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Carte Blanch: What the Truck Bridget is a great favourite in my neighbourhood. Despite the fact that she regularly disrupts traffic, people always take her side against the trucks. [more inside]
posted by Zumbador at 9:12 PM PST - 34 comments

Nichelle Nichols, best known for playing Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek series and in six movies, has died at the age of 89. After her work as one of the first non-stereotypical Black women to star in a network television show (a role that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. implored her to stay in), Nichols set out to "help recruit women and people of color into the space race." Additionally, Nichols was a darling of the convention scene, embracing her status as a beloved role model.
posted by Etrigan at 2:07 PM PST - 223 comments

Who would Lady Macbeth most like to spend an afternoon with? Juliet? Mercutio? Kate? What is Ophelia looking for in a lover, or a companion? Pair some of Shakespeare's characters off in We Are Not All Alone Unhappy, a Twine game by Cat Manning. For further reading, here's an explanation of the project.
posted by shirobara at 12:45 PM PST - 12 comments

The Thomas the Tank Engine Theme Is Unironically Really Good.
posted by mhoye at 10:06 AM PST - 25 comments

Why "Yakety Sax" makes anything funny and has morphed into the soundtrack of political failure (SL Salon) [more inside]
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:33 AM PST - 24 comments

Battling History is a series of five long articles in Coda Story about contentious areas of history in Europe. Isobel Cockerell writes about Nazi labor camps in Alderney, one of the British Channel Islands, and Spain’s vast tomb to fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Daiva Repečkaitė writes about struggles between Lithuania and Belarus over a shared medieval history. Caitlin Thompson writes about unsolved murders and unexamined atrocities in Northern Ireland. Katia Patin writes about resistance to official Polish narratives surrounding the Nazi occupation.
posted by Kattullus at 3:38 AM PST - 8 comments

After Going Solar, I Felt the Bliss of Sudden Abundance [ungated] - "My rooftop panels showed me that a world powered by renewables would be an overflowing horn of plenty, with fast, sporty cars and comfy homes." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 1:49 AM PST - 89 comments

Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier on the creative process.
posted by sjswitzer at 7:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Norway has been enthralled for months by a young, female, boat-crushing walrus [more inside]
posted by freakazoid at 4:47 PM PST - 32 comments

The Ripper, by The Volcanics. I love a surf guitar instrumental, especially when it's accompanied by a video as effortlessly stylish as this one. Maybe you'll enjoy it too.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:02 PM PST - 20 comments

📬 Hello again! 📩
Just a reminder that the self-nominations for the inaugural Metafilter Steering Committee (SC) close on August 7th!

The purpose of said committee will be to develop and implement site policy, code updates, and ensure the financial health of the site, i.e. help guide the direction of the overall site and act as the voice of the community.

Interested? Come over to Metatalk to view details and learn how to apply by August 7th!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:14 AM PST - 2 comments

After he learned that the Missouri chapter of the ku klux klan was impersonating him in order to spread racist messages to kids, Mr. Rogers took them on — and won.
posted by eotvos at 6:40 AM PST - 27 comments

My favorite historical "discoveries" are ones male anthropologists/historians just *can't* figure out for YEARS that are swiftly answered by a woman when one is finally given access. "But what could this ancient tablet of instructions even MEAN!" Woman: "it's a recipe". (short Twitter thread with many replies of similar "discoveries")
posted by Etrigan at 6:29 AM PST - 36 comments

DNA from a domesticated American horse adds weight to shipwreck folklore [more inside]
posted by BWA at 5:15 AM PST - 8 comments

[warning: some viewers may find disturbing, but not be able to turn away. See Wikipedia article for more.] Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared is coming to Channel 4 (UK) some time in September 2022. Teaser: FLY! Pesky Twitter.
posted by not_on_display at 11:31 PM PST - 14 comments

More than a teaser trailer, Moonage Daydream has a full-length peek [2m4s]. I really want this to play in the Dolby Cinema box in my town. Also, that might be my first time in a theater since the Before Times.
posted by hippybear at 8:02 PM PST - 18 comments

1% of people cause a stunning 50% of global aviation emissions. There is clear inequality in terms of emissions between nations, but also vast inequality within Western nations in terms of who’s causing the climate crisis. Take the United States – the biggest contributor to aviation pollution on the planet. Whereas commercial US flights remain 13% below pre-pandemic levels, private aviation traffic is actually higher – 15% higher, to be exact. This means that while ordinary people are actually flying less than before the pandemic, the richest are flying more. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:07 PM PST - 63 comments

