomping grounds. Britney Girl Dale’s mission is to entertain the masses- whether they want to be entertained or not. Already semi-famous, Britney has appeared on 98 Rock and has already broken YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, in that order, but this film gives us a glimpse into her daily existence. Filmmaker Dan Bell shows us why Dale transforms himself into Britney, and Bell’s film shows the love, the hate, and the drama that revolves around the daily grind of being Ritchie Highway’s biggest star. The short is absolutely hilarious at times (especially when Anthony chimes in), but it’s not all beeps and hollas out there on the streets. There are also several sobering and sad moments that paint a complex picture of two of Baltimore’s most unique characters. (NSFW)
posted by josher71 at 9:55 AM PST - 2 comments

New research from Carnegie Mellon reveals: Ads for careerchange.com advertising "$200k+ Jobs - Execs Only" were shown roughly 1,800 times to the “male” profiles and only around 300 times to the “female” profiles.
posted by Dashy at 9:49 AM PST - 14 comments

MODERN HORROR TALES - It's from Mefi's own The Whelk aka John Leavitt. [via mefi projects]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:42 AM PST - 25 comments

The strange saga of John Rogers, the man who bought the Star Tribune's vintage photo archive

The thought that big-city newspapers like the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press here in Minnesota — and others in Chicago, Detroit and Denver (and 72 New Zealand newspapers) — were willing to hand over (for a nice price) one of their (and their community’s) most valuable historical archives to a character like Rogers is startling in itself, and may explain why so little has been said about the deal.

posted by jillithd at 8:40 AM PST - 15 comments

Tim Ferriss interviews Jim Fadiman Involved with psychedelic research since the 1960s, Fadiman discusses the immediate and long-term effects of psychedelics when used for spiritual purposes (high dose), therapeutic purposes (moderate dose), and problem-solving purposes (low dose). Fascinating stories about solving really hard science problems, healing PTSD, depression, and trauma.
posted by 4midori at 8:21 AM PST - 7 comments

Here’s a question: how can you tell whether a given charming little cafe with attractive hipster baristas, distressed furniture, and chalkboard menus is the real thing or a very carefully crafted fiction created by a giant corporation with a talented marketing staff? [more inside]
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 6:35 AM PST - 114 comments

Stewardship and Legacy: Sweet Briar and the Future of Women-Only Higher Education (Previously) [more inside]
posted by SkylitDrawl at 6:16 AM PST - 7 comments

The Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature at the Library of Congress dates back to 1943, when Allen Tate was Consultant in Poetry. It contains nearly two thousand recordings—of poets and prose writers participating in literary events at the Library’s Capitol Hill campus as well as sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory. Highlights from the collection include: Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Mario Vargas Llosa, Rita Dove, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, W.S. Merwin, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Clampitt, Robert Pinsky , and Miłosz, Czesław, among many others. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 5:36 AM PST - 7 comments

Eight years after it aired, the finale of The Sopranos continues to be hotly debated. David Chase explains how he created the excruciating tension of the last scene. What he won't say is what happened at the end... "When it's over," Chase offers, "I think you're probably always blindsided by it. That's all I can say." [Previously. Previouslier.]
posted by chavenet at 4:25 AM PST - 82 comments

The unveiling of a new sporting venue is, in and of itself, not terribly out of the ordinary. In fact, there have been numerous new stadium projects proposed for Rome over the years, though none have made it past the mock-up stage. There is a sense on this day, however, that something is different. It is because of the two suited figures sitting at the center of the room, businessmen known throughout Rome simply as gli Americani — the Americans.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:12 AM PST - 7 comments

The CRISPR Revolution [ungated: 1,2,3] - "Biologists continue to hone their tools for deleting, replacing or otherwise editing DNA and a strategy called CRISPR has quickly become one of the most popular ways to do genome engineering. Utilizing a modified bacterial protein and a RNA that guides it to a specific DNA sequence, the CRISPR system provides unprecedented control over genes in many species, including perhaps humans. This control has allowed many new types of experiments, but also raised questions about what CRISPR can enable." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:12 AM PST - 28 comments

One of the glories of Pacific Rim is that – like the oceans – it contains hidden depths. On the surface, it’s very much a big swinging dick movie about the joys of brawny alpha males using giant robots to punch monsters in the dick with cargo ships while BadAss McCoolName delivers the latest in a long line of writers’ attempts to write their own version of Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day speech. But mostly giant robots beating on monsters.

In fact, Pacific Rim is one of the best examples of what non-toxic masculinity looks like, says Dr. NerdLove.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:35 PM PST - 113 comments

Engineerguy details the engineering choices underlying the design of a beverage can.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:24 PM PST - 35 comments

The Failure of Multiculturalism - Community Versus Society in Europe

Thirty years ago, many Europeans saw multiculturalism—the embrace of an inclusive, diverse society—as an answer to Europe’s social problems. Today, a growing number consider it to be a cause of them.

[more inside]
posted by Golden Eternity at 8:25 PM PST - 86 comments

Fans of Star Trek Deep Space Nine know that former overlord Gul Dukat is a mercurial man. He's embraced Bajoran religion more than once, and his Bajoran cosplay is fairly convincing. Should it be any surprise then, that in yet another grasp at power, everyone's favourite Gul-that-is-not-Damar has thrown in his lot with yet another misunderstood and oppressed people? If he cannot rule on Bajor, why couldn't Brony Dukat reign supreme in Equestria? [more inside]
posted by sparklemotion at 8:05 PM PST - 41 comments

MotiveWeight is a submission-based Tumblr dedicated to showing healthy weight loss before and afters. Among the submission rules are: You must be using healthy means to lose weight. Your picture will not be posted if you are underweight for your height. And you can't describe your before picture as ‘disgusting’.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:41 PM PST - 78 comments

Can Biohackers Succeed At Making 'Real Vegan Cheese'? This article gives a brief overview of the pros and cons of how plausible this is. Different scientist take a crack at answering yea or nay to this. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 6:07 PM PST - 41 comments

"When Tony Scott took his own life in 2012, we lost an unquestionably significant filmmaker. Some dwelled on the whys of his demise (thus leading to the rumor that the man was dying of terminal cancer when he jumped from San Pedro’s Vincent Thomas Bridge), but ultimately none of that matters one bit. Scott was a genius behind the camera, leaving behind a filmography that was unified in tone and consistently flat out entertaining. It’s a shame that his pictures have been regularly dismissed as nothing more than hollow diversions; mindless drivel meant for mass consumption and disposal. While their appeal is most certainly broad, there’s nothing vapid about them." - Acid In The Coliseum: The Films Of Tony Scott [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 5:32 PM PST - 17 comments

Today is the 260th anniversary of the publication of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. It was an innovative, landmark work, which focused on not just "hard words" (as previous dictionaries had), and also introduced the practice of providing quotations from authors illustrating the definitions. There's a dictionary quiz night in London if you can make it.
posted by anothermug at 4:58 PM PST - 13 comments

Come read Ulysses with us!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:03 PM PST - 18 comments

This is a video from a spacewalk outside the International Space Station, shot with a GoPro camera and its fucking gorgeous. Here's background on how it happened and what's going on in the video. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:30 PM PST - 42 comments

Sizzler is the one who brings us choices. A 1991 promotional video for Sizzler.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:56 PM PST - 185 comments

Tidus is Final Fantasy’s worst dressed character—a sartorial review. [A.V. CLUB]
posted by Fizz at 12:41 PM PST - 57 comments

"The lack of female genitals on statues seems thoughtless until you see it repeated."--Syreeta McFadden, noticing that Greek and Roman statues of women don't have genitalia.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:59 AM PST - 84 comments

Nonsense written on yellow and black signs, each with a giant arrow. Where do they come from and what do they mean? If you're in a major city like Los Angeles, you've seen them everywhere, and probably recognize them as directions to filming locations. But what to they mean? WABE in Atlanta set out to "crack the code" and found some way to discern the language of these signs, but be warned: film set signs can also be forms of misdirection.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:54 AM PST - 14 comments

Mary Putnam Jacobi challenged Clarke’s thinly veiled justification for discrimination with 232 pages of hard numbers, charts, and analysis. She gathered survey results covering a woman’s monthly pain, cycle length, daily exercise, and education along with physiological indicators like pulse, rectal temperature, and ounces of urine. To really bring her argument home, Jacobi had test subjects undergo muscle strength tests before, during, and after menstruation. The paper was almost painfully evenhanded. Her scientific method-supported mic drop: “There is nothing in the nature of menstruation to imply the necessity, or even the desirability, of rest.”
posted by sciatrix at 11:51 AM PST - 5 comments

Ava Ryan is the four-year-old queen of Vine. Here are some of her greatest hits.
posted by easter queen at 11:49 AM PST - 20 comments

Cereal Milk Jail; or, how my fake post is still being passed around as oral history years later and i learned to love myself because of it
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:39 AM PST - 46 comments

For the 40th Anniversary of Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" album, an Interactive Video of a new remix ("Brandy & Coke") of "Trampled Under Foot".
(click on the windows to see the various 'sub-videos'; once inside, move between 'rooms' with arrow keys, click X to exit)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:26 AM PST - 7 comments

The Nautilus and her Corps of Exploration are mapping and exploring ocean features from the Gulf Coast up to British Columbia. Yesterday, they found a whale. You can watch live to see what they find next!
posted by ChuraChura at 8:58 AM PST - 25 comments

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Trade Machine (Steven Hyden for Grantland)
posted by box at 8:23 AM PST - 114 comments

A modern day warrior, mean, mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean, mean pride.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:21 AM PST - 31 comments

15 Dogs Before And After Their Spring Haircuts
posted by griphus at 7:52 AM PST - 46 comments

All I did was write personal essays inspired by old community cookbooks I found in secondhand stores. Strictly speaking, my food writing wasn’t technically about food. John T. said that didn’t matter. He wanted me to explore “trash food,” because, as he put it, “you write about class.”
posted by zeptoweasel at 7:44 AM PST - 35 comments

Courtesy of your dear friends at ye olde Google, here's a fun and educational interactive tour of the legendary London recording studio: Inside Abbey Road.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:57 AM PST - 8 comments

Happy Tax Day, US MeFites. Here's Tax Man Max (yt) to explain taxes for Schoolhouse Rock.
posted by julen at 6:51 AM PST - 17 comments

What's that you say? You want a 20 year old video of a nearly nude Jason Statham dancing on a rock pyramid in a music video embodying the worst excesses of the early 90s British Dance Scene? Of course you do! (Hat tip Mathowie, Possibly NSFW due to oiled speedo gyrations)
posted by The Whelk at 5:47 AM PST - 56 comments

New York City's urban forest provides numerous environmental and social benefits, and street trees compose roughly one quarter of that canopy. This map shows the distribution and biodiversity of the city's street trees based on the last tree census.
posted by recurve at 5:03 AM PST - 6 comments

Cop Rock might have been one of the weirdest programs to ever air on network television. A show that "had the guts to ask a question that had been on nobody’s mind: What would you get if you merged the grit of a police procedural with the whimsy of a Broadway musical?" [more inside]
posted by zarq at 4:54 AM PST - 35 comments

In 1995, Zippy was explained. In 2001, Jerkcity (contains NSFW dialogue and extremely occasional NSFW imagery) was explained. And now, in 2015, Pokey the Penguin is finally explained. You know, probably. (Click the cover of The Pokey Principle to begin reading.)
posted by BiggerJ at 12:16 AM PST - 22 comments

If a book like Beloved by Toni Morrison is challenged because it is “sexually explicit” and has a “religious viewpoint” and contains “violence” (these are the stated reasons for its challenges in 2012), is it simply accidental that Beloved is also a novel about an African American woman, written by an African American woman?

