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Luca Tombolini:

In my photography I’m following a fascination for desert primordial places. No other places are so helpful in making that mind shift needed to try to enquire beyond our limited lifetime. This process implies contemplation, the Self, the Unconscious and the perceived reality. I’ve found photography particularly efficient to make considerations about time, either when it’s clearly stopping it or on the contrary when it gives the impression of compressing time as if the moment pictured could have existed forever.

The photographer's website has more stunning landscapes.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:32 PM PST - 6 comments

What is the flavor in bubble gum?
posted by Night_owl at 8:59 PM PST - 38 comments

Lip art from makeup artist Mimi Choi
posted by growabrain at 8:08 PM PST - 9 comments

Twitch Plays Battlegrounds, in which a formless crew of chatroom drivers on a Twitch stream try to play battle royale circles-of-death surviv-o-shooter plunkbat. [more inside]
posted by cortex at 7:19 PM PST - 9 comments

Remembering Grace Darling: Heroine and Victorian Media Sensation. At Flickering Lamps, Caroline writes about Grace Darling, a lighthouse keeper's daughter who in 1838 assisted in rescuing shipwreck survivors. "The fame of Grace Darling provides a fascinating insight into the way that the 19th Century media helped to create modern-day heroes, and how Grace's character reflected the period's idea of the virtuous woman." Additionally, you can take a virtual tour of the RNLI Grace Darling Museum here.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 4:42 PM PST - 11 comments

The Battle of Passchendaele begins One hundred years ago today British imperial forces opened the Battle of Passchendaele, attacking German positions in an effort to win Channel ports and take pressure off of the mutiny-weakened French. Attacks would go on through November over sodden, hideous terrain, involving tanks, air power, artillery, and mustard gas. Fighting nearly exhausted both sides, costing hundreds of thousands of casualties for each, and yielding several miles of territory. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 4:23 PM PST - 21 comments

"Hi. Is this Josh?"
"Yeah, it's Josh."
"Sooo. . Back in January, you wrote: You are the most pathetic human being I have ever seen on the internet in my entire life. . . . Josh, what inspired you to write that message?"

Dylan Marron* (previously) has a new series: Conversations With People That Hate Me, where he tries to get to know some of the people that have left him hateful messages. [more inside]
posted by FirstMateKate at 1:48 PM PST - 29 comments

Have you ever found an egg with two yolks? An avocado without a pit? How about an extra long French fry? If so, congratulations! You're the Winner of The Food Lottery! 🎰 But don't gloat, because for every winner there is a Loser of the Food Lottery. Someday it could be you!
posted by Room 641-A at 1:41 PM PST - 47 comments

The Rare-Book Thief Who Looted College Libraries in the ’80s [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:30 PM PST - 13 comments

Turkey one year after the failed coup, ~28 min Deutsche Welle documentary; devotes considerable coverage to members of academia who have been imprisoned or purged, and also to "veterans" of July 15th, Turkish citizens who were injured while opposing the perpetrators of the coup
posted by XMLicious at 12:05 PM PST - 3 comments

Slate Future Tense: What Were Screen Savers? Originally a software solution to the hardware problem of burn-in on CRTs, screen savers gradually morphed from a practicality to "...artworks that we rarely thought of as art, partly because we never knew the names of the artists who had made them." After Dark was one of the most prominent, now featured in an exhibition called Sleep Mode and memorialized in Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark. [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 11:19 AM PST - 73 comments

A possible consequence of high health and prescription insurance copays and premiums: some Americans appear to be ordering antibiotics online intended for ornamental aquarium fish to treat human ailments. "Because of a legal loophole, fish antibiotics, which are formulated to dissolve in a tank, do not require a veterinarian's prescription, unlike similar medications for cats, dogs and other animals." But there are a lot of reasons why this is a bad idea. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:12 AM PST - 44 comments

Sam Shepard, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author, actor, director, and screenwriter, died Sunday, age 73.
posted by ubiquity at 10:23 AM PST - 59 comments

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age. [more inside]
posted by Chrischris at 9:07 AM PST - 26 comments

Master of All Science: The makers of Frinkiac and Morbotron (previously) have now made a screencap and GIF generator for Rick and Morty. Welcome to the darkest year of our adventures.
posted by Cash4Lead at 7:55 AM PST - 25 comments

Aubrey Hirsch's brilliant comic about her long, painful journey to a diagnosis hits painfully close to the bone.
posted by nerdfish at 7:33 AM PST - 73 comments

Only four copies of this traveling library were made. And two are in the US: one in California and one in Ohio. It's amazing that this has been held together for so long. It must have been put on a shelf and forgotten. Lovely workmanship.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:02 AM PST - 21 comments

Without a major national election to watch, the analytical power of FiveThirtyEight has turned to The Ultimate Playlist of Banned Wedding Songs. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:14 AM PST - 100 comments

As the nights draw in at an accelerated rate, Christmas show trailers are released, autumn fruits ripen, elves are recruited, bookings are made, events fill up and sell out, supermarkets unveil their festive food ranges and stores begin to organize for Christmas. Though on the negative side, Cadbury chocolate selections e.g. Milk Tray seems to get smaller and more expensive every year. Smart shoppers have already completed their lists, and with the big day now only 21 weeks away, Selfridges opens its festive store to cater to demand - Christmas pudding being available from this Friday. Reaction has been somewhat mixed on Twitter, while some communities are not deprived of Christmas shopping opportunities at any time. Current mood.
posted by Wordshore at 5:39 AM PST - 21 comments

Roads should be closed regularly to allow children to play in the street as they did a generation ago, health experts have said, after a study showed pilot schemes increased youngsters’ activity five-fold. More than 500 communities in Britain have already signed up to the ‘Playing Out’ initiative, which works with local councils to temporarily pedestrianise roads for an hour or two each week to allow children to play safely near their homes.
posted by clawsoon at 4:36 AM PST - 52 comments

Hoodmaps: Crowdsourced visualizations of neighborhoods
posted by laptolain at 11:28 PM PST - 21 comments

One-hit-wonder Norma Tanega is known only for “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog,” her soulful, folky quasi-novelty song of 1966 that reached #22 in the pop charts early that year. The whimsical song’s easy-going charm, catchy chorus and vocal harmonies are irresistible, but Tanega, who has recorded several albums worth of worthy material since, was never able to follow it up with another hit record. During the late 1960s Tanega had a romantic relationship with singer Dusty Springfield, during which time she wrote and recorded her "lost" album, I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:48 PM PST - 10 comments

Throughout Vermont, customers are signing up for a new program that will allow them to power their homes while entirely disconnected from the grid. The projects are part of a bold experiment aimed at turning homes, neighborhoods and towns into virtual power plants, able to reduce the amount of energy they draw from the central electric system. But behind them are not green energy advocates or proponents of living off the land. Instead, it’s the local electric company, Green Mountain Power. [NYT]
posted by Chrysostom at 8:42 PM PST - 7 comments

Science for the Public is a grassroots nonprofit organization. Our mission is to improve public understanding of, and appreciation for, science. Modern democratic society depends on an informed public in a global community. Citizens today require an understanding of basic scientific concepts, new developments in science, and numerous science-issues. There is no science curriculum for the general public. We provide the best information we can obtain with the help of outstanding scientists who are committed to keeping the public well informed. We do this through our programs and starting Fall of 2014 with supplementary resources on our Website. (Also, you can sign up for a weekly email newsletter that features articles from reputable sources—as well as a science-related article via The Onion.)
posted by not_on_display at 7:49 PM PST - 6 comments

Turkey has a long history, dating back to at least the 13th century, of adding bird houses to even the most important buildings, believing that feeding and housing birds pleases God -- even mosques often have tiny, spectacular stone bird-mansions. (via This Is Colossal)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:24 PM PST - 17 comments

A Brief History of Speedrunning: How Doom and Zelda Became Stages for an Exhilarating Internet Subculture by Kat Brewster [Read Only Memory] “This is a theme which comes up again and again from speedrunners. ‘It’s a challenge,’ they say. ‘How fast can I get it?’ It’s a natural question to ask. When it comes to speedrunning games, there is no rulebook, no guide. There’s simply one possible way to do it, or one route which might be better than another. The game ceases to be the game it was authored to be, and becomes the landscape and language for an entirely separate practice. Players take what is given, and build something else out of it. It’s a kind of subversion, a subtle power play of guerrilla game design.”
posted by Fizz at 5:47 PM PST - 27 comments

Anne Helen Petersen on Charlize Theron: Theron still labors to get people to talk about what she’s reading, her craft, or her politics, instead of what she ate to gain weight or what she’s doing in her life... Theron has said that she’s “very attracted to characters who don’t necessarily make it easy to be loved.” But she’s only been able to refuse niceness, onscreen and off, because of her beauty: It’s the capital she keeps cashing in order to get interesting roles that will de-emphasize, or at least trouble, the privileges that attend being a thin, white, straight woman in today’s society." [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 5:36 PM PST - 20 comments

Fontella Bass (1940 – 2012) is often regarded as a one-hit wonder, and even that one hit is often mistakenly attributed to Aretha Franklin. “Rescue Me” briefly made her a star, and is the only side she ever recorded to reach the top ten (#4 Pop, #1 R&B). However, there is much more to Fontella Bass and her music. Bass was a third generation gospel singer, a fine pianist, and a singer who performed and recorded in six decades, encompassing gospel, RnB, soul, pop, jazz, and the avant garde. If you don't know Don't Mess With A Good Thing, Theme de Yoyo , No Ways Tired, Travellin', and All That You Give -- you don't know Fontella Bass. [more inside]
posted by Herodios at 4:07 PM PST - 12 comments

The script for a seventh, unmade episode of Police Squad! has been released by one of the show’s creators.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:02 PM PST - 21 comments

SHERLOCK: a "game changer" for identifying infectious diseases. Even if two targets differ by only a single nucleotide — one has an A and one has a G, for instance — SHERLOCK can tell them apart. It can tell Zika’s genetic material from dengue’s, the DNA in one kind of antibiotic-resistant “superbug” from that in another, and DNA in cancer cells from DNA in healthy cells — even when that DNA is present in quantities equal to a couple of pinches of salt in Lake Superior. [more inside]
posted by hapaxes.legomenon at 2:26 PM PST - 5 comments

Luke Hickman drives 8 hours from Salt Lake City to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to see Nolan's film Dunkirk in its native 70mm IMAX film format, for High-Def Digest.
posted by hippybear at 1:51 PM PST - 25 comments

Over the last few months, Chinese engineers have been building a road in the Doklam plateau region of Bhutan, near the Indian border. The disputed border region lies near the tri-junction, where the borders of India, China and Bhutan meet. The Political Geography of the India-China Crisis at Doklam[README]
How India and China Have Come to the Brink Over a Remote Mountain Pass. Why is the India-China border stand-off escalating? A Himalayan spat between China and India evokes memories of war [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:28 PM PST - 18 comments

Web developer Patrick Murphy has been maintaining a website, NFL Arrest, which keeps track of how often members of the National Football League are arrested. The site offers a handy API, which allows you to slice and dice the data yourself- breaking it down by team, position, player, and more.
posted by jenkinsEar at 1:22 PM PST - 19 comments

A recent sports piece in the New York Times asked: How did Finland become such fertile ground for wacky sports? In the case of swamp soccer (or football, if you prefer), it started as a tournament in 1998 that has grown into an annual championship hosted in Hyrynsalmi. Players compete on a boggy pitch where they can quickly find themselves up to their waists in mud.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:58 PM PST - 5 comments

New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck rides the Long Island Railroad to find the right environment for work. [more inside]
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:47 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

DJ equipment is as cool, complex, varied and RGBfied as you might imagine. BEACH MIX #1 by Omar Alvarez [ Santa Marta - Colombia ] * Bear grillz & the Frim - Its Fking Dubstep (Arius Fingerbang remix) * Dillon Francis & DJ Snake - (GET LOW) - [Launchpad Remix] * 4X World DMC Champion Mr Switch on Pioneer DDJ-SP1 and DJM-900SRT Serato DJ Edition * M4SONIC - WEAPON * Pioneer Israel presents Dj BrainDeaD & Dj Bago - DDj-SZ & PLX-1000 * Pioneer Israel presents Dj BrainDeaD - DIGITALDJ-SP1 * DJ FITME MIAMI 2016 Festival EDM MIX #26 * [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:24 AM PST - 3 comments

Eurosaurus is a 5-year old Jack Russell terrier from Thailand, and due to an unusual bite pattern she has a beautiful smile. You can see more of Euro and the rest of her doggo and human family at her Instagram.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:14 AM PST - 8 comments

70 minutes of Japanese TV commercials from 1980-1982.
90 minutes of Japanese TV commercials from 1985.
35 minutes more of Japanese TV commercials from 1985.
40 minutes of Japanese TV commercials from 1987. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 9:17 AM PST - 12 comments

A food writer's cry to cook with onion powder — especially if it's small-batch, artisanal or ground yourself. [more inside]
posted by veggieboy at 5:54 AM PST - 96 comments

In which author Sam Sykes asks author Chuck Wendig for some advice concerning "some kind of crazed serial killer roaming the [summer camp] grounds." Take your choice of the same content on Storify, Imgur, or Twitter.
posted by Shmuel510 at 5:35 AM PST - 25 comments

This weekend, some 40,000 people made the pilgrimage to the village of Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. They've come to welcome five new members – three players, two executives – into the family; Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Iván Rodríguez, John Schuerholz and Bud Selig will be inducted as the Hall's Class of 2017. The process itself is as weird and fun as you’d expect for an institution honoring a game where people whack a ball with a stick and run around a square. So stick around for a tour of statistics, lobbying, bronze sculpting, hats, drugs, contract intrigues, the rewriting of history, and, of course, baseball legends. [more inside]
posted by martin q blank at 11:26 PM PST - 23 comments

D.C. street art legend Danny Hogg, aka Cool "Disco" Dan Dies at 47 [more inside]
posted by peeedro at 9:44 PM PST - 18 comments

New York City's first battle over gentrification involved the 20,000 hogs that freely roamed the streets.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:38 PM PST - 10 comments

200+ Posters from the Golden Age of Graphic Design
posted by storybored at 6:18 PM PST - 12 comments

Toiletfan1 is a young man who reviews various public toilets and urinals. The occasional sink. The waterfall urinal is particularly lovely. [more inside]
posted by waitingtoderail at 5:22 PM PST - 19 comments

Corporal Jeff DeYoung (Ret.) & Military Working Dog Cena served together in the United States Marine Corps during one tour of duty from October 2009 to April 2010 as part of Operation Moshtarak. Cena served a total of four years in the military, and was separated from Corporal DeYoung for four years, one month, and eight days. They had a tearful reunion on June 5, 2014 with help from American Humane. On July 26, 2017, as friends and fellow patriots saluted, DeYoung carried Cena past a crowd of well-wishers and boarded a decommissioned Navy ship in Muskegon, Mich. It was there where the black lab, lame with bone cancer, was euthanized. He was 10.

American Humane Hero Dog Awards^® is an annual campaign that recognizes heroes on both ends of the leash. Here are this year's finalists.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:40 PM PST - 18 comments

"To understand how to defeat Trump, we must understand the relationship between automation, capitalism, and Western-style Enlightenment democracy." In a wide-ranging essay, cartoonist, writer, and educator Dale Beran (previously, previouslier, and previousliest) draws upon history, literature, and social theory to envision the future.
posted by zchyrs at 3:25 PM PST - 69 comments

Am I The Only One Who Talks To Myself While I Play Video Games? [Kotaku] “Unless I’m playing a game out in public, I’m almost always talking to myself while I’m playing. I crack jokes, pretend to talk to the NPCs, and verbally plan out my strategy. I’ll read any non-voiced text out loud, the same way I read any book if I can’t find an audio book for it. There has been many a moment when I stop mid-sentence whenever someone comes downstairs in fear of being judged.”
posted by Fizz at 3:00 PM PST - 38 comments

E. Jean Carroll lives alone on an island in the woods. [SL Facebook video, no login required] The world's longest-running advice columnist - for Elle Magazine - wakes at noon because, "I never thought much went on in the morning, anyway." [via Austin Kleon] [more inside]
posted by Gin and Broadband at 1:57 PM PST - 15 comments

The Brillante Virtuoso was apparently hijacked in the Gulf of Aden in July of 2011, but: Six years after it was abandoned, the Brillante Virtuoso is an epithet among shipping veterans, one that reveals their industry’s capacity for lawlessness, financial complexity, and violence. This account is based on court evidence, private and government records, and more than 60 interviews with people involved, almost all of whom asked not to be identified, citing the sensitivities of nine-figure litigation and, in some cases, concern for their own safety. Everyone at sea that night survived. But the danger was just getting started.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:52 PM PST - 12 comments

"We're all just human shaped pieces of forever". The delightful Diane, AKA Philomena Cunk has made a series of promotional films to encourage Americans to visit the UK by doing things she thinks Americans love. I enjoyed The Self Help Guru. Others are The Foodie and The Action Hero and
posted by quarsan at 12:27 PM PST - 5 comments

An extraordinary octopus takes to land (BBC Earth, previously) and an underwater view of a swimming Corgi named Zero..
posted by Room 641-A at 10:51 AM PST - 19 comments

Emily Temple has surveyed general poetry anthologies for English-speaking readers to find the poems most anthologized over the last twenty-five years.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 10:44 AM PST - 14 comments

"From ignoramus radio talkers to bigoted fans and a checkered past, Boston baseball has a race problem" [DigBoston].
posted by trillian at 9:24 AM PST - 27 comments

Turned on by gremlins? Excited by ketchup or rare stamps? There’s a porn film for that. Inside California’s new growth industry. Jon Ronson on bespoke porn
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:51 AM PST - 23 comments

Michiko Kakutani, Times’s Feared and Revered Book Critic, Is Stepping Down [NYT] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 8:27 AM PST - 12 comments

A week of political high drama - with vulgar palace intrigues, the President dealt a spectacular legislative failure, venting to Boy Scouts, and endorsing Police violence - is capped off by the launch of a North Korean ICBM with enough range to reach most of the U.S.
posted by darkstar at 12:00 AM PST - 2938 comments

Barnes was a large-living lady, flying, drinking, dancing, rebelling. She certainly didn't fit into her family's wealthy conservative style and eventually they gave up (after she escaped from boarding school and rode a horse into Mexico). She and Amelia Earhart were friends and helped put together a women flyers club. Here's a link to the official site, which has a lot of archives: Pancho Barnes site
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:43 PM PST - 9 comments

League of Heels: A Video Game Wrestling Documentary (about the League of Heels) [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 4:58 PM PST - 8 comments

Dogs love hide-and-seek. They're not so great at hiding, but seeking is where they're Vikings [ambient barks]. Usually [baffled barks].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:25 PM PST - 13 comments

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (previously) debuted in 2012 as an intimate soiree at Ars Nova, a small Off-Broadway theatre. This past November, a beefed-up Broadway production opened to rapturous reviews and high grosses, helped in large part by the appeal of crossover singer Josh Groban in one of the title roles. [more inside]
posted by Zephyrial at 3:02 PM PST - 30 comments

Four million people live in an area that hasn't seen a major storm since the 1920s.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:10 PM PST - 21 comments

On the Isle of Man, in the 1930's, there lived a talking mongoose.
A review of "Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra Special Talking Mongoose" by Christopher Josiffe by Bee Wilson in the LRB.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 2:02 PM PST - 7 comments

Walden has been adapted into a video game, and you can play it right now. [The Verge] “Under the guidance of Tracy Fullerton — professor and chair of the USC Interactive Media & Games Division and director of the USC’s Game Innovation Lab — Walden: A Game has been constructed over the past decade with the support of a small core team, modest arts grants, and many eager students. And now, the game — which not only re-creates Walden pond and the land on which Thoreau lived, but also, to some extent, the text’s spirit — is available to play.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 1:08 PM PST - 27 comments

The Nearly Mile-Wide Diamond Mine That Helped Build the Soviet Union. The Mirny Mine [previously] is so large it creates its own microclimate, and Mirny is/was pretty much a company town. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:53 PM PST - 12 comments

From the "Steven Universe Sing-Along" at this year's SDCC, here is Estelle performing "Stronger Than You". SLYT because we could all use a little more awesome in our lives.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:53 PM PST - 18 comments

Sure is boring around here. Hey - what if we deliberately crash two trains into each other!
posted by Chrysostom at 12:21 PM PST - 28 comments

There was the time back in 1998 when Karen Chin needed to know what size animal could produce a fecal mass of 2.4 liters in one go. So she called a physician who studied bowel movements. The physician, driven by who-knows-what mixture of courtesy and curiosity, called her later that day. He explained that in his line of work he typically focused on the health of his patients, as revealed through their bowel movements, not on the volume of matter they produced. He couldn’t give Chin a precise figure. However, he told Chin, it just didn’t make sense for a man, or a man-sized animal, to produce 2.4 liters of excrement. That answer was enough to make Chin’s heart sing. Because she was pretty sure she’d identified the first fossil of a Tyrannosaurus rex turd. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 12:05 PM PST - 8 comments

'To the beat of muffled drums 8,000 negro men, women and children marched down Fifth Avenue in a parade of "silent protest against acts of discrimination and oppression" inflicted upon them in this country, and in other parts of the world. Without a shout or a cheer they made their cause known through many banners which they carried (PDF), calling attention to "Jim Crowism," segregation, disfranchisement, and the riots of Waco (warning: graphic images), Memphis and East St. Louis.' That was 100 years ago today, and it is remembered as likely the first African American Civil Rights march. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:14 AM PST - 2 comments

In 2012, Adi Robertson had a rare-earth magnet implanted in her right ring finger. Now the magnetism is fading, but Robertson says "I’m the world’s most useless cyborg, and after five years, I’ve learned to live with it."
posted by Etrigan at 10:49 AM PST - 41 comments

A fascinating story of one family's adventures in genealogy and what they found. I've always been both drawn to and wary of exploring some of my ancestry; especially after being contacted by a researcher who linked me to a well known historical event. It's amazing to consider what we think we know about ourselves and what makes up our identies.
posted by brookeb at 10:41 AM PST - 28 comments

How Hollywood Came to Fear and Loathe Rotten Tomatoes (Chris Lee, Vanity Fair) -- As Wonder Woman soars and Baywatch flops, the power of the review aggregator is looking greater than ever—and studios are looking for a way around it How Rotten Tomatoes became Hollywood's most influential — and feared — website (Ryan Faughnder, LA Times) BONUS: ‘The Emoji Movie’ has achieved the impossible—a 0 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes (Michelle Jaworski, The Daily Dot)
posted by Room 641-A at 9:30 AM PST - 125 comments

The American myth of meritocracy (slnyt) allows them to attribute their position to their brilliance and diligence, rather than to luck or a rigged system. At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty. [more inside]
posted by knownassociate at 9:27 AM PST - 116 comments

Many people know that the narhwal tusk is a single modified tooth (they’re certainly not unicorn horns). Meet the narwhal expert and dentist who has spent his life discovering that the narwhal tooth is even weirder than you’d think. But there's lots more to learn! [more inside]
posted by robot-hugs at 9:10 AM PST - 18 comments

3D Gifs of Japanese Food. (tumblr) [via]
posted by Think_Long at 9:06 AM PST - 3 comments