The French Horn player you don't realize you've heard your whole life, Vincent DeRosa is easily the most heard and most influential Horn player ever, with a discography that is simply astonishing, including: [more inside]
posted by LooseFilter at 1:54 PM PST - 13 comments

Liverpudlian Coleen Rooney has been a WAG since the term was invented. Rebekah Vardy is also a WAG albeit perhaps slightly less high profile. The two women are acquainted with each other, and Vardy was a follower of Rooney's private Instagram account. In a social media post that quickly went viral, Rooney claimed to have established in an elaborate sting that Vardy's account was responsibly for leaking stories about her to The Sun newspaper and attracted the hashtag #WagathaChristie [more inside]
posted by plonkee at 1:39 PM PST - 19 comments

This week in Texas, after months of stonewalling, a summary judgment that had the legal community in astonishment, and an attempt to make an end run around the courts via bankruptcy law, peddler of conspiracy theories and supplements both of dubious quality Alex Jones is finally in court to determine the damages he owes Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis for defaming them over the death of their 6 year old son in one of the bloodiest massacres in American history. And if you are imagining that this trial is going to be be a three ring circus with Jones as the ringmaster - you have no idea. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:59 PM PST - 208 comments

Famous Wedding Show, by Norwegian dance crew The Quick Style [more inside]
posted by Gorgik at 10:29 AM PST - 6 comments

"It didn’t occur to Hamish until then that you could end up in medical school against your will. For Hamish, getting into medical school was like releasing a breath he’d been holding his entire life. But once there, he found himself surrounded by people for whom it represented nothing more remarkable than the result of mild exertion; they accepted it as a blasé part of their destiny. It was like finding out they were hyperflexible or had the genes that made them able to discern the stink of their piss after eating asparagus. Maybe that’s the way it worked for some people. Maybe for them, there was an order to life, a logic that could be easily traversed, whereas for Hamish, life was like leaping from ice floe to ice floe, drifting for weeks or months or years with no land in sight." [more inside]
posted by praemunire at 9:19 AM PST - 12 comments

Being a pedestrian in the US was already dangerous. It’s getting even worse. (SLVox) [more inside]
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 8:53 AM PST - 112 comments

But Benford says the first complaint that put the couple on the city’s radar came from a white neighbor in 2003. “That lady would ask me to come help her move things, or fix something,” Benford says. “She’d ask for rides to and from the bus stop. Come to find out she was reporting us to the city the entire time.” Radley Balko for Nashville Scene with an extensive investigation into the explosion of Metro Code violation reports largely targeting Black and low-income home owners in the city. [more inside]
posted by Ghidorah at 7:49 PM PST - 60 comments

Jon Stewart unleashes 9m37s of righteous outrage over the the Senate blockage of the PACT Act, meant to fund health care for veterans suffering diseases from burn pits and other such hazards during service. Salty language abounds.
posted by hippybear at 7:43 PM PST - 55 comments

The prize honors a book-length work of imaginative fiction with $25,000. "Since Le Guin’s death in January, 2018, her son and literary executor, Theo Downes-Le Guin has been thinking of ways to honor his mother’s work, and share her art and ideas with a new generation of readers and writers." [more inside]
posted by humbug at 2:05 PM PST - 15 comments

Mexican abuela, upright member of the community, and proud matriarch Catarina Orduña Pérez had one request for her grave - for it to be topped with a turgid memorial to her symbol of the stiff joyful energy that filled her life. (SLVice, NSFW for pictures of said memorial.) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:39 AM PST - 27 comments

A 1977 Commodore PET as a 30 fps Youtube viewer. [more inside]
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 10:33 AM PST - 42 comments

Author Ruthanna Emrys talks about the inspirations and experiences that built her latest book, A Half-Built Garden, over at John Scalzi's Big Idea series: "What looks as different from modern global capitalism as capitalism looks from god-touched emperors? ... a better future isn’t something to have faith in, it’s something to work towards, regardless of how scary or frustrating or unlikely it feels." There's a brief summary at Tor.com and another summary at Publishers Weekly. Emrys previously: her post-Lovecraftian novelette The Litany of Earth; her Winter Tide; her thoughts on Jo Walton's Thessaly (Just City) books; and some discussions between Emrys and Anne M. Pillsworth about various 20th Century weird stories.
posted by kristi at 9:53 AM PST - 10 comments