"I wondered if there was a correlation between books with diverse content — that is, books by and about people of color, LGBT people, and/or disabled people — and book challenges".
posted by MartinWisse at 10:30 PM PST - 27 comments

Eating Junk Food at the Gym (SLYT)
posted by andoatnp at 9:46 PM PST - 9 comments

Zac's Haunted House, the latest by Dennis Cooper, is a free HTML horror novel consisting entirely of animated GIFs. Notre Dame English professor Joyelle McSweeney discusses the book with Mr. Cooper.
posted by Rykey at 9:23 PM PST - 9 comments

Study reveals Unhappiest (and Happiest) Cities in the U.S. “Our research indicates that people care about more than happiness alone, so other factors may encourage them to stay in a city despite their unhappiness,” says Gottlieb. “This means that researchers and policy-makers should not consider an increase in reported happiness as an overriding objective.” [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:45 PM PST - 51 comments

Have you ever thought your life would be better if it included a giant, realistic felted cat head mask? If so, you would be correct.
posted by jeather at 8:27 PM PST - 35 comments

Sailors and Daughters reveals the expansive maritime societies of Zanzibar, the east African coast, and beyond. From the 1840s, cameras traced the international migrations of traders, sailors, sons, and daughters through Indian Ocean ports, continuing trade that dates back over five millennia.
posted by bardophile at 7:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Fruits of the Web is a blog that takes the often clunky and goofy world of scientific modeling out of context, reveling in the surreal effects of block men ironing, masks of points, and skeletons shoveling. Thankfully, they also tend to post source articles and videos so you can find out just why someone would make something like that. They also post other web ephemera, like strange Easter gifs and whatnot. Overall, just a nice little cornucopia of oddities. Occasionally slightly not work safe.
posted by codacorolla at 7:06 PM PST - 11 comments

The Butterfly Child is a short documentary about Jonathan Pitre, a fourteen year old with Epidermolysis Bullosa, a rare skin disorder (NSFW).
posted by Lutoslawski at 5:31 PM PST - 22 comments

A Field Guide to the American Sandwich , with introduction. Both by Sam Sifton. Possibly related to yesterday's ode to the BEC and last week's roast beef tutorial (all NYT).
posted by xowie at 2:19 PM PST - 112 comments

IEEE Spectrum has published a "Special Report: 50 Years of Moore's Law," with a selection of a dozen short articles looking back at Moore's original formulation of the law, how it has developed over time, and prospects for the law continuing. Here are some highlights.
posted by infini at 1:17 PM PST - 33 comments

Graphic artists depict the golden ratio – in pictures [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 12:59 PM PST - 28 comments

Having trouble finding the right condo? Moving from colleting art to collecting passports? Feeling left behind in yacht purchases? Or are you having to budget your 500k a year? (previously) Or worried about pied-a-terre owners changing your neighborhood?
Or maybe the Times coverage of the super-rich is alienating millennials. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:42 PM PST - 94 comments

'F*cking Young' by Tyler, The Creator [YouTube] [Contains NSFW Lyrics] Rapper Tyler, The Creator, a member of LA hip-hop collective Odd Future alongside Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt, has unveiled a video from his newly-released album Cherry Bomb. Full stream available via Spotify.
posted by Fizz at 12:36 PM PST - 5 comments

So, the apocalypse happens, in whatever flavor you prefer, and eventually our descendants (or the cockroaches') are poised to inherit the earth. Lucky for them, we've left a nice cache of information for them (previously on the Blue) so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel or Pokemon or whatever. Question is, will they be able to do that--or, rather, how difficult would it be to do that--if we use up all the fossil fuels first? [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:10 PM PST - 25 comments

Herb Trimpe, long time artist on The Incredible Hulk, died yesterday at the age of 75. In addition to his seven year run on the Hulk, Trimpe drew the first issues of Marvel's G.I. Joe comic and was the artist on the first appearance of Wolverine. Trimpe attended the School of Visual Arts and began his career inking backgrounds for Dell Comics. After serving in the United State Air Force, Trimpe began his long career with Marvel Comics in 1967 making his debut in Kid Colt Outlaw #134. He penciled The Incredible Hulk in a nearly unbroken run from 1968 - 1972. In May 2014, the original art page by Trimpe featuring the first appearance of Wolverine sold for a record $657,250.00.
posted by marxchivist at 11:51 AM PST - 18 comments

Mars might have liquid water, according to new findings We know Mars has water, and we also know that Mars once had liquid water (a whole ocean, in fact) but now it seems we may have evidence of liquid water today. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 10:53 AM PST - 22 comments

An empirical study by Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci at Cornell University found that when using identical qualifications, but changing the sex of the applicant, "women candidates are favored 2 to 1 over men for tenure-track positions in the science, technology, engineering and math fields." [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 10:47 AM PST - 67 comments

How would you fare in a room full of adolescent math competitors in Singapore? [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:32 AM PST - 72 comments

Tableflip Dot Club: 2015's coolest club is for all those women in tech who had feelings about Ellen Pao & more.
posted by dame at 10:02 AM PST - 43 comments

"If his name was John Brown, he would have been in jail," one criminal justice official with knowledge of the case said. "If a woman says, 'He's the guy that raped me,' and you have corroborating evidence to show they were together and she went to the hospital and she can identify him, that guy goes to jail."

Last week, ProPublica and the New Orleans Advocate published the results of their months-long joint investigation outlining how law enforcement officers in five states repeatedly (and sometimes deliberately) failed to apprehend former NFL star Darren Sharper as he traveled cross-country drugging and raping women: Upon Further Review.

[cw: rape, sexual assault, violent misogyny, law enforcement collusion to cover up same] [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 9:59 AM PST - 20 comments

The Washington Post reports what the rich and poor actually spend their money on, and where [more inside]
posted by ourt at 9:47 AM PST - 51 comments

Soul legend Percy Sledge has passed away at his home in Baton Rouge. Best known for "When a Man Loves a Woman," Sledge started out as a nurse, booking gigs when he could on weekends. Thanks to hits like "Warm and Tender Love," "It Tears Me Up," and "Take Time to Know Her", and "I'll Be Your Everything", Sledge would eventually leave his job at the hospital and go on to enjoy a career that spanned six decades. He was 73.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:42 AM PST - 23 comments

Hans Kühner, of G. Henle Verlag, a publisher of classical music urtexts, hypnotically engraves a sheet of Liszt the old-fashioned way.
posted by theodolite at 9:41 AM PST - 18 comments

In [Anatoly Fomenko's New Chronology] , the events of the New Testament precede those of the Old Testament—and in any case, most of the stories are concocted to reflect later incidents. Joan of Arc was a model for the biblical character Deborah. Jesus Christ was crucified in Constantinople in 1086. Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece were fashioned by Renaissance writers and artists (the time of the Pharoahs, Fomenko suggests, may have lasted into the 1700s). Aristotle instructed Alexander the Great, who was a tsar, in Moscow in the 1400s.

Is Ancient History Completely Made Up By 'The Man'? (Previously)
posted by griphus at 7:42 AM PST - 109 comments

Meet the Stanley Cup
posted by almostmanda at 7:41 AM PST - 62 comments

Did you know that wombats poop in cube shape? It's true. But why? And...how? Here's an explanation, complete with a wombat digestive tract model and jello poops. [more inside]
posted by phunniemee at 6:52 AM PST - 30 comments

David Clear constructs a map of the virtual space of the Intellivision classic Auto Racing, which features each track beside the other. It's part of the Intellivision Flashback game set.
posted by juiceCake at 6:31 AM PST - 12 comments

At first, they tried to provoke the cougar by poking it with a long prod but all they managed to do was to lose the GoPro camera attached to the prod which at one point fell off. Mountain lion hiding under L.A. home can’t be forced out.
posted by hippybear at 3:04 AM PST - 71 comments

"The Corn Flakes trade-off - in which nutrition is sacrificed for convenience, portability, and profitability - is a metonym for food production during the last century." The weird, wonderful story behind Corn Flakes.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 1:51 AM PST - 34 comments

Who says romance is dead? SLYT. Previously. And also hot dog eating contest and Thanksgiving. I missed some.
posted by Athanassiel at 9:49 PM PST - 16 comments

Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux A graduation film by Gwenn Germain is a delightful, breath-taking homage to Miyazaki, Mœbius, and Syd Mead.
posted by cleroy at 9:01 PM PST - 13 comments

Entrepreneur sets $70,000 year minimum wage for all his employees Dan Price, the owner of a credit card processing company, came across an article showing that making much less than $75,000/yr. greatly diminished the emotional well-being of earners, and decided to do something about it. He's embarked on a three year plan to increase the salaries of all employees making under $70,000, which for some of them will be double their current wages.
posted by xigxag at 8:31 PM PST - 131 comments

Though nowadays somewhat stereotyped as being massive group dance numbers in traditional dress, Bollywood musical sequences have tended to follow the fashions of Hollywood. Though from 1957, this Marx Brothers influenced Ina Mina Dika shows a 30s/40s aesthetic. The James Bond influenced Baithe Hain Kya Uska Paas is the spirit of the jet age. Disco is taken on with Jab Chhaye.
When Hollywood films stopped having musical numbers, music videos became the main influence. Take a little Michael Jackson and a little Madonna and see what Bollywood does with it.
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 8:00 PM PST - 7 comments

The Other Side of the Wind was going to be Orson Welles’s comeback, perhaps even topping Citizen Kane—but to this day, it remains unfinished (though that may change soon). In an adaptation from a new book about the 45-year struggle to make the film, Josh Karp reveals why Welles’s last movie is the stuff of legend.(via)
posted by octothorpe at 4:45 PM PST - 6 comments

Stephen Hawking performs Monty Python's "The Galaxy Song". The AV Club has the backstory.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:24 PM PST - 13 comments

The Highwayman (1987-88) was a 60-minute sci-fi/action tv series from Glen A. Larson starring Sam J. Jones (1980's Flash Gordon). Jones played a federal marshall with a high-tech 18-wheeler "supertruck" that had advanced weaponry, the ability to turn invisible and a cab that turned into a helicopter. He patrolled America's highways and fought crime in the futuristic world of... 1992. A pilot movie, Terror on the Blacktop (starring Claudia Christian, G. Gordon Liddy, Jimmy Smits and Rowdy Roddy Piper) kicked off the series, which lasted nine episodes before driving off into the cancellation sunset. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:51 PM PST - 53 comments

"Second, it is a mistake to pit post-modernism and social constructivism against evolutionary psychology as though they are in an intellectual death match that only one side can win. This tribalistic, us-versus-them thinking isn't helpful to science. Much like partitioning the causes of human behavior into nurture versus nature or culture versus biology or learned versus innate, social constructivism versus evolutionary psychology is a false dichotomy that may feel intuitively correct but should not be utilized very often by serious scientists (exceptions include behavioral genetics studies)."
posted by huguini at 3:43 PM PST - 69 comments

The next king of Westeros gets governing advice from the (real, not a joke) French governement in order to build a "stronger, fairer kingdom". House France's sigil is a rooster. The text is in French so here's a quick & dirty summary: 1) Less centralization and a more efficient territorial organization 2) Less tournaments and feasts and a responsible Master of Coin 3) A well-deserved and early retirement plan for the hard-working brothers of the Night's Watch 4) A fairer justice with no death penalty or trial by combat 5) No more youngster without education 6) Winter is coming! Let's build shelters for the poorest. [more inside]
posted by elgilito at 2:45 PM PST - 26 comments

"Post Hurricane Katrina, a whole new American dream was designed for some [South Asian] Indians — how to get trapped in a guarded labor camp by an American company".
posted by ursus_comiter at 2:22 PM PST - 12 comments

Evocative photos of Palm Springs houses by moonlight.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:20 PM PST - 6 comments

For her 85th birthday, BBC Radio 4 has broadcast a new interview with and documentary about Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as the first radio dramatisation of The Left Hand of Darkness and a a new Earthsea serial coming soon.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:28 PM PST - 13 comments

Energy in Northampton! (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by Gilgongo at 11:59 AM PST - 12 comments

This Tuesday through Thursday (April 14th to 16th) is the latest Jeopardy! online contestant test. Are you ready? [more inside]
posted by kagredon at 11:47 AM PST - 49 comments