Rebecca and Jim are really, really into Heritage Minutes. Follow along on their website or Instagram as they roadtrip around Canada visiting various sites related to these 87 little slices of Canadiana.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:58 AM PST - 17 comments

British pop singer/songwriter Charli XCX, on the video for her new single Boys: "I just want to flip the male gaze on its head and have you guys do the sexy stuff." Starring Joe Jonas eating pancakes, Riz Ahmed telling secrets with teddy bear, Jay Park lounging on an inflatable flamingo, Chromeo having a pillow fight, and 50+ other boys.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:17 AM PST - 39 comments

Twenty years ago the man who recorded one of the most successful songs of all time was thrown off a motorbike by a car in Calabar, Nigeria. He hit his head on the road and was rushed to the hospital, where he lay for two weeks, in and out of consciousness, but deteriorating all the time. On June 24, 1997, Prince Nico Mbarga was pronounced dead. Previous mention of Mbarga.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:52 AM PST - 11 comments

Gucci go retro-sf... with a campaign mashing-up Star Trek, Forbidden Planet and Space 1999 among others.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:15 AM PST - 16 comments

Photos of some of the most amazing trees (and rocks suiseki) of the 8th World Bonsai Convention.
posted by Stark at 6:10 AM PST - 14 comments

Kito has been in multiple advertising spots for Electrabel, a Belgian energy company, since this first ad. (All in Dutch.) [more inside]
posted by jet_silver at 5:30 AM PST - 7 comments

An imgur link to nearly two centuries of women's fashion plates. [via kottke]
posted by cgc373 at 9:11 PM PST - 40 comments

Field Recordings of American Voices from the Dictionary of American Regional English. "From 1965–1970, Fieldworkers for the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) conducted interviews with nearly 3,000 “Informants” in 1,002 communities across America. They visited native residents in all fifty states and D.C., collecting local words, phrases, and pronunciations. In addition to answering more than 1,600 questions from the DARE Questionnaire, many of the Informants, along with auxiliary speakers, agreed to be recorded by the Fieldworkers. These recordings consisted of conversational interviews as well as readings of “The Story of Arthur the Rat” (devised to elicit the essential differences in pronunciation across the country)." [more inside]
posted by escabeche at 6:40 PM PST - 20 comments

NYT Interactive: Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist, has examined the brains of 202 deceased football players. A broad survey of her findings [JAMA, open access] was published on Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Of the 202 players, 111 of them played in the N.F.L. — and 110 of those were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 4:27 PM PST - 33 comments

This time taught by xkcd cartoons "Hill for the data scientist: an xkcd story"
posted by aleph at 4:22 PM PST - 16 comments

American artist Tom Bob is running loose in the streets of New York, and let's hope nobody catches him.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:38 PM PST - 23 comments

In response to a Tweet about a dream some guy had, a subreddit, public discord, Trello, and git repository have been created to create an open world pirate exploration RPG for Wally G: Sea of Greed.
posted by bookman117 at 1:18 PM PST - 7 comments

Ron Howard Narrates Star Wars
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:45 AM PST - 31 comments

Veterans, dancers, children, grandparents, immigrants, lifelong locals: Elissa Ely's Remembrance Project for WBUR features long obituary profiles showing that every ordinary person has an extraordinary story.
posted by nonane at 11:40 AM PST - 3 comments

Accurately Titled Novels [single link facebook album, visible without logging in]
posted by phunniemee at 11:28 AM PST - 21 comments

"My intention was not to make the grossest film of all time, but to show ugly in a time where everyone is trying to be beautiful," says Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus, the director of Kuso (imdb, wikipedia, trailer) in an interview to Film School Rejects. Talking to The Fader, Ellison describes the movie: "One day I watch it and it’s a slapstick comedy, one day it’s a musical, and others it’s a bizarro horror. It’s kind of all over the place in that sense. I think, if anything, the music fans will be happy. They can always close their eyes and listen to the music." [more inside]
posted by sapagan at 11:14 AM PST - 21 comments

Welcome to Saguache County, Colorado. Home of the worst internet service in America.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:57 AM PST - 29 comments

Suzanne Pilaar Birch was seven when she caught the archaeology bug on a family trip to Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. “Oh this is so cool!” she declared. “I want to come back here and dig.” So when, 24 years later – and now a professional archaeologist based at the University of Georgia and still devoted to digging – she was invited on a field trip in Cyprus, it should have been a no-brainer. Except that she would be six months pregnant on the trip.

[more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:53 AM PST - 5 comments

Instagram user sarperduman and his adorably sleepy cat play the piano. [more inside]
posted by QuakerMel at 10:43 AM PST - 22 comments

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator [PG Gamer] “Visual novels and dating simulators are strange beasts, and the intersection of those genres with comedy often results in parody. Dream Daddy [YouTube] [Trailer] sounds exactly like that—like it’s going to riff off and satire both the simplification of relationships down to dialogue options and usage of queer relationships in the genre. It really isn’t, though: beneath the dad jokes and past a first glance, it’s a game about kindness and positivity. You play your own, custom dad, who’s moving to a new area with his daughter, Amanda. After his partner died, he’s been raising Amanda as a single father, and the two have a very close relationship. The cul-de-sac they move to is, conveniently, filled with dads, most of which are single (the other is in the perpetual relationship state of ‘it’s complicated’).” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:40 AM PST - 52 comments

It's been a few months since a good EVE Online story. Unfortunately, all we have is this horrible EVE Online story about people who collect, buy, and sell digital space-frozen corpses.
posted by Etrigan at 8:37 AM PST - 33 comments

Written by Roky Erickson and Tommy Hall, Slip inside this house (alternative, another) is a song (live in 2015) by the 13th Floor Elevators (previously, and poolside performance of "You're gonna miss me"), appearing as the opening track on their 1967 album Easter Everywhere. Though mostly from Austin and Kerrville, Texas, the band became influential in the San Francisco cultural scene. Electric jug player Tommy Hall starts to describe what it's about; the original mono recording. With some lyric changes, the song was covered by artists such as Primal Scream (live) on their 1991 album Screamadelica, and also covered by Madrugada, On Trial, Oneida, and The Shamen. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 8:24 AM PST - 11 comments

We all know about the Guggenheim museums but what of the founder Peggy Guggenheim?
In the 1920s, Peggy went travelling in Europe, discovered Paris and stayed there, on and off, for 22 years. From the start, her predominant interests were art and sex.
From her NYT obituary: One of her grandfathers, she said, was born "over a stable in Bavaria, and my other grandfather was a peddler."
posted by adamvasco at 7:59 AM PST - 8 comments

I had made a home in Algeria; I was happy with my life and my work in the national press. In 1969, events took an extraordinary turn. Late one night I received a call from Charles Chikerema, the representative of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, one of many African liberation movements with an office in the city. He told me that the Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver was in town and needed help.

–Short memoir by Elaine Mokhtefi about working with the Black Panthers in Algeria. Interview with Mokhtefi (audio and transcript).
posted by Kattullus at 6:51 AM PST - 6 comments

The wonderful Vegetable Figures of Lambeth Country Show
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:37 AM PST - 4 comments

Susie Dent's Guide to Swearing ~!@#$%^&*~ Auntie Doris's That's Swearing ~!@#$%^&*~ Mapping the United Swears of America
posted by Wolfdog at 5:54 AM PST - 36 comments

June Foray, the last of the great old voice actors, has passed away at the age of 99.
The Voices of June Foray - June Foray on Mel Blanc - June Foray's Animated Life - June Foray on Johnny Carson - June Foray on Beyond the Marquee - June Foray on VoBuzz Weekly three years ago, part one, part two - Foray in an interview on the Rocky & Bullwinkle DVDs
Foray was perhaps best known as the voice of Rocket J. Squirrel. Here's some episodes: Upsidasium, Parts 1 & 2 - Box Top Robbery, Parts 1 & 2 - Buried Treasure, Parts 1 & 2 - Jet Fuel, Parts 1 & 2Greenpernt Ogle, Parts 1 & 2 - Rue Brittania, Parts 1 & 2
posted by JHarris at 5:48 AM PST - 81 comments

Overwhelmed by all the choices in pens, pencils, paper, and other stationery items? JetPens has a guide for you! Colored pencils, fountain pens, highlighters, mechanical pencils, and paper notebooks are just a few general categories available. Not specific enough? How about a guide for teachers on pens and inks for grading papers or brush pens for comics? Have all the supplies, but don't know where to start? The Art of Letter Writing has you covered.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:45 AM PST - 54 comments

Ian Bogost writes about falling in love with a toaster, the design, reasoning and philosophy of an 'A Bit More' button, and about how designers "are explorers who breach the alien frontier of toasterness".
posted by secretdark at 4:37 AM PST - 37 comments

Cultural Appropriation: Whose culture is it anyway, and what about hybridity? (Sonny Hallett, Medium) [more inside]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:15 AM PST - 138 comments

Jacqui Kenny is searching for the perfect Google street photo (Wired), as seen on her Instagram feed, Agoraphobic Traveller/ Streetview Portraits. Kenny especially likes when you can see the Google car's shadow or dust kicked up as it rolls by. "It gives it an otherworldly feel," she says. At first, she would pick locales more or less at random, poking around the streets of faraway towns and taking screenshots whenever she stumbled upon a striking image. After a while, she began seeking out certain kinds of views: arid regions with clear horizons; latitudes where she found that the sunlight fell at a dramatic slant. (New Yorker) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:57 PM PST - 24 comments

Dungeons and Doggos! A brand new web comic about puppers playing tabletop rpg. The very first comic posted on June 30, 2017: "There is an ogre sleeping in the room. What do you do?" (via Tor.com)
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:00 PM PST - 15 comments

You might disagree with how we approached it. You don’t have to agree. You just have to understand why we approached it that way. The brief transition period between the elections and the arrival of the new administration is always a chaotic time. Outgoing staff tries to bring the incoming team up to date on the pressing issues, the looming crises, and the loose ends. But what if the new arrivals simply don't care?
posted by bitmage at 4:27 PM PST - 62 comments

On a shelf behind the bar was a small, green plastic elephant. It belonged to a local called Sedge. Whenever he had a pint, he'd drop the elephant into it. It was called the Sedgephant. This is not a good anecdote, but it is the sort of thing that happens in pubs. - Phil Savage from PC Gamer reviews a pub. A pub in the game Everybody's Gone To The Rapture.
posted by ambrosen at 3:17 PM PST - 8 comments

"This July marks the 50th anniversary of the civil disturbance and unrest that erupted in Detroit. [...] As we planned our coverage, we wondered: What would it have been like to witness the summer of '67 with the tools and technologies of today?" As part of its anniversary coverage, on July 23 the Detroit Free Press began posting news reports from the time along with current-day perspective via three social media accounts: Detroit1967 (Facebook), @Detroit_1967 (Twitter), and @Detroit_1967 (Instagram), while the Detroit Historical Society has collected over 400 stories from Metro Detroit residents as part of its Detroit 1967 Oral and Written History Project. [Note: some of the Detroit Free Press links may contain autoplaying content.]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:49 PM PST - 7 comments

How The Mummy did Sofia Boutella dirty
posted by Artw at 12:39 PM PST - 63 comments

We've talked about Justin Trudeau. We've talked about The West Wing Weekly. But have we talked about Justin Trudeau on The West Wing Weekly? [JT segment starts at 45:04] [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 12:21 PM PST - 24 comments

At long last: Good Burger: The Oral History.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:51 AM PST - 25 comments

Norm MacDonald talks with David Letterman for an hour. At one point they discuss their experiences with OCD, anxiety and depression in a refreshingly candid manner.
posted by craniac at 9:58 AM PST - 31 comments

Betty Shannon, Unsung Mathematical Genius . Here, the authors of a Claude Shannon biography (who also recently did an AMA) explore his wife's role in his life.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:55 AM PST - 9 comments

Why Animals Do The Thing is a Tumblr blog focused on animal science education.
They often explain animal news articles and debunk anthropomorphic beliefs about nature.
Topics: Cats, Dogs: training, expressions, toxic food. Horses and Goats, Wolf packs, Snakes, Zoos and the AZA. They also have some cute pictures. [more inside]
posted by Lanark at 8:53 AM PST - 14 comments

Portal Done Without Mouse Movement [YouTube] The entire game is completed inbounds without moving the in game camera which is typically controlled by the mouse.
posted by Fizz at 8:51 AM PST - 12 comments

Phil Ivey is one of the most famous poker players in the world, and has been part of more than one of the most important hands in the history of the game as we know it today. But it's been a while since he played in the most high-profile games.
posted by Etrigan at 8:22 AM PST - 25 comments

THE TOAST IS BACK FOR ONE DAY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. So far: Link Roundup, and Harvard Magazine Personal Advertisements’ Many Synonyms For “Rich” or “Thin”.
posted by Shmuel510 at 7:57 AM PST - 59 comments

The Poisoning, an essay by Alexander Chee [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 7:51 AM PST - 14 comments

This is a playable explanation of how we trust, why we don't, and who wins, through the lens of the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma[wiki]. Made by Nicky Case, n.b. music will play when you press Start.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 5:42 AM PST - 13 comments

In Defence of the Bad, White Working Class. Shannon Burns writes thoughtfully in Meanjin about middle-class myopia in antiracist politics.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 10:29 PM PST - 141 comments

New cover of Strange Fruit "It’s a small and safe thing, using music as a political statement, but at a time when we feel utterly powerless to fix what is so clearly broken with our country, any action at all feels like progress." From Cover Me

Previously
posted by Gorgik at 9:53 PM PST - 4 comments

A newly published meta-analysis of 185 studies of 42,935 male-bodied people from 1972-2011 [pdf] found that sperm concentration has fallen by 52.4% in North America, Europe Australia and New Zealand—with no sign of stopping. No significant trends were seen in South America, Asia and Africa, but the authors noted that limitations in the underlying studies made it impossible to rule out a significant trend in those continents as well. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 7:54 PM PST - 66 comments

Siren Songs of Samoyeds [howling and sirens, h/t Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:05 PM PST - 17 comments

Pence Breaks Tie as Senate Votes to Begin Debating Obamacare Repeal [more inside]
posted by triggerfinger at 5:51 PM PST - 2832 comments

What do you get when a bunch of British school boys in the mid-'50s play Lead Belly's repertoire... on acoustic guitars? Skiffle. And Billy Bragg wants you to get to know the music that brought the guitar to post-war British pop. (YT video of his recent talk at the Library of Congress, with transcript.) [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:06 PM PST - 20 comments

The British Library has digitized Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook ('The Codex Arundel') and made 570 digitized images available online. [via] [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 2:43 PM PST - 6 comments

How Opening Titles Became So Damn Good. (SLVWired)
posted by storybored at 2:30 PM PST - 35 comments

On Aug. 1, employees at Three Square Market, a technology company in Wisconsin, can choose to have a chip the size of a grain of rice injected between their thumb and index finger. (SLNYT) Once that is done, any task involving RFID technology — swiping into the office building, paying for food in the cafeteria — can be accomplished with a wave of the hand.
posted by stillmoving at 1:03 PM PST - 134 comments

Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood wrote: " The annals of Central Australian exploration are tragic and heroic, but it is long indeed since I read a more moving story of endurance and heroism in the face of terrific odds than the epic which Mr. Ion Idriess has woven out of the last few months of the life of L. H. B. Lasseter." Lasseter's Last Ride was published in 1931, then turned into a folk song and a (possibly related) poem. This story mixes facts, half-truths, rumours, stories (PDF) — adds a twist of drama, waits 80 years and serves up a story nearly as reliable as Ulysses, wandering his own Mediterranean desert. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:17 PM PST - 8 comments

"Pet brothers from other mothers..." [more inside]
posted by cooker girl at 11:15 AM PST - 23 comments

"Teleportation killed the Mona Lisa." So begins The Punch Escrow , a novel about everyday teleportation gone awry in the year 2147, by MeFi's own analogue . Available all over the interwebs today from places you buy books. [more inside]
posted by bitterkitten at 10:30 AM PST - 33 comments

The Last Days of New Paris is China Miéville’s novella about a surrealist Paris magically overlapping with our realist Paris.
At the back of the book, Miéville offers endnote citations of the surrealist art that inspired his writing. I corralled all the art in this post.
posted by adamvasco at 10:12 AM PST - 26 comments

At Play in the Carceral State. Waypoint looks in depth at the intersection of gaming with prisons and prison culture, with a special focus on Gitmo. (Waypoint, previously.)
posted by kmz at 9:56 AM PST - 6 comments

Americans are drinking less milk than ever before, but fast food restaurants are saving the dairy industry by coming out with tons of new menu items featuring dairy products, especially cheese. A look at how a government-backed dairy industry group teamed up with Taco Bell to create the Quesalupa and convinced McDonald's to switch from margarine to butter. [more inside]
posted by Copronymus at 9:31 AM PST - 80 comments

In These Games, Death Is Forever, and That’s Awesome [Wired] ““Permadeath” has been growing in popularity among game designers in recent years. Although it can take different forms depending on which game you’re playing, the message is always the same: Mistakes have consequences. [...] The games today that use permadeath as a feature are something of a hybrid of old and new. They have more storyline than Pac-Man but the emphasis is not on a heavily scripted Hollywood-style narrative. Rather, the game’s fictional worlds set the scene, establish a strong sense of place, but give the players more leeway to imagine their own personal stories.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:46 AM PST - 61 comments

In 1962 woodsman David McPherson Sr. found himself deep in the forest of Lutes Mountain, some 15 kilometres west of Moncton, N.B., staring upwards at a 181-kilogram white box with cameras and hanging from a tree by a deteriorated parachute. What began as a day of scouting timber would turn into the mystery of "the thing in the woods" that would stay with his family for the next 55 years.
posted by twilightlost at 8:33 AM PST - 25 comments

It is Khan’s lot to have emerged as a national figure just as London is more vulnerable, and more at odds with the rest of Britain, than at any other point in its recent history. The New Yorker profiles London's Mayor. (SLNewYorker)
posted by Ziggy500 at 7:41 AM PST - 7 comments

Taxi medallions in New York City (one of the prime examples economists give when discussing rent seeking) have plummeted in value by more than half since Uber and Lyft came to town, which has had knock-on effects including three credit unions that specialize in loaning money against medallions going into conservatorship, with one analyst comparing it to the subprime mortgage crisis.
posted by Etrigan at 6:05 AM PST - 53 comments

South Park raised a generation of trolls (slAVClub)
posted by sigma7 at 5:14 AM PST - 169 comments

The Guardian's Underwhelming UK Holiday Photos (previously) has grown into a rich archive. Enjoy underwhelming photos of office Christmas decorations, heatwaves, snowmen, Valentine's day (and again), pancakes, and many more. [more inside]
posted by Catseye at 3:15 AM PST - 10 comments

Later that very same year, on International Bring A Shit-Ton Of Bees To Work Day... DR. BEES (Harry Partridge, YouTube, 02:11) [more inside]
posted by flabdablet at 10:04 PM PST - 16 comments

Why don't Americans know their own Dutch history?
What's left of New Amsterdam in Lower Manhattan
A forgotten American founding father: Adriaan van der Donck
How New Amsterdam influenced America
Author Russell Shorto, of The Island At The Center Of The World [Guardian, NY Times, Bookslut] also gives a lecture on Dutch-American relations and history, drawing heavily on the New Netherland Project Translations at the New York State Library and Archives, part of the New Netherland Institute, where Dr. Charles Gehring is busy at work Decoding the Dutch for over the past 40 years
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:58 PM PST - 16 comments

Man is very upset after mistaking squash for cheese
posted by AFABulous at 5:23 PM PST - 200 comments

While there are parts of the world where intelligent robots are drowning themselves, it’s good to see technology being used for good elsewhere. In New Hampshire, a group of eighth graders designed and created a 3D-printed wheelchair for a six-month-old kitten named Ray who is unable to use his rear legs due to a spinal condition. On top of that, he was born with abnormally tiny eyes, leaving him blind.

The little charmer (full name: Ray Catdashian) also has an Instagram account.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:01 PM PST - 9 comments

The cautionary tale of the Harlem hoarders, the Collyer brothers. I've known about this story since 1954, when Marcia Davenport wrote the novel My Brother's Keeper, a romanticized portrait of this sad story. I'd never seen these pictures.
posted by MovableBookLady at 4:51 PM PST - 16 comments

"A forgotten Eden, belonging only to albatrosses, penguins and seals, South Georgia is one of the most remote islands on the planet....We were there for a simple purpose – to free South Georgia from the rats that had plagued the island for almost two hundred years." [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:05 PM PST - 21 comments

For years, summer camp has been known as a technology- and parent-involvement -free zone. But cell phones are making that harder and harder to do. Are Helicopter Parents Ruining Summer Camp?
posted by Mchelly at 2:00 PM PST - 54 comments

An Oral History of the Funniest Podcast Ever
posted by kittensofthenight at 12:50 PM PST - 30 comments

Let's play a mathematical game I call Swine in a Line. [YouTube, about 3 minutes]. The video is broken into short parts so you have time to think; here are Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. If you prefer text (and spoilers), here is the blog post with detailed explanation.
posted by Wolfdog at 12:12 PM PST - 9 comments

Microsoft has killed Paint after 32 years of faithful service.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 9:40 AM PST - 118 comments

Chef and cat owner (or cat owner and chef, if you prefer) Jun Yoshizuki (previously) likes to prepare lavish birthday meals for his cats. His YouTube channel, Jun's Kitchen, has lots of great human food, as well as knife techniques, but his chill cats figure prominently in most of them. (Also previously as one half of Rachel and Jun.) [h/t]
posted by Room 641-A at 9:18 AM PST - 9 comments

Growing your own purple crystals. A fun, simple and educational diy project With a little potassium, some aluminium sulphate, water, a glass container, an airing cupboard (or similar space), and a little patience you can cultivate your own decorative purple crystals. This video explains how. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 7:53 AM PST - 8 comments

On 16 October 1913, two Frenchmen landed in the port of Durrës, or as it was then called, Durazzo, in the recently created Albania. They opened an elongated lacquered trunk, and took out a folding camera mounted on a tripod. They inserted a glass plate, and made photographs of the port, a curious kid in the gate of the former Venetian fortress, two Muslim boys at the base of the wall – one of them also separately –, a man with an attractive face with three or four chickens in his hand, a master who offered his services on the square with a huge-wheeled oxcart and a Ferris wheel pieced together from raw beams. Then they removed the glass plates, and repacked the camera into the trunk. These were the first color photos ever created on today’s Albania. [more inside]
posted by kmt at 7:48 AM PST - 13 comments

Kate Kato is a designer who creates recycled paper models of the natural world. My favourites are her enhanced 3D books.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:10 AM PST - 4 comments

In February 1338, the English Parliament approved a forced loan from Edward III's English subjects in support of his war against King Philip VI of France: 20,000 sacks of wool, which were to arrive in friendly Antwerp just before Edward landed with his troops in July. English wool, then the best in the world, could easily be converted into the gold needed to pay for troops and supplies. When Edward landed in Antwerp, his allies were there to greet him: The Duke of Brabant, the Count of Hainault, the Duke of Guelders, the Margrave of Juliers, and a host of lesser princes. But the wool wasn't. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 6:13 AM PST - 17 comments

Most kids who grow up speaking English learn the "I before E" rule, complete with its subparts "except after C" and "or when sounding like A". And some people learn some of the major exceptions, like "weird" and "height" and "caffeine" (so many exceptions, in fact, that as Stephen Fry and QI point out, the rule is essentially useless). But not many people go as far as Nathan Cunningham and use their programming skills to see whether C is really the letter that should be cited as the main exception. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 5:56 AM PST - 46 comments

In the summer of 2015 Massimo Bottura, the acclaimed chef behind the three-Michelin-star restaurant Osteria Francescana, began a new project. Located in an abandoned theater in Milan, he invited artists and designers to transform the space into a welcoming place to share a meal. He also invited other world-class chefs like Rene Redzepi, Viviana Varese, Alex Atala, Ana Ros, Joan Roca and Daniel Humm to come create menus that changed daily. The result: Refettorio Ambrosiano. The mission: feed the hungry using food that would otherwise go to waste. [more inside]
posted by noneuclidean at 5:30 AM PST - 2 comments

Follow Bejla and Tristan as they explore their world after recently mastering walking. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 5:21 AM PST - 8 comments

NPR offers a list of 150 albums by women that make up a new music canon. And they elucidate on the matter.
posted by hippybear at 3:24 AM PST - 116 comments

My Son Has Ruined Zelda: Breath Of The Wild by Mark Serrels [Kotaku] “A few details before I go into precisely how my son is ruining my Zelda game. A few answers to questions I suspect you might ask. Firstly why is my son playing Zelda? I dunno. It just happened and now it keeps happening. Secondly, why is he playing my game and not his own game? Simple answer: I’ve got all the cool power-ups and the cool weapons. His chances of actually inching his way through and earning those rewards at four years old are at monkeys writing Shakespeare odds at this point. Thirdly, why do I keep letting this happen? Love, ladies and Gentlemen. Love.”
posted by Fizz at 10:04 PM PST - 58 comments

Peter E. Gordon — The Authoritarian Personality Revisited: Reading Adorno in the Age of Trump, June 15, 2016.

