MetaFilter

The problems come when I’m told I can’t be a part of [discussions about menstruation]. This is part of why calling it a 'women’s issue' is harmful not only to me, but to trans men and nonbinary trans people as well. It equates womanhood with a single biological process and is simply a scientifically inaccurate understanding. It has the effect of othering anyone who doesn’t fit that narrow criteria. It contributes to a mindset that there are tests one must pass to determine your womanhood."

Recent advances is exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake Equation...We find that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a technological species is larger than ~ 10^-24, then humanity is not the only time technological intelligence has evolved.

In 1938, as the Great Depression was winding down, a Texas radio station began airing “Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls,” a variety show broadcast every Wednesday night from the state prison in Huntsville. The show featured male and female prisoners singing, strumming, dancing, and acting. At one point, it had five million listeners, who sent in as many as a 100,000 fan letters each year. Executions were stayed so that they would not conflict with the show, which was performed in an auditorium 50 yards from Old Sparky, the state’s electric chair.

Frank Clyde Brown always planned to publish a collection of North Carolina folklore, but it seems he was never able to stop collecting long enough to actually assemble his material. After his death, some of Brown's colleagues intervened, and a collection was eventually published under their editorship. The seven-volume Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore was released between 1952 and 1964 by the Duke University Press.

...the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face

People living with dementia do not expect web designers to cure the symptoms, and many people recognize that it isn’t always possible to apply each dementia-friendly web design lesson when building a site. But the combined use of some of these lessons can help many people live well with their conditions. It is important to remember that dementia presents in many different forms, its symptoms are varied, and many of these symptoms are also common to other degenerative illnesses, in particular, conditions which hinder the social inclusion of the elderly.

When he first started working with Imagine Dragons, music producer Alex da Kid was looking for some inspiration for the Broadway musical, "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."

"I thought they would be great to help me come up with ideas for U2," the Grammy-nominated English producer said.

There was just one problem: The demos they recorded were too good.

It’s easy to mistake the beta rebellion for a youthful, but otherwise undifferentiated, variation on the bad old tradition of patriarchy. Yet the phenomenon bears the unmistakable signs of a new, net-bred brand of misogyny. [...] But how, exactly, does "hegemonic masculinity" accurately sum up a scene explicitly identifying as beta male? [violence].

They were the stories that have charmed an entire generation. From the books, to the television series, people around the world have grown up with the Railway Stories. But the truth behind Thomas and his friends is no childrens story. It is a story that begins in wartime Germany, and ends with a discovery that would change Thomas, and his friends, lives forever.

TO THIS DAY, Caldwell isn't sure how authorities took down his drug cartel so swiftly. Perhaps it was the poorly stuffed shoebox-sized package wrapped in elaborate Chinese markings that sounded like a Molly-stuffed maraca moving down the post office's conveyor belt. "Good lord that boy was a bad criminal," says his mom, "and thank Jesus for that."

“Do you remember us,” I asked. I was conscious of my voice. It failed, just a bit, on that “us,” but I was trying to keep the terror to myself.

“Technically, yes,” he said.

In all its incarnations, Superstar Machine has fundamentally been about teaching women how to be successful in life and love. The path for these women is twofold: tapping into the Divine's plan for their lives, and learning to be subservient to their male romantic partners. In time, [International] Scherick [née Greg Scherick] would also create International Hot School, a weekly phone call where former members say he lectured women on how to tame their "inner crazy bitch," as he put it, and create a "good experience" for their husbands and boyfriends.

Life was often quite exciting in the first place, and we were happy together. I am hardly ever sad, but sometimes when I am going to sleep I hear purring around me that is not mine, and it seems that Mother and Sister and I are all curled up like one warm cat. And then I am happier than usual....

Britain has changed so quickly, the gains of 40 years of social progress undone in half a generation, that most of us are still struggling to compute it, but the evidence is right there in front of us, on our cinema and television screens. It’s not posh-bashing to say this is a problem.