Girl Guides, known in the US as Girl Scouts, are an organization for young girls founded in 1910. Almost from the beginning they were involved in wartime efforts. British Girl Guides served in World War I as spies for MI5. They also served both covertly and openly during World War II as Resistance members, medical staff, and support staff for refugees. Some of these were part of Guide troops which were stationed in invaded territories, such as Polish members who organized anti-Nazi propaganda efforts and smuggled Jewish children to safety. Others were volunteers who came from the UK to bring medical aid and supplies to care for refugees.
posted by sciatrix at 11:28 AM PST - 14 comments

The most common question I get asked is, "Should homeless people have pets?" And my response is always, "Should we have people who are homeless?" Ottawa veterinarian Michelle Lem talks about the Community Veterinary Outreach program and its model of community medicine for people and pets. At CVO, volunteer veterinarians, vet techs, social workers and public health nurses work together to connect with marginalized people by providing free veterinary care for their beloved pets. You can watch a brief timelapse video of a day in the life at the busy mobile clinic. [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:28 AM PST - 20 comments

Today's TV and movies as 80s VHS covers. Worth it for the Breaking Bad one alone.
posted by colie at 11:19 AM PST - 8 comments

Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan chronicler of Latin American history, politics, and football, has died at the age of 74 today in his hometown, Montevideo. [more inside]
posted by maskd at 10:48 AM PST - 21 comments

In December, the Meitiv family, advocates of "free-range" parenting, were investigated for allowing their children to walk home from a park in Silver Spring, MD (previously). Yesterday, they again allowed their children to play in a nearby park. When the 6- and 10-year-old kids didn't arrive home at 6 pm as planned, their parents went looking for them. Two hours later, they received a call from Child Protective Services, who taken custody of the children after "a concerned resident" notified the police. Additional reporting and commentary from Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:34 AM PST - 244 comments

The Women I Pretend to Be, by novelist and game writer Naomi Alderman (previously):

No one in tech has ever been as sexist toward me as teachers and rabbis before I was 12 years old. But I've come to notice more and more how working within the particular masculine sexism of the tech industry has nudged the way I present myself, just a little. I've noticed how, very slowly, I've started to acquiesce into playing roles that get assigned to me. I've noticed how I disappear behind these masks.

What follows is not a horror story. It's a series of moments.

posted by divined by radio at 9:30 AM PST - 28 comments

Catherine: A Story in Twelve Parts is a short video series by actress/comedian Jenny Slate (previously) and her husband, director Dean Fleischer-Camp. It has been described as "banal," "sincere," and "menacing." [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 9:27 AM PST - 17 comments

50 photos of costumed cast and crew on break, between takes or shooting SFX.
posted by griphus at 6:58 AM PST - 44 comments

From The Bitter Southerner: Dixie Is Dead
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:42 AM PST - 60 comments

Laura June, a "writer and a real cool mom", writes a column for The Awl on parenting her new daughter Zelda.
Tagline: An endearing column about the fucked up and cruel world of parenting.

Follow the delightful account of her life as she contemplates motherhood aging her; philosophises on gender and babywear; realises although her daughter shares her face, she has her own personality; discovers Zelda's taste in music; wonders if they will get along; and celebrates milestones. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 5:28 AM PST - 15 comments

Günter Grass, German Novelist and Social Critic, Dies at 87 [New York Times]

Günter Grass, the German novelist, social critic and Nobel Prize winner whom many called his country’s moral conscience but who stunned Europe when he revealed in 2006 that he had been a member of the Waffen-SS during World War II, died on Monday. He was 87.

Previously. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:18 AM PST - 36 comments

Dickheads by David Graeber
posted by chavenet at 3:06 AM PST - 110 comments

If you've ever felt that the remake/reboot/reimagining of your favorite story/character/fictional universe sucks, just imagine how Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke felt when Jack Kirby and Marvel did "2001: A Space Odyssey: The Comic" in 1976-77.
Well, maybe Clarke more than Kubrick.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:42 AM PST - 38 comments

The Australian Government has announced that parents who refuse to vaccinate their children (on the basis of a 'conscientious objection') will no longer have access to key government benefits, including taxpayer funded child care benefits, child care rebates and family tax benefit A. The plan is backed by the Australian Medical Association, and has bipartisan support. More coverage: Sydney Morning Herald. The Australian. Sky News. [more inside]
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:34 PM PST - 59 comments

Sunday Candy is a charming new video by Chicago based Chance The Rapper and the Social Experiment.
Previously: 1,2
posted by lkc at 10:10 PM PST - 11 comments

Life is hard when you're a baby sloth. So hard. Behold the injustice. Bonus: hot buttered sloths.
posted by phunniemee at 9:54 PM PST - 22 comments

What if, when Petunia Dursley found a little boy on her front doorstep, she took him in? Not into the cupboard under the stairs, not into a twisted childhood of tarnished worth and neglect–what if she took him in?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:32 PM PST - 42 comments

Fake argument leads to incredible free-kick
posted by dhruva at 8:21 PM PST - 26 comments

Running your own high-end cloud gaming service on EC2 Playing games this way is actually quite economical – especially when comparing to purchasing a full-on gaming rig. Here are the costs you’ll need to consider: GPU Instance runs about $0.11/hr (on a Spot instance, regularly around $0.70/hr) Data transfer will around $0.09/GB, and at a sustained ~10mbit, itll cost you $0.41/hr (4.5GB/hr) This comes out to around $0.52/hr, not bad, for the cost of a $1000 gaming pc, you get ~1900 hours on much higher-end hardware!
posted by CrystalDave at 7:12 PM PST - 45 comments

A prototype of Sound Fantasy, a long-lost Super Nintendo music game by Electroplankton auteur Toshio Iwai, has surfaced online and is now available to download. Sound Fantasy later evolved into the PC program SimTunes.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:26 PM PST - 5 comments

Dallas Zoo's Katie the giraffe gives birth -- with the world watching Anyone who has given birth -- or been an observer of the event -- knows how arduous it can be. But to do it live on the Internet? With two hooves sticking out for several minutes in the midst of labor? [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 1:46 PM PST - 10 comments

A Beginner's Guide to Invisibility by Kathryn Schulz: "with invisibility, as with so many forces, what matters is who gets to wield it. If you choose to be invisible, it's a superpower; if it's forced upon you, it's a plight. The same goes for being visible. We typically speak of visibility as an asset—but the subjugated are not always overlooked, and they do not always want to be seen." (via; previously)
posted by kliuless at 12:24 PM PST - 18 comments

As an archivist, my ethical duty is to maintain those objects of intrinsic value to future generations. I’ve often found that others assume my profession is focused on facts and figures, the hard data from which a census or otherwise lifeless historical record can be drawn. Such data will inform one on how a people survived. As important as this data is, it cannot tell you how a people dreamed. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 12:23 PM PST - 3 comments

Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced (via a YouTube video and emails to supporters) she is running for the position of nominee on the Democratic Party ticket for the 2016 US Presidential Election. Her campaign website. Will she win the Democratic candidacy? Bookmakers currently say "very likely". And the presidency itself? "50/50". [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 12:20 PM PST - 751 comments

Mad Max: ‘Punk’s Sistine Chapel’ – A Ballardian Primer
posted by Artw at 12:15 PM PST - 28 comments

ImmigrationTrackr - "This project was developed in two hackathons (Code for America and Lesbians Who Tech) to create an open-source tool to help visa and immigration paperwork. The hope is that other people will build on this and make a viable tool for public use. Right now it's mostly developed on Rails." [via mefi projects]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:36 AM PST - 29 comments

Sofia Samatar: It’s on the internet (laughter). It calls itself a pan-African writers collective. There’s currently in process an issue on Afro-futures, and I’m one of the guest editors, and it’s exciting to see, because the majority of the writers we’ve received stories about are based in Africa, though there are also some African diaspora writers involved. I think that once we get ourselves in gear and get the issue out, it’s going to be very exciting. I think it’s something that going to be very important as an intervention in the discourse on Afro-futurism, because it’s very much coming from the African perspective.

Pan-African writers collective Jalada has released their second anthology: Jalada 02: Afrofuture(s). [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 8:37 AM PST - 4 comments

Season 5 of Game of Thrones begins Sunday night. Shouldn't you read a recent interview with creator of the books that spawned the show? Yes, you should! [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:41 AM PST - 137 comments

"We live in an age of satirical excess. If economists were to diagnose it, they might well call it a comedy bubble. We currently have six late-night talk show hosts, all nattily clad, life-of-the-party, white-guy topical jokers—Conan, Kimmel, Fallon, James Corden, Seth Meyers, and (come September) Colbert—to sum up, and send up, our day for us. We have four comedy news-commentary shows—Maher, Larry Wilmore, John Oliver, and (for a little while longer) Stewart—and fake news from SNL’s Weekend Update, The Onion, ClickHole, and several lesser lights. Vines, viral Funny or Die clips, podcasts, Twitter: each new media platform generates stars of its own, ranging from seasoned comedians to everyday office wits—often, people who have no intention of seeking careers as professional humorists. It would be easy to sniff in condescending high-gatekeeper form and talk of the low signal-to-noise ratio of truly funny people to not, but with 280 million active users on Twitter alone, that still leaves a pretty big signal." [more inside]
posted by josher71 at 6:13 AM PST - 70 comments

It's clear that narrative is an important part of video games and something that the audience deeply relates to. However, the strengths of interactive media are player participation, the ability to experience content in different ways on different playthroughs and the fact that the content is not static. It's time for narrative to deeply embrace these elements.

Ken Levine, of System Shock and BioShock fame, explores player driven replayable narrative gameplay.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:35 AM PST - 12 comments

"In the tomb of Princess Isinkheb was found an entire tent – its inside lined with animals and flowers, the blue ceiling studded with appliqued stars..." and the ancient Egyptian craft of tent making is still alive today. Australian filmmaker Kim Beamish spent three years immersed in the lives of craftsmen, filming his documentary The Tentmakers of Cairo, which premieres this April. It also tells the story of Egypt's struggle with democracy through the lives of a community of artisans whose craft has remained largely unchanged since Pharaonic times. [more inside]
posted by fraula at 1:55 AM PST - 10 comments

Favorite of MetaFilter and much of the Internet Neil Cicierega has something new, and it's not a musical mashup - in fact, it's completely silent. It's OUTSLIDE, a tumblr blog where he has curated and collected some of the best - or worst - or best of the worst - presentation slides posted on slideshare.net (previously)
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:05 AM PST - 30 comments

The Brunching Shuttlecocks was (and is) a humor website that ran from 1997 to 2003. It was founded by David Neilsen and Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg. Neilsen, also known on the site as The Self-Made Critic (which was wonderful), was a funny guy in his own right. But the focus of this post is Lore... who is a Metafilter member btw... twice, in fact. Here's a taste:
Porn Star or My Little Pony?  *  Ratings: Cat Toys ("Catnip Anything: Very entertaining.")  *  I Ought to be a Law (Note: Sjöberg's Law of Lexical Drift.)  *  Ad for PLACEBO^TM ("It Works Because You Want It To.")  *  Ratings: Star Wars Lego Figures  *  An Open Letter From Metallica (Published after Metallica sparked controversy when they sued Napster.)  *  The Björk Song (In RealAudio or MP3, with David Neilsen. Causes insanity.)  *  Pikachewy ("'Twas Beedrill, and the Starmie Gloom/Did Grimer and Gengar in the Mew")  *  Twelve AP Headlines Which Can Be Sung to 'Camptown Races' ("Man in Wheelchair Killed by Train, doo-dah, doo-dah")  *  The Geek Hierarchy: Abridged But Managable - Unabridged but Large - For Printing (PDF) - Frequently Paraphrased Questions (Perhaps the Shuttlecocks' most enduring legacy, you might still find new links to this around the internet.)  *  Roshambo Run (A Flash game. Read the intro, but in essence: lure the rocks, scissors and papers into each other, without getting eaten by them, and get to the coffee cup.) [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 12:01 AM PST - 65 comments

On February 1, 1968, the Penn Central railroad was created by the merger of the two largest railroads in the eastern United States, the Pennsylvania Railroad, long lauded as the "Standard Railroad of the World", and the New York Central Railroad, long famous for its passenger trains such as the 20th Century Limited, with its Dreyfuss-designed Hudson locomotives. [more inside]
posted by pjern at 10:30 PM PST - 8 comments

Tilting In Our Favor: Pinball May Be The Most Inclusive Gaming Space For Women

Sustainable, supportive relationships are crucial to me as an intersectional feminist, and there's only so far picking up the check at a fancy restaurant can take you. So I left behind a decade of working in tech to keep kids off the glass at the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, California.