My hope is that by reading Adorno again, we might discern how Trump at once instantiates the category of the “authoritarian personality” but also challenges its meaning. The AP study, I will suggest, contained two distinct lines of argument. The first of these arguments qualified as the “official” discovery of the research program, and its basic message is the one MacWilliams identified in the passages quoted above, namely, it claimed to have identified a new “psychological type.” The second argument was rather more sobering and radical in its implications: it suggested that the authoritarian personality signified not merely a type but rather an emergent and generalized feature of modern society as such.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:03 PM PST - 25 comments

Jay Rayner: “Michael Gove asked me to a meeting to share my expertise. I declined. Instead, I’ve given him a piece of my mind.” [more inside]
posted by lalochezia at 9:02 PM PST - 17 comments

Visible-light-driven methane formation from CO2 with a molecular iron catalyst Doesn't seem like the efficiency is enough yet but seems promising.
posted by aleph at 8:54 PM PST - 14 comments

Goats hug with their heads, according to yourdailygoats. This goat is prettier than most people, claims dailygoat. STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND LOOK AT THIS HAPPY GOAT INSTEAD, demands daily-goat. Despite their names, none of these sites posts daily—Pbbbbbbbft! Goats previously.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:02 PM PST - 35 comments

"Cracking the Mystery of Egg Shapes" Short graphic-rich description of a study of egg shape, with a software model in which the egg definitely came before the chicken.
posted by Quietgal at 3:24 PM PST - 8 comments

In 2015, a plant biologist noticed some bright orange petunias near a train station in Helsinki which in May 2017 caused the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service [APHIS] to confirm that numerous varieties of petunias were not properly registered as being genetically engineered (GE). [more inside]
posted by bCat at 1:54 PM PST - 25 comments

In "The Life of a South Central Statistic," Danielle Allen wrangles with the life and death of her cousin, Michael. While she went on to receive two PhDs, he was convicted of robbery and attempted car jacking. When he was released, she tried to help him get a second chance. (This is an excerpt from Allen's forthcoming book, Cuz. )
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:47 AM PST - 16 comments

Balls Out: The Weird Story of the Great Truck Nuts War
posted by Evilspork at 5:19 AM PST - 113 comments

Pushing The Edges Of Play: Lessons Learned From Making 100 Games In Five Years [Indie Games] “Developer James Earl Cox has recently completed his 100 Games in 5 Years, having wrapped up development of his taxing, rewarding journey with a cute game about a kitten in a blanket that likes to meow about things. Games about the horrors of war. Games about the horrors of getting caught watching porn. Games about racing fishmen, the well-mannered homeless, cows, sacred snails. Games about silliness, life, despair, world issues, and anything and everything in between. Cox's work has explored many, many different themes, as well as the scope of the developer's sense of purpose and humor. Now, at the end of the adventure, Cox is left to reflect on what's he gained from this undertaking, finding he's learned a great deal from working with so many different genres, ideas, and stories.”
posted by Fizz at 9:33 PM PST - 5 comments

The story of Finbarr Donnelly and his bands Nun Attax, Five Go Down To the Sea? and Beethoven. [more inside]
posted by motty at 7:58 PM PST - 3 comments

Stranger Things 2 is on its way. [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 7:56 PM PST - 133 comments

Wibbly-wobbly magnetic fusion stuff: The return of the stellarator
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:22 PM PST - 16 comments

Everyone knows the correct name for a raccoon is Trash Panda, but did you know about Duck Puppies? And you can probably guess the common name for a Fart Squirrel without peeking, but how about a Land Cloud? Bread Moisturizer (not an animal)? Or my favorite, the Dogtor? A few more are here; check out @CorrectNames for the rest.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:54 PM PST - 47 comments

Do you like Hot Wheels cars? YouTube user baremetalHW does. On his channel, he does all sorts of restorations and customization of old, worn out toy cars, as well as tips and tricks for folks who might want to try it themselves. [more inside]
posted by pjern at 1:29 PM PST - 14 comments

"This is the Night Mail crossing the border, bringing the cheque and postal order." The traveling post office, the specially designed and operated mail-sorting train, was invented in 1838 and documented as Night Mail in 1936. The British short film has become a classic of its own kind, much imitated (and parodied) by adverts and modern film shorts. Night Mail is widely considered a masterpiece of the British Documentary Film Movement, and schoolchildren often memorize W.H. Auden’s “Night Mail,” the ending poem that was added as almost an afterthought.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:04 AM PST - 17 comments

Food has always been at the heart of Syrian identity, and for nearly a million refugees that is true in a new, sharper way. When homes are destroyed and families scattered, food is a rare constant. It can also be a means of survival. For those who have lost jobs and professional status, cooking is an easily transferable skill, so conflict tends to spread cuisines.

~ source article
posted by infini at 9:47 AM PST - 13 comments

On Wednesday, the premiers of Canada's provinces, gathered for a meeting, held a press conference at the Hotel MacDonald in Edmonton. They were upstaged by Smudge, the hotel's "Canine Ambassador," who decided to photobomb the press conference. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:36 AM PST - 21 comments

#ColorOurCollections "is a week-long coloring fest organized by 107 libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions around the world. Using materials from their collections, these institutions are sharing free coloring content with the hashtag #ColorOurCollections and inviting their followers to color and get creative with their collections." [more inside]
posted by carter at 8:21 AM PST - 3 comments

How these cooks changed the way we cook and eat.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:54 AM PST - 35 comments

Take 7 1/2 minutes to improve your bowling game with The hidden oil patterns on bowling lanes. Also, you should go bowling because it's fun.
posted by hippybear at 6:46 AM PST - 49 comments

Jane Austen died 200 years ago this year. There are events planned. There are too many adaptations to list, though most will cite the BBC's production of Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth in a wet white shirt. Australian improv artists and rappers Sense and Spontaneity pay tribute to the scene, which wasn't in the book, in Dear Mr. Darcy. Jane's portrait will soon feature on the British £10 note.
posted by adept256 at 9:51 PM PST - 34 comments

Nintendo trademark suggests Nintendo 64 Classic Edition [Polygon] “Nintendo may be planning to release the next iteration of its “Classics” console series: the Nintendo 64, if recent European trademark filings from the company are any indication. On July 18, Nintendo filed four graphical trademarks with the European Union Intellectual Property Office. Each one is a simple piece of black-and-white line art, a 2D graphical representation of a Nintendo console or controller.”
posted by Fizz at 9:17 PM PST - 38 comments

Brock is a very little boy who just discovered the joy of paint chip samples. [SLYT]
posted by Room 641-A at 5:32 PM PST - 27 comments

Sixty-odd years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the Australian Labor Party (a predominantly working class political party founded in the union movement, and with a large, largely Irish and Italian, Catholic constituency) was torn apart when a faction of social and religious conservatives, citing the threat of Communism, split off to form the Democratic Labor Party. Led by Catholic hardliner B.A. Santamaria, the DLP would keep the ALP in opposition for almost two decades, giving the (right of centre, and then predominantly mainstream Protestant) Liberal Party a long spell in office. Now, lead by Santamaria's intellectual heirs, the same thing may be happening again—this time to the Liberal Party. [more inside]
posted by acb at 5:18 PM PST - 18 comments

Your dog is basically a super social wolf, and scientists may have found the gene that makes him want to cuddle with you. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:12 PM PST - 23 comments

Comedian Tiffany Haddish tells Jimmy Kimmel about hanging out in New Orleans with Will and Jada Smith.
posted by Mchelly at 12:25 PM PST - 29 comments

Uproxx shares a list of 22 things Euron Greyjoy looks like.
posted by hanov3r at 11:50 AM PST - 46 comments

It's Okay to be a Coward about Cancer. Josh Friedman, tv writer and showrunner of the (late, beloved) tv series Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, shares some thoughts on dealing with cancer. Cancer doesn’t give a damn how tough you are. Cancer doesn’t care if you stared down the North Koreans, or won the Tour De France, or wrote two seasons of a scary robot show.
posted by suelac at 11:29 AM PST - 34 comments

You got the dud. You got the dud. You got the dud.

(Original Simpson's clip for context.)
posted by cortex at 11:28 AM PST - 19 comments

Aphex Twin recently launched a countdown on his website. It began on the same day he performed at Field Day festival in London, where he sold a mysterious 12" and, for the first time in his career, live-streamed his set. And then he dropped the biggest bomb: an expanded collection of the Richard D. James releases since 1991, even pulling from some of his alternate alias side projects (AFX, Polygon Window, The Tuss, etc). You can buy FLAC or MP3s, or use the embedded streaming audio player with unlimited access to the entire catalog, and there's still more to come...
posted by filthy light thief at 11:01 AM PST - 21 comments

Salvador dali's moustache is still intact.
posted by storybored at 10:37 AM PST - 21 comments

Imagine taking a quiet stroll through the expansive wilderness of Van Cortlandt Park in Bronx, New York. You’re surrounded by a forest of oak trees, stony ridges, and a tranquil lake—completely isolated and alone in nature. But in 1918, visitors to the 1,146-acre park were unaware that they were in the company of a group of women hiding among the rocks, trees, and grass. [more inside]
posted by twilightlost at 7:33 AM PST - 45 comments

From 1965 until his death in 1975 Crockett Johnson painted over 100 works relating to mathematics and mathematical physics. Of these paintings, eighty are found in the collections of the National Museum of American History. We present them here, with related diagrams from the artist’s library and papers. [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 6:20 AM PST - 16 comments

The Most Iconic Books Set in 150 Countries Around the World is probably a deeply silly list, but perhaps fun to argue about on a Friday afternoon?
posted by MartinWisse at 6:01 AM PST - 82 comments

In 2002, the Science Museum of Minnesota absorbed the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices when the curator's health failed. Many of them are still on display, but even those of us unlucky enough to live far from St. Paul can still tour the museum virtually. Come see the foot-powered breast enlarger! Feast your eyes on the Prostate Gland Warmer! Marvel at the Timely Warning! But whatever you do, perhaps don't sample the delights of the Shoe-fitting X-Ray or the Relaxacisor.
posted by sciatrix at 5:08 AM PST - 30 comments

Take 15 minutes to watch "Chapter 1" of this Big Pacific episode "Behind The Scenes", wherein a film crew innovates ways to film a pufferfish building a nest to attract a female. I'm sorry there is no transcript, and I can't check for region blocking. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 3:42 AM PST - 12 comments

Does “fuel on hand,” stored onsite in substantial amounts, make fueled power stations somehow more resilient and valuable than other generators? It’s a good question with more claims than analysis, but historical experience may suggest useful insights. (Rocky Mountain Institute)
posted by flabdablet at 3:19 AM PST - 8 comments

Server Crashes, 40GB Patches and DLC: Gaming's Biggest Irritations Explained [The Guardian] “Video games have changed immeasurably since the days of tape loading and cover-mounted floppy discs. Today, we get lifelike 3D virtual worlds where the player can seamlessly connect with companions and opponents from every corner of the globe. An online triple-A title will now offer literally hundreds of hours of fun spread across years of play. Yet, inflation aside, the price we pay at the till remains the same now as it was 25 years ago. To make this possible, a lot of things have changed about the way the games industry works – but those changes haven’t always been well received. When problems arise, frustrated consumers will often blame “money-grubbing” publishers or “lazy” developers. But is that fair? We asked the industry to explain five of the most controversial aspects of modern games buying – and, crucially, why they happen. 1. Downloadable content 2. Season passes 3. Day-one patches 4. Pre-orders 5. Server crashes” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:01 PM PST - 59 comments

A peculiar detail on this Friends DVD cover has Twitter exploding with conspiracy theories.
posted by Etrigan at 6:45 PM PST - 64 comments

Yes, God, Yes is a 10 minute film by Karen Maine starring Natalia Dyer. It is based on Maine's experiences of growing up Catholic in the Midwest in the 1990s, and coming of age sexually in the age of America Online. Maine was interviewed by Marta Bausells about Yes, God, Yes in The Guardian.
posted by Kattullus at 5:54 PM PST - 3 comments

The Heartbreaking Story Of A Man And His ‘68 Camaro - David Obuchowski
I ask him if his dad still knew about the Camaro in the end. He says he did, and they’d reminisce about it often.
“Oh, he’d get a kick out of it. We’d get a kick out of it when we’d talk about it. I’d say, ‘Remember, dad, when I was in the service, and I heard from my friends you were cruisin’ Main in it?’ And he’d laugh.”
posted by CrystalDave at 4:22 PM PST - 5 comments

The Lawyer, the Addict (New York Times). Tragic and thoughtful piece about one of the brightest stars in the Silicon Valley legal industry, drug abuse in the profession, and the mental health tolls of a professional culture of overworking.
posted by naju at 4:17 PM PST - 40 comments

You Don't Have to Love your Body
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:06 PM PST - 31 comments

Welcome to the International Space Station! Feel free to look around. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 2:50 PM PST - 18 comments

Y-40 "The Deep Joy" pool first opened on 5 June 2014 and was designed by architect Emanuele Boaretto. It is 40 metres (131 ft) deep, making it the deepest pool in the world. It contains 4,300 cubic metres (1,136,000 US gal) of thermal water kept at a temperature of 32–34 °C (90–93 °F). Watch Guillaume Néry go deep. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:42 PM PST - 56 comments

Star Wars but the Lightsabers Sound like Owen Wilson saying Wow [SLYT, 1:04]
posted by OmieWise at 1:40 PM PST - 25 comments

Items: Is Fashion Modern? the first show the Museum of Modern Art has devoted to the subject since Bernard Rudofsky’s seminal exhibition “Are Clothes Modern?” in 1944, takes up the multiplicity of questions provoked by a design field that, despite playing an integral part in all of our lives, continues to defy easy comprehension. via
posted by infini at 12:44 PM PST - 6 comments

Chester Bennington, Linkin Park Singer, Is Dead at 41. [NYT]
posted by KTamas at 12:32 PM PST - 64 comments

Olivia Gatwood reads her poem "Ode to the women on Long Island."
posted by The Whelk at 11:14 AM PST - 17 comments

In a film, on the news, you watch a war. While in a war, you mostly hear it. In October, Iraqi forces set out to retake Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities and ISIS’s biggest stronghold in the country. It would take them nine months and cost thousands of lives. [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 11:03 AM PST - 4 comments

Cut & Shut is a short surreal animation of VWs, mostly Beetles, moving in strange ways. By designer Chris LaBrooy.
posted by cortex at 10:39 AM PST - 9 comments

It has been suggested that Stanley Kubrick, the truly gifted director who was responsible for such classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, was hired to help fake the Apollo landings. Given Kubrick’s painstaking attention to detail, it is now well known that he was involved in this elaborate conspiracy. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:34 AM PST - 41 comments

Why are there lots of languages over here and only a few languages over there?
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:34 AM PST - 19 comments

"Terry Fox dipped his artificial leg into the ocean at St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980, just before setting out to run across Canada, to raise money for cancer research. During those early days of his Marathon of Hope, as he covered the equivalent of a marathon a day, very few people knew of the 21-year-old from Port Coquitlam, B.C. But through the spring and summer of 1980, Fox captivated the nation with his display of will and strength." This is that story in the words of people who were there.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:01 AM PST - 19 comments

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) is a way for people to non-violently protest the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in a manner similar to the boycott of apartheid South Africa in the 20th century. BDS is supported by such orgs as Black Lives Matter and Jewish Voice for Peace. US senators have recently proposed a bipartisan measure, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720), that will make such boycott a felony with up to 20 years of imprisonment. The ACLU, while not supporting a boycott, has come out in opposition to this bill since it would "punish U.S. persons based solely on their expressed political beliefs". [more inside]
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:32 AM PST - 135 comments

Dana Lewis has Type-1 diabetes so, she went ahead and built something for that. She built and programmed a computer to monitor her blood sugar levels and adjust her insulin levels automatically. Then she founded Open APS to be a repository for her design, and to let other people use it. She has gotten plaudits from both the maker and the medical community. On her twitter account, Lewis often uses the hashtag #wearenotwaiting. Is she the first wave of a breaking trend?
posted by lumpenprole at 9:28 AM PST - 12 comments

The Medieval Spanish Chef, written by Susan Lord-Williams, is a comprehensive and ongoing blog covering the cuisine of the Iberian peninsula primarily during the medieval period, with its mixture of Roman, Arabic, North African, and Sephardic Jewish influences. Each post is inspired by a word connected in some way to a recipe, providing some history and etymology to enjoy along with the delicious food. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 9:03 AM PST - 12 comments

The Seattle indie-rock band Great Grandpa doesn't ignore the gracelessness of youth. It embraces it. Dubbed "slacker rock" in that NPR review by Maria Sherman, and "anxious bubblegum grunge" in a Pitchfork review by Ian Cohen, with comparisons to Weezer and Speedy Ortiz (Bandcamp), you have a decent idea of what to expect. If not, the quartet has their debut album and earlier EP up on Bandcamp, and the label for their album, Double Double Whammy, posted the full album to YouTube. In support of that 2015 EP, they made a music video for Mostly Here, and for a few tastes of them live, here's Teen Challenge from their new album, plus, Mostly Here and Cheeto Lust from their EP, plus No Hair as a bonus cut.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:16 AM PST - 10 comments

Where is that protest music we were promised?
posted by yerfatma at 8:14 AM PST - 42 comments

Democratic lawmakers have filed a "no-confidence" resolution against Donald Trump, listing 88 reasons why he's not fit to be President. Speaking to the New York Times, Trump provides many additional reasons. And speaking of things that no one likes that refuse to go away, Senate Republicans are back to work on a putative health care bill.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:44 AM PST - 2713 comments

Alternate takes on the American Civil War have been a literary niche for a while now, covering angles from the survival of President Lincoln to the South winning the war. Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will continue that peculiar institution with a future HBO series titled Confederate.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:11 AM PST - 213 comments

The BBC has disclosed the salaries of stars earning £150,000 or more. This has caused discussion about salary levels, transparency and the gender pay gap. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 4:50 AM PST - 32 comments

Robot Wars: what it's like to be a roboteer on the show - The wobbly progress of Team Jellyfish.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:56 AM PST - 8 comments

Take 15 minutes to listen to john Horn talk to Olivia Wilde and Tom Sturridge about the stage adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. You can also read the interview highlights, but there's a lot more in the interview.
posted by hippybear at 2:27 AM PST - 6 comments

BBC's Planet Earth II team has posted a series of HD "visual soundscapes" on YouTube, pieced together from leftover footage of some of the most beautiful and isolated places in the world. Ten hours of mountains; ten hours of jungle; ten hours of islands; ten hours of desert.
posted by Paragon at 2:11 AM PST - 7 comments

Demi Adejuyigbe, aka @electrolemon, has scored a sneak-peak of Will Smith's new track for Disney's Aladdin! Check it out quick before Disney take it down. He's also been posting videos of Will Smith's lesser-known film soundtrack work for Arrival, Moonlight, and Hacksaw Ridge. (They're all end-credit tracks so contain some spoilers). [more inside]
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:30 AM PST - 5 comments

But with that worldwide surge of panoramic photos being taken comes a secondary phenomenon that no one anticipated– the nightmarish mutants that appear in failed attempts. Let's just say that when a panoramic shot goes wrong, it really goes wrong. This collection of failed photos from around the internet will haunt your dreams forever. And if you're craving more bizarre fails, there's an entire subreddit dedicated to the nightmarish glitches. [Some photos look alarmingly NSFW but are not.]
posted by Room 641-A at 11:43 PM PST - 13 comments

Valerie Aurora and Leigh Honeywell write of The Al Capone Theory Of Sexual Harassment
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:41 PM PST - 7 comments

In 1966, on the island of Jamaica, it was time to slow down. But who figured it out first? There are four generally recognized candidates: Roy Shirley (previously) with Hold Them, Alton Ellis with Girl I've Got A Date, Hopeton Lewis with Take It Easy, and Derrick Morgan with Tougher Than Tough. On three of those four songs, the groove was set by keyboardist Gladstone Anderson. For the next two years - maybe three - before it was swept away by the political and social drive of Rastafari and reggae, the laid-back love songs of rocksteady dominated the Jamaican music scene.
posted by clawsoon at 7:56 PM PST - 8 comments

Doomguy's Identity by John Romero “Don Punchatz, the illustrator who created the DOOM logo and the famous front box cover art came over to id in mid-1993 with a male body model. Don brought a nice camera to take pictures. The model's job was to strike various poses for the marine who would be on the cover of the box. [...] The body model took his shirt off and started posing with our plasma gun toy. Don asked us for suggestions so I started telling him that the Marine was going to be attacked by an infinite amount of demons. It would be cool if he was on a hill and firing down into them. The model was holding the gun in various positions and none of them were interesting to me.”
posted by Fizz at 7:54 PM PST - 23 comments

Red West passes at 81 He was an American actor, film stuntman and songwriter. He was a close high school friend of rock and roll singer Elvis Presley. He is probably best known to American film audiences for his role as Red in Road House, alongside Patrick Swayze. He had a co-starring role in the TV series Ba Ba Black Sheep (later Black Sheep Squadron) in the late 1970s. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 7:29 PM PST - 8 comments

Stevie Salas's research has led to the documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which traces the impact of Native people on America’s rich musical history.
posted by goatdog at 7:17 PM PST - 10 comments

Just trees. (From MeFi's Own Alan Taylor.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:16 PM PST - 24 comments