Bernard Cribbins, OBE, passed away this week, after seven decades of work in film, screen and stage. His career spanned seven decades with such diverse work ranging from films like The Railway Children and the Carry On series, hit 60’s song ‘Right Said Fred’ a notorious guest on Fawlty Towers and narrating The Wombles. He worked well into his 90’s, appearing in Doctor Who and the CBeebies series Old Jack’s Boat.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:35 AM PST - 39 comments

With Deliverance celebrating its 50th anniversary or RoboCop celebrating its 35th anniversary, the AVClub talks to Ronny Cox about his two most well-known roles. They also talk about his music and how gets recognized in public as anyone other than himself ("You’ve just been my gynecologist for 14 years!”).
posted by tommasz at 8:01 AM PST - 24 comments

The unexpected TV spin-off of a box office sleeper hit helped to create a new renaissance in science fiction on cable television. The future of Stargate could be looking brighter as word of a pilot script from one of the original SG-1 producers is being pitched to the franchise's new owner, Amazon. Also, look back at the third SG-1 film that was never made and check out members of the cast performing a script written by an AI.
posted by Servo5678 at 6:31 AM PST - 42 comments

Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not opening a 'portal to hell' (SL USA Today)
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:25 AM PST - 65 comments

Foraging with Janice N. Harrington at the Southern Foodways Alliance. [more inside]
posted by the primroses were over at 4:27 AM PST - 26 comments

Following the release of Snow White, in 1938, Walt Disney organized a Field Day. "Walt foresaw a leisurely outdoor event, one that would appeal to middle-aged family men, similar to the social festivities held by other studios," however it would be the craziest party Walt Disney ever threw. After working late nights on Snow White, being informed that the party was their bonus, the young animators had other ideas. Walt "and his wife drove home that next morning. He never referred to that party again, and in fact, if you wanted to keep your job, you didn’t mention it either.”
posted by geoff. at 1:21 AM PST - 25 comments

Every year, thousands of bicycles are tossed into rivers, ponds, lakes and canals. Jody Rosen, author of Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle, ponders the question: why do so many bikes end up underwater?
posted by verstegan at 12:25 AM PST - 38 comments

Sam Dean interviews Mike Davis for the LA Times , (and much more that didn't make it in to the published piece).
posted by latkes at 7:37 PM PST - 10 comments

MSNBC's series Mavericks spends a half hour with Samantha Bee in Amidst Women’s Rights Clash, Sam Bee Fights Back With Comedy, Truth, And Late Night Breakthroughs. This is a great interview looking into Bee's career and growth across time, with a lot of introspection and insight. It was sadly recorded shortly before Full Frontal With Samantha Bee was cancelled after its seventh season [Variety].
posted by hippybear at 7:01 PM PST - 8 comments

Manchin has agreed to a deal with party leadership that would spend over$400 billion, including $370 billion on climate. A corporate minimum tax of 15% would be established, more funding for the IRS to audit tax cheats, money is devoted to health care affordability, and Medicare can negotiate on prices. (Link goes to WP, here's the archive.org entry.) [more inside]
posted by mark k at 5:59 PM PST - 116 comments

The NRA Children's Museum is a one mile long convoy of 52 school buses representing the lives of 4368 children that have been lost to gun violence. [more inside]
posted by brookeb at 12:11 PM PST - 26 comments

Why is humanities scholarship struggling? Peer review in those fields is apparently slowing down and getting harder to accomplish. Maybe it's because of changing faculty attitudes. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 11:38 AM PST - 38 comments

The rumors flew for a few hours on Monday, all over social media. People claimed to have talked to people at the company. Screenshots of tweets and Facebook posts were shared. Then, it became official. Klondike (a brand of Good Humor-Breyers, a wholly owned subsidiary of Unilever) announced that it is discontinuing the Choco Taco. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:11 AM PST - 66 comments

Rolf Langebartels Internetproject Soundbag is an internet project by Berlin-based artist Rolf Langebartels. It's a "collection of items relating to Sound Art and Audio Art." [more inside]
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:51 AM PST - 2 comments

Matt Gaetz Body-Shamed a Teen — Who Then Launched a Fundraiser for Abortion Rights. Olivia Julianna has raised over $230,000 for abortion funds. [more inside]
posted by bitteschoen at 9:40 AM PST - 52 comments