[more inside]
posted by Lexica at 8:32 PM PST - 18 comments

What might have Danny dreamt about? What was the question on his mind? And what was the answer?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:39 PM PST - 12 comments

New .sucks domain stirs up storm over free speech. "Critics see it as a shakedown scheme designed to force companies and individuals to fork over cash to keep an unfavorable or offensive website offline."
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:55 PM PST - 58 comments

The Trouble with Clint by Jacob Krell [Los Angeles Review of Books]

“Clint Eastwood is many things to many people, but contemporary critics tend to agree that he is an auteur, i.e., someone with real directorial insight, care, and reach, someone whose individual artistic stamp can and should be used as a heuristic lens. Insofar as so much of his early career as an actor found him traipsing through the storied landscapes of American westerns and action films, it’s hardly surprising that Eastwood’s own directorial mark is often constituted through toying with genre, as he’s done with the western, to acclaimed effect (Unforgiven); with the boxing drama, to acclaimed (and deeply manipulative) effect (Million Dollar Baby); and with the B-movie, to effect somewhere between perplexing and appalling (Gran Torino).”

Previously. Previously. Previously.
posted by Fizz at 6:47 PM PST - 38 comments

Men explain vaginal anatomy. On the flip side, women explain how penises work. Bonus level: gay men try to explain tampons.
posted by sciatrix at 6:07 PM PST - 78 comments

Part of Eshel Ben-Jacob's many researches delve into Bacterial Art (1, 2, 3) [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:15 PM PST - 4 comments

"The French tradition of free expression is too full of contradictions to fully embrace. Even Charlie Hebdo once fired a writer for not retracting an anti-Semitic column. Apparently he crossed some red line that was in place for one minority but not another." -Garry Trudeau ruminates on The Abuse Of Satire in The Atlantic.
posted by hippybear at 12:53 PM PST - 126 comments

Stop gloating, morning people. You might be up early, but you aren't morally superior. What's your chronotype? Find out here.
posted by Miko at 12:30 PM PST - 115 comments

You Don't Have To Ride - Gospel Records from My Collection :"I've been collecting gospel records for a little while now and figured it was time that I share. Every day I post at least one track from my collection." You can check out the the house favorites tag for works the author finds "especially astonishing." [via mefi projects]
posted by Anonymous at 11:49 AM PST - 10 comments

Scientists think they have spotted the only black flamingo in the world An extremely rare black flamingo, thought to be only one in the world, has been filmed on the island of Cyprus. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 11:16 AM PST - 21 comments

What Russians really think - "Many in the west see Russia as aggressive and brainwashed. But its citizens have a different view." Meanwhile,[1,2] in Moscow and Lviv...
posted by kliuless at 10:40 AM PST - 52 comments

Samuel R. Delany's 1977 review of Star Wars.
posted by escabeche at 9:45 AM PST - 96 comments

Chris Crowe has a girlfriend. She stands a leggy 5 feet tall, weighs a trim 11 pounds, and sports a set of wings like you’ve never seen. Walnut the white-naped crane is the most genetically distinct endangered crane on the block — which means she needs to have been making babies, like, yesterday. Walnut was raised by humans at a zoo, and as a result, she recognizes and trusts humans — and is deeply hostile to other cranes. How hostile? She killed the two male cranes that her former keepers attempted to pair with her. "I like to jokingly tell people that Walnut ‘allegedly’ killed two male cranes," Crowe says. "It’s not like she was tried and convicted. We don’t know her side of the story."
posted by ChuraChura at 6:16 AM PST - 22 comments

I first saw Prinz-D in 2011, in a basement rec room at Gallaudet. He stood tall and confident, dressed in all white, coolly holding the mic to his side until the beat dropped in. The grounding 808 sub-bass kick drums ignited the stage, his limbs and the audience. As a general rule with predominantly Deaf audiences, Prinz-D performs in both American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English. The ASL is compromised when he holds a microphone, which is one reason why most Deaf or HOH entertainers perform without one, opting instead to shout along to a track and focus the performance on accentuating the signs and dancing. Some members of the audience were clearly annoyed by his haphazard attention to signing, but in general, Prinz-D kept the crowd engaged. They were feeling it — literally.
posted by josher71 at 5:52 AM PST - 18 comments

Cult Cartoon Network show Regular Show has parodied the intro to cult anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 12:10 AM PST - 14 comments

Paralyzed Again - We have the technology to dramatically increase the independence of people with spinal-cord injuries. The problem is bringing it to market and keeping it there. Mumford’s voice rises in astonishment as he tells the tale. “I have a device implanted in my body that was considered to be one of the best innovations or inventions of that century,” he says. “The last thing you think is that the company is going to go out of business, and not only is it going to go out of business, but you’re not even going to be able to buy parts for that. That seems insane!”
posted by CrystalDave at 8:18 PM PST - 29 comments

Confessions of a Drug Addicted High School Teacher
posted by oceanjesse at 6:32 PM PST - 121 comments

What are the most disturbing novels? [The Guardian] [Books] Guardian Books discusses disturbing reads:

"Bret Easton Ellis has haunted some of our readers for days, and on the books desk we’re still getting over certain depictions of dangerous obsessions and hellish orgies. Which fiction has most unnerved you?"

posted by Fizz at 6:17 PM PST - 219 comments

When displaying graphics on an original IBM Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), normally only 4 colours (from a palette of 16) are possible at once. So this ("Oldskool Demo" first place at the Revision 2015 demoparty) is not so normal. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 4:10 PM PST - 58 comments

Laura Kicey took photos of building all over the world and made colorful architectural collages out of them.
posted by of strange foe at 3:56 PM PST - 6 comments

How to deactivate a baby. Previously: how to deactivate a cat.
posted by phunniemee at 3:31 PM PST - 53 comments

The brainchild of Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team at From Software, the Souls games have gained a rabid cult following over the past few years. The newest spiritual successor Bloodborne (trailer 1, 2) has been out for a couple weeks now, and it's received stellar reviews across the board. It might very well be the best in the series, reconfiguring the dense gameplay in surprising ways and offering up an intricately-realized Victorian gothic world. Tim Rogers has written a lengthy, articulate, spoiler-free (in a narrative sense) analysis of Bloodborne's design - You Are the Experience Points. [more inside]
posted by naju at 2:48 PM PST - 65 comments

Orange is the New Sorry Not Sorry | The third season drops June 12. It has everything. [more inside]
posted by maggieb at 2:43 PM PST - 16 comments

Bob’s Buskers is an animated web series featuring prominent musicians covering original songs from Bob’s Burgers. Four episodes were made: “Bad Girls” by St. Vincent, “Sailors in your Mouth” and “Christmas Magic” both by the National, and “Electric Love” by Stephin Merritt and Kenny Mellman. Special bonus: the original “Electric Love” and Sleater-Kinney’s ”A New Wave” (featured previously). [more inside]
posted by griphus at 2:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Soy sauce makes "miracle" comeback in tsunami-wrecked Japan

When the tsunami warning sounded, workers at the two-centuries-old soy sauce maker in northeastern Japan ran up a nearby hill to a shrine for safety, and watched in disbelief as towering waters swallowed their factory. They all believed the business, started in 1807, and its precious fungal cultures that give soy sauce its unique taste were lost forever. Everyone except for Michihiro Kono, the ninth-generation son of the founding family. Four years later, Yagisawa Shoten Co. has been saved through Kono's conviction, crowd-funding and the unexpected survival of its vital ingredient.

[more inside]
posted by Lexica at 1:48 PM PST - 15 comments

The Secret Life of Yo-Yos. In which high-end titanium models cost upwards of $500, and ball-bearing trans-axels allow yo-yos to "sleep" for over 30 minutes. Also, Tom Smothers has still got it.
posted by artsandsci at 1:31 PM PST - 17 comments

...but Fox (!) is planning a 'two hour TV event' remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:16 PM PST - 138 comments

The Local Eyes Project is an effort to explore the Americas through the eyes of 12 local residents in Canada, the United States, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, by sending them a disposable camera and asking them to take "travel photos." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:53 PM PST - 2 comments

"Things Left Unspoken: Erasure in Online Discussion of Domestic Violence" - Trigger Warning: Domestic violence, mentions of violent actions, physical abuse, sexual assault. By Catherine [Kiran/Rin] Oliver at Model View Culture. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:44 PM PST - 3 comments

I could reach no possibilities in which Johnny Rivers—wise guy, bootlegger, crook with his eye on the big time—still clung to life. In every crime scene every one of me was looking at, he lay face-down on the floor with two bullets in his back. It was a pity. Not because Chicago was particularly the worse off for one more dead mobster, but because murders are murders, and solving Johnny’s would have been a whole lot easier if he’d lived long enough to tell me who had pulled the trigger. Maybe, in another universe, another me had shown up sooner and had gotten something out of him.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:14 PM PST - 6 comments

Dear Data. A post card project of analog data visualizations.
posted by JanetLand at 12:08 PM PST - 3 comments

The Journey That Turned Ms Marvel into This Generation’s Hero
posted by Artw at 11:38 AM PST - 24 comments

Larry Kramer’s The American People: Volume 1: Search for My Heart: A Novel (previously) is now on the shelves. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:30 AM PST - 2 comments

Hide your sons!
posted by mikeand1 at 10:44 AM PST - 54 comments

The clam leukaemia is a contagious cancer—an immortal line of selfish shellfish cells that originated in a single individual and somehow gained the ability to survive and multiply in fresh hosts. Until Metzger’s discovery, there were just two exceptions to this rule. The first is a facial tumour that afflicts Tasmanian devils. It spreads through bites, and poses a serious threat to the survival of these animals. The second is a venereal tumour that affects dogs. It arose around 11,000 years ago and has since spread around the world. That was it: two transmissible tumours. Now, there’s a third—and perhaps more on the way.
posted by sciatrix at 8:56 AM PST - 27 comments

Maximize autonomy, provide varied activities, be authentic
posted by alms at 8:54 AM PST - 5 comments

Do you dig Marvel and DC? At the same time? Only one man dared imagine.... that and more. [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 8:06 AM PST - 53 comments

We Turned Eight Republican Presidential Candidates Into Sims and Dropped Them In The White House
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:35 AM PST - 21 comments

1966 BBC documentary predicts challenges of electronic privacy. BBC's 1966 documentary "California 2000", besides being a fascinating flashback in itself, features an amazingly prescient interview with internet pioneer Paul Baran, in which he warns of the risks of government centralized use -- and misuse -- of state-run digital surveillance, 24 years before the EFF was founded.
[more inside]
posted by markkraft at 7:23 AM PST - 24 comments

I’m here, at the home of seven adults not related by blood and two children, to find out why one would choose to live somewhere that requires such an extreme shoe-storage situation. What does it look like, in an age of post-recession scarcity, for a group of people to successfully weather their late twenties and early thirties together, to embark on the great child-rearing mission in a shared home?
posted by ellieBOA at 3:35 AM PST - 74 comments

Those TV streaming fools at Hulu have come up with a 21st Century Social Media way to promote their mostly-traditionally-sourced video content - a tumblr site called Hulu: The Perfect Gif which has assembled over 1700 gifs (so far) of moments from over 80 series ranging from I Love Lucy to Parks and Recreation, and including Agents of SHIELD, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Louie, Cheers, Spongebob Squarepants, Gotham, Twin Peaks, Webster, Xena, Doctor Who (mostly 11th doctor so far), Buffy, X-Files, Glee, Mary Tyler Moore, Ren & Stimpy, Arrested Development, Archer, Sons of Anarchy, Absolutely Fabulous (OMG!!!), RuPaul's Drag Race, Firefly, The Voice, Alf (WTF?!?), Star Trek Original Series and Next Generation, Bob's Burgers, The Brady Bunch, Key & Peele, Spaced (hmmm...), Once Upon a Time, Community, Scrubs, the last 10 years of Saturday Night Live, and many more*, all under 3 seconds, watermarked for attribution, with external hashtags but no captions, and un-hotlinkable but with plenty of social media buttons. Network TV at its best, regrettably. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:11 AM PST - 36 comments

A war machine that costs about as much as the rest of the worlds' militaries combined just doesn't win wars anymore. Why is this, and how can such an expensive public program that obviously fails to achieve its stated goals carry on unscathed?
posted by blankdawn at 1:04 AM PST - 116 comments

Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major aux tubes musicaux by French juggling troupe Liason Carbone
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:12 AM PST - 11 comments

Flippity Floppity,
District Attorney Dent
Got splashed by acid, so
Now he's Two-Face.
His personality's
Heterogeneous;
He flipped when Batman put
Him in his place.