From 1950 to 1990, Marion Tinsley had been the world champion of checkers whenever he wanted to be. He’d occasionally retire to work on mathematics or devote himself to religious study, but he’d eventually return, beat everyone and become champion again. In that 40-year span, he lost five total games and never once dropped a match. In 1994, he sat across a game board from a computer, dying.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:36 PM PST - 17 comments

Miss Lou talks Jamaican proverbs and who is Miss Lou, you ask? She was Louise Bennett, poet, folklorist, television presenter, activist and all around Jamaican national treasure. Her archive is kept by McMaster University, and is especially rich in audio recordings, including interviews (e.g. with Sarah Ward on the BBC World Service), storytelling (e.g. her Anancy stories, part 1 and 2) and music (e.g. 1954 Folkways recording, parts 1 and 2). Her music can also be found on Spotify.
posted by Kattullus at 5:30 PM PST - 1 comment

Female characters appear in superhero comics less often than males — but when they are included, how are they depicted?
posted by MrJM at 4:06 PM PST - 13 comments

I gotta ask, what's the absolute maximum number of dog collars you'd like to buy this year? Probably less than twelve? In a lighthearted column, Adam Ozimek turns a beady eye on the wave of start-up subscription services and what they may reveal about the state of tech investment world.
posted by Diablevert at 1:20 PM PST - 124 comments

Author Chuck Wendig gives you a handy top 10 list article to help you Survive and keep creating Art, in this unfurling Age of Dumb "Everything is dumb right now. From nose to tail, we have become the dumbest, saddest pig at the county fair. Historians will not refer to this period as THE DARK AGES, but rather, THE DUMB AGES. The greatest question I get, right now, is how to simply persist creating art and staying motivated and creative in this epoch of syphilitic dipshittery, so I thought I’d bop in here and try my hand at answering that." - Chuck Wendig [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 12:38 PM PST - 18 comments

British Airways safety video - director's cut [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 12:15 PM PST - 18 comments

Metagryne bicolumnata, aka the Bunny Harvestman. Probably don't click this if you're a bit wobbly about spiders.
posted by auntie-matter at 12:07 PM PST - 30 comments

The AHA reached out to breweries from across the United States and today released its first compilation of 50 commercial clone recipes, scaled to homebrew-sized batches. Whether you want a legendary IPA, a crisp pilsner, or even a fruity mead, there's something for everybody. [more inside]
posted by uncleozzy at 11:37 AM PST - 29 comments

Japanese Cheesecake. Chicken Gyros. Deep Dish Pizza. Giant Cookies and Vegan Cinnamon Buns. Every week, Megan Ogilvie of The Toronto Star writes The Dish, where she takes popular local eats to food scientists and dietitians to determine how good (or bad) they are for you. Readers provide suggestions and are often surprised by how many calories they're getting from their favourite food. And in the case of one popular 1.5 lbs roti, the people of Trinidad & Tabago were not amused by the recommendation that Ali's roti is meal for two.
posted by thecjm at 10:57 AM PST - 78 comments

Frances Gabe, inventor of the self-cleaning house, has died. This NY Times obituary is a lengthy tribute to a remarkable woman and includes videos and diagrams of her remarkable invention. [Previously]
posted by jacquilynne at 9:29 AM PST - 11 comments

On July 17, 1981 a suspended walkway collapsed in The Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others during a tea dance. At the time, it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history. [more inside]
posted by misskaz at 8:50 AM PST - 41 comments

Unfettered capitalism or democracy. You cannot have both.
Six months on and six ways Trump is 'dismantling' the US.
This is the playbook, as George Monbiot explains, of James McGill Buchanan - A despot in disguise: one man’s mission to rip up democracy.
Then there are are the men behind the cutain; Secretive Teams to Roll Back Regulations, Led by Hires With Deep Industry Ties.
What Is the Far Right’s Endgame? A Society That Suppresses the Majority.
posted by adamvasco at 8:36 AM PST - 42 comments

The great late-night show, @midnight, will air its last (and 600th) show August 4. No more "Points!," no more Hashtag Wars, no more providing a platform for mostly new and lesser-known standup comedians.
posted by anothermug at 8:12 AM PST - 24 comments

Who's got squishy cheeks? YOU do! Yes you do! Yes you do! And so do all of you!

If that's not enough squee for Hump Day, then check out these Golden Retriever puppies. Awww.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:46 AM PST - 8 comments

In 1984, Richard Bachman's fifth novel, Thinner, came out. It was Bachman's first hardcover release, and the author thought he was on the verge of breaking out (especially since he had recently sold the film rights to The Running Man, his fourth novel). But a clerk at a Washington DC bookstore suspected that Bachman was not who he claimed to be: that "Richard Bachman" was actually Stephen King.
posted by Etrigan at 6:57 AM PST - 56 comments

Nicole Chung took her daughter to see an all-Asian-American production of The Winter's Tale. "There are so many different types of inheritances; one I still hope my children can somehow sidestep is the void, the frustration of desperately searching for yourself, or people like you, in a cultural landscape that does not seem to be for you. And what does it say about you, about your worth and your importance and the possibilities open to you, if you can’t find yourself at all?"
posted by ChuraChura at 5:16 AM PST - 6 comments

The American workplace is an unaccountable, near-dictatorial private govenment with sweeping powers over our lives. Why can't Americans see this? And what should be done about it? [SLVox] Philosopher Elizabeth Anderson makes this argument in her book Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It), based on her 2015 Tanner Lectures in Human Values. She elaborates on these themes in an interview in Jacobin. But Miya Tokumitsu, writing in the New Republic, warns that "[i]n reality, the employment landscape is even more dire than Anderson outlines." (Related previously: F*ck Work!)
posted by informavore at 4:06 AM PST - 85 comments

Maybe you’re thinking, “the best thing I could possibly do right now while I’m sitting at work is watch live video feeds of railroad crossings and hope that the occasional train passes by.” If so, then you might be surprised to know that there’s never been a better time in recorded history than right now! Start by checking what’s currently live on the YouTube accounts of Virtual Railfan, Railstream and Big Trains TV. Most videos in this post include ambient sound — even if traffic noise is quiet the trains will be loud. For more a whole lot more, see below. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 4:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Détour — A very short film by Michel Gondry, shot on an iPhone. In French, with English subtitles. (via Alas, a Blog) [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:25 AM PST - 7 comments

Basement Reels, a Canadian-based group making ~5min short films, both serious and silly, tailored to the Tamil diaspora community. (via tamilculture.com) [more inside]
posted by XMLicious at 12:19 AM PST - 3 comments

WoW Lore TLDR: The first Warcraft lore tl;dr on the internet to use nesting. “Warcraft's lore is intimidatingly complex. It's a chronicle that spans millennia, from the dawn of time and to World of Warcraft's latest patch. Unless you've taken the time to read every book or sift through the wikis, it's not always easy to understand what's going on, who certain characters are, or why the hell it even matters. That's a shame because the lore, while intimidating, is one of the richer mythos in gaming. Fortunately, Reddit user SinanDira has a solution. WoW Lore TLDR is a website that takes the entire backstory of Warcraft and condenses it into digestible bullet points that you can quickly sift through.” [via: PC Gamer]
posted by Fizz at 7:39 PM PST - 14 comments

Donald Trump Says Billions & Billions & Billions & Billions & Billions & Billions. (SLYT). From J-walk, who called it "Best video I've seen all day"
posted by growabrain at 6:47 PM PST - 42 comments

A Tribute to Indian Women Architects
posted by infini at 2:25 PM PST - 14 comments

"I've never had a period before! And maybe, I don't know, maybe it'll make me a better man." "People who experience [periods], they always seem like super stressed about it, and just like it's the end of the world. I want to understand more, why or how it's so stressful." "I won't be the first man to ever have a period, because there are definitely trans men who do have periods." Three men who have never had a period try a menstruation simulator for three days.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:38 AM PST - 71 comments

People who have driven the Trans-Canada Highway through Northwestern Ontario are more than likely acquainted with the Wawa Goose, a roadside attraction located in the town of Wawa. But recently, it became apparent that the steel goose - which replaced a plaster version in 1963 - was deteriorating. After a successful fundraising campaign to help pay for the fabrication of a replacement, the town unveiled its new goose on Canada Day. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:59 AM PST - 50 comments

355 issues of sci-fi golden age magazine Galaxy are now available at The Internet Archive [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:44 AM PST - 20 comments

A demonstration of Schlieren photography, which makes minute changes in air's index of refraction visible, allowing us to see air that is moving or that contains gases that would otherwise be invisible. A segment from a Science Channel program has some additional examples and some explanation. [more inside]
posted by Copronymus at 8:30 AM PST - 15 comments

In a little over a decade, basic income has gone from an idea about as fringe as #FullCommunism to something that could be benefiting 1.2 billion people imminently. It’s an astonishing rise. But the very speed with which basic income took off has led the debate over it to become confused in a deep way. And it’s particularly confused among its proponents, a group in which I include myself. [SLVox]
posted by Chrysostom at 8:10 AM PST - 127 comments

Imagine you're a tiny spider, just trying to make it in a big world, a world where you're likely to be eaten. Oh hey, ants seem to do well, you notice. I'll pretend to be an ant! Apparently the tactic is so successful that there are a few types of ant mimic spiders, including some members of Castianeira sp., and more notably the jumping spider Myrmarachne formicaria, which moves like an ant, even waiving its front-most pair of legs like antenna (full paper). Look closely in your neighborhood or local park, and you might even find a new species of spider that mimics ants.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:23 AM PST - 16 comments

Over a period of less than two years before being murdered by the Nazis, Charlotte Salomon completed Life? or Theater? (Leben? oder Theater?), a massive work in images and writing, to document her life. Before embarking on this project, she had discovered that no fewer than eight of her family members had committed suicide. Shortly before her arrest, she handed Life? or Theater? over to Georges Moridis, who had encouraged her to paint, with the words: “Keep these safe. They are my whole life.” In a new article, Toni Bentley discusses the work in the light of the Salomons' family history and, particularly, Salomon's written and drawn confession that she killed her grandfather.
posted by BibiRose at 6:57 AM PST - 16 comments

Hey, remember Chicken Soup for the Soul? Well, it's about to go public. It's not technically an IPO, but a "Regulation A+" offering, which Jezebel calls "closer to crowdfunding and more like a Kickstarter" than a traditional IPO.
posted by Etrigan at 6:31 AM PST - 13 comments

Scott Modrzynski drew every character (not every superhero, every character) who appeared in the 544 issues of The Uncanny X-Men from 1963 to 2011, as an 'x-icon'. Via Polygon.
posted by signal at 5:59 AM PST - 29 comments

A Modest Proposal for a Fair Trade Emotional Labor Economy (Centered by Disabled, Femme of Color, Working Class/Poor Genius) [more inside]
posted by dysh at 4:59 AM PST - 7 comments

As the R&B legend tours the country this summer, parents have told police that R. Kelly is running an abusive "cult" that's tearing families apart. Three former members of Kelly’s inner circle told BuzzFeed News similar stories. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 3:17 AM PST - 17 comments

Puppy needs hug from cat. Different cat tolerates many puppy hugs. Pig and cow boop. Owls canoodle. Lots more at AnimalsHugging.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:50 PM PST - 12 comments

From The New York Times: many private lenders lack any paperwork proving that they own the debt. Dozens of cases have already been thrown out in students' favor for defaulting. Bonus: most of the loans went to for-profit colleges.
posted by koavf at 7:35 PM PST - 50 comments

EVO 2017’s Street Fighter 5 Grand Final Was Like the Last 15 Minutes of a Rocky Movie [PC Gamer] “You don't have to know anything about Street Fighter to follow this intense, exhilarating veteran vs. prodigy showdown. The three day, nine game event is perfectly engineered to generate amazing stories: anyone can enter, providing opportunity for surprises and upsets, and the double elimination format adds extra tension as one player inevitably battles their way through the loser's bracket to return for vengeance in the final match. It's a hyperconcentrated hit of everything that makes fighting games great, and that's why casual fans like me come away from EVO every year buzzing with excitement. As you watch EVO, you realize there's so much more to Street Fighter than the skill it takes to remember combos and execute special moves. Like any competitive sport, it's about strategy, timing, mind games, momentum, and the narrative we weave between matches. And all of that stuff is perfectly exemplified in this year's Street Fighter 5 grand finals, which came down to a match between veteran Japanese player Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi and up-and-coming American Victor "Punk" Woodley.” (Spoilers in thread) [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:29 PM PST - 16 comments

It's every reporter's nightmare: you work on a story for days/weeks/months/years and right at the finish line someone else beats you to print. Elon Green asks journalists Have you ever been scooped?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:51 PM PST - 13 comments

An overdose, a young companion, drug-fueled parties: The secret life of USC med school dean. slLATimes.
posted by lalochezia at 1:40 PM PST - 55 comments

For sale: 7,400 square feet of wonder and WTF for $1.275M.
posted by GamblingBlues at 10:49 AM PST - 164 comments

Polygon has a long post with some lovely photographs that goes into the details, costs, and struggles of running an independent game store in 2017.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:28 AM PST - 24 comments

It wasn't displayed to the public with its pages open until 2010, but now the 1660 Klencke Atlas - one of the world's largest books, measuring 1.76 m by 2.31 metres when open - has been digitized and is now available for viewing online from the British Library. Watch a timelapse video showing how curators and imaging technicians photographed it (the Klencke Atlas, previously). This is part of the library's ongoing project to catalogue and digitize King George III's topographical collection of over 30,000 maps and views - with the goal of having it available online in 2018. Meanwhile, the library has a parallel project called Transforming Topography underway, which is examining the role of topography in historical scholarship. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:55 AM PST - 9 comments

Why does the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest winner sound so different from other contemporary pop songs? Luís Figueiredo, the arranger of the song “Amar Pelos Dois” sang by Salvador Sobral and written by Luísa Sobral, explains why. Includes an analysis of "corporate" music and advice on finding good new music since you really can't expect corporate radio to give it to you.
posted by JanetLand at 9:39 AM PST - 14 comments

Sheila and Jerry have a problem with swarms. But, there may be a solution: "... the vac doesn't need to be opened right away, but the bees can stay there for a few days until they are no longer furious at being sucked up in a vacuum." In which people describe how to build or operate a vacuum for the collection of bees. Can be built using Staples clear boxes by a foundation activist. Can be used by someone in shorts on a ladder, a sensibly suited individual, a stereotypical tea party supporter or someone crouching next to a "missile detector". Sheila and Jerry give it a go.
posted by Wordshore at 8:13 AM PST - 17 comments

Interested in productivity but can't relate to the dry managerialness of GTD or the saccharineness of the planner decoration world? Want advice and insight from nerdy, salty, artist types? Check out Productivity Alchemy, a podcast by sysadmin and media producer Kevin Sonney featuring his wife, author, illustrator, and Wombat Test Subject Ursula Vernon, as well as interviews with people from all walks of life who are all convinced that they are not as organised as people think they are.
posted by divabat at 6:55 AM PST - 61 comments

Sketchplanations is a Tumblr/mailing list wherein Jono Hey draws a quick explanation of a thing each week or so, ranging from the browse line ("A distinctive line below which you don’t tend to see leaves or branches in places with animals that like eating leaves or branches.") to the beard cycle, an example of negative frequency-dependent selection.
posted by Etrigan at 5:57 AM PST - 9 comments

The world of Formula 1 has learned a new expression. It is called "the Shoey". Initiated by Daniel "Honey Badger" Ricciardo, the Shoey has plenty of unsuspecting victims. Including someone rather famous.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 4:27 AM PST - 28 comments

 The Reformation did a lot more than transform Christianity. - " This paradox—that the Reformation could birth a peasant revolt while its instigator rallied behind the princes—is a picture of Protestantism’s confusing political legacy in miniature. Protestantism arguably brought about many of the preconditions for the Enlightenment and liberalism, and at the very least introduced Europe to a headier skepticism of authority than had prevailed before. (Indeed, Roper credits the Reformation with sparking the secularization of the West.) On the other hand, the release of significant portions of life—namely politics and economics—-from the purview of religious authority may have expanded certain freedoms, but it didn’t result in a betterment of conditions for the most disadvantaged, even as it helped transform the Christian message into something far more internal and private than that of the earlier Church."  By Elizabeth Bruenig
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:19 PM PST - 24 comments

"We are convinced that the future of Volvo is electric" -- Håkan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars Corporation AB, in a short promotional video from Volvo. The company has recently announced that "the cars that [they produce] from 2019 onwards will range from battery-only to plug-in hybrid – which can run for a significant distance before switching to petrol or diesel – and mild hybrids, where a battery helps a conventional engine achieve greater fuel economy." While this serves customers who have asked for more electric and hybrid car options, Adam Vaughan, writing for The Guardian, also points out "the move will also help the Swedish firm meet legally-binding carbon targets for new cars sold in the EU from 2020." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:58 PM PST - 79 comments

Felines with tiny faces. More at /r/BigHeadCat and /r/MiniPaws (including a mini-face doggo).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:44 PM PST - 4 comments

Oscar winner and star of the original Mission:Impossible, Martin Landau has died, age 89. Wikipedia
posted by theora55 at 6:37 PM PST - 71 comments

The Famous Five turn 75 [more inside]
posted by unliteral at 5:19 PM PST - 19 comments

Videlicet is a one-off vidding zine that tells the history of fanvids, breaks down vidding techniques, and provides critical analyses of classic vids. Edited by lim, a fan artist whose work was recently shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery. [more inside]
posted by galaxy rise at 4:41 PM PST - 5 comments

George A. Romero is dead George Andrew Romero was an American-Canadian filmmaker and editor, best known for his series of gruesome and satirical horror films about an imagined zombie apocalypse, beginning with Night of the Living Dead and notably continuing on with Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.[1] His other works contributed include The Crazies, Creepshow, Martin, Monkey Shines, and The Dark Half. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 3:21 PM PST - 97 comments

In 1971,, the Texas based hard rock band Bloodrock released the song "D.O.A." a tune about a plane crash and it's aftermath, described by one critic as "the most gruesome song to ever hit the Top 40. You be the judge.
posted by jonmc at 1:58 PM PST - 64 comments

House finches in Mexico City have discovered that used cigarette butts can serve as an effective insecticide against fleas and ticks in their nests.. There is experimental evidence that their insecticide use is intentional. Unfortunately it comes with genotoxic side effects. [more inside]
posted by heatherlogan at 9:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Game Critics by videogamedunkey [YouTube] “...because there’s nothing game critics like talking about more than game critics and the work of game critics. I like a lot of Dunkey’s work but I disagree with most of this video, which criticises (among other things) big sites like IGN and Gamespot for expressing different opinions on games depending on which staff member at the site is talking at any given moment. Leading to situations where one IGN person says “Sonic sucks” and another person says “Sonic is great” and so on. Obviously I think writers expressing their individual opinions is a good thing (and there’s a reason why I always mention the author’s name alongside the links in Sunday Papers). There’s also a bunch of other stuff in there about game scores and whether you need to complete games before reviewing them and so on, all of which is the exact same argument people have been having for, oh, about 25 years now.” [via: Rock Paper Shotgun] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:05 AM PST - 32 comments

In a YouTube video released today, the BBC announced that the successor to Peter Capaldi as The Doctor in Doctor Who will be actress Jodie Whittaker of Broadchurch and Black Mirror.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:01 AM PST - 251 comments

Jerry Foster and the birth of modern television news. A longread biography of the man who upended television news.
posted by pjern at 6:48 AM PST - 10 comments

Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin) speaks with ex-Korg engineer Tatsuya Takahasi on their collaboration on the monologue, microtuning, geometry and dreams. Plus new Aphex Twin track 'Korg Funk 5' using exclusively Korg synths. Double plus: 'AI Synths'
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:43 AM PST - 11 comments

Hey, remember that monkey selfie copyright drama a few years ago? It's just hit the US appeals courts. But the crested black macaques of Sulawesi have more immediate concerns than copyright law: they are hunted for meat, kept as pets, and threatened by a shrinking habitat. For these monkeys, it’s a fight for survival.
posted by homunculus at 7:15 PM PST - 22 comments

The game Bloodborne (previously, previously, previously) has a feature known as the Chalice Dungeon (some spoilers in that link, and throughout). Chalice Dungeons are procedurally generated content that allows a player to explore unique challenges, pieced together from a large pool of possible room combinations (similar to a rogue-light). In Chalice Dungeons, intrepid hunters face new enemies, find new items, and experience new boss fights not seen in the main game. However, due to the fact that Bloodborne is a PS4 exclusive, hackers have yet to crack into the game to find whatever secrets might be held within unexplored chalices. A group of hunters, nicknamed Tomb Prospectors, have dedicated themselves to the exploration of this mysterious part of the game (link is directed to Reddit). Patricia Hernandez, writing at Kotaku, has a profile of the group with a little more info about their quest to uncover Bloodborne's last secrets.
posted by codacorolla at 6:27 PM PST - 5 comments

"A short version of the story: there’s a landfill, there’s a fire, there’s nuclear waste left over from the Manhattan Project. People are dying of rare cancers."
posted by Lycaste at 4:49 PM PST - 35 comments

The English-language website of Taiwan's National Palace Museum has over two thousand images available from its archive in high quality scans. You can search by keyword or browse by dynasty and category. For instance, you can take a look at Ming-era paintings, Song-era jade craftworks or Ch'ing-era ceramics. You can also download images from recent expeditions. If you haven't had your fill, you can then browse the museum's Chinese language websites for painting and antiquities, which have a combined 70 thousand images. If you don't know Chinese and want to use the search function, Google Translate might be of some help.
posted by Kattullus at 4:35 PM PST - 5 comments

Glamour magazine asks: Does Mainstream Porn have a Race Problem?
Other excellent articles: The Anti-Blackness of Interracial Porn: "Interracial porn is a present day articulation of miscegenation/antimiscegenation." Pornography and Race: "[Pornographic] films... trade in the long-standing racist myth that black men are more animalistic, sexually violent and less evolved than white men. " Why Are Whites Always the Bottom in Interracial Porn?: "The buyer is white, and he doesn’t want to see it. He wants the Mandingo experience: a forceful submission to a hypersexual, superaggressive, hung-like-the-Florida-Panhandle street thug." An Open Letter To Gay Porn Studios About Interracial Videos: "The pressure for a black man to perform as the insatiable 'mandingo' top is a tired and unimaginative stereotype that does not reflect real life." [more inside]
posted by AFABulous at 3:08 PM PST - 63 comments

One author. One topic. Lots of irrigation.
posted by sibilatorix at 2:52 PM PST - 9 comments

The first teaser trailer for A Wrinkle In Time has been released.
posted by hippybear at 1:25 PM PST - 117 comments

A company staffed and run largely by former convicts is now serving some of the best fried chicken in Ohio.
posted by queen anne's remorse at 12:28 PM PST - 17 comments

Dr. Jen Gunter is an MD who is a board-certified OB/GYN and also an active blogger. She recently took on Gwenyth Paltrow's Goop empire in a blog post where she examined a number of its fraudulent medical claims, citing concern for how, when taken seriously, these claims can negatively affect her patients. In a follow-up post, Gunter has called their response to her science-based criticism "a mansplaining, misogynistic hit job." [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:49 AM PST - 93 comments

At 4 days old, Brandless sells household products in minimalist packaging online for $3 or less. It has industry veterans at the helm who see the opportunity to disrupt the market and $50 million from willing investors. How do you brand "brandless"? You start by trademarking a white box listing its descriptors like organic, non-GMO, no added sugar, no artificial preservatives, and gluten free. [more inside]
posted by Chipeaux at 9:31 AM PST - 105 comments

Researchers at Facebook realized their bots were chattering in a new language. Then they stopped it.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:47 AM PST - 40 comments

If You Hear Someone Getting Harassed In An Online Game, Don't Stay Silent by Cecilia D'Anastasio [Kotaku]

“I think we’d do better with a healer,” I suggested to my Overwatch team earlier this week. We were in the spawn room defending the Temple of Anubis and, without a healer, we would quickly forfeit the objective. Not even the slightest pause passed before a teammate told me that, instead, “What we need is another man.”