Your problem will rarely be only local, so you are not alone in your battle. When this fight began I had no clue that the problem faced by Macon had national resonance. It turns out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified pyrolysis as incineration under the Clean Air Act since the 1990s, even as industry tries to reclassify it as manufacturing and recycling. National players, such as Graham Hamilton, U.S. Policy Officer for Break Free From Plastic, joined our cause and helped build a grassroots national campaign to use the term “plastic incineration” instead of the industry spin of “recycling.” I was astonished to find that my friend Rebecca Altman, a writer and sociologist who lives in Rhode Island, knew about our Macon battle. The fight against pyrolysis for plastic waste was “a global fight,” she explained. Journalist Jill Neimark explains in Open Mind how she helped stop a plastics incinerator from opening in Macon, Georgia. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 9:40 AM PST - 5 comments

Stranger Things if Kate Bush Hadn't Agreed to Let Them Use "Running Up That Hill"
posted by queen anne's remorse at 6:32 AM PST - 28 comments

A tall and narrow stripe of a city more than 105 miles long, teeming with 9 million residents and running entirely on renewable energy - that's the vision Saudi Arabia's leaders have for The Line, part of a "giga-project" that will reshape the kingdom's northwest. [more inside]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:09 AM PST - 81 comments

It sounds made up.

In the wilderness of British Columbia, a two hour drive from any town with cell reception, sits a ghost town.

Not only a ghost town, but a ghost town that was built for $50 million in 1981, only to be shut down a year later.

...

Like I said, it sounds made up.

But Kitsault is real. You can visit.

So I did. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 1:11 AM PST - 36 comments

Somerton Man mystery ‘solved’: Professor identifies man found on beach in 1948 The Somerton Man (previously 1, 2, 3), was an unidentified man found dead on a beach outside Adelaide, Australia in 1948. His identity has been a mystery ever since. Professor Derek Abbott from the University of Adelaide claims to have identified the man as Carl “Charles” Webb, from Melbourne. Professor Abbott used DNA from hair found in a plaster "death" mask police made in the late 1940s. Abbott supervised a review of the case in 2009. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:48 PM PST - 10 comments

Seeing double: Near-identical films that came out at the same time.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:00 PM PST - 39 comments

Based on a company meeting recording and other leaks from Meta employees, The Verge reports that the company and its head, secure in his position thanks to his holdings, are putting pressure on the employees to perform leaner as a number of challenges threaten Meta.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:01 PM PST - 76 comments

emoji.supply provides two services:

• Customized emoji wallpaper for you background needs
• Adding two emoji together to create a custom .png as defined by Google's Emoji Kitchen

posted by Going To Maine at 11:29 AM PST - 32 comments

Bail conditions for climate change activists linked with Blockade Australia have clauses "that would prohibit the use of encrypted communication apps such as WhatsApp and Signal. [New South Wales] police also imposed conditions forcing the activists to hand over any communications device to police and provide passcodes upon request." Elsewhere, "A protest planned by hundreds of bank depositors in central China seeking access to their frozen funds has been thwarted because the authorities have turned their health code apps red", which left them unable to travel. (Previously.) [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 9:06 AM PST - 18 comments

Why none of Cory Doctorow books are available on Audible. A brief history of audiobooks, and a criticism of DRM, Amazon and Audible. A post which Doctorow has also turned into a free audiobook, titled Why None of My Books Are Available on Audible And Why Amazon Owes Me $3,218.55 through Amazon's ACX platform. ACX facilitates scamming authors, like Doctorow, who avoid or reject Audible's platform. [more inside]
posted by zenon at 8:52 AM PST - 27 comments

Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things In Between by Joe Osmundson is an ambitious book that succeeds in its efforts to shed light on viruses with science writing, yes, but also to shed light on the messy realities of life with queer theory, journey entries, archival data, personal essays, and above all else, naked honesty. [Autostraddle]
posted by ellieBOA at 8:12 AM PST - 4 comments

Fans of quidditch are now fans of quadball, the new name for the real-life sport that was first inspired by the Harry Potter book series. U.S. Quidditch and Major League Quidditch announced the name change on Tuesday as well as their own rebranding as U.S. Quadball and Major League Quadball. The groups announced their intention to find a new name for the sport in December, citing what they called anti-trans positions of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
posted by Etrigan at 7:30 AM PST - 57 comments

Joni Mitchell performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967, fifty-five years ago. This past Sunday, in a surprise appearance with Brandi Carlisle, she returned for another full set, her first in over two decades. More clips inside, have some tissues ready. [more inside]
posted by Ipsifendus at 4:52 AM PST - 45 comments

According to a comprehensive scientific review published July 20, there is no evidence that depression is caused by serotonin deficiency or "chemical imbalance."
posted by derrinyet at 7:59 PM PST - 103 comments