Seepily Deepily,
T.S. Smith (Tiger Shark)
Ended a villain, but
Started a fish.
He attacked the Green Lantern
Unhesitatingly.
He's lucky he wasn't
Served in a dish.

Supervillain 'poetry' by E. Nelson Bridwell, the original Continuity Cop
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 12:08 AM PST - 16 comments

Masao Kinoshita makes sculptures of bizarre anthropomorphic animals and animal-human hybrids, often with their musculature exposed.
posted by escabeche at 9:19 PM PST - 12 comments

'Photographer Leilani Rogers feels watching a baby come into this world is a "heavenly experience," and along her way to capturing 50 births she’s witnessed tender moments as well as seen things that are extraordinary and unusual. Take a look at her personal selection of favorite photos.' (Note: vivid images) [more inside]
posted by DarlingBri at 7:53 PM PST - 36 comments

Next month, Ireland will have a national referendum on marriage equality. Those opposed to marriage equality have been playing quite nasty - distributing flyers that claim gay people have a greater risk of cancer or alcoholism, or that they are more likely to harm any children they adopt. So Daintree Paper, a Dublin stationer, decided to fight back - with its Shred of Decency campaign, which collects the offensive flyers and turns them into confetti. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 PM PST - 19 comments

Devil's Bargain: A Former Medellin Cartel Official Has Been A DEA Informant For 27 Years. Now He Wants Out.
posted by andoatnp at 6:48 PM PST - 6 comments

It is summer. The sun is shining. It is winter. The sun is shining. You aren’t certain, upon reflection, when the last time was that the sun was not shining. Tumblr's latest meme is Regional Gothic, in which the established Southern Gothic literary genre meets Welcome to Night Vale, and is applied to short, creepypasta-esque fiction of other regions, cities, and communities. The Meme Documentation tumblr provides an explanation and examples of the meme, more of which can also be found under the global regional gothic tag. [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 6:09 PM PST - 54 comments

A thoughtful TLDR by Gamasutra blogger Wai Yen Tang: The take home message is that the cultivation effects of sexist attitudes from a general use of videogames over a three year period from a German population has not resulted in any appreciable changes in sexist attitudes. ... The authors argued that factors, such as personal experience, peers and family would have a stronger effect on sexist attitude than video game content. Link to study (might not work on mobile)
posted by Sebmojo at 4:57 PM PST - 36 comments

SpaceX 4K SpaceX launch highlights, in Ultra HD 4K. (SLYT)
posted by bitmage at 4:57 PM PST - 11 comments

Rufus Thomas for Schlitz Malt Liquor, 1974. Look out for the bull. (SLYT)
posted by Capt. Renault at 3:22 PM PST - 28 comments

In the spring of 2003, Milton Bradley, a switch-hitting outfielder for the Indians, met his future wife, Monique Williams, a community relations intern with the team. He was about to turn 25. She was 22. Over the next decade—while the erratic, belligerent Bradley was given a pass by many MLB teams, media members and the sports culture at large—he and Williams would be locked in a cycle of emotional and physical abuse, separation and reconciliation, police intervention and court conflict. The Ray Rice elevator video, shocking as it was, captured only one moment. But a trove of public records shows the tragic extent of the Bradleys' violent relationship. This Is What Domestic Abuse Looks Like from Sports Illustrated [Trigger Warning; Graphic text and photos].
posted by chavenet at 2:39 PM PST - 28 comments

The Civil War Isn't Over: [The Atlantic]

"Americans often begin conversations about equality with Thomas Jefferson’s invocation of it as one of the four first principles in the Declaration of Independence. Americans like being “first” with ideas. But as Abraham Lincoln reminded us, more than four-score years later, the nation founded in a revolution against monarchy had to fight a second revolution against itself in order to determine whether the “proposition” of “equality” had a future in any republic. And that second revolution—the Civil War—was so bloody, so devastating, a “result so fundamental and astounding,” as Lincoln put it, that ever since, Americans of all backgrounds have yearned to declare, or at least feel, its deepest issues over and resolved. Americans may love the epic story of their Civil War, but would, by and large, prefer its nightmarish causes and consequences to fall quiet, to rest in peace."

posted by Fizz at 2:05 PM PST - 60 comments

As of July 1, 2015, the safest, most convenient procedure used for second-trimester abortions will be illegal there.

During a private ceremony on Tuesday, April 7, Gov. Sam Brownback signed SB 95 into law, making Kansas the first state in the nation to criminalize a medical procedure commonly utilized in cases of incomplete miscarriage as well as pregnancy terminations performed after 12 weeks: Dilation and Evacuation, or D&E. Perhaps surprisingly for a law that criminalizes a medical procedure, the text of the law [PDF] does not use any medical terminology whatsoever. [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 1:41 PM PST - 100 comments

Janine Harper and Marc Bushelle's photo series of their daughter Lily dressed up as different African-American heroines started as a Black History Month project. All photos are on Bushelle's Facebook page. NPR's Code Switch blog has the first six photos here and two more here.
posted by insectosaurus at 1:29 PM PST - 5 comments

Samantha Bee of The Daily Show reports on women the effort to get legislature passed to protect rape survivors from seeing their rapists during custody visits (for rape survivors who bring their pregnancy to term) TRIGGER WARNING: Parenting with the Enemy. " [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:37 PM PST - 31 comments

"Computers, once vilified and now championed, were constant in one thing: They amplified the virtues and deficits of the system that implemented them." The Tangled History of Soviet Computer Science. [more inside]
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:57 AM PST - 14 comments

"The Mystery of the Dancing Droplets" [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:40 AM PST - 7 comments

It had never, in my most repulsive nightmares, occurred to me that my dad might have molested my brother. I believed their unfixable, codependent-isn’t-even-a-big-enough-word relationship was about addiction and guilt and mental illness and hubris and narcissism. No other explanation was needed. When I read Steve’s name on that list while standing in my study with the Russians at my feet, everything froze: the air, my blood, my breath, my brain. I felt it was true. I believed it was true. And I wasn’t even remotely ready for it to be true.

-The Terrible Things I Learned About My Dad: On Abuse and the People We Love
posted by almostmanda at 11:26 AM PST - 16 comments

A medley on accordion and vodka. (SLYT)
posted by griphus at 9:46 AM PST - 11 comments

“The ultra-Orthodox have increasingly seen gender separation as a kind of litmus test of Orthodoxy." A growing number of airline passengers, particularly on trips between the United States and Israel, are now sharing stories of conflicts between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men trying to follow their faith and women just hoping to sit down. Several flights from New York to Israel over the last year have been delayed or disrupted over the issue, and with social media spreading outrage and debate, the disputes have spawned a protest initiative, an online petition and a spoof safety video from a Jewish magazine suggesting a full-body safety vest (“Yes, it’s kosher!”) to protect ultra-Orthodox men from women seated next to them on airplanes.
posted by holborne at 8:42 AM PST - 255 comments

Unsung Heroines provides bite-sized biographies of Black women who changed the world, and is a great way to learn history you were deliberately not taught in school. Women profiled include Fannie Lou Hamer, the civil rights hero who first said "I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired;" Mary Church Terrell, an early advocate for civil rights and the suffrage movement; Melba Roy Mouton, a NASA mathmatician; as well as: [more inside]
posted by Juliet Banana at 8:34 AM PST - 6 comments

Boston's Mayor Walsh has proclaimed today Riot Grrrl Day , in honor of Kathleen Hanna's speech to take place in Boston tonight. Joyce Linehan, the city's Chief of Policy, used to work as an arts promoter and has a long-standing friendship with Kathleen Hanna. Marty Walsh: Coolest Mayor of Boston ever? Next month Bostonians can celebrate the second annual Eugene Mirman Day.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 7:53 AM PST - 38 comments

There have been only two known photos of legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson. Now there's a third. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:17 AM PST - 71 comments

Crickets have recently been touted as the next big thing in sustainable eating (previously). Indeed, demand for crickets has skyrocketed in the past five years. But where do human-grade crickets come from? Turns out there's a severe lack of supply to meet growing demand. Enter Big Cricket Farms, which is working to innovate new large-scale methods of cricket farming. How can you optimize a food source with minimal infrastructure to build off of? The farm's FAQ attempts to provide some answers. [more inside]
posted by sciatrix at 5:26 AM PST - 98 comments

Falling short: seven writers reflect on failure is a collection of seven short essays on failure by writers Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Anne Enright, Howard Jacobson, Will Self and Lionel Shriver. These range from the meditative to the funny. Essays reflecting on literary failure are legion, but let me point you towards a couple more, the brief Failure Is Our Muse by Stephen Marche and the longer Fail Better by Zadie Smith.
posted by Kattullus at 5:17 AM PST - 15 comments

But anyone who looked into the turbulent, shifting waters of Warburg’s actual beliefs knew that there was something more, and much stranger, there. At a minimum, there was something compellingly incongruous: on the one hand, his vision was haunted by half-clothed women dancing ecstatic Dionysian dances; on the other, it was devoted to minute archival research meant to record their choreography through time. [more inside]
posted by Athanassiel at 10:53 PM PST - 7 comments

At the very top of oceans and inland waters lies a distinct micrometer-thick microbial habitat. It influences climate change, fosters unusual and deadly bacteria, and is made of jelly. It is the surface microlayer.
posted by bismol at 10:38 PM PST - 24 comments

There is, with any great artist, a little manic-ness and insanity. Tropic of Cancer is one of my favorite books. And [author] Henry Miller had this work ethic, where he would get out of bed every day and force himself to write five pages. It taught me that if you do the work, you progress. So many people are content to settle. My dad was exceptionally ambitious. But he had a lot thrown on him, exceeding his ambition. He wanted his band to be successful. But he didn't want to be the fucking voice of a generation.

Excerpts from an interview with Frances Bean Cobain for Rolling Stone's cover story in anticipation of the HBO documentary Montage of Heck.
posted by mannequito at 7:16 PM PST - 48 comments

Intense-eyed character actor and frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator Geoffrey Lewis, father of Juliette Lewis, died april 7th in his home, of natural causes. [more inside]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:35 PM PST - 36 comments

Beaver dams (video) Nifty little video about beavers and the dams they build. They actually store "refrigerated" food for the winter. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 2:45 PM PST - 24 comments

The Cuddly, Fluffy, Surreal World of Angora Show Bunnies [New York Times]

With beguiling beauty — and an arduous hair-care regimen — these rabbits compete to reach the height of perfection.

posted by Fizz at 1:48 PM PST - 29 comments

Astronomers at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected the presence of organic cyanide molecules in a protoplanetary disk surrounding the young star MWC 480 in the Taurus star-forming region.