This frustrating incident was sandwiched between two other matches, and in each, a teammate had snarked on my gender after I had attempted to strategize through voice chat. Earlier, I was referred to as “that fuckin’ bitch” when I asked whether we felt good about our team composition. And, in the spawn room of Horizon Lunar Colony later that night, after wishing my team good luck, I was asked: “Can you play? I just want to know. I’m so curious. Do you know how to play Overwatch?” On no occasion did any other player on these six-person teams say anything about it.
posted by Fizz at 7:41 AM PST - 54 comments

Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, known for her exceptional contributions in dynamics, hyperbolic geometry, and the theory of Riemann surfaces (e.g. this collection of papers and the results here (all pdf)), as well as for being the first woman to win the Fields Medal, often described as the "Nobel Prize of mathematics", has died of cancer, aged 40. One can find her work here.
posted by busted_crayons at 6:07 AM PST - 65 comments

The just-released (and unfortunately Windows-only) Mega Maker allows players to use a simple interface to build and share Mega Man levels using selected assets from the original games. There's a trailer here and you might want to read this interview with the creator about his process, comparisons to Mario Maker, and why he's not concerned about the possibility of a DMCA takedown. [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:50 AM PST - 17 comments

Alex Jones rants remixed as a Bon Iver song (slyt)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:27 AM PST - 18 comments

Close to 200 trillion watts of kinetic energy lurk in the seas: more than enough to power the planet, if we could somehow extract it all.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:05 PM PST - 30 comments

If you're a fan of drum and bass and other beat-driven music, the past two BBC Essential Mixes have been gems. Last week saw the relative up-and-comer Alex Crossan, aka Mura Masa, blend vintage jungle sounds with a range of modern styles (BBC, MixesDB, Global DJ Mix), from Thom Yorke to MF Doom. The week prior, Dominick Martin, aka Calibre, spun two hours in the studio, oscillating between drum'n'bass and more ambient soundscapes (BBC, MixesDB, Global DJ Mix), weaving in a bit of Charles Bukowski to set the mood. Where Mura Masa presented in advance of his new self-titled album (streaming via Spotify embedded), Calibre has a dozen albums to date, with his newest, The Deep (official track samples on YouTube), released this past March. More music and musing below the break. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:52 PM PST - 3 comments

Gretchen Rachel Hammond was suspended as a reporter for the Windy City Times after the journalist broke a story about women carrying rainbow flags emblazoned with the Star of David being asked by Chicago Dyke March organizers to leave a rally following the march (previously). This isn’t the first time this year Hammond has been the subject, rather than the author, of a Chicago news story. In January, she sued the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Hammond, a former fund-raiser for the victim advocacy group, charged that SNAP exploited victims of sexual abuse by clergy in return for financial kickbacks from attorneys. In the months following the filing of the suit, both the founder/president and executive director of the Chicago-based organization resigned. [more inside]
posted by layceepee at 5:03 PM PST - 68 comments

Man lets Google Autocomplete write his CV.
posted by Omnomnom at 5:02 PM PST - 31 comments

Humans are so disappointing lately. Here are some stories of remarkable dogs:

• Sergeant Stubby: The Most Decorated Dog of The First World War
• The memorial alone can't quite convey the whole story: "In commemoration of the devotion of Tip. The sheepdog which stayed by the body of her dead master Mr. Joseph Tagg on the Howden Moors for fifteen weeks from 12th December 1953 to 27th March 1954."
• An associate editor for the Global Journal of Addiction & Rehabilitation Medicine, Olivia Doll, lists some very unusual research interests, such as "avian propinquity to canines in metropolitan suburbs" and "the benefits of abdominal massage for medium-sized canines." That's probably because Olivia Doll is a Staffordshire terrier named Ollie who enjoys chasing birds and getting belly rubs. In all her spare time, Ollie also has sat on the editorial boards of not one, but seven, medical journals.
• The Final Resting Places of 7 Famous Dogs

Bonus: Cassie is such a good singer [not kidding].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:30 PM PST - 12 comments

The Great. Red. Spot. "On July 11, 2017, at 00:55 UTC, the armored tank of a space probe Juno reached perijove, the closest point in its orbit over the mighty planet Jupiter. Screaming above the cloud tops at over 200,000 kilometers per hour — fast enough to cross the continental Unites States in a minute and a half — it took eleven minutes and 33 seconds to reach the Great Red Spot. Looking down from its height of a mere 9000 km above the clouds, what it saw was ... glorious." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 3:36 PM PST - 17 comments

Welcome to the IEEE's Chip Hall of Fame. With such estimable entries as the KAF-1300 Image Sensor, the world's first commercial CCD image sensor, TI's famous TMC0281 Speech Synthesizer or the heart of nearly ever 80's 8-bit computer, the MOS Technology 6502. The building blocks of this modern electronic world.
posted by GuyZero at 2:08 PM PST - 25 comments

How Fan Ho, Hong Kong’s poet with a camera, found his calling – in his own words In one of his last interviews, Fan Ho, who died a year ago, aged 84, recalls how he rediscovered his passion for photography – and some old negatives – to finally gain the recognition and respect he longed for [more inside]
posted by infini at 2:05 PM PST - 3 comments

Overturned truck of "slime eels" transforms Oregon road into highway of nightmares.
posted by tocts at 12:34 PM PST - 81 comments

Do you live in a high seismic activity area? Are you not in any way claustrophobic? Then the Dahir Insaat Earthquake Safety Bed is for you! It's just one of the many innovations from Dahir Insaat, including quadcopters for destroying entire air forces, drive through grocery stores, and whatever this is. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 11:29 AM PST - 43 comments

Taiwan's feisty parliament, the Legislative Yuan, descended into fistfights, water balloon launches, and chair throwing again this week over a massive infrastructure spending plan. Members of the opposition Kuomintang clad in blue swarmed the podium. against the green-wearing Democratic Progressive Party, the latest in decades of dust-ups between the two camps. [more inside]
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 11:16 AM PST - 6 comments

Young Actors Keep Ignoring Amitabh Bachchan's Texts And It's Twitter's Most Baghban Ongoing Saga [more inside]
posted by cendawanita at 11:08 AM PST - 17 comments

Playing Soviet: Princeton's Firestone Library presents a browsable database of Russian children's books.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:46 AM PST - 12 comments

The Tank Museum at Bovington Camp in Dorset, England, is the largest collection of tanks in the world. They have the only running Tiger I in the world (which had a starring role in Fury), and the world's oldest surviving tank, the First World War Mark I. They The have an annual TankFest where they show off their tanks operating outdoors. Their YouTube channel is full of fun: Top Five Tanks with Lindybeige, Top Five Tanks with Stuntman Jim Dowdall, and David Fletcher's Tank Chats.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:41 AM PST - 25 comments

Bloopdance. Press on the screen and shake your phone. Turn up the volume. (works best on a smartphone)
posted by ourobouros at 10:03 AM PST - 22 comments

"The working class that actually exists bears little resemblance to the fantasies of the affluent, highly educated hacks who are paid to vomit their thoughts into newspaper columns. The new American working class is far more likely to be bussing tables at Applebee’s than wolfing down reheated appetizers until their Dockers rip. But many columnists put outsize focus on the most traditionally masculine blue-collar professions, many of which make up a negligible percentage of the total workforce." Stop Patronizing The Working Class, Alex Nichols for eThe Outline.
posted by The Whelk at 9:15 AM PST - 63 comments

Cat-Scan.com 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 scanners, or why. [more inside]
posted by cortex at 9:15 AM PST - 139 comments

Pop Music's History of Lip-Syncing (and Lying About It)
posted by Etrigan at 8:38 AM PST - 25 comments

Hi, I'm Horace Rumpole! You might remember me from such previous posts as "SLYT of Things Blowing Up in Slow Motion" and "That Listicle Everyone Hated". Today I'm here to bring you a tale about the making of a little toe-tapping musical smash called Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:06 AM PST - 29 comments

SoundCloud lays off 40% of its staff, only has enough money to make it to the next quarter. The audio streaming service, while popular with amateur and semi-professional musicians and podcasters, has struggled to find a viable business model that would make it competitive with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. If it shuts down, it would mean the loss of a huge repository of music not found elsewhere. Perhaps Chance the Rapper (one of the many rappers who have achieved fame via SoundCloud) will save it?
posted by Cash4Lead at 6:22 AM PST - 65 comments

"The bombing of the little girls in Alabama and the murder of Medgar Evers were like the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that made no sense until you had fitted the whole thing together. I suddenly realized what it was to be Black in America in 1963, but it wasn’t an intellectual connection…it came as a rush of fury, hatred and determination." Nina Simone's husband and manager, intervened. "You can’t kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do." An hour later, Nina Simone had composed a song called Mississippi Goddam.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:57 AM PST - 6 comments

Crash Bandicoot: An Oral History [Polygon] “Naughty Dog released Crash Bandicoot [YouTube] for Sony's original PlayStation in September 1996. In it, the team took an old idea and changed its point of view, redesigning the idea of a 2D sidescroller and planting the camera behind its protagonist's back for the majority of the game. To learn more about what happened along the way, we recently spoke to the entire development team, contractors, musicians, marketers and others, hearing a story of long nights, groundbreaking technology, unbearable crunches and expensive parties. However, not every story lines up the same way, with some feeling that Naughty Dog discredited their contributions by burying who actually created the flagship character. One thing rings true throughout: The tales culminate in the creation of a game that redefined the platformer genre and laid some of the early cornerstones for making Naughty Dog the juggernaut development studio it is today.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:43 AM PST - 14 comments

Officer Olden says," he leaves his phone in his truck, he's installing a new lock on the door, and he gets locked inside the building where the ATM is." [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 12:12 AM PST - 34 comments

"Last November, a humpback whale swam up the Hudson River. The animal was spotted slapping its fin near the Upper West Side and then splashing below the Statue of Liberty’s effervescent mint skirt. [An expert] assured reporters that it was likely not lost but hungry." Cleaner water in the Hudson has cleared the way for whales to return to New York City for the first time in 100 years, in such numbers that you can take urban whale-watching cruises. And citizen scientists are on the case (and on the boats)!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:50 PM PST - 7 comments

Graphing the distribution of English letters towards the beginning, middle or end of words. [via Kottke]
posted by Chrysostom at 9:15 PM PST - 10 comments

The 69th EMMY Awards nominations are out. [more inside]
posted by unliteral at 7:00 PM PST - 43 comments

The world’s most ubiquitous vegetable oil and growing in popularity as a biofuel, palm oil’s impacts have been dire and dramatic. Habitat devastation, child labor violations, displacement of indigenous peoples and climate change acceleration is worsening as palm oil production spreads from Southeast Asia to South America and West Africa. The award-winning film Frontera Invisible (2016) documents the human cost of the rush by big landowners' to convert acreage to palm oil to produce ‘green’ fuel for the European market. The 2016 Oxfam report Feeding Climate Change on food commodities found that palm oil industry has the fourth highest greenhouse gas emissions footprint; in late 2015, the forest fires in Southeast Asia, many set to clear rainforests and peatland for palm plantation, had daily emissions higher than the daily emission output of the U.S. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:47 PM PST - 22 comments

"Grain, or more accurately dependence on grain, is what separated farmers from foragers, Jacob from Esau. Grains underpin civilization: portable, easily renewable, nutritionally dense foods that can be grown in surplus and stored — or kept from those the holder deems unworthy...So how did grain fall from sacred to commonplace? To become something tossed about without thought, wasted, even scorned?" Hank Shaw, proprietor of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, considers the miracle of seeds from grasses in "A Grain of Wheat." [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:29 PM PST - 9 comments

Google's DeepMind AI Teaches Itself to Walk [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 6:07 PM PST - 33 comments

Scharlette Holdman has died at 70. She tirelessly fought to save those facing the death penalty. You can read about her and her work in books and articles, or listen to a radio program. I had the privilege of meeting her in the 90's in San Francisco. She was dedicated, smart, angry, and hilarious - and all to a degree most people I know never approach. RIP. There is more justice in the world because you were here.
posted by mzurer at 4:50 PM PST - 14 comments

A giant lizard doesn't wag his tail. He won't knock you over when you walk in the door and drown you in welcome-home kisses. But Scott and his wife Ice know their 20-pound Argentine red tegu loves them [soft music and ambient] — in his own lizardly way [soft music and ambient]. Be sure to watch the FAQ [narration]. Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:25 PM PST - 13 comments

Most mefites are aware of the link between librarians and intellectual freedom through initiatives like Freedom to Read week and Banned Books week. This week a controversial request to hold a memorial for a lawyer who defended far right extremists at a branch of the Toronto Public Library has Canadian librarians caught between obligations to their principles and obligations to their patrons.
posted by peppermind at 4:19 PM PST - 10 comments

Tool-use, bartering, and delayed gratification even better than great apes.
posted by MovableBookLady at 3:28 PM PST - 22 comments

The elephant was found 10 miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, struggling to keep its trunk above water after being carried away by the strong current. [more inside]
posted by Lanark at 3:16 PM PST - 18 comments

In September 1942, Office of War Information photographer Marjory Collins paid a visit to the offices of the New York Times, located at the iconic One Times Square and an annex on 43rd Street. There, she documented each step of the messy, physical process as news coming in over the wires was sorted, edited, rewritten, laid out, and printed, all under an ever-approaching deadline... (Mashable)
posted by jim in austin at 3:08 PM PST - 11 comments

An archive of over 700 posters from Oxfam campaigns through the decades. A fascinating survey of the history of design and social change.
posted by salishsea at 10:55 AM PST - 2 comments

Liu Xiaobo, Chinese professor, political dissident, human rights and civil rights activist, prisoner of conscience, Nobel peace prize laureate (2010, previously), died from liver cancer while under state custody. [more inside]
posted by runcifex at 10:50 AM PST - 29 comments

The official investigation into the offshore assets of Pakistan's Prime Minster, Nawaz Sharif, and his family has alleged that Maryam Nawaz forged documents based on their use of the Calibri font, which was not publicly available when the documents were supposed to have been submitted. The Joint Investigation Team's report could have severe consequences for Sharif, since filing a false statement could make him constitutionally ineligible to be a member of Pakistan's parliament. The Wikipedia has also gotten involved as a reference for the history of Calibri and when exactly it might have been available. [more inside]
posted by Copronymus at 10:19 AM PST - 37 comments

The first video from the new Nine Inch Nails EP has been released, and it has an unexpected ingredient: A hefty helping of urban legend turned Jeff Minter game Polybius.
posted by Artw at 10:18 AM PST - 37 comments

"To isolate the origin of the Gorgon's petrifying terror, it is necessary to pare back centuries of accretions reflecting terrors peculiar to each passing age and stare down the original Gorgon—the grotesque, bulging-eyed, disembodied head." Caroline Alexander writes of Medusa's head as an evergreen "talisman of terror" in her essay, The Dread Gorgon.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 9:53 AM PST - 17 comments

As he was brushing his teeth on the morning of July 17, 2014, Thomas Royen, a little-known retired German statistician, suddenly lit upon the proof of a famous conjecture at the intersection of geometry, probability theory and statistics that had eluded top experts for decades.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:29 AM PST - 24 comments

In a new paper, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have studied the way ants use their bodies to construct towers when they run into a tall obstruction while looking for food or escaping to new areas. They suggest that the ants build these structures without a leader or coordinated effort. The paper's authors built on previous research that shows how simple behavioural rules can lead to the creation of a resilient structure. Kind of like Castells, but for fire ants. If you prefer your fire ants in a different configuration, they also make rafts.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:12 AM PST - 10 comments

We've seen lots of cakes covered in heavy fondant and mirror-finish glazes, but Singaporean baker Susanne Ng's pastel-hued Instagram is full of "naked" and fluffy chiffon cakes, fashioned into everything from cute penguins to rainbows (lots of rainbows!) to a cloud cake that looks as light as air. Her YouTube channel has a few videos, and her website is chock full of more cakes, cupcakes, and recipes, including these adorable animal macarons. Bonus: Cakespy's The Story Of Chiffon Cake.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:00 AM PST - 41 comments

Meatballs: An Oral History
posted by Chrysostom at 8:43 PM PST - 43 comments

"I declare a snark battle with that dumb National Review essay comparing women to cowboys." [more inside]
posted by Evilspork at 8:24 PM PST - 104 comments

The untold origins of Gamergate — and the gaming legends who spawned the modern culture of abuse

Today, most people probably aren’t familiar with Old Man Murray, a gaming and humor website that ran from 1997 to 2002. Its writers and founders may ring a bell, though, as the creative minds behind some of the industry's most critically acclaimed games. Erik Wolpaw was a writer for Psychonauts, Portal 1, and Portal 2. Chet Faliszek was a writer on Left 4 Dead and Portal 1-2. Together, they “invented the internet,” as Scott Pilgrim author Bryan Lee O’Malley put it.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:10 PM PST - 183 comments

Canadian researchers reconstituted an extinct poxvirus for $100,000 using mail-order DNA Sciencemag: Virologists synthesized the extinct horsepox - harmless to humans - by combining genetic material ordered by mail. [more inside]
posted by hapaxes.legomenon at 8:09 PM PST - 20 comments

Hollow Knight's Charming Art Sets the Bar for Hand Drawn Games [PC Gamer] “I've been obsessed with indie metroidvania Hollow Knight [Release Trailer] [Beneath and Beyond Trailer] since its launch late last month. Apart from having fun and challenging combat and a massive amount of game to explore, I've found myself sucked in by the moody, Dark Souls-inspired setting developer Team Cherry has created. Despite a mostly monotone dark color palette, the dank corridors of Hallownest still feel vibrant thanks to how Hollow Knight mixes fantastic hand drawn art with more modern effects. It's a lot of little things all coming together that make Hollow Knight look so good, many of which you may not actively notice. It's a 2D game with 2D animations, but Team Cherry's use of dynamic lighting, shadows, and particle effects do a huge amount of work to solidify those 2D sketches and make them feel real in whatever space they're in. And while the character designs are relatively clean and simple, animation fills them with personality. ” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:58 PM PST - 6 comments

The FBI is required by law to collect data about hate crimes in the United States, but local jurisdictions aren't required to report incidents up to the federal government. As a predictable consequence, the FBI's data is incomplete. To help fill in the gaps, ProPublica's Documenting Hate is constructing a non-public-facing database to offer a broader picture of hate crimes and bias incidents in the U.S., and reporting on their preliminary findings, including recent surges in visits to white supremacist websites, an interview with a scholar of the far-right and the New York Police Department's rare diligence in tracking hate crimes. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 4:31 PM PST - 11 comments

Yes, it's another list of "all time bests" to be debated, disputed, dissected, and deemed various levels of unworthiness. NPR Books' Summer Reader Poll 2017: 100 Favorite Comics And Graphic Novels got over 7000 different nominated works, whittled down to a hunnerd by a shockingly four-fifths female judging panel (Including G. Willow Wilson and C. Spike Trotman). Yes, there are subcategories for Superheroes, Newspaper Comics and Web Comics (which semi-oddly includes Homestuck and The Nib). Let the WebArguments begin!
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:45 PM PST - 46 comments

Please enjoy this anodyne for troubled times: Adorable Raccoon Babies Make Human Friend [sprightly music, titles]. BoredPanda offers more evidence of the animal's infernal charm. What could be better, you ask? Raccoon and dogs! Inside Edition promo [voiceover and music], Youtube channel.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:25 PM PST - 16 comments

Last November, Michelle Diament reported that Disability Portrayals On TV At Record High (Disability Scoop), citing GLAAD's 2016-2017 "Where We Are on TV" report (PDF), but unfortunately, another study by the Ruderman Family Foundation found that Able-Bodied Actors Play 95% of Disabled Characters in Top 10 TV Shows (Variety). Still, there are a few shows shaking up disability representation on television, with David M. Perry, a disability rights journalist, highlighting Speechless and Switched at Birth for both accurate casting and over-all portrayal of life with disabilities. NPR recently added Game of Thrones to the list of notable shows regarding disabilities, though it's not without issues. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:04 PM PST - 15 comments

Kesha Fans Lose Their Minds Listening to Her Hit a High Note
posted by gwint at 12:34 PM PST - 49 comments

Thrifted Transformations is a YouTube series by April aka coolirpa, and it is all about transforming thrift shop clothes (and sometimes not-clothes) into entirely new creations. (See also ReFashionista, previously on MeFi.)
posted by capricorn at 12:31 PM PST - 6 comments

"From then on, she would eliminate onion and garlic, alliums thought to conjure sexual energy, from her diet. She would stop eating red lentils for the same reason—these were, apparently, edible pulses as potent as aphrodisiacs. She would stamp out meat and fish, staples of cooking in Paschim Dinajpur, and stick to a rigorously strict vegetarian diet. She would be restricted to one meal a day, mid-day. At night, she would have puffed rice, khoi, with milk. Following this odd, constricting decree was culturally expected of her and other Hindu, high-caste widows in Bengal."
posted by Lycaste at 12:20 PM PST - 11 comments

In which Canadian rapper B. Rich delivers the world's first C&D order in the form of a rap video. To Coca-Cola.
posted by Shepherd at 11:24 AM PST - 20 comments

Rape Choreography Makes Films Safer, But Still Takes a Toll on Cast and Crew by April Wolfe, LA Weekly

With this many on-screen rape scenes being produced, people like MacNair are needed more than ever on set to supervise. "These actresses are playing a vulnerable part, and they're half naked, so I'm assisting for safety reasons," MacNair says. "If [the production] didn't have a choreographer, I would not trust it."