📬 Hello there! 📩
The Metafilter Transition Team (TT) is pleased to announce that self nominations are open for the inaugural Steering Committee! The purpose of the MetaFilter Steering Committee (SC) will be to develop and implement site policy, code updates, and ensure the financial health of the site. The SC works with the site staff and site owner to ensure that there is not a single failure point for site decisions or actions, and that there are an adequate number of people available to respond to community needs. Long story short this will be a committee of Metafilter members who help guide the site and act as the voice of the members at large. Interested? Come on over to MetaTalk and read all the details!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:39 PM PST - 14 comments

NYTimes article on San Diego citizens that are priced out of the local housing market and so rent or buy in Tijuana but still commute back to San Diego for work. [more inside]
posted by math at 9:41 AM PST - 58 comments

Pope Francis arrived in Canada on June 22, 2022 to apologize to Indigenous residential school survivors for the Church’s role in widespread abuse of children. The Canadian residential school system was a federal system of genocide in place from the 1880s to 1996. The Catholic Church ran the majority of institutions and by 1998 was the only major church involved that had not officially apologized. It was not until April 1, 2022, that the Pope officially apologized to a delegation of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. Now, he has travelled to Canada to deliver an apology on Indigenous land. Responses from Indigenous survivors and descendants are mixed. (Warning for all links: physical, emotional, sexual abuse; genocide; racism; manslaughter and murder) [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:31 AM PST - 36 comments

A long history of constraining the river through levees has led to massive land loss in its delta. Can people engineer a way out? (SLWired)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:32 AM PST - 22 comments

David Warner, actor, has passed, age 80. David Hattersley Warner was born July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England, to Ada Doreen (Hattersley) and Herbert Simon Warner. He had been called the finest Hamlet of his generation, but a "disastrous" staging of I, Claudius in 1973 left him with terrible stage fright, but the Royal Shakespeare Company's loss was a boon to a number of productions, as it brought him to film, television and voice acting. [more inside]
posted by mephron at 6:22 AM PST - 78 comments

Magnus Carlsen, the 5-time World Chess Champion, today ended months of speculation by announcing via his sponsors Unibet that he will not defend his title. The 31-year-old Norwegian is not retiring and vows “to be the best in the world, and not care about the World Championship!” That means Chinese world no. 2 Ding Liren’s last-round Candidates Tournament win against Hikaru Nakamura has earned him a lucrative match against Ian Nepomniachtchi.
posted by Etrigan at 5:51 AM PST - 24 comments

Upon a slitted sheet I sit. Why? I don't know! I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit, so here we are. Not everything in life makes sense, man. (This thread may be understood through tough thorough thought, though.) [more inside]
posted by taz at 2:43 AM PST - 101 comments

Activist Alice Wong and science journalist Ed Yong talk about the diversity of the natural world, the incredible senses of other organisms and the limits of our understanding for how rich and diverse the natural world really is, ableism in science, the strangeness and unpredictability of sensory biology, and more in Orion magazine following the release of Ed’s latest book, An Immense World. [via]
posted by ellieBOA at 12:40 AM PST - 7 comments

Colon, Michigan as the magic capital of the World. [more inside]
posted by clavdivs at 11:23 PM PST - 12 comments

A chess-playing robot broke the finger of a 7-year-old boy who was competing against it during a recent tournament in Moscow. ... Officials, in comments to a pair of state news agencies translated from Russian, appeared to place at least some of the blame for the incident on the boy. [more inside]
posted by NotLost at 10:22 PM PST - 40 comments

Gov. Gavin Newsom says California will make its own insulin, noting that its current high-cost "epitomizes market failures." [more inside]
posted by aniola at 8:27 PM PST - 25 comments

Dr Jackson Crawford is a linguist with a YouTube channel devoted to old Norse language and literature. He’s been releasing videos twice a week for the last five years, covering old Norse language lessons, translations of texts, elements of Norse culture and discussions with experts in related fields. [more inside]
posted by aussie_powerlifter at 7:56 PM PST - 5 comments

On Nudge Theory: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias.
posted by latkes at 6:01 PM PST - 31 comments

American conservatism, which is demographically terminal and knows it, is acting like a moribund billionaire adding sadistic codicils to his will. Through the internet, we could peer enviously at our neighbors in civilized countries, who get monthlong vacations, don’t have to devote decades to paying for their college degrees, and aren’t terrified of going broke if they get sick. To young people, America seems less like a country than an inescapable web of scams, and “hard work” less like a virtue than a propaganda slogan, inane as “Just say no.” [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 5:07 PM PST - 34 comments