'“Studies of comets and asteroids show that the solar nebula that spawned our Sun and planets was rich in water and complex organic compounds,” noted Karin Öberg, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and lead author on a paper published in the journal Nature. “We now have evidence that this same chemistry exists elsewhere in the universe, in regions that could form solar systems not unlike our own.”' [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 1:41 PM PST - 15 comments

A bulbous, friendly little thing - The Verge’s Nilay Patel spends a day with the Apple Watch. [more inside]
posted by Artw at 1:26 PM PST - 198 comments

Everyone's Upstairs Neighbors (SLYT)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:09 PM PST - 86 comments

If I had still been at my heaviest weight, I never would have approached Brian. As a fat woman, I have been taught that there is an order of operations for love: First, you get thin; then, you can date who you want. Until you do the first thing, the second thing is impossible. So for many women who struggle with their weight, it becomes a fight not just for their health or well-being, but a struggle to just be worthy of the love so many people take for granted.

The inimitable Kristin Chirico (previously) for BuzzFeed: My boyfriend loves fat women. As a fat woman myself, I'm still struggling with how I feel about it. [SLBF]
posted by divined by radio at 12:37 PM PST - 50 comments

The 5 Dreamiest Mr. Darcy’s In TV And Film | The Definitive Ranking of the Best Mr. Darcy Ever (Spoiler: Colin Firth) | Mr. Darcy Love (pinterest) | Can Mr. Darcy Ever Be Rude Enough? | 17 Reasons Mr. Darcy Isn’t Actually That Great | Mr Darcy vs Mr Thornton
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:21 PM PST - 61 comments

NASA posits a larger amount of water in the solar system and beyond. With the recent hypothesis (trigger: bad science) that extra terrestrials might be quite large, how long do we have until the Space Whales come for us? Discuss.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:22 AM PST - 37 comments

Coding Ground is an amazingly comprehensive set of free online terminals and IDEs for about 100 different computing languages. The list includes Unix languages (bash, ksh, awk), cross-platform languages (Ruby, Python, Perl, Java, etc.), web languages (coffeescript, Go, Dart, jQuery) MS Windows-specific languages, markup languages (CSS3, HTML, Markdown), and even a bunch of esoteric languages (Malbolge, LOLCODE, Brainf**k, and Whitespace). These (appear to) run in fully sandboxed Docker-based containers.
posted by mcstayinskool at 11:08 AM PST - 37 comments

Ellie Lobel was 27 when she was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. And she was not yet 45 when she decided to give up fighting for survival. ... “Nothing was working any more, and nobody had any answers for me,” she says. “Doctors couldn’t help me. I was spending all this cash and was going broke, and when I got my last test results back and all my counts were just horrible, I knew right then and there that this was the end.” ... So she packed up everything and moved to California to die. And she almost did. Less than a week after moving, Ellie was attacked by a swarm of Africanised bees.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:15 AM PST - 73 comments

"Fischel Kanapoff’s salty 1924 couplet song Hu-tsa-tsa is a quintessential vaudeville vehicle in which the sets of couplets — always subject to alteration, variation, addition, or substitution, even on the spot, as well as to augmentation by dance and other stage shtik — frame spoken jokes or comic monologues to a muted, vamped orchestral accompaniment."
posted by griphus at 8:50 AM PST - 5 comments

For years, billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett has controlled a mobile-home empire that promises low-income borrowers affordable houses. Last week, The Seattle Times released an investigative piece that alleges Berkshire-Hathaway controlled Clayton Homes traps homeowners in high-interest loans and rapidly depreciating homes. Berkshire-Hathaway has responded, and The Seattle Times has released a counter-response.
posted by SkylitDrawl at 8:12 AM PST - 46 comments

Cattle-smuggling and other oddities of life on the India-Bangladesh frontier.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:29 AM PST - 3 comments

Let's Speak English! Cartoonist Mary Cagle's adorable tales of teaching English in Japan.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:58 AM PST - 48 comments

In the coverage and discussions, our voices are unheard, our lived experience silenced from a discussion that impacts our lives in a way that journalists and think-piece writers and even doctors cannot understand. I struggle sometimes when I hear stories of people with cancer that most likely would be cured if only they followed the treatment regime suggested by their doctors who make the decision to follow a [complementary and alternative medicine] remedy. Not even your doctor will judge you though.

Elizabeth Caplice writes about of living with (likely terminal) cancer, the temptation to believe in miracle cures when the reality of having to undergo cancer treatments are so dire and how little cancer patients themselves are heard in the ongoing debates about treatment and alternative medicine.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:11 AM PST - 13 comments

The Aggravating Adventures of a Gigantic Tunnel Drill. After Bertha got stuck, she couldn’t back up because she builds the concrete walls of the tunnel as she drills forward. That means the hole she leaves behind is narrower than she is. The contractor has devised a method—itself unprecedented—­to repair Bertha by craning her in sections to the surface. Previously.
posted by The Deej at 6:07 AM PST - 58 comments

"From my point of view, I believe all babies go to heaven," King told me when I asked him to explain how both labels fit his viewpoint. "And if this baby were to live a life where it would be abused ... it's just really hard to explain. It gets into the rights of the woman, and her body, at the same time. It just sometimes gets really hazy on each side." Sarah Kliff at Vox on What Americans Think of Abortion
posted by chavenet at 3:57 AM PST - 39 comments

The Beautiful:A380 cuts a cloud in two, Clouds, Planes and Vortices, Wake Vortex Variety.
The Ugly: Crosswind Turboprop Torment, Crosswind Airbus Anguish, Landing Gear Hammered, Awkward Crosswind Landings.
(All but one from flugsnug's large video collection)
posted by ShooBoo at 10:45 PM PST - 25 comments

Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant of Echo and the Bunnymen explain how they came up with "The Killing Moon."
posted by goatdog at 8:15 PM PST - 42 comments

In 1981. Sears released its first (and last) laserdisc based catalog. It's a time capsule of fashions in both clothing and video production, and one more example of how Sears was constantly searching for the future of retail, but never quite found it.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:33 PM PST - 41 comments

A South Carolina police officer shot at an unarmed, fleeing 50-year-old Walter Scott 8 times on Saturday, killing him. Officer Michael Slager claimed that Scott wrestled his taser away and he "felt threatened". But this time there was video of the incident, and Slager has been charged with Murder. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 4:29 PM PST - 714 comments

12 short poems is all that remains of the work of Nossis, one of the most beloved of the Ancient Greek poets. Exactly when she lived is uncertain, but it's certain that she was from Locri, which was on the "toe" of Italy. You can read about what archaeologists have found out about the ancient city on the website Locri Epizephyrii, Welcome To Magna Graecia. Scholars have tried to use Nossis' poetry to explain the particulars of life in Locri, looking for support for claims that noble status descended matrilineally. Marilyn B. Skinner looks at the status of women and explores the "unusual aspects of religious practice at Locri" in her essay Nossis and Women's Cult at Locri. You can read different translations of some of Nossis' poems, three by Skinner and two by Diane Rayor.
posted by Kattullus at 4:25 PM PST - 5 comments

I’m on a mission to explore our relationship with gas stations, and this is the story of how I got hired at one.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:59 PM PST - 22 comments

Stan Freberg has passed away at the age of 88. Equally famed as a voice and a satirist (and Weird Al Yankovic's idol), he had hit records making fun of pop music ("The Banana Boat Song", "The Great Pretender", Lawrence Welk, among others) with his biggest hit a re-located parody of "Dragnet", and his most memorable the 1958 attack on Christmas commercialization: "Green Christmas". He got even deeper with his deconstruction of American history, and was punished for his irreverence by becoming much in demand to make television commercials. But even earlier, he did cartoon voices, being one of the few to work (uncredited) alongside Mel Blanc at Warner Bros., and was the voice of Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent on the local-puppet-show-turned-network cartoon "Time for Beany". And more... previously here.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 PM PST - 92 comments

"At first blush, 'no' does not appear to be the kind of word whose meaning you can monkey with." Kathryn Schulz dissects the use of "no" at the beginning of conversational turns, and discusses how it may be a reaction to the loss of our previous "four-form system of negation and affirmation" that included "yea" and "nay".
posted by brainwane at 1:13 PM PST - 61 comments

Instagram chef plates junk food like high-end cuisine. From the @chefjacqueslamerde Instagram account. (Sample item: "HAY BAKED HOT POCKETS W/ HIDDEN VALLEY BACON RANCH SPHERES AND A PUREE OF ZOODLES (WHOLE WHEAT)"
posted by andrewesque at 1:07 PM PST - 37 comments

The euphemisms people use to pay their drug dealer in public on Venmo
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:50 PM PST - 55 comments

"Cocktails & Dreams" on Youtube. My college girlfriend loved both the 1988 Tom Cruise vehicle "Cocktail" and cocktails too much, and in retrospect the first should have been a warning of the second. The people behind "Greenboy", all Mr. Show vets and other alt-comedy types, have taken on a new project - making "Cocktail" watchable. They shortened it to 10 minutes, and added Chris Fairbanks, Greenboy himself, to every scene. It's a funny testament to the power of technology to change history. Lenin would be proud. (Minor NSFW for language and art stuff)
posted by solmssen at 12:46 PM PST - 7 comments

Stand And Be Sorted… By A Sorting Hat Twitter Bot. Q&A with the creator. [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:56 AM PST - 34 comments

"The spotted hyena has a genital set-up that is unique among animals. [...] They have a pseudopenis; an extended clitoris through which they urinate, have sex, and give birth. In order to have sex a male has to place his penis in the pseudopenis, which is extremely difficult without her complete cooperation. Once the two have mated, the female has the option of simply peeing, and flushing out much of the male's sperm."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:47 AM PST - 17 comments

Today if you ask someone to name a woman scientist, the first and only name they'll offer is Marie Curie. When Silvia Tomášková, director of the Women in Science program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, brings up famous female scientists with her students—and this has been happening since she started teaching 20 years ago—she gets the same reaction: “Marie Curie.” Tomášková always tries to move them on. “Let's not even start there. Who else?” [more inside]
posted by sciatrix at 11:47 AM PST - 70 comments

Rainbo: First Blood. Dawn of the Red. Wonder Womban. What do these puns have in common? Well, they're all monikers for different styles of Period Panties, humorously allusive undergarments intended to be donned during the wearer's menstrual cycle.

But is the stereotype of premenstrual aggression empowering or invalidating of female emotion? And why on earth are we still afraid of periods? [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 11:19 AM PST - 41 comments

The traditional sidewalk parking sign can be confusing, particularly when mixed with a bevy of municipal regulations. Redesigns have tried to make them easier to read, but when designer Nikki Sylianteng got a parking ticket in New York she decided to come up with a more radical rethink. Los Angeles liked her design so much they're now rolling it out for real.
posted by selfnoise at 11:14 AM PST - 32 comments

In the upcoming A&E "docudrama" 8 Minutes, Santa Ana vice cop-turned-pastor Kevin Brown, founder of the faith-based non-profit Safe Passage OC, poses as a john and tries to convince sex workers to leave the life. Backed by a team of volunteers, including former sex workers, Brown gives himself eight minutes to make his pitch - ideally before a pimp suspects something is up - and offers to connect the women with shelter, addiction and employment services if they want. Not all of them do. Of course, it's all filmed. (Sex workers' faces are blurred.) And perhaps inevitably, it's drawing significant criticism for putting a vulnerable population at greater risk. [more inside]
posted by gottabefunky at 10:06 AM PST - 63 comments

Alex DeLarge, Anton Chigurh, and The Mystery Man walk into a bar. Get the fuck outta the bar. Movie villains, ranked on the weirdness scale. The Movie Bad Guys Weirdness Index "rates from 1 percent — a little bit weird, like when you pick up your phone to text someone and that person texts you right at that moment — to 100 percent weird. The only real restriction: No bad guys from horror movies were eligible because basically all of them are weird, so this thing would’ve been somewhere near 40,000 words." (SL Grantland)
posted by holborne at 9:04 AM PST - 98 comments

Q: How Much Of An Introvert Are You?
A: Sorry I Murdered Everyone, But I’m An Introvert
posted by a manly man person who is male and masculine at 8:40 AM PST - 87 comments

Vani Hari, AKA the Food Babe, has amassed a loyal following in her Food Babe Army. The recent subject of profiles and interviews in the New York Times, the New York Post and New York Magazine, Hari implores her soldiers to petition food companies to change their formulas. She's also written a bestselling book telling you that you can change your life in 21 days by "breaking free of the hidden toxins in your life." She and her army are out to change the world.