[CW: numerous descriptions of fictional and real sexual assault; several still images of sexual assault scenes from films]
posted by melissasaurus at 11:08 AM PST - 18 comments

Explorable Explainations are interactive online game/toy/video hybrids that teach complex concepts through interactivity. Some classics (which may have been discussed here before) include the Parable of the Polygons about segregation (by Vi Hart and Nicky Case), an interactive guide to p-hacking (from 538), an intro to digital signal processing, a sentencing simulation by the Marshall Project, and a guide to game design using games by Amit Patel. Just added to this list is a really interesting video/interactive tool on what viruses can teach us about design.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:30 AM PST - 4 comments

Michel Robillard is a retired Frenchman and a cabinet-maker by profession since the age of 14. He shares two passions, wood and cars and, it would seem, a true love of the 2CV. [more inside]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:20 AM PST - 15 comments

Warhammer 40K is Predicting the Present. How the UK's economy and politics of the last thirty years is reflected by rise and fall (and rise again?) of Games Workshop.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:01 AM PST - 33 comments

Regular marble runs are fun, but Jelle created a whole Marblelympics! [more inside]
posted by Stark at 3:35 AM PST - 17 comments

Join Comic Book Girl 19 and read and discuss Frank Herbert's Dune. The Dune Book Club is streamed live on Twitch on Sundays at 3 pt.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:30 AM PST - 8 comments

MTV News—and other sites—are frantically pivoting to video. It won’t work.
posted by Artw at 10:21 PM PST - 112 comments

In these stressful times, you've gotta hang onto what's important. Like a single can of beer, as your checked luggage.
posted by ferret branca at 8:18 PM PST - 23 comments

At E3 2017, Black Characters' Hair Looks Better Than Ever [Kotaku] “While this year’s E3 was definitely full of afros, I noticed a difference. The hair looked right. It looked good, even, and it wasn’t played for a joke. Characters with afros, like this unnamed woman in the trailer for A Way Out, weren’t shucking and jiving. Her hair texture implies that “particulate mass of hyper-tight curls” that Narcisse describes. [...] There are a lot of cool looking games featuring—or even starring—black women that were shown at E3 this year. From Wolfenstein II’s hard-edged revolutionary to Far Cry 5's Grace Armstrong to the Dishonored DLC’s Billie Lurk, this was the first E3 in recent memory where I couldn’t just count all the women of all color on one hand. It’s frankly amazing, and I’m really excited to play these games. Especially Wolfenstein II. I love everything about this unnamed character who is part of the American resistance against the Nazis, and I want to meet this socialist revolutionary cell, thanks.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:18 PM PST - 23 comments

"You see; shoelaces are not just shoelaces when you view them through the filter of everything all at once. They are the raw material of knots, and knots are the embodiment of mathematical beauty; mathematical beauty is a fabulously useful tool for rational problem solving; and rational problem solving is, of course, the most powerful tool for changing the world. In my Nye’s-eye view of the world, tying a well-crafted knot is like a personal promise to engage in that whole glorious process." An article on the beauty and strength of good knots, by Bill Nye. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:57 PM PST - 47 comments

Sure, you know your kimchi from your kasha varnishkes. Maybe you know your hanbok from your kopotes at 20 paces. But when it comes to music, how well can you tell: Korean or Hasidic?
posted by Mchelly at 2:50 PM PST - 19 comments

29 Bullets. Russell Davies argues that, maybe, PowerPoint is... good?
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:25 AM PST - 93 comments

The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo Brian Jordan Alvarez, one of Variety's 10 comics to watch in 2017, is the creator and costar of The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo, "the best web series of 2016." Read an interview with Brian at Remezcla in which he discusses growing up gay in Tennessee, the show's breakout, non-binary character Freckle, and the possibility of a future with Lionsgate.
posted by landunderwave at 10:53 AM PST - 10 comments

"Epic How To" breaks down the process and purpose of presidential impeachment Learn everything you need to know about how to impeach the President! Not any particular President. Just in general. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 10:15 AM PST - 28 comments

More shocking developments have come to light (Matt Shuham and Allegra Kirkland, TPM) in the on-going investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged efforts with the Russian Government to undermine the integrity of United States Presidential election and the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, the so-called Better Care Reconciliation Act, the Republican effort to undermine health insurance for tens of millions people, has met with resistance from all parts of the political spectrum. [more inside]
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 10:10 AM PST - 3524 comments

Beginning today, the ACLU of New Jersey is tweeting a realtime re-enactment of the Newark Rebellion of July 12-17, 1967. @Newark1967 will chronicle six days of violence and terror that followed the beating of a black cab driver by two policemen, piled upon years of disenfranchisement, white flight and divestment. Initially, civil rights leaders called for peaceful protest, but community anger had reached a boiling point. In the violence, destruction, and chaos that ensued, the police occupied the city, the National Guard was called in, and in the end 24 civilians (including several women and children as young as 10), along with a firefighter and a police officer, were killed; more than 500 were injured, and more than a thousand arrested. It was just one in the United States' long history of uprisings related to racism. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 10:00 AM PST - 4 comments

Like most museums, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art can show only a fraction of its collection at once, largely due to space constraints. In its case, only about 5% of its treasures are on view at a time. To increase accessibility to its nearly 35,000 works, the museum has a really neat tool that literally places artworks in the palm of your hand: Send Me SFMOMA, a text messaging service that sends you images of artworks in response to your personal interests. [via] [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 8:50 AM PST - 21 comments

Accounts at the central bank: technical policy choice, or a right? - "There will come a point when comprehension that offering digital accounts with the central bank is possible becomes widespread. Then, the discussion about whether it should do so may change gear somewhat." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:09 AM PST - 12 comments

The people of Canada come from many different backgrounds. Quilt of Belonging is a collaborative work of art whose mission is to recognize Canada’s diversity, celebrate our common humanity and promote harmony and compassion among people. [more inside]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:44 AM PST - 4 comments

Can Anyone Repair the National Lampoon? Vanity Fair dives deep into the sordid (and ongoing) fate of the National Lampoon brand – a story that begins with Kenney, O'Donoghue, and the vanguard of 1970s comedy, and ends with multiple FBI raids, the 'Madoff of the Midwest', and a long, desultory history of tasteless movies and tie-ins.
posted by workingdankoch at 11:45 PM PST - 38 comments

Unlocking the Secrets Behind the Hummingbird's Frenzy "With their rocketing movements and jewel-like plumage, hummingbirds seem like a hybrid of flesh, feather, and fireworks. The wings of some species flap up to a hundred times per second. Their heart rate can exceed a thousand beats per minute, and they gulp nectar with a near-invisible flick of the tongue. In gardens or at backyard feeders, they’re the definition of fleeting beauty. So who could resist the temptation to slow their motion, to dissect their movements—to inhabit, even briefly, the hummingbird’s world?" [more inside]
posted by dhruva at 9:54 PM PST - 28 comments

Good Business - a science fiction short film based on the work of Simon Roy.
posted by Artw at 9:07 PM PST - 8 comments

Long before Ghost Hunters, Dr. Franklin Ruehl (RIP 2015) was the host of the cable access, and then Sci-Fi Channel original program, Mysteries From Beyond The Other Dominion, among the first of the paranormal-focused shows on basic cable, and still the most fun. He lived long enough to reach SyFy's 20th anniversary, and described what it was like hosting one of their early productions. Not much survives, but here's an entire episode. There's more after the fold, so click here to extricate this post from its electronic prison: [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 9:04 PM PST - 15 comments

Asmara Eritrea has one benefit from that Italian occupation: a collection of beautiful Modernist buildings. If all goes well, it'll be named a Unesco World Heritage Site very soon.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:28 PM PST - 15 comments

You can sharpen your wood chisel. You can make it Scary Sharp. You can look at your straight razor under an electron microscope as you hone it. You can pass the hanging hair test. Or you can just buff it a bit on the bench grinder.
posted by clawsoon at 7:48 PM PST - 27 comments

Check out AI Generated Movie Posters, a site featuring movie posters generated by AI. Built by our own OrangeGloves, via mefi projects.
posted by cortex at 3:22 PM PST - 63 comments

How Do I Vike by Django Wexler In How Do I Vike, I play as Norse pagans in Crusader Kings II, attempting to unite Scandinavia under my banner and spread the worship of Odin and Thor!

“Last game, my goals were to establish the Empire of Israel and rebuild the Temple, and thereafter to generally grab as much territory as possible. This time, the objectives are similar but not identical — I want to reform Germanic paganism into an “organized” religion and fight off the Christians, establish the Empire of Scandinavia, and ultimately reform the tribal Norse into a feudal society. Assuming I get that far, which is by no means guaranteed, then we’ll see what’s next — becoming King of England sounds attractive, and there are Germanic holy sites in Germany that need taking. Let’s get started!”

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:59 PM PST - 14 comments

They're found on dusty warehouse shelves; buried under flea market knick-knacks; Googled, Ebayed, begged for; commissioned from blacksmiths, painters, and model makers for one-time use; and constructed out of whatever $5 can buy at the local craft store. They are sketched out, improvised, or placed in scenes by the fate of logic, existing to serve the performances or action around them. But while iconic movie props make us laugh, gasp, scream, and/or sit in absolute silence, they rarely start iconic; as a property master will tell you, the best on-screen objects go unnoticed, silently winning you over with truth.
posted by DynamiteToast at 12:38 PM PST - 79 comments

When we create systems of self-care for ourselves, we are dismantling the facets of patriarchy that dictate that emotions are weak and tenderness is inferior. But these systems aren’t built solely on the popular media’s portrayal of self-care: manicures, pedicures, and massage. In order to be sustainable, self-care systems need to be more than just a quick-release valve. They require scaffolding our lives so that when things get truly awful, we have the fortification to weather the shitstorm. So how can we practice sustainable self-care? Here’s what I’ve learned that works for me. Kate McCombs provides practical tips for reflective feminist self-care at Continuum Collective. (Note: Title in link may be NSFW.)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:10 AM PST - 53 comments

In West Virginia, the people of McDowell County can’t get jobs, and recently lost their biggest employer – the local Walmart store. They describe the devastating loss of jobs, community and access to fresh food
posted by Etrigan at 11:03 AM PST - 83 comments

Americans don't have egg cups. Brits are outraged!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:58 AM PST - 298 comments

After a few self-observations on gameplay, writer and presenter Jordan/Erica Webber started a twitter thread on real-life behaviours people replicate in games even though they serve no gameplay function (such as the post title by molly carroll)... [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 10:09 AM PST - 107 comments

Sean Gallagher delves into demystifying threat modelling, building from Adam Shostack's Privacy Threat Model for The People of Seattle and Electronic Frontier Foundation's five-question structure. For Sean, it comes down to answering four questions: Who am I, and what am I doing here? What could possibly go wrong? And how? Then, how much can I stand to do about it? Related: if online harassment crossing into your personal life is a concern, Nathan Mattise offers simple strategies that can minimize the physical toll of doxing. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:55 AM PST - 5 comments

The Uninhabitable Earth David Wallace-Wells looks beyond rising sea levels to catalog some of the most disastrous potential effects of the changing global climate. He warns that under our best current predictions, "absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century."
posted by informavore at 9:13 AM PST - 66 comments

In August, Tim Ingham of Music Business Worldwide reported that Spotify is paying musicians to record music using fake aliases on terms financially advantageous for Spotify and placing these songs on featured playlists. These featured playlists are curated by Spotify employees and have become an increasingly influential source for listening to music (previously) [more inside]
posted by fizzix at 9:13 AM PST - 65 comments

The 448-square-mile Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary protects one of America's best-preserved and nationally-significant collections of shipwrecks. Ninety three wrecks have been located within the sanctuary, but historical records indicate more than a hundred shipwrecks have yet to be discovered. Through the spring and summer of 2017, researchers will conduct a four-part expedition to test new tools for finding wrecks. One technique is the use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) equipped with advanced sonar, with which a team from the Great Lakes Research Center has been able to provide ultra-high resolution acoustic images of historic shipwrecks located in the sanctuary. Map: Shipwrecks of the Thunder Bay region. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:01 AM PST - 8 comments

YouTuber UpIsNotJump is modding video game Fallout 4, switching between original videos like Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen, Planet Earth II, and the Bob Ross Video Game*, and remakes like Futurama, Rick and Morty, and Iron Man, [NSFW, *cw: flashing lights at start of video]
posted by Room 641-A at 7:41 AM PST - 7 comments

Many people have heard of entanglement, an idea from quantum physics where two particles are connected in such a way that affecting one affects the other instantly, no matter where in the universe it is located. (Entanglement probably deserves to be called more than an idea since it has been tested over and over again to plug loopholes that might show the particles are actually interacting on a local level in some way, in spite of what seem to be vast distances.) But what if causality could be shown to work retrospectively somehow? Imagine if a particle could carry the effect backwards in time to when it was in very close proximity to its partner. No faster-than-light messages across the universe would be needed. Just backwards in time is all. Say hello to retrocausality! Previously.
posted by toycamera at 6:22 AM PST - 80 comments

“Hard times, hard times,” he’d mutter to himself, attempting the doorway. “You get through ‘em. You get through ‘em.” A long and curious tale of working in a used game shop.
posted by mippy at 2:25 AM PST - 30 comments

Boiled to remove its toxins, Amanita muscaria can usually be eaten with impunity. Usually. [more inside]
posted by automatic cabinet at 2:09 AM PST - 21 comments

How did the Polynesians sail the Pacific 3,000 years ago, without GPS or even sextants or compasses? The Polynesian Voyaging Society and its ship, the Hōkūleʻa, have set out to answer that question through research, oral history, and practical experimentation. Learn the star compass; know your winds and currents; read the swells; look for clouds and birds; forecast the weather; and estimate your position. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:16 AM PST - 19 comments

On December 6, 2016, Mr. Marshall officially banned bottle flipping in class 6A. On December 7, he started making this video. On June 29, 2017, he showed it to his students [h/t Miss Cellania]. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:32 PM PST - 16 comments

Extra, Extra - Read All About It: Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts are Broken. "I remember vividly Jon Bentley's first Algorithms lecture at CMU, where he asked all of us incoming Ph.D. students to write a binary search, and then dissected one of our implementations in front of the class. Of course it was broken, as were most of our implementations. This made a real impression on me, as did the treatment of this material in his wonderful [book] Programming Pearls. Fast forward to 2006. I was shocked to learn that the binary search program that Bentley proved correct and subsequently tested in Chapter 5 of Programming Pearls contains a bug. Once I tell you what it is, you will understand why it escaped detection for two decades..." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:47 PM PST - 29 comments

Fish Story is a fourteen minute video documentary where Charlie Lyne tries to find out whether his friend Caspar Salmon's grandmother, Pauline, was invited to an event in Anglesey in Wales, along with other people with fish surnames, to be given a salmon by weatherman Sir Michael Fish.
posted by Kattullus at 4:43 PM PST - 13 comments

Dressed in a military uniform, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate Iraq’s armed forces for wresting the city from the Islamic State. The victory marked the formal end of a bloody campaign that lasted nearly nine months, left much of Iraq’s second-largest city in ruins, killed thousands of people and displaced nearly a million more. [more inside]
posted by roolya_boolya at 4:25 PM PST - 12 comments

98DEMAKE rebuilds scenes from modern games so they look like games from 1998. [YouTube] “I do downgrades of modern games. Not actual games, but "what if" sort of videos showcasing how a game might have looked like back in the day.” • If Grand Theft Auto V was made in 1998 • If Dark Souls was made in 1998 • If Fallout 4 was made in 1998 • If Portal was made in 1998 • If Far Cry 5 was announced in 1998 • If Assassin's Creed was made in 1998 • If Outlast was made in 1998 • If Red Dead Redemption was made in 1998 • If The Last Of Us was made in 1998
posted by Fizz at 12:58 PM PST - 23 comments

US electric utilities are pressuring [NYT] state legislatures to stymie the roll out of rooftop solar. But advances in battery storage may make it unstoppable. [Vox]
posted by Chrysostom at 12:51 PM PST - 62 comments

The instagram art of governor Scott Walker (SLWired)
posted by growabrain at 12:47 PM PST - 26 comments

Simone Veil, Auschwitz survivor, Health Minister, first directly elected President of the European Parliament, French Academician, passed away on June 30. She is best remembered in France as the woman who legalised abortion with the law still known today as Loi Veil. [more inside]
posted by snakeling at 10:43 AM PST - 20 comments

At 56, a ‘Light Bulb’ Goes Off and a Firefighter Emerges [NYT] . Robin Nesdale’s story is not that unusual. At 56, divorced and with her daughter, her only child, off at college, her life felt a little empty and rudderless. So she became a firefighter.
posted by Mchelly at 6:57 AM PST - 12 comments

A French Collagist about whom little is known, Zophie Zyphon, has an interesting set of galleries and Les Z’écrits.
There is an Instagram tag and a twitter page. Information is scarce So let the pictures do the talking.
She has been featured in a past edition of Dissonances.
posted by adamvasco at 6:57 AM PST - 2 comments

Peter and Paul, or Heaven and Hell "What is this mess?" said the angel. "Unfold those scraps and put them together." A new twist on the old heaven-and-hell paper-folding trick, and a survey of various versions over the past century. [via mefi projects]
posted by Literaryhero at 5:57 AM PST - 6 comments

Director Wes Anderson is known for creating films with a striking visual style and delightfully eccentric characters. They're unforgettable; once you hear titles like Moonrise Kingdom or The Grand Budapest Hotel, you can instantly picture how they look. Clad in retro-inspired color schemes and costumes, his movies inspire us to look for the whimsy of everyday life. For those who find it, they’ve got a place to share their discoveries—the subreddit called Accidental Wes Anderson. There, people from across the globe post places that could be part of his film sets. -- Sara Barnes, My Modern Met (which has an extensive sampling, for those who wish to avoid visiting /r.)
posted by Room 641-A at 5:27 AM PST - 22 comments

Fruit, bat? [more inside]
posted by Gorgik at 11:27 PM PST - 12 comments

Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary (previously) now has two livestreams, one in the Gathering Room and the other Outside. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:53 PM PST - 23 comments

She's an Instagram influencer with more than 3 million followers, been featured by two major cosmetics lines, turned heads when she wore a bedazzled nude bodysuit to the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, and written a new Guide to Life book. She's Helen Ruth van Winkle, better known as Baddiewinkle, an 88 year old great-grandmother who has always been a rebel, and would like to be a role model for older people. Badddiiie got her (re)start when her great-granddaughter saw her in a pair of cut-off shorts and a tie-dye shirt and said, "Let's make a picture, Grandma, you look awful cute today," and posted it to Instagram.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:48 PM PST - 5 comments

Over six months ago The Guardian published a story purporting to expose a "backdoor" in WhatsApp. The EFF wrote that "it's inaccurate to the point of irresponsibility to call this behavior a backdoor", and over seventy cryptographers signed a scathing open letter explaining the huge flaws in the Guardian's story, but they were met with almost total silence. Meanwhile, even Teen Vogue managed to get the story right. MeFi's own Maciej Cegłowski (fomenter of online drama, who runs the bookmarking site Pinboard on the side) wouldn't let it go, and now finally the Guardian has issued a non-retraction retraction where they decided to "amend" the article instead. Maciej is still not impressed, but unfortunately the damage has already been done. Much like the debunked vaccine/autism link, this story could have literal life-and-death consequences by casting doubt on the Signal protocol and pushing dissidents and leakers to use much more insecure communications like web forms and email.
posted by karlshea at 7:31 PM PST - 43 comments

How do you rebuild a childhood memory when no working models or plans for it exist? Piece by piece, and year by year. "Coaster enthusiasts thought the rebirth of the Flying Turns wooden toboggan coaster at Pennsylvania’s Knoebels amusement park might never happen. The family-run park in tiny Elysburg spent eight obsessive years building and rebuilding a faithful replica of the slow, squat and serpentine coaster that disappeared from the amusement park landscape more than four decades ago." Whee! [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:35 PM PST - 8 comments

music video SLYT, watch it once for the musician, and then again and again for the background. [contains distant happy nudity]
posted by Buntix at 5:21 PM PST - 20 comments

A night/morning at the ballpark A 1st person account of a Nationals game that went into the wee hours of the morning thanks to a long rain delay.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:50 PM PST - 22 comments

Doomfist Finally Comes To Overwatch [Kotaku] “At long last, Overwatch’s gauntlet-wearing villain Doomfist is seeing the light of day. The new character has been teased since before publisher Blizzard even released Overwatch, and now, players can finally try him out on Overwatch’s public test region. Doomfist [Developer Update] [Origin Story], whose real name is Akande Ogundimu, is a cybernetic offense character whose hand cannon gauntlet knocks opponents down. Blizzard writes, “In addition to dealing ranged damage with his Hand Cannon, Doomfist can slam the ground, knock enemies into the air and off balance, or charge into the fray with his Rocket Punch. When facing a tightly packed group, Doomfist leaps out of view, then crashes down to earth with a spectacular Meteor Strike.”” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 12:34 PM PST - 46 comments

The Turnaround with Jesse Thorn is a limited-run podcast that interviews world class interviewers about how they do what they do. Running throughout this summer, it has already featured Ira Glass, Susan Orlean, Audie Cornish, Marc Maron, and Larry King, with more to come including Werner Herzog, Anna Sale, Katie Couric, and Terry Gross. The podcast is a co-production with the Columbia Journalism Review, where you can find edited transcripts of each episode. (And yes, Jesse is mefi's own YoungAmerican.)
posted by ocherdraco at 12:06 PM PST - 35 comments

Toronto has a new dog fountain. It's a fountain with dogs. It's a fountain for dogs. Would you like to see some more dogs in the fountain?
posted by jacquilynne at 10:18 AM PST - 48 comments

Norway's "troll penis" -- a phallic-looking rock formation that made international headlines after it was apparently lopped off by unknown vandals -- was standing back up to attention as of Friday. After it was vandalized, local residents started a crowdfunding campaign to rebuild the rock, and eventually raised 226,000 kroner (around $27,000). The reattachment work was apparently successful, although tourists will have to wait a week before they can see the formation in order to allow it to fasten properly. Cement, glue and metal fastenings were used to re-attach the Trollpikken, or "The Troll's Penis," to the cliff.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:21 AM PST - 25 comments

Sheila Michaels, Who Brought ‘Ms.’ to Prominence, Dies at 78
posted by bq at 8:59 AM PST - 29 comments

The Oral History of NBA Jam. Sports Illustrated gathers the original developers for a look back at NBA Jam, a 1993 arcade title from Midway Games. [more inside]
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:58 AM PST - 9 comments

Dark Stock Photos is the Twitter account that Twitter truly deserves, with the absolute worst stock pic offerings from Getty, Shutterstock and others, featuring guns, knives, blood, alcohol, cocaine, suicide, anger, sadness and a David Cross lookalike with an inflatable sex doll. Something for all your nightmare needs. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:58 AM PST - 23 comments

Stemage (of Metroid Metal fame) got to playing around with reversing some classic NES tunes to see if they sounded as interesting backwards. Some yes, some no, which he explores on his blog.
posted by curious nu at 5:56 AM PST - 7 comments

"I have no sentence at all now—I was waiting for resentencing for a sentence. None of it makes any sense.” (SL: The Nation. Warning: article contains descriptions of violence, abuse, and rape). Nineteen states have eliminated mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles entirely and hundreds of people have been resentenced to lesser terms since, but most have been unsure of their rights. While the Supreme Court decisions eliminating life without parole for juveniles have been hailed as victories of criminal-justice reform, some states are dragging their heels when it comes to giving juvenile lifers their day in court. [more inside]
posted by stillmoving at 3:03 AM PST - 9 comments

In which Eric Van Allen from Kotaku tracks down the people behind a 15 year old photo of a LAN party with someone duct-taped to a ceiling beam. You know, like usual.
posted by hippybear at 10:09 PM PST - 23 comments

Find something to do that makes you as happy as Bunk [laughter]. Or as this guy on the gymnastic rings [laughter]. Or as Chago on a trampoline [dog and human noises]. But maybe not quite as happy as Casey [squealing, whining and helpless laughter].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:41 PM PST - 7 comments

How the blues evolved and is still going strong. Followed by an essay on rock & roll and its beginnings, using the blues, and predicting its end: Like Iggy Pop? Thank Your Grandparents.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:37 PM PST - 9 comments

The Toscanini Wars

For many years, Arturo Toscanini was the pinnacle of musical excitement for classical-music lovers in this country—and also for many casual listeners, who enjoyed the sensation of having their pulse rate raised. He was at the center of an American experiment in art and commerce that now scarcely seems credible: late in the Depression, in 1937, RCA, which owned two NBC radio networks, created a virtuoso orchestra especially for him, and kept it going until 1954. The NBC Symphony gave concerts in New York that were broadcast on national radio, and then, starting in 1948, on national television.

Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the William Tell Overture, 1952 [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Bored Panda has amassed 234+ pets who were caught red-handed.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:26 PM PST - 9 comments

...a Geostorm! - the incredibly stupid looking disaster movie from Gerard Butler and Dean Devlin which just got a a new trailer.
posted by Artw at 6:29 PM PST - 79 comments

"Because my love for the culture of cocktails is so strong, it was only a matter of time before it became part of my professional work. As a graphic designer, my specialty is lettering, and the spirits world is replete with lettering styles. This blog is an attempt to merge my knowledge of cocktail history with the developments in lettering that accompanied it."
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:35 PM PST - 10 comments

Being right is not really enough. One might be able to bring down the house by quoting Jon Stewart or even Mencken ("In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican"), but what will that do, really? Emmet Penney at Paste descries the way liberals wistfully think their sharp wit knives will be sufficient at a gunfight.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 5:06 PM PST - 107 comments

Israeli ceramicist Ronit Baranga‘s “body of work” is unsettling , to say the least. Sculpted from clay, realistic fingers emerge from plates while mouths lurk inside cups. The gnarled fingers and lips seem poised for action. We would most certainly hesitate before using any of these for fear of being bitten. [SFW; may be disturbing to some.] [more inside]
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:53 PM PST - 7 comments

After a particularly raucous night of partying, Berliner police assigned to the G-20 summit in Hamburg were recalled last week. [more inside]
posted by Seeba at 1:54 PM PST - 33 comments

Macklemore’s grandma talks shopping, strippers and shooting his new video in Modesto
posted by growabrain at 1:13 PM PST - 21 comments

"The Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs wants to start a fake Twitter feud." A Stanford law professor received an unusual request. A representative of a United States State Department office invited him to help stage a pretend spat via Twitter. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 12:22 PM PST - 23 comments

A giant coffee pot that doubles as a restaurant, drive-in movie theaters, old gas pumps and vintage hotels: these are but a few of the examples included in the John Margolies Roadside America Photograph Archive. This summer, the Library of Congress made its Margolies holdings—one of the most comprehensive documentary studies of 20th-century U.S. vernacular architecture—available digitally on the website. [more inside]
posted by Chrysostom at 11:58 AM PST - 13 comments

From the start the horse would have required regular upkeep to stay visible. It might seem strange that the horse’s creators chose such an unstable form for their monument, but archaeologists believe this could have been intentional. A chalk hill figure requires a social group to maintain it, and it could be that today’s cleaning is an echo of an early ritual gathering that was part of the horse’s original function.
posted by mama casserole at 11:29 AM PST - 24 comments

Cimorelli are six sisters who first became popular on YouTube singing (mostly) acapella covers of pop songs. In the last year, the group, whose target audience is young girls, has released two albums of their own original songs and a book with empowering life lessons. To their young fans, they offer a simple message: "You are already unique, precious and valuable. You don’t have to change who you are to be lovable." You're Worth It. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:58 AM PST - 1 comment

Behold, the world's longest-running lab experiment. Any day now, a drop of pitch will detach itself and plop to the bottom of the beaker. It will be just the 9th time that the pitch has dropped since the experiment began in 1927. Live link here, if you can handle the suspense. Previously, previouslier, previousliest.
posted by Elly Vortex at 10:47 AM PST - 24 comments

The Making of Final Fantasy 12 [Polygon] “Controversy trails behind the Final Fantasy series with each new release. From cries of betrayal when Final Fantasy 7 jumped ship to PlayStation to frustration over the story changes Final Fantasy 15 underwent during its tortuous 10-year development process, there's simply no such thing as an easy birth when it comes to Square Enix's biggest franchise. Final Fantasy 12, the 2006 PlayStation release whose overhauled high-definition remake The Zodiac Age launches July 11, may well have been the most tortuous release of all. Arriving years late and abandoning numerous established series traditions in favor of a radically overhauled play style, FF12 immediately inspired ardent enthusiasm and passionate hatred among the series' faithful, with seemingly little room in between.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:48 AM PST - 19 comments

hi, I'm Steve, a short animation about someone who isn't named Steve. By Bill Wurtz of whom previously and thus and so forth.
posted by cortex at 9:14 AM PST - 3 comments

For three years at the end of his life, Dr. Lee Hartman worked as a resident physician and psychiatrist at Huntsville’s Wynne Unit. From 1960 to 1963, he witnessed at least 14 executions as presiding physician, his signature scrawled on the death certificates of the condemned men. All of them died in the electric chair – “Ol’ Sparky” – a grisly method that left flesh burned and bodies smoking in the death chamber as my grandfather read their vital signs.
posted by orrnyereg at 8:50 AM PST - 4 comments

Eight months after the Berlin wall fell, Albania's isolationist communist regime was still in power. On July 2, 1990, Ylli Bodinaku took his “Liaz” truck and, with his wife and children in the passenger cab, smashed it through the back wall of the German embassy in Tirana. Three thousand people flooded into the embassy through the hole Bodinaku created. Muri (The Wall): Path of Remembrance is a public art project that examines the "barriers of the past" and commemorates Bodinaku's fateful decision with an installation located exactly where he broke through the wall 27 years ago this month. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:34 AM PST - 3 comments

In Atlas Obscura, author Jay Leibold explains how he mapped the plots of his Choose Your Own Adventure Books.
posted by Miko at 5:35 AM PST - 4 comments

When people think of Wuxia novels, we might think of titans like Louis Cha, but serialised wuxia and fantasy novels are really big business in China. Fantastic genres are, in fact, some of the most popular of all electronically published Chinese fiction (genre categories here), earning authors rabid fanbases and millions of readers. Of course it's not all fun and games (thanks CCP!). Don't read putonghua? Not a problem, heaps of english translations are popping up. [more inside]
posted by smoke at 4:59 AM PST - 8 comments

A photo essay by Shahria Sharmin about the dual lives of hijras in Bangladesh.
posted by bardophile at 4:07 AM PST - 10 comments

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (also known variously as The New Silk Road, OBOR, and One Belt, One Road) is a multi-faceted strategy aimed at boosting the flow of trade, capital and services between China and the rest of the world, involving over 65 countries which together account for 29% of global GDP and 63% of the world's population. OBOR is an ambitious plan to build and upgrade highways, railways, ports, and other infrastructure throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe designed to enrich the economies of China and its trading partners. Since 2014, the initiative has generated enthusiasm and high hopes but also skepticism and wariness.
posted by infini at 3:52 AM PST - 22 comments

A stunning vocal rendition of Elgar’s Nimrod. "VOCES8, considered to be one of the world’s most versatile and best-loved a cappella groups, performed ‘Nimrod: Lux Aeterna’ [YT] from the English composer Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations as a tribute on Armistice Day 2016." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 11:22 PM PST - 13 comments

In 1932, Richard Sharpe Shaver was employed as a welder in a car factory. One day, his welding-gun began talking to him, telepathically delivering tales of the Deros, their penchant for human meat, and their underground cities. In 1940, Shaver sent a manuscript titled "A Warning to Future Man" to Ray Palmer, the editor of Amazing Stories at that time. Palmer published a number of stories under the header The Shaver Mystery. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:23 PM PST - 16 comments

Luc Besson Tests The Outer Limits With Sci-Fi Epic Valerian

It may be a huge, tentpole-scale movie, but it’s financed like an indie. All the deals, the presales and tax benefits and so on, mean that Besson is only exposed to a fraction of the risk. And he didn’t have to pitch an expensive science fiction movie with largely unknown source material to a conservative, franchise-drunk studio.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:28 PM PST - 85 comments

  Act I: Puppies vs. Stairs
 Act II: Air-Pedaling Puppy
Act III: Puppies Learning to Howl [music and wee howling]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:24 PM PST - 15 comments

"Leg" by Shaenon K. Garrity (Kaleidotrope, Spring 2017): "'Why don't you look for a job as ...' the HR director searched for the right euphemism, realized none existed. 'As a leg?' Deep in its central processor, Tony's leg sighed. It had been dreading the question. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were ..." The creator of Narbonic, Skin Horse, and more, Garrity has appeared on the blue for many, many reasons in the past, not least for her short fiction. More previouslies. More short fiction.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:47 PM PST - 6 comments

Final Fantasy XIV (previously) is the MMO version of the belovedJapanese RPG franchise. Like many MMOs, Final Fantasy XIV allows players to create their own personal online homes. Like real homes, these serve as a base of operations, a place for parties, and a way of showing off one's taste and status. And like real homes, they are a limited resource. Each server allows a fixed number of houses, typically about half the number of actual players. [more inside]
posted by Naberius at 6:49 PM PST - 24 comments

Puddles, the tallest and saddest clown of all (previously) is back with a cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity, which led to this fan-requested cover of Bowie's Life On Mars. Bonus: back in May on America's Got Talent, Puddles Pity Party wowed the judges and the crowd with his version of Sia's Chandelier.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:18 PM PST - 32 comments

As a crowd of 65,000 people waited to see Green Day perform in London earlier this week, they did this (SLYT).
posted by flyingsquirrel at 5:20 PM PST - 67 comments

"Now I wrote until near dawn, wanting a map of the literary nation, a beautiful evocation of how we are truly a nation of village and city and prairie and brownstone, of Rockies and bayous and mesas. Novels give to every reader someone else's home. Can we not see this—we of wonder and grievance?" There Are Riches Here, an essay by writer Susan Straight, introduces her map of American literature, the result of lifelong reading encounters with the literary geography of the USA.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 4:40 PM PST - 8 comments

This Secretive Billionaire Makes The Cheese For Pizza Hut, Domino's And Papa John's This is an oddly compelling account of the man who grew his family's Italian food import business in Denver into a multi-billion dollar mozzarella cheese supplier to most of the pizza chains you've heard of, providing unique cheese recipes to each one. Now he's expanding into protein powder.
posted by apricot at 3:55 PM PST - 21 comments

GAP in-store playlists from 1992-2006
posted by The Whelk at 3:31 PM PST - 23 comments

A clever web-based editor for Svgbob allows you to mouse over what you want to edit, click, and type in diagram-y characters like ._,-._._|\/|_._,-._. to make SVG pictures. Built by Ivan Ceras; also available in Elm flavor.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:57 PM PST - 11 comments

Before Zork, before Oregon Trail, there was a little-known Basic game called Imhotep. Build the Pyramid without killing too many slaves, and you too can win. Unless you're me at age 12, in which case you can't.
posted by Mchelly at 2:20 PM PST - 28 comments

When Sam Fink was a kid, he didn't understand how to read the Declaration of Independence. "I tried to read [the Declaration]...It was difficult, I couldn't read the words. Too tiny. And the script is small and I lost my way. The library came to my rescue....I went to the library and asked the librarian to help me find a copy that I could read. And she did." As an adult, and an accomplished calligrapher and illustrator, he decided to create his own phrase-by-phrase picture book of the document so that children could read it for themselves. The result: The Words That Made America: Understanding the Declaration of Independence. He discusses its genesis in this delightful 2002 talk at the Brooklyn Public Library. (Transcript, but Fink is great to hear.) [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:53 PM PST - 2 comments

Like country ham? How about jamon iberico?
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:09 PM PST - 29 comments

Back in 2014, a research team led by Marie D. Jackson of the University of California at Berkeley showed how the recipe for Roman concrete—a mixture of volcanic ash, lime, and seawater combined with a volcanic rock aggregate—produced a chemical reaction that resulted in super-strong concrete. Trouble is, Jackson’s team wasn’t entirely sure how the Romans managed to facilitate this complex reaction.

In a follow-up study, published this week in American Mineralogist, the researchers have learned that it wasn’t the Romans who facilitated this chemical reaction—at least not directly. Rather, the strengthening process was caused by the steady filtering of corrosive seawater through the concrete over time, which triggered the growth of rare, interlocking minerals that made the material even tougher.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:52 AM PST - 23 comments

Thousands of London residents were disturbed yesterday when giant bipeds disrupted their traditional mating ceremonies, attacked them, and went on to assault each other with enormous yellow balls projected at deadly velocities. [more inside]
posted by Copronymus at 11:28 AM PST - 11 comments

Sesametage. The Gonzo Dance. Regulate. Muppet Mashups of 90's hip-hop and more by Milo the Cat [more inside]
posted by romakimmy at 10:55 AM PST - 6 comments

‘We launched UK house with just £500 – and a few cans of hairspray’ How we made Theme from S-Express
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:37 AM PST - 9 comments

Kesha's new single, Praying, is worth a listen. Whether you've followed formerly Ke$ha's difficulties [lazy previously link] in the news over the past 5 years or not, this is something new. It's not what you might expect from the singer best known for Tik Tok and Timber. It's heartbreaking, actually. And gives me goosebumps. LennyLetter gives her space and freedom to talk about the new single.
posted by hippybear at 10:24 AM PST - 43 comments

"Leo’s set that night spans his entire career, from a few rarities to his more well-known songs to new material, including tracks from The Hanged Man, the first Ted Leo album since 2010’s The Brutalist Bricks. It has been a tumultuous seven years. The Hanged Man will be released in September, but its lead single, “You’re Like Me,” drops today." At Stereogum: One of rock's best songwriters is getting back in the ring. He hopes you still care. (cw: assault, miscarriage)
posted by everybody had matching towels at 9:59 AM PST - 27 comments

Who is the most popular video game character in your state? [Decluttr] “Gamers have long debated over which video game character is the greatest of them all. Unfortunately, most of these debates are based entirely on opinion and only lead to more arguments and occasional name-calling. To settle the debate once and for all, we decided to use cold hard Google search data to find out which character each state loves most. Here’s what we found…” [via: Nerdist]
posted by Fizz at 8:45 AM PST - 46 comments

The Romans referred to it as the “nocturnal sun”. Later accounts describe it as an unexplained glow – bright enough to read a book by – that would sometimes light up the night sky. Owing to present-day levels of light pollution, it's difficult to experience this phenomenon – known as a "bright night" – first hand. But two Canadian scientists believe they've unravelled the mystery behind how these bright nights occur. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:22 AM PST - 19 comments

Incredible Knitted Moths Could Go in a Natural History Museum. Max Alexander turns Shetland wool into scientifically accurate depictions of various moth species. "It's pretty funny to knit moths from a material that they're known to eat..." she says. You can see more photos of her amazing work on her website and Instagram.
posted by web-goddess at 6:32 AM PST - 13 comments

With "Spider-Man: Homecoming" opening in 3400 theaters this week, we're being inundated by everything 'arachnid-guy', including the cartoon series from 50 years ago and its ubiquitous theme song (re-purposed by Homer Simpson, Squirrel Girl and others). But five years after, there was an arguably superior musical Spider-production, Buddha Records' 'Rockomic': "Spider-Man: From Beyond The Grave". [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:20 AM PST - 38 comments

Beautifully Designed Tiny Houses... For Birds. The houses all started a couple of years ago, when illustrator and wildlife artist Jada Fitch -- also an avid birder -- decided to make a new bird feeder that could provide a more interesting backdrop for her photos. For the first house, "She carved out a door and windows, and attached a little porch on the front of the structure to act as a perch. She then added the interior décor: painted throw rugs, framed ‘portraits’ of bird family members, and cardboard couches and armchairs, creating a whimsical living room in the process. Lastly and most importantly, she scattered seed across the furniture and floor and Duct taped the house to her window." Her sense of humor is evident in a post of her latest bird feeder: Agent Cooper's Hawk at Twin Beaks' Black Lodge. [more inside]
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 10:48 PM PST - 21 comments

The Foodnited States of America. Execution by Foodiggity, original concept by Mr. Foodiggity's son. Puns of arguable but mostly winsome deliciousness. Taste the absurd levity.
posted by desuetude at 10:12 PM PST - 19 comments

Stevie Ryan, YouTube and online comedian, died Saturday of an apparent suicide. See also appreciation on Comic's Comic (which includes link to her Intervention parody). YouTube channel.
posted by anothermug at 9:06 PM PST - 15 comments

It is addicting. To come: gifs of many attempts to draw the same state
posted by readery at 8:34 PM PST - 53 comments

"Remote Presence" by Susan Palwick (Lightspeed, April 2017) is an SF/F novelette that draws heavily on the author's experience as a spiritual-care volunteer in an ER: "Every three years, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations conducted a weeklong on-site accreditation survey of each hospital in the country. The survey was thorough, merciless, and struck apocalyptic terror into hospital administrators ... Roxanne blew out a sharp breath. 'We can't have revenants in the building. That's one of the requirements.'" Spiritual Care Volunteers: A Training Resource [PDF] is a manual produced by NHS Wales that offers more practical insight into healthcare chaplaincy.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:45 PM PST - 7 comments

As the school year is almost up, seniors are finally receiving their yearbooks. And when the 18-year-old Diana Bloom from Stafford High School in Falmouth, Virginia, has received hers, she noticed that among all the students, there was another graduate – Alpha the dog!

Alpha was just one among many service dogs who have appeared in their humans' yearbooks.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:29 PM PST - 14 comments

“Students will soon have to show that they've secured a job or received a letter of acceptance to college, a trade apprenticeship, a gap year program or the military in order to graduate”

• Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago: “We are going to help kids have a plan, because they're going to need it to succeed. You cannot have kids think that 12th grade is done.”
• Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union: “It sounds good on paper, but the problem is that when you've cut the number of counselors in schools, when you've cut the kind of services that kids need, who is going to do this work? If you've done the work to earn a diploma, then you should get a diploma. Because if you don't, you are forcing kids into more poverty.”

[more inside]
posted by koavf at 6:26 PM PST - 88 comments

"Centuries of Sound is an attempt to produce a set of mixes for every year of recorded sound. Starting in 1860, a mix will be posted every month until we catch up with the present day. So far we are still in the very early days, where a very limited selection of recordings are available, but as we get into the 20th century I hope to include the widest possible spread, both in terms of geography and genre. This will mean that experts will be required. If you are interested in putting yourself forward as an expert on Rembetika, early microtonal recordings, French political speeches, Tagore songs or anything else, then please do drop me a line..." [more inside]
posted by naju at 6:04 PM PST - 8 comments

TODAY: United States Files Civil Action To Forfeit Thousands Of Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby [justice.gov] [more inside]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:34 PM PST - 71 comments

Alexander Semenov (previously) is a marine biologist, specialising in invertebrate animals, and the Head of the Divers’ team at Moscow State University’s White Sea Biological Station. "My personal goal is to study underwater life through camera lenses and to boost people’s interest in marine biology by sharing all my finding through social media and in real life through public lectures, movies, exhibitions and media events." View hundreds of his stunning underwater photos on Flickr. [via]
posted by Room 641-A at 3:15 PM PST - 7 comments

Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub — Coraline Ada Ehmke recounts her experiences as part of GitHub's Community and Safety team (previously). "GitHub touts its values, but has consistently failed to live up to them. Values that are expressed but that don't change behavior are not really values, they are lies that you tell yourself."
posted by tonycpsu at 2:00 PM PST - 127 comments

A study by social psychologists shows that people can reliably tell if someone is richer or poorer than average just by looking at a neutral face without any expression. Their conclusion is that emotions mask life-long habits of expression that become etched on a person's face even by their late teens or early adulthood, such as frequent happiness, which is stereotypically associated with being wealthy and satisfied. "Over time, your face comes to permanently reflect and reveal your experiences," says Rule. "Even when we think we're not expressing something, relics of those emotions are still there." [more inside]
posted by orrnyereg at 12:22 PM PST - 58 comments

Something is terribly wrong. Jon Bois (previously) starts a new series on the future, football and the future of football.
posted by creade at 12:20 PM PST - 252 comments

The Rec Center is a weekly email newsletter about fandom that comes out every Friday, with links and discussion of fandom news, fanart, and fanfiction recs. [more inside]
posted by blithers at 11:49 AM PST - 6 comments

Usually, libertarians trying to organize don't do very well: The Libertarian Utopia That’s Just a Bunch of White Guys on a Tiny Island

But sometimes they succeed. And that's when things really go bad: The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise
posted by Chrysostom at 10:46 AM PST - 131 comments

2bit Astrophotography with the Game Boy Camera Alexander Pietrow, an astronomy and instrumentation student of Leiden University in the Netherlands, recently used a Game Boy Camera combined with a telescope to capture images of the Moon and infinities beyond.
posted by Servo5678 at 10:43 AM PST - 3 comments

Once upon a time, there lived a king in his castle, with his wife and three children: Dragon, Ram and Jade. He ruled with iron grip and firm hand, and under his ever-watchful eye the kingdom grew prosperous and his House grew fat. When he grew old of age, he handed his sceptre to the eldest Dragon, who ruled in his stead, and his honour. The day came when the old king died, and his subjects mourned him, weeping, lining the streets in the rain to pay their last respects. It was a moment of many passions, but little did the people know what trouble was sown that torrentuous day. [more inside]
posted by destrius at 8:43 AM PST - 34 comments

The Best and Worst of '80s Ninja Video Games [Den of Geek] “Saboteur? BMX Ninja? Ninja Golf? Shadow Warriors? The Last Ninja? We dissect the ninja videogames of the 1980s. As with the movies, not every game with 'Ninja' in the title could guarantee actual quality ninja content but I was willing to take the risks. I saved my pocket money and slavishly bought everything I could. It was tough at times but, if enduring the highs and the lows of ninja gaming served any practical purpose at all, it at least laid the groundwork for me to write this article. So let’s take a look, starting from the bottom, at the best and worst of '80s ninja games...”
posted by Fizz at 8:34 AM PST - 44 comments

"The effortlessly chic French woman is one of the most persistent tropes in our lifestyle landscape. Sixty years after a young, unapologetically sexual Brigitte Bardot danced her way into the pop culture canon in the film ...And God Created Woman, publications like Vogue, Into the Gloss, and Who What Wear now publish a steady stream of articles on the supposedly superior and increasingly specific ways that French women dress, do their hair, eat, exercise, and fall in love." How to Sell A Billion Dollar Myth Like A French Girl (from Eliza Brooke at Racked).
posted by everybody had matching towels at 7:53 AM PST - 41 comments

Q: What group did one Maine legislator describe as having "power right up there with the NRA", saying they "do everything they can to protect their interests — and they have money"?