Some Surprising Good News: Bookstores Are Booming and Becoming More Diverse “Yu and Me Books is one of more than 300 new independent bookstores that have sprouted across the United States in the past couple of years, in a surprising and welcome revival after an early pandemic slump. And as the number of stores has grown, the book selling business — traditionally overwhelmingly white — has also become much more diverse.” (archive)
posted by jimw at 9:14 PM PST - 24 comments

Mystery shrouds colossal Brink’s heist at I-5 truck stop: Who stole millions in gems, gold? In the early hours of July 11, two armed guards left their Brink’s big rig, giving a gang of thieves a 27-minute window to make the huge snatch, its total value still a mystery. Estimates range from $10 million to $100 million. (Unpaywalled)
posted by gryphonlover at 9:07 PM PST - 65 comments

Back in 2020, a decision was made to not recast the role of Black Panther, after the death of actor Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed the character in the self titled 2018 movie. This choice winds up setting a somber, yet hopeful, tone over the first trailer for the sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:31 PM PST - 77 comments

We've discussed actual play before (February, 2021, 2017, and 2016) and some history of D&D, AD&D, and how they begat Pathfinder (recent discussion) and various other table-top role-playing systems, stories, and games. Let's revisit given new options and more variety available: Meet Pathfinder, The Glass Cannon Network, and the many options beyond D&D. Now that Glass Cannon's flagship show has wrapped, start at episode 1 and... don't leave town. [more inside]
posted by abulafa at 6:58 PM PST - 21 comments

Barely a month after the start of the latest round of allegations of bad behavior by Vince McMahon, majority shareholder in World Wrestling Entertainment, he has "decided" to "retire" from his roles as (suspended pending investigation) Chairman and CEO and (still in place pending investigation) head of creative. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:44 AM PST - 29 comments

Will a jury find James and Jennifer Crumbley criminally responsible for their son’s mass shooting? [New York Magazine] [more inside]
posted by riruro at 9:12 AM PST - 103 comments

Rupert Everett's Shades Of Gay (2017) [46m] explores the changes in UK society after the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967. Looking at the oppression of the past and the freedom of today and what has been gained and lost. Out In The Open (2013) [1h28m] begins with outdated myths and stereotypes about LGBTQ people, and moves through them using interviews and testimonials into encouragement, truth, light and joy. I wish I'd seen this when I was a bullied 14 year old.
posted by hippybear at 8:12 AM PST - 1 comment

Brian Cox meets Brian Cox. "The actor Brian Cox used to be irked by the success of his upstart namesake. Now, for the first time, he and Prof. Brian Cox talk science, Succession and what Shakespeare and black holes have in common." [The Guardian]
posted by misteraitch at 6:10 AM PST - 31 comments

"Forget Niketown. To a certain extent we are all citizens of Nikeland now. [NYT]" The brand turns 50. [more inside]
posted by blue shadows at 6:43 PM PST - 39 comments

Meet Jason Chou - when he isn't studying to be a VFX artist, he is photoshopping Paddington Bear into your favorite movies, tv shows and video games. [more inside]
posted by the primroses were over at 4:49 PM PST - 5 comments

The strange world of high-speed semi-automated genre fiction (Josh Dzieza, The Verge)
posted by one for the books at 3:41 PM PST - 58 comments

Dan McKinley has a Twitter thread about working at Etsy in the mid 2000s, including: It was scheduled for 3PM, but didn’t start until 3:30 because my interviewer was “really hung over.” and Steve had this intricate conspiracy theory he believed in centered around Bertrand Russell, which I never figured out. and There was an internal Flash endpoint you could use to exfiltrate all of our sales data, and in fact there was a whole other company that had figured this out and was selling our sales insights to Etsy sellers. [more inside]
posted by AlSweigart at 1:15 PM PST - 34 comments

Amazon said it had reached a $3.9 billion deal to acquire One Medical, a network of primary care clinics. As monopoly capitalism grows unchecked, Amazon's seriously dystopian forays into healthcare make the prospect of Medicare for All basically impossible. With access to incredible amounts of consumer data, the privacy implications are grim.
posted by bodywithoutorgans at 12:43 PM PST - 67 comments

How a French bulldog meetup in New York became the center of viral debate
posted by Etrigan at 10:33 AM PST - 23 comments