--The "Food Babe" Blogger Is Full of Shit
posted by almostmanda at 7:30 AM PST - 246 comments

Let's all give Brontosaurus a big hand to welcome it back to the community of things that actually existed! [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:13 AM PST - 54 comments

Tony Zhou has quickly become a favorite here at Metafilter for his video essays on film techniques. His latest work is part editing class / part confessional on the subject of video essays themselves. And it all involves Star Wars, South Park and, most of all, Orson Welles' "F for Fake" (previously and previously).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:07 AM PST - 6 comments

Some great work has been done to restore the original Star Wars in all it's glory. This is amazing, look at the shot comparisons. Hopefully this will see the light of day as a finished restoration. Channel definition: "This is a preservation/restoration, with the goal of presenting each frame in the best possible light without altering them, internally."
posted by misaac at 6:17 AM PST - 40 comments

Rube Goldberg machine tells the Passover story. Also, a how it was made behind-the-scenes video.
posted by Melismata at 5:43 AM PST - 6 comments

I’m occasionally told my life would be easier if I backed off from my relentless efforts to advance evolution education. Maybe so. But to shy away from emphasizing evolutionary biology is to fail as a biology teacher. I continue to teach biology as I do, because biology makes sense only in the light of evolution.
posted by ellieBOA at 5:22 AM PST - 63 comments

Amy Werbel on America's most influential censor: Searching for Smut: Hot on the trail of Anthony Comstock (1844-1915). Comstock wielded the 1873 Comstock Act (named for him) like a cudgel to improve the morals of the nation, protect children, and stamp out indecency. [more inside]
posted by julen at 2:27 AM PST - 15 comments

Ive been digging this little film clip, from the year 1947, where this totally badass lady shows how to kick some SERIOUS attacker butt: Judo Jymnastics. Go girl!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:30 AM PST - 20 comments

For years, Esakhelvi reigned supreme and unchallenged, in an universe that existed parallel to the cultured music salons of the elite. This was the world of the working classes of Pakistan, especially it seems the truck and long distance bus drivers. His songs were not classically derived, and his ghazals and folk songs were rendered somehow differently. Before Esakhelvi's arrival on the scene there really was nothing like him.
posted by bardophile at 10:36 PM PST - 5 comments

Lizardpoint [PREVIOUSLY] used to host a decent amount of geography quizzes. If you haven't visited in a while, though, they've vastly expanded. So yeah, you can still kick yourself for not knowing where "Asia" is improve your knowledge of our great planet — but now you can also: quiz yourself on how to distinguish a stick figure from a the Vitruvian Man about the world of Art; learn to tell one crook from another identify world leaders and historical figures; become an expert in ugly dress patterns vexillologist. There's also weekly Geography trivia, study guides and timelines, and games for those of us who've had enough of being made to feel dumb kids. So prepare to boast about how smart you are in the comments section expand your worldly horizons!
posted by not_on_display at 8:26 PM PST - 9 comments

Photographs of America’s most powerful men throwing the ceremonial first pitch gives some indication of why they got into politics. via NPR's Tumblr
posted by sacrifix at 7:38 PM PST - 47 comments

In a monumental upset, the Wisconsin Badgers have won the NCAA men's basketball championship. Here's more information and photos from the UW squad's magical season.
posted by escabeche at 6:42 PM PST - 54 comments

The Curious Evolution Of The Americano

The current approved written history of the Negroni goes like this: Count Camilo Negroni, a supposedly flamboyant Italian gentleman who was obsessed with American culture, walked into a bar in Florence one day and ordered an Americano with gin in place of the soda water.… Now that’s a great story. But it’s a little suspect. Normally, when people substitute something in a drink, it’s a one-to-one substitution. We normally swap vodka for gin. Or lime for lemon. Nobody in their right mind would swap gin for soda water. It’s just not natural. But supposedly that’s what Count Negroni came up with, and he inadvertently spawned an entire category of drinks. The Bijou. The Louisiane. The Tipperary.… But then the story gets even stranger.

posted by Lexica at 4:25 PM PST - 60 comments

FiveThirtyEight tracks the trends in US spice consumption over the last 50 years.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:22 PM PST - 64 comments

From Sailors To Robots: A Revolution In Clearing Mines How primitive can “modern” mine warfare get? At least as recently as the 1990s, US sailors hunting mines spent a lot of time shooting dead sheep. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 3:12 PM PST - 11 comments

"Why the hero of my YA dystopian novel had to be an angry young Indian girl." [Guardian Books]

Laxmi Hariharan challenges the domination of dystopian western worlds in teen novels, why not a dystopian Asia or Latin America? And how it’s time for the stereotype-busting Angry Young (Indian) Girl to claim centre-stage.

posted by Fizz at 1:24 PM PST - 24 comments

Fish oil: it's been touted as a solution to heart health, dementia, glaucoma, and a host of other ailments. Unfortunately, it turns out that most of the evidence for its benefits is equivocal at best. And it turns out that fish oil isn't particularly useful for our pets, either. Worse, it turns out that the foundational study that kicked off interest in fish oil as a supplement is not quite as promising for fish oils as it is usually construed and cited. Given that fish oil can induce strokes in high quantities (and may interfere with treatments like chemotherapy), is poorly regulated, and is expensive, should we be promoting fish oil supplements as strongly as we do?
posted by sciatrix at 11:33 AM PST - 108 comments

Bradley Ellison, a.k.a. Sugarman, is "one of coin-op's most colorful characters." Vice profiled Ellison on his vending machine empire (also on YouTube, both with NSFW language) and his most lucrative toys, Homies, which he brought to the East Coast from David Gonzales' Los Angeles-based line of miniature figures. In 2003, New York Times profiled the minifigs, which Ellison credits for the downfall of his main moneymaker. But Ellison keeps plugging on, and Homies are still around (warning: auto-playing music).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:21 AM PST - 4 comments

I wanted to know why Emmett Kelly was such a big name. I mean there was no shortage of tramp clowns. Why was he a star? I was going to make it my business to find out. When the famous Joey[3] joined on in Altoona, I watched every thing he did. There wasn’t much to watch. He had no props. He did no bits. He did not participate in the producing clown’s gags. He simply wandered around eating leaves from a head of cabbage. Mostly, he just sat in the audience, in full costume, looking sad, like Chaplin’s little tramp, eating cabbage. I was mystified, and disappointed. Why would a sharp guy like George A. hire such a lame act to do practically nothing? I didn’t get it. What’s so funny about eating raw cabbage? …

by Lee Kolozsy at Sideshow World [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:59 AM PST - 22 comments

Remember the '80s and '90s commercials for the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run? The A.V. Club talks to two past winners.
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:16 AM PST - 39 comments

"It was actually harder for Eri to enter the country because she was married to me." Justin Merrill describes how US immigration policies ruined his wedding as a part of OpenBorders.Info's series on the personal reasons to support open border policies.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:46 AM PST - 69 comments

The meaning of Indiana's "religious freedom" law.
posted by latkes at 7:45 AM PST - 52 comments

Transgender Woman Cites Attacks and Abuse in Men’s Prison (trigger warning: descriptions of sexual assault) [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:33 AM PST - 31 comments

John Oliver explores the topic of government surveillance in the context of the June 1st deadline to reauthorize the Patriot Act and the ongoing Edward Snowden case.
posted by Kattullus at 7:23 AM PST - 106 comments

Old codgers Prodigy have a new album out (The Guardian.) Wild Frontier (SLYT) (/creeped out/thrilled) (Previously)
posted by glasseyes at 5:20 AM PST - 16 comments

The Burgess Animal Book for Children - text, illustrations, and audio. Thornton W. Burgess previously.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:39 AM PST - 6 comments

Director of The Wire and Treme David Simon interviews Richard Price, Author most recently of The Whites and also of Freedomland, Clockers, Samaritan et al. [more inside]
posted by nevercalm at 1:16 AM PST - 11 comments

Ever wonder what it would be like to land a Cessna 172 at O'Hare?
posted by pjern at 11:50 PM PST - 53 comments

"Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was thus a foremother of feminism. She was also a war reporter, a pedagogue, a spiritual quester, a radical republican, a single mother, a passionate & taboo-breaking lover. Her story is ripe for the telling. This blog gathers anecdotes, freelance research, resources, and news of current projects..." A Vindication of the Rights of Mary | Mary | The blog | Me
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:53 PM PST - 7 comments

Many are sure that one of Judaism's central events never happened. Evidence, some published in this Mosaic essay for the first time, suggests otherwise. Joshua Berman, Was There an Exodus? [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 8:59 PM PST - 95 comments

Rolling Stone has published an exhaustive Columbia School of Journalism study on their flawed reporting of an accusation of gang-rape at a University of Virginia fraternity (previously), with recommendations both for Rolling Stone and for media outlets globally about how to report on rape more responsibly in the future.
posted by gerryblog at 7:33 PM PST - 164 comments

Ricky Syers is a Drummer. He builds and performs on his own drum kits. Ricky Syers is a Puppeteer. He builds and performs with his own marionettes. Two great things that go great together.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:58 PM PST - 10 comments

Amber Galloway Gallego performs Eminem's Rap God in ASL.
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:25 PM PST - 12 comments

Reggie Watts gives a tour of the utopian city of Brasília.
posted by maskd at 12:58 PM PST - 10 comments

California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth [New York Times]

A punishing drought is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been the state’s engine has run against the limits of nature.

California Water Use [New York Times] Are you affected? [New York Times] The Drought, explained. [New York Times Video] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 12:44 PM PST - 168 comments

Dress up a 3D man and generate gifs from his poor miserable body with veryman.expert.
posted by ghostbikes at 12:26 PM PST - 31 comments

Footage of 1940s Chicago! The most American of American cities [article] and the wonder city of the middle west.
posted by phunniemee at 11:16 AM PST - 26 comments

Helen Keller's lesser known work as a lefty socialist: Helen Keller was famous for flourishing as a deaf and blind woman. She was well known for her work advocating for the physically disabled. As she discovered that those who are poor were more likely to be disabled, she began her journey towards a leftist, socialist ideology. Much of her political and social activism has been erased from history. This article offers a more complete look at her body of work. [more inside]
posted by batbat at 9:40 AM PST - 30 comments

On the 2nd of April 2015, 106-year old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira died at his hometown, Porto. Obituaries: The Guardian, Time. [more inside]
posted by khonostrov at 9:16 AM PST - 8 comments

"Let’s have a look at 50 movie posters and how they’ve been designed for movies that have been remade"— a four part series.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:17 AM PST - 97 comments

Already well on its way to a monster opening box office, Furious 7 is the latest installment in the little franchise[1] that could: ridiculous, more diverse than just about anything else coming out of Hollywood, and beloved by critics like Roxane Gay and Todd VanDerWerff. But in the end it's all about family[2]. (And occasionally cars.) [more inside]
posted by kmz at 12:10 AM PST - 97 comments

"There are many ways we can envision women's liberation if we try. Since we total more than half of the world's population, our experiences as women intersect with almost every other struggle against systemic oppression. The lessons learned are personal and political. Tapping into this well can sometimes seem like an infinite journey: where does one start? Well, with comics, of course!" 19 Comic Characters Who Embody Women's Liberation, Ad Astra Comix [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:49 PM PST - 12 comments

In the video, Michelle Rodriguez offers a few choice words on diversity in casting: “Stop stealing white superheroes.” It caused a bit of an uproar in some circles, and Michelle made a video clarifying her statements. But first, let’s address the premise itself. Are all of these superheroes, “originally” white, whose races are being changed, being stolen?
posted by sciatrix at 9:19 PM PST - 42 comments

"libcaca pretends to be an acronym for 'Color AsCii Art', but really it's self-deprecating code: 'caca' means 'poo' in French."