A: Dentists. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:33 AM PST - 59 comments

Patrick Flynn, a Catholic, sued his children's Catholic school (Holy Spirit St. Augustine) when they demanded his children get vaccinated to attend; Flynn objected on religious grounds, and sued. The diocese defended on religious grounds, claiming vaccines promote the common good and are theologically required. (Others without ecclesiastical authority disagreed.) Neither the trial nor the appellate court wanted in on any of it (declaring it a theological matter rather than a legal one), leaving the ruling that private schools in Florida can deny religious vaccine exemptions (which public schools cannot). [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:40 PM PST - 41 comments

Factitious is a game that tests your news sense, and your ability to judge Fake News from Real Genuine Mostly Factual stuff. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:48 PM PST - 23 comments

A preview of Baby Driver in 2:54 (from 14 years ago). How Edgar Wright’s ‘Baby Driver’ Was Inspired By One Catchy Song and a Music Video [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 9:42 PM PST - 18 comments

A look at the bright side.
posted by ecorrocio at 9:21 PM PST - 12 comments

"The Critic of Tombs" by Ethan Davison: "Emilia came to Tombs in the twelfth year of the interregnum. It was the first time in history a critic had been assigned to the city. A chilly place split over the St. Laurent, it is very small as cities go, even in the north, and not much accustomed to visits by anyone important." "The Refugee" by Kristen Gleason (winning story for the US & Canada): "Brian Ed waited outside the ration house. Merlijn took his time coming to the door, and opened it slowly. Brian Ed raised his hand and waved. Merlijn smiled an embarrassed smile and held up four fingers. 'No rations until four o'clock, Brian Ed.'" The full list.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:45 PM PST - 4 comments

Throughout the '70s in the UK, factory workers making Digestives, Jaffa Cakes, and other United Biscuits products did so to the sounds of the United Biscuits Network radio station. Inaugural broadcast, 1970. Final broadcast, 1979. Between songs, UBN aired worker service announcements like “Ever thought of the jolly things you could do with compressed air? Compressssssed air can kill!” [more inside]
posted by dayintoday at 7:15 PM PST - 17 comments

The Canadian Senate has long been a sleepy place - an occasional expense account scandal aside - a retirement home for party fundraisers, losing candidates, and C-level celebrities. On the rare occasions when it has pushed back against Parliament, it has been easy enough to push over. But Prime Minister Trudeau removed all Liberal senators from the Liberal caucus in 2014 and said that he wanted the chamber of sober second thought to "provide a check and balance on the politically driven House of Commons." There are some signs that he is getting his wish, as the Liberal's agenda is now getting bogged down in two chambers instead of just one. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 7:07 PM PST - 18 comments

We have seen that Igor Siwanowicz (previously) can take beautiful macro photos of insects. He also takes beautiful micro photos of insects.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:06 PM PST - 6 comments

In the 1950s, NASA needed test subjects who were immune from motion sickness to investigate the effects of space flight and weightlessness on the human body. So they looked to the Deaf community, recruiting 11 men who were students at Gallaudet University as volunteer test subjects. All but one of the volunteers lost their hearing from spinal meningitis, which can kill nerve and hair cells in the inner ear, essential elements of the vestibular system - the system that can trigger motion sickness. The volunteers, known as the "Gallaudet Eleven," are now being honoured in an exhibit hosted by Gallaudet University, entitled "Deaf Difference + Space Survival" (video here).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:33 PM PST - 6 comments

Mario Kaiser & Sarah Ladipo Manyika in conversation with Toni Morrison
posted by infini at 10:06 AM PST - 2 comments

Need a break from needing a break from work? Spend a little time being productive in It Is As If You Were Doing Work, a free web-based game about doing work in an office job.
posted by cortex at 8:44 AM PST - 27 comments

As Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opens on Broadway, there will be no Wonka Bars for sale in the lobby - because they no longer exist. In fact, Nestle is considering selling off its Wonka brand entirely, because Americans are eating less candy. Though we still eat plenty of it.
posted by Mchelly at 6:23 AM PST - 56 comments

Founding Mother [SLWaPo]:

This Fourth of July, look closely at one of those printed copies of the Declaration of Independence. See it? The woman’s name at the bottom?

posted by Westringia F. at 5:42 AM PST - 10 comments

They looked closer, and an inscription on the surface came into focus. What they saw astonished them. It was a memorial. In honor of Nazi spies. On U.S. government property.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:54 PM PST - 58 comments

OK so it doesn't know what a blue-nosed gopher is and it's slow as buggery (I guess it's has to travel across the country via the singing string) but this is not a furphy: Access to the Australian National Dictionary online is free now thanks to OUP. Previously.
posted by toycamera at 10:40 PM PST - 28 comments

"And Then There Were (N - One)" by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017): "... Four months later, I flew to Nova Scotia, took a bus to a seaside town too small for a dot on a map, boarded a ferry to Secord Island, and stepped through the waiting portal into an alternate-reality resort hotel lobby swarming with ..." Q&A with the author. [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:33 PM PST - 22 comments

What games would you put on a Classic PC? [PC Gamer] “It's a fun thought exercise, but it also gets tough as you sit down to do it. How do you define where an era of PC gaming begins and ends? Doing it by calendar year is arbitrary. Distinctions between operating systems are murky. Pre-internet? Pre-CD-ROM? Pre-accelerated graphics? Does the jump to VGA represent a new generation? After a lot of discussion, we felt that Intel's 486 processor represented one of the clearest PC gaming tree rings. Looking backward from the 486, you've got the golden age of the adventure genre, as well as the introduction of some of PC gaming's biggest franchises. After the 486, Intel's first Pentium processor kicked off an explosion of 3D games in 1996 (Quake, Tomb Raider), as well as the emergence of internet-connected games (Diablo, StarCraft, Ultima Online). So, our criterion for this 'build' is games that ran on a 486 or earlier architecture, as identified by the original system requirements.”
posted by Fizz at 7:09 PM PST - 97 comments

Chrys K. is a screencapper/recapper whose "particular brand of bizarre and critical" got started (and blew up) with Game Of Thrones [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:21 PM PST - 4 comments

Have You Seen Me? Is the latest dance film from dancer/director Jon Boogz and was created to bring attention to the topic of missing children. It follows Am I a Man, which highlights mass incarceration. Previous films include That Vegas Get Down, and the wonderful Color of Reality.
posted by dobbs at 4:47 PM PST - 1 comment

With right-wing zealots taking over the legislature even as the state’s demographics shift leftward, Texas has become the nation’s bellwether.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:53 PM PST - 27 comments

The PALEOMAP project produces paleogreographic maps illustrating the Earth's plate tectonic, paleogeographic, climatic, oceanographic and biogeographic development from the Precambrian to the Modern World, then projecting what the world might look like millions of years into the future. The website is a bit dated, and some of the links have broken over the years, but you can dig into Archive.org and find free stuff and other old materials. Oh, and there are the videos on YouTube, which includes an animation of the plate tectonic movement, past and future, and paleomagnetic poles through time. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:29 PM PST - 7 comments

I am sitting under a rough wood shelter, in the midst of a Virginia thunderstorm, surrounded by three-legged dogs, watching the lightning flash ever closer. Frankie, the coonhound, starts howling. Adelaide, the husky, joins in. "It's fine," says Jim Nelson, co-founder and president of the Tripawds Foundation. "If anything, it's going to hit that transformer over there." He waves vaguely behind me. At his feet, his dog Wyatt Ray (three legs, face covered by a fabric calming cap to distract him from the storm) seems unperturbed. How the hell did I wind up here?

[more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:17 AM PST - 12 comments

O'Reilly books have a long and storied career; they were the technical guidebooks to the evolving internet, and were an incredibly important part of how developers learned how to get things done. Due to their high standards and strong editorial requirements, it was always difficult to get signed as one of their authors. Today, this has all changed. With the publication of the O RLY Book Cover Generator , anyone can create their own animal cover book... cover.
posted by jenkinsEar at 10:11 AM PST - 35 comments

In what has to be an announcement coming out of deep left field, Adult Swim and Production I.G. have released a trailer (Japanese version) for not one, but two new sequels to the legendary and surreal anime series FLCL, slated for release in 2018. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:34 AM PST - 32 comments

"In less than 48 hours—from the evening of July 1, 1917, to midday on July 3, 1917—East St. Louis descended into one of the deadliest race riots in U.S. history. As many as 200 African Americans were killed, hundreds more were left homeless, and large sections of the city were ruined. The national response ranks among the foundational moments of the modern civil rights movement, but like much so of our region’s civil rights history, the East St. Louis race riot's legacy has faded outside of museums and history textbooks." [more inside]
posted by gladly at 8:34 AM PST - 23 comments

The Third Thumb Project The Third Thumb investigates the relationship between the body and prosthetic technology in new ways. It is part tool, part experience, and part self-expression—a model by which we better understand human response to artificial extensions. It instigates necessary conversation about the definition of ability. [more inside]
posted by heyho at 7:18 AM PST - 34 comments

You gots to suffer, sacrifice then resurrect (resurrect) resurrect (assume all links NSFW) So back in 1995-1997, back when there was a West-East coast rivalry in hip-hop and Biggie and Tupac died because gangsta rappers carry guns, while A Tribe Called Quest and their ilk were being called the intelligent alternative, in Queens there was born a duo called Darc Mind. They were, according to critics who came later, timeless and timely, in the mid-aughts. Originally label-mates of Wu-Tang on Loud Records, which promptly fell apart and damned them to obscurity, they later found and were re-released on Anticon in 2006, 2007, and 2013, home of goofy, cerebral alt-rap like Doseone and Daedelus, with whom they have almost nothing and everything and what in common. [more inside]
posted by saysthis at 7:01 AM PST - 6 comments

Humanity has the capability to beam messages to other stars, greeting alien civilizations and introducing ourselves to the universal community. Or possibly alerting them to potential competitors and inviting them to feast on our tender, gooey brains. The New York Times Magazine reports on the debate over whether we should be more careful about what we send into the heavens in "Greetings, E.T. (Please Don't Murder Us)".
posted by Etrigan at 6:36 AM PST - 36 comments

As Chinese state-owned, influential, Big Coal mega-firms face declining domestic demand for new coal-fired power plants, they must export their excess capital elsewhere. [NYT] [more inside]
posted by runcifex at 1:04 AM PST - 6 comments

"Many people don’t try to date the people they’re most attracted to. They try to date the people they think would impress their friends."

An interview with Everybody Lies author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz regarding what google searches for porn tell us about ourselves(Vox) [more inside]
posted by The Gooch at 8:07 PM PST - 104 comments

"Upgrades" by Barry Charman (Daily Science Fiction, 2/14/2017): "The robots kept their rendezvous, and held hands beneath the bridge. This wasn't supposed to happen, they knew, but only the moon could see them, and it wouldn't tell." [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:32 PM PST - 8 comments

America, Meet America: Getting Past Our Toxic Partisanship (Amanda Ripley/WSJ)

Bringing back U.S. exchange programs could help remind citizens what we all have in common

They've never gone away (NSE is going strong), but in light of partisanship and cultural divides, the need and desire for common understanding and purpose has increased. AFS-USA is gauging interest in restarting their domestic exchange program, while new exchanges like the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange address cultural issues on different scales. [more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 5:58 PM PST - 29 comments

Author William Gibson describes learning to write fiction as a matter of "a matter of a personal micro-culture." But developing a personal identity in such a piecemeal way has its challenges, writes Timothy Ray in "Rolling Your Own Culture and (Not) Finding Community," an essay for Ribbonfarm. "As cultures become atomized or nonexistent, our languages for communicating meaning to one another, for crafting meaning together, have a shrinking shared vocabulary....The more carefully you’ve planned your life, the fewer people you’ll find to plan it with."
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:56 PM PST - 10 comments

National Parks Maps - 1,704 of them. Free to download! The National Park Service publishes tons of great free maps; Matt Holly has collected them all for you. On his website NPMaps you’ll find hundreds of PDF and image files of any U.S. national park map; you can view all parks alphabetically and sort by state. [more inside]
posted by pjsky at 5:09 PM PST - 7 comments

Some of China's Class J2 Mikado (2-8-2) steam locomotives are working out their last days hauling coal out of the Sandaoling mine in Xinjiang province. As is too often the case, minimal or nonexistent maintenance bring additional woes. Especially obvious to a trackside observer is what happens when the spark arrestors wear out and aren't replaced. Behold the volcano locomotives of the mine. (Jump to 2:45 if you're the impatient sort)
posted by pjern at 3:12 PM PST - 17 comments

The bicentennial was a helluva party. The American Freedom Train, toured the country in 1975–76 to commemorate the United States Bicentenniali. The 26-car train was powered by three newly restored steam locomotives. The first to pull the train was former Reading Company T-1 class 4-8-4 #2101. The second was former Southern Pacific 4449, a large 4-8-4 steam locomotive that is still operating in special excursion service today. The third was former Texas & Pacific 2-10-4 #610, which pulled the train in Texas.
[more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 2:47 PM PST - 4 comments

Phidippus and Hyllus are genera in the family Salticidae (jumping spiders). Phidippus Adumbratus is endearingly cute and can be puppy-like [percussive new age audio], to the point of being pettable [birdsong] (previously). Hyllus Giganteus, the largest member of its genus, is more daunting [tense music] but every bit [quiet speech] as adorable [just mute the audio, trust me].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:11 AM PST - 11 comments

US: Wow, our politics is bonkers right now! UK: Wanna bet? Brazil: Hold my caipirinha.
Brazil Needs to Look Beyond Scandal Reform is the only way to clean up government.
Charged with corruption, Brazil’s president could be saved by politicians also under suspicion.
In Brazil's crooked political game, is anybody playing fair? A search for an honest political player.
posted by adamvasco at 9:19 AM PST - 20 comments

Chuck Shepherd has announced that this is his final weekly column. News of the Weird is an astonishing, improbable, delightful and inspiring list of odd news from around the world. Published since 1988, first in alternative newsweeklies, this list often features stories from Chuck's home state of Florida, for some reason. Well sourced and beautifully presented, this original Weird News source will be greatly missed.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 8:36 AM PST - 25 comments

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds (aka PUBG aka Plunkbat aka PUBaGr) is a 100 person shooter evoking Battle Royale/Hunger Games last-person-standing mechanics but without the narrative framing, newest and biggest in a recent genre explosion. You and 99 other people parachute onto an island, and try to find weapons and armor and misc. gear while struggling to keep within the bounds of an increasingly claustrophobic circle. It can be rather goofy, even before you add McEllroys. [more inside]
posted by cortex at 8:24 AM PST - 70 comments

I think, I am the fattest person in this apartment building. I am the fattest person in this class. I am the fattest person at this university. I am the fattest person in this theatre.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 8:18 AM PST - 43 comments

Fire Emblem: The History and The Resonance [YouTube] “EPN Films and Nintendo worked together to create a cool mini-documentary about one of the longest running series in videogames: Fire Emblem! Take a trip through time and around the world as Victor Lucas and his guests, Johnny Millennium from the Happy Console Gamer show, and Nintendo's Andrew Collins dive deep into this venerable franchise.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:14 AM PST - 19 comments

Language Links Database - a collection of links to free online study resources for many languages of the world.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:36 AM PST - 11 comments

paleophilatelie.eu is an online collection of philatelic material (stamps, covers, post cards, postmarks etc.) depicting prehistoric animals, plants, fossils, dinosaurs, human ancestors, paleontologists, museums with significant paleontological collections, etc. Does what it says on the cover ...
posted by carter at 4:54 AM PST - 4 comments

La Junta, Colorado is home to the Koshare Kiva, a unique structure that was imagined in 1939 and built over a decade later, where Boy Scout Troop 232 of La Junta and an affiliated co-ed venturing crew can work to be part of the Koshare Indian Dancers, who learn and perform their version of Hopi, Lakota, Kiowa, Ojibwe, Blackfoot, Diné and Comanche religious ceremonies. Beyond this appropriation or theft from native people, the kiva itself is impressive as it is the largest self-supported log roof in the world. In fact, it's a reciprocal frame roof of 620 or 647 repurposed telephone poles. If you're interested in how such a roof is built, here's a Tony Wrench in a video and written form describing how to build one. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:07 PM PST - 23 comments

Lindsay Ellis delivers a film theory course via the Transformers movies in The Whole Plate: 1) Film Studies; 2) Auteur Theory 3) Why is it so hard to remember what happens in Transformers? 4) Genre 5) Feminist Theory ... More to come!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:05 PM PST - 21 comments

Louis C.K. presents a trailer for the documentary Check It, about a group of LGBTQ kids in DC who, in response to trans- and homophobic violence, have formed a street gang to protect themselves and each other. (There's a Louis-free version of the trailer at the link as well.) (Content warning: Violence.)
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:39 PM PST - 6 comments

Repeated safety lapses hobble Los Alamos National Laboratory’s work on the cores of U.S. nuclear warheads is the first in a five-part series from Science Magazine and the Center for Public Integrity [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:46 PM PST - 16 comments

"The X Prize Is Now Backing Sci-Fi Like It Backs IRL Science" [Wired]: "Starting [6/28/2017], 22 new science fiction stories go live on the Seat14C website, courtesy of genre luminaries like Margaret Atwood and Charlie Jane Anders. Each story details the future from the perspective of a different passenger on a plane that traveled through a wormhole 20 years into the future." [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:31 PM PST - 8 comments

Twenty-five years ago today, a sports movie premiered. Everyone expected it to be something a hit, with its crowd of high-powered actors (and even a pop star), immaculate Hollywood pedigree behind the cameras, and perfectly nostalgia-y and Bechdel-Test-passing cred. But not many people probably thought that A League of Their Own would go on to be the highest-grossing baseball movie of all time, nor that it would make the National Baseball Hall of Fame's "Diamond Dreams" exhibit about women in baseball one of the Hall's most popular areas. And yet, it doesn't get its due in discussions about The Greatest Sports Movies Of All Time; allow Katie Baker of The Ringer to explain why that is some hot garbage.
posted by Etrigan at 6:22 PM PST - 51 comments

how to do nothing, a talk given at EYEO 2017 by artist Jenny Odell.
posted by panic at 6:20 PM PST - 16 comments

Why Bill Schindler is teaching college students to live like early humans Fewer people have mastered basic survival skills today than at any other time in human history. Schindler is keen to correct the popular conception of our ancestors as ignorant cavemen. People today have “thoroughly domesticated themselves,” he told me. Early humans, by contrast, had to be much more inventive, adept at problem-solving, and subtly attuned to changes in the natural environment. Their need to cooperate made them socially connected, as people nowadays are desperate to be
posted by 2manyusernames at 4:00 PM PST - 45 comments

Monopoly (and clones) is available in many editions, such as Bacon-Opoly, Heinz, Brew-Opoly, Cocktail-Opoly, Wine-Opoly, Klingon, Cheerleading, Redneckopoly, Offshore Engineer, Cat Lover's Monopoly, Pug-opoly, Frenchie-Opoly, Yorkie-opoly, Dog-Opoly, Horse Lover's Monopoly, Homeschoolopoly, Anti-Monopoly. [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:52 PM PST - 17 comments

Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television detective? Sadly, no, but he had the makings of a great one, at least as cut together by playwright Danny Thompson, cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck. Some twenty five years after Beckett’s death, Thompson repurposed Rosa Veim and Daniel Schmid’s footage of the moody genius wandering around 1969 Berlin into the opening credits of a nonexistent, 70s era Quinn Martin police procedural. [via Ayun Halliday, openculture.com] [SLYT]
posted by Room 641-A at 3:29 PM PST - 12 comments

Easier done than said. Like the origins of most recipes that came from Old Countries to enrich the dinner tables of the Americas, the exact origin of baklava is also something hard to put the finger on because every ethnic group whose ancestry goes back to the Middle East has a claim of their own on this scrumptious pastry. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 2:40 PM PST - 22 comments

Photobucket rolled out a new update to its TOS on June 26th with just a small, innocuous blog post as an announcement. Users have been finding out about it as their embedded images on other sites have turned into placeholders telling them to update their accounts, and as Photobucket has rolled out email notifications telling them that if they want to keep embedding images, they have to pay $399/year. [more inside]
posted by current resident at 11:55 AM PST - 69 comments

Growing Garlic From True Seed & Addenda [more inside]
posted by aniola at 11:44 AM PST - 12 comments

Think the Colossus was the first computer? Think again! Taking data from tide gauges, complex mechanical tide prediction devices came into use in the early 1800s. The Doodson-Légé Tide Predicting Machine could calculate tide times and heights simultaneously, and is currently on display at the National Oceanographic Centre in Liverpool
posted by emilyw at 11:00 AM PST - 14 comments

Chief Dan George's Lament for Confederation is still relevant 50 years later. As the official celebrations of Canada's 150th begin, many are (even more than usual) expressing discomfort at flag waving, and choosing instead to discuss the challenges issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Canada's failure to address the ongoing violence and injustice of colonialism. [more inside]
posted by chapps at 10:25 AM PST - 17 comments

Illinois started its third straight fiscal year without a state budget on Saturday, territory that could mean some universities won't be able to offer federal financial aid, road construction and Powerball ticket sales will halt, and the state's credit rating will be downgraded to "junk." (Sarah Burnett/AP) [more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:17 AM PST - 37 comments

For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, Canada's Sesquicentennial is as good an excuse as any to discover what is arguably* that country's greatest cultural achievment: the television series due South.

Watching due South was my first experience of rulebreaking television—of that strange sense of being inside one person's idiosyncratic vision. A Canadian production, it wasn't a cop show (although there were cops), it wasn't a drama (although there was drama), it wasn't a comedy (although there were jokes). It had morsels of everything and yet was different from them all.

*FIGHT ME [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:04 AM PST - 35 comments

Two years ago, Ellen Pao lost her discrimination lawsuit against VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Many women in the startup world became discouraged about speaking out about their experiences, but that has changed radically. In February former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing harassment at Uber(previously). This inspired an investigation, and others began to share stories of other horrible practices at Uber, eventually leading to founder Travis Kalanick resigning last week (and the resignation of a board member who couldn't help making a sexist joke during a meeting to discuss the allegations). Binary Capital partner Justin Caldbeck resigned shortly thereafter following several women coming forward to report inappropriate behavior toward them while fundraising; Binary has since announced it is shutting down its most recent fund, and two other partners have resigned. On Thursday, VC and Shark Tank investor Chris Sacca published a Medium post about his realization that he has "more work to do". Less than 24 hours later, the New York Times published a report of multiple women coming forward on the record with corroborating documentation to name Chris Sacca and a number of other high-profile VCs in further allegations of sexism, harassment, and inappropriate behavior. [more inside]
posted by olinerd at 10:00 AM PST - 34 comments

Train leaves the city, high on the tracks Holocaust central howling at my back..
While lives are lost every day, it is destruction of cities and monuments that drives home the vicious nature of conflict throughout history.
Culturecide also is a word coined in Indian country.
(Credit: Primal Scream).
posted by adamvasco at 8:54 AM PST - 2 comments

Appalachian wrestling's greatest villain, 'The Progressive Liberal,' may be making waves these days with his liberal agenda moves, but let's look back to the man, the myth, the legend: Sputnik Monroe, “235 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal," the most hated wrestler in Memphis, and a champion of integration in the Jim Crow South. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:38 AM PST - 5 comments

'Rat Park' by Stuart McMillen
posted by infini at 5:20 AM PST - 26 comments

Featuring Misty Copeland, Toscanini's Head, Wigs, Harps and a Snow Yak (SLYT)
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 4:15 AM PST - 15 comments

Tales from the intersection of science and airport security
posted by the latin mouse at 4:04 AM PST - 17 comments

On Friday, the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, passed a bill giving same-sex couples equal marriage rights. Merkel voted no but allowed the vote to happen by freeing the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) from their obligation as a coalition partner not to put the bill forward. [more inside]
posted by daybeforetheday at 1:03 AM PST - 15 comments