Yesterday’s passage of H.R. 8373-The Right to Contraception Act, in the U.S.A.’s House of Representatives brought back into focus the looming threat to Griswold v. Connecticut. [more inside]
posted by donut_princess at 7:41 AM PST - 52 comments

What kind of instrument would a type designer invent? The Daxophone is a bowed instrument that can seemingly conjure up any noise. This is probably an exaggeration, but when you listen to kazuhisa uchihashi recent album Singing Daxophone, you certainly do get that sense. [more inside]
posted by svenni at 5:56 AM PST - 18 comments

Stray follows a brave cat's journey through a world without humans, making robot friends along the way. Dog review. Cat reviews. More cat reviews. IGN. RPS.
posted by adept256 at 4:26 AM PST - 45 comments

Adopted tawny owlets get fluffier, wigglier, doted on, scooped into a bag, popped into another bag like confused groceries, admired by humans, and then dropped back home before parents return. [more inside]
posted by Mizu at 2:07 AM PST - 11 comments

A neuroscience image sleuth finds signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer’s articles, threatening a reigning theory of the disease
posted by latkes at 9:28 PM PST - 50 comments

Asteroid City plot details revealed ! The cast list is exactly who you'd expect—save one—plus Tom Hanks and Steve Carrell. Details have dribbled out over the last year: the name, the set, the cast, and leaked photos.
posted by bbrown at 5:11 PM PST - 6 comments

Surely, this big protest wave [in 2003 against the Iraq War] — possibly the largest in history — would help stop the relentless march toward this ill-advised war. We all know how that went. I Was Wrong About Why Protests Work (NYT) [more inside]
posted by meowzilla at 2:14 PM PST - 44 comments

A trailer just dropped for the new "Dungeons and Dragons" movie. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, but at least there's an owlbear.
posted by Ipsifendus at 1:43 PM PST - 138 comments

"U.S. state and federal investigators are being inundated with reports from people who’ve lost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in connection with a complex investment scam known as 'pig butchering.' ... As documented in a series of investigative reports published over the past year across Asia, the people creating these phony dating profiles are largely men and women from China and neighboring countries who have been kidnapped and trafficked to places like Cambodia, where they are forced to scam complete strangers over the Internet — day after day." [more inside]
posted by russilwvong at 10:44 AM PST - 60 comments

The last few days in Ukraine-Russia news includes Ukraine requesting modern fighter planes, the EU tightening sanctions on Russia, and Russia making plans to annex southern regions of Ukraine. [more inside]
posted by box at 10:19 AM PST - 284 comments

We’ve assembled the 50 greatest fictional deaths of all time—the most moving, most funny, most shocking, most influential scenes from books, movies, TV, theater, video games, and more. Slate brings us a list from Medea to Scrappy-Doo, with comments from some of the creators (not Euripides). Spoilers, of course.
posted by Etrigan at 9:57 AM PST - 111 comments

Hear Thunderstruck by AC/DC on a guzheng [more inside]
posted by glaucon at 6:24 AM PST - 15 comments

Found in a Library Book is an online collection of scanned items that people have left in library books in Oakland, California, including art, notes, lists and stuff by kids. [via Annie Rauwerda]
posted by Kattullus at 5:25 AM PST - 28 comments

1960s experimental gyroscopically stabilized vehicles.
posted by clavdivs at 8:33 PM PST - 14 comments

A very cute frog at the moment of sleeping. Also, This is what happens when you adore other frogs in front of a frog that loves its owner. [more inside]
posted by Glinn at 4:05 PM PST - 23 comments

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL or MoFi) is a record label specializing in the production of audiophile issues. Vinyl LPs known as "Original Master Recordings" and an ultra-premium deluxe vinyl series called Ultradisc One-Step costing over $100. For compact discs MoFi use a 'Direct Stream Digital recording system' and for vinyl the GAIN 2 Ultra Analog™ system. MoFi vinyl releases are extensively advertised as being AAA analogue. However in July 2022 after a question raised by The 'In' Groove owner Mike Esposito, the MoFi cutting crew have admitted in an interview with Mike that they master using a DIGITAL copy. The vinyl community is predictably outraged.
posted by Lanark at 3:34 PM PST - 55 comments

One in five US adults condone political violence (The Guardian). A study, Views of American democracy and society and support for political violence, has been posted to the MedRxiv preprint server, revealing that Americans are now willing to express their personal willingness to take up arms in political violence against their fellow citizens at frighteningly high rates. [more inside]
posted by biogeo at 2:49 PM PST - 156 comments