The etymology of Debian package names .
posted by swift at 8:41 PM PST - 25 comments

Ghetto Kids Dancing Sitya Loss New Ugandan music (SLYT) Joyfull music, kids dancing. Made me smile, will make you smile too.
posted by BoscosMom at 7:04 PM PST - 15 comments

Tess Reidy, writing for The Guardian, recently warned "Easter 2015 may be remembered as the end of the cheap chocolate era," due to social and political instability in west Africa, a shift to in crops and problems getting labor, and an international increase of demand. But this dire warning of prices in 2020 are not new, and there are solutions, as told in From Crops to Shops - The Story of Chocolate, a lecture by David Guest, professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Sydney. For a nostalgic look at Hershey's long-form self-promotion, enjoy The Great American Chocolate Factory and a more industrial focus on Hershey's milk chocolates: how it's made.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:16 PM PST - 62 comments

Tired of waiting for IMF and World Bank recognition of its financial muscle, China stepped aside to lead the creation of an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) inviting the rest of BRIC to join as cofounders. Unexpectedly, there's been a bit of a global stampede to get in an application as founding member. Here's a helpful infographic. And here are some widely divergent points of view pontificating on the geopolitics of finance.
posted by infini at 1:49 PM PST - 18 comments

The 2015 Hugo Nominees have been announced. Notably, authors from Brad R. Torgensen's "Sad Puppies" slate have successfully secured all of the nominations for both the Novella and Novellette categories, a result which is bound to cause significant discussion.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 12:48 PM PST - 2480 comments

A General Feeling of Disorder by Oliver Sacks [New York Review of Books]

“As an example of this, migraine is a sort of prototype illness, often very unpleasant but transient, and self-limiting; benign in the sense that it does not cause death or serious injury and that it is not associated with any tissue damage or trauma or infection; and occurring only as an often-hereditary disturbance of the nervous system. Migraine provides, in miniature, the essential features of being ill—of trouble inside the body—without actual illness.”

posted by Fizz at 12:23 PM PST - 14 comments

Do you know how to sew or would you like to learn? Have you ever fantasized about dressing like a sans-culotte or a dowager countess? Do you enjoy historical research and like hunting for or improvising archaic materials and accessories? Are you entranced by the costumes on Outlander or, alternatively, are you horrified by the anachronistic use of chunky yarn and clan tartans? If so, historical costuming may be the hobby for you! Historical costumers amuse themselves by creating authentic (to varying degrees) outfits from a variety of historical periods. Bloggers share pictures of their creations, as well as information and ideas about patterns, techniques, and materials. Here are ten historical and costume sewing blogs to follow for inspiration! [more inside]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:05 AM PST - 12 comments

Quintet were a Japanese game developer founded by Tomoyoshi Miyazaki and Masaya Hashimoto, the writer and director (respectively) of the first three games in Falcom's long-running Ys franchise. They are remembered primarily for a flurry of extraordinarily unique, creative and often surprisingly philosophical Super Famicom/Nintendo games such as ActRaiser, Robotrek and Terranigma, which share an emphasis on literal world-building, creation and invention. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 10:02 AM PST - 20 comments

Early on the morning of September 1, 1996, the Israeli military began moving troops to the Syrian border in preparation for a war they were convinced was imminent. The military’s actions were based on top-secret intelligence—that Syria was about to launch a surprise attack—passed on by an informant, a general at the center of Syria’s Supreme Military Council, code-named Red Falcon. Red Falcon’s information had caused panic at the highest reaches of the Israeli Defense Forces, and senior military officials and Mossad officers were urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to issue an order to the IDF to launch its own offensive before the Syrians could launch theirs.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:25 AM PST - 17 comments

Should Grown Men Use Emoji? Word-centric fuddy-duddies see the decline of literacy reflected in their heart-shaped eyes, while guardians of decorum lament the spread of greasy kid stuff dripping from the characters’ snail trails. (👈)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:49 AM PST - 154 comments

Top 20 Muppets with Facial Hair
posted by josher71 at 7:01 AM PST - 17 comments

12 minute video on India’s Experiment in Basic Income Grants "cash transfers given to all citizens to ensure that they have a minimal income". [more inside]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:50 PM PST - 49 comments

A group of 4th graders in New Hampshire, learning about how Government works and following a long-held tradition of schools across the US, drafted and presented a bill proposing that the red-tailed hawk be named the official state raptor of New Hampshire. Their bill was solidly defeated by the Legislature, drawing ire for its mean-spirited mocking as well as a highly dubious abortion metaphor. While some have defended the Legislature's decision, others have come to the aid of the 4th graders, mostly thanks to John Oliver's declaration of the red-tailed hawk as the official mascot of Last Week Tonight. There are plans to potentially resurrect the bill.
posted by divabat at 10:33 PM PST - 81 comments

After he is diagnosed with cancer, Walter Blanco teams up with José Miguel Rosas to sell crystal meth. Metastasis: Breaking Bad, Colombia. [more inside]
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:19 PM PST - 20 comments

According to his Twitter profile, Dr. Chuck Tingle is an erotic author and Tae Kwon Do grandmaster. He has a PhD from DeVry University in holistic massage. [more inside]
posted by murphy slaw at 5:59 PM PST - 32 comments

The Quietus examines the wobbly Pet Shop Boys' 1988 collaboration with Jack Bond, It Couldn't Happen Here [Vimeo], a film project created because PSB didn't want to tour, released as an accompaniment to their second album Actually. To date, the film has only been available on VHS (now discontinued) and Laserdisc (also now discontinued). PSB has mentioned a new release in the past, but that hasn't manifested so far. Check it out while you can, whether you're a fan or not. Edgy art film at its divisive finest.
posted by hippybear at 5:50 PM PST - 7 comments

NASA Posts a Huge Library of Space Sounds, And You're Free To Use Them - Create Digital Music
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:32 PM PST - 15 comments

France divides the fashion world by banning skinny models France has sent shock waves through the global fashion industry by passing a surprise law making it a criminal offence to employ dangerously skinny women on the catwalk. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 4:22 PM PST - 105 comments

Dungeons and Dragons experience tables for MeFites, cats, and anything else you can think of.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:37 PM PST - 118 comments

10 Theories About How Lesbians Have Sex From Straight People In History (Carolyn Yates, AutoStraddle)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:36 PM PST - 38 comments

But seriously, have you ever seen the magical powers of a stenographer? Nigel Hayes and his Wisconsin Badger teammates were quite taken by the skills of the stenographer at a recent post-game press-conference.
posted by Lexica at 2:57 PM PST - 20 comments

Literacy education is not a de facto instrument of personal and economic liberation. The dark side of literacy is social control. Reading can only promote genuine inclusion when people are allowed to engage freely with text on their own terms, and that is not a given. The goodness of literacy ... “depends in part on whether it is used as an instrument of conformity or of creativity.”

Martha Poon and Helaine Olen use the history of traditional literacy to look critically at the notion of financial literacy [PDF, 13 pages], and how hard it is to “teach our way out of population-wide financial failure.” [more inside]
posted by Banknote of the year at 1:46 PM PST - 19 comments

A visit to Baotou Lake where rare earth minerals, used in "green" products and electronics, are processed. [more inside]
posted by readymade at 1:18 PM PST - 24 comments

The Urban Death Project is a Seattle-based nonprofit that will help turn you into compost when you die. "We aren’t just creating a new system that turns bodies into soil – we are striving for an entirely new paradigm of death care."
posted by velvet winter at 11:47 AM PST - 25 comments

Somali Militants Kill 147 at Kenyan University [New York Times]

Somali militants burst into a university in eastern Kenya on Thursday and killed nearly 150 students in the worst terrorist attack since the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy here, laying bare the nation’s continuing vulnerability after years of battling Islamist extremism. A small group of militants, most likely between four and 10, roved from dorm to dorm, separating Christian from Muslim students and killing the Christians, the authorities said. Students described being awakened before dawn by the sound of gunfire and fleeing for their lives as masked attackers closed in.

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 11:28 AM PST - 48 comments

CNC router+ice+whiskey= [more inside]
posted by sexyrobot at 11:14 AM PST - 21 comments

A small scale shoe company called American Duchess naturally wanted to make their shoes in the USA. Here is why they were not able.
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 11:11 AM PST - 156 comments

"Mad Men" and Its Love Affair With 60s Pop Culture “Nothing ended up in the show that wasn’t related to story.”
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:49 AM PST - 45 comments

Paragraph One of the Report of Attending Physician (Exhibit B), prepared by Dr. Ernest Grosscup, M.D., D.O., details the multiple fractures, contusions, and tissue damage suffered by Mr. Coyote as a result of this collision. Repair of the injuries required a full bandage around the head (excluding the ears), a neck brace, and full or partial casts on all four legs.

Wile E. Coyote, Plaintiff -v.- Acme Company, Defendant: Opening statement of Mr. Harold Schoff, attorney for Mr. Coyote:
posted by Room 641-A at 10:26 AM PST - 12 comments

Patented bi-button codpiece? Snug, ball-tight fit? Check and check. After the five-year break-in period, your performance lederhosen will be good to go. [more inside]
posted by gottabefunky at 9:49 AM PST - 29 comments

In coverage of the Yemeni civil war the word "Houthi" is hardly ever mentioned without being preceded by the words "Iran-backed" and "Shiite." And this is true. "The Shiite Houthi rebels are backed by Iran" is a true statement. But the prevalence of this cheap bit of short-hand about a conflict decades in the making does far more to obscure and confuse than it does to enlighten. The Houthi movement are not remotely Iranian cat's paws – no more-so than President Abdu Mansour Hadi, currently residing in Riyadh, is a Saudi one.

The Christian Science Monitor sets the record straight on Iran's influence in Yemen with some background information from Col. (ret) Pat Lang and other scholars.
posted by ennui.bz at 9:04 AM PST - 80 comments

Laughapalooza is a facebook group just for laugh's!! Share it wiht your friend's and family :) :)
posted by a manly man person who is male and masculine at 8:58 AM PST - 45 comments

The Ghost Of Grindr "On Wednesday Michael Musto has an item in his column that reads “We’ve all met someone online with attractive photos who then shows up at your door looking like something from Night of the Living Dead, but rumors are growing amongst app-happy gays of a real life ‘ghost trick’ who shows up at your apartment via Grindr, then vanishes into thin air (shady!). I don’t know what to think of this urban legend-y tale, but shaken witnesses are sticking by their stories, and police have been involved in a few incidents, so be careful out there, boys (and ghouls).”
posted by The Whelk at 7:59 AM PST - 31 comments

How the deaths of two women who mistakenly drove into high-security checkpoints reveal an intersection of racial and trans bias with fears about terrorism.
posted by emjaybee at 7:41 AM PST - 76 comments

The nurses and doctors summoned to the hospital room of 16-year-old Pablo Garcia early on the morning of July 27, 2013, knew something was terribly wrong. Just past midnight, Pablo had complained of numbness and tingling all over his body. Two hours later, the tingling had grown worse.

A five part series from Backchannel at Medium.

Part One - How Medical Tech Gave a Patient a Massive Overdose
[more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 7:24 AM PST - 54 comments

How Much of George R. R. Martin’s The Winds of Winter is Out So Far? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:50 AM PST - 83 comments

A new Chrome extension retrieves a work of art whenever you open a new tab. The artwork can refreshed every day or in every tab.
posted by carter at 6:09 AM PST - 17 comments

Peter and the Magic Egg was a Pennsylvania Dutch-themed 80s animated holiday special created to advertise Paas egg dye and perhaps to tell a strange, pastel-colored version of the life of Jesus. Storytelling egg Uncle Amos was voiced by Ray Bolger (better known as the Scarecrow in the far less surreal and nightmarish film The Wizard of Oz).
posted by HeroZero at 2:03 AM PST - 13 comments