Over at Ask A Manager, proprietor Alison Green is running Mortification Week - in which she has published a number of stories recounted to her about the times in the workplace where the commenter made embarrassing blunders of epic proportions. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:19 PM PST - 34 comments

Maybe it is! First there was Emmanuel being an absolute ham. But don't forget about Karen, the "killer" emu over at Useless Farms and her various attempts to deal with her caregiver, who plays the antics for laughs. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:01 PM PST - 12 comments

A Middle-Aged Person Takes Up a Hobby A pop-up will ask for an email address - but the site don't verify the address. You can put in anything that looks like a valid email address to read the article, which is a pleasant essay on the joys of picking up a new hobby at the age where you don't have any illusions about ever getting good at it, or monetizing it, or whatever.
posted by COD at 1:19 PM PST - 47 comments

Emmanuel, do not. Emmanuel Todd Lopez! I can't believe you just did that. [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 11:00 AM PST - 34 comments

Colorado Springs man becomes fourth person to push a peanut up Pikes Peak with his nose
posted by Etrigan at 9:01 AM PST - 54 comments

Where are we going to put all these people who want to live? Maybe build a (highly controversial) house in your back yard? Maybe build a few (highly controversial) houses on a vacant lot? Two videos explaining a few ways to disrupt the status quo and help more people achieve housing.
posted by rebent at 8:16 AM PST - 61 comments

Come on, you know you do it. Whether you’re in the trusted company of your spouse, or sneaking a quick one when you think nobody’s looking, we all pick our noses. Other primates do it too. The social stigma around nose picking is widespread. But should we really be doing it – and what should we do with our boogers? Three scientists offer their take via The Conversation. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 5:38 AM PST - 56 comments

Has Alan Dershowitz been canceled? Alan Dershowitz certainly thinks so. The New Yorker's legendary fact checkers, however, are unable to confirm the claims he made in his interview with Isaac Chotiner. [more inside]
posted by fedward at 4:42 PM PST - 76 comments

In Evan Osnos’s latest dispatch for The New Yorker, he reminds us that the super rich are different from you and I by looking at the current booming yacht economy: “The Haves and The Have-Yachts”

[T]hese shrines to excess capital exist in a conditional state of visibility: they are meant to be unmistakable to a slender stratum of society—and all but unseen by everyone else… In a candid aside to a French documentarian, the American yachtsman Bill Duker said, “If the rest of the world learns what it’s like to live on a yacht like this, they’re gonna bring back the guillotine.”

posted by Going To Maine at 4:15 PM PST - 90 comments

Alternate-history author, labor organizer, and creator of the Baen Free Library Eric Flint has passed away at the age of 75. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 8:45 AM PST - 34 comments

The Met Office has confirmed that the UK has reached 40C (104F) for the first time since records began. The record for overnight temperatures was also broken with 25.9C (79F) recorded. Meanwhile, fires are ravaging France and Spain, with many thousands having to abandon their homes, and the death tolls are rising as the temperature soars. The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has once more warned that humanity is in a global crisis.
posted by fight or flight at 6:26 AM PST - 224 comments

A video showing how rope was made before modern machines (spanish, with english subtitles) leads down a rabbit hole. [more inside]
posted by kmt at 2:11 AM PST - 11 comments

Bye Bye Boris
posted by sixswitch at 10:09 PM PST - 17 comments

On Our Backs magazine launched in San Francisco in 1984 promising, per the tagline on the cover, “entertainment for the adventurous lesbian.”... This exhibition presents original photographs created for On Our Backs during its first decade.
posted by latkes at 8:59 PM PST - 19 comments

Charles M. Holmes was a wealthy donor to many causes, including The Gay And Lesbian Victory Fund and Human Rights Campaign. He got his fortune by investing in the gay community by producing porn. Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story [1h6m] tells the full tale of Holmes and Falcon Video, and includes more (maybe) SFW gay porn scenes than you'd expect on YouTube. As ancillary material, please also have Making It Big, The History Of Gay Adult Film [1h26m], which overlaps with and is more general than the first film. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:17 PM PST - 8 comments

35mm Online is a website where you can stream over 150 classic Polish feature films, with English subtitles, as well as cartoons, documentaries and old news reels. And it's all funded by the European Union and the Polish government. There are films by well known directors, such as Krzysztof Kieślowski and Andrzej Wajda, but it also has work by pioneers like Wanda Jakubowska and Danuta Halladin. [Note: A few films seem to be geolocked, and you need to register to access age-restricted material]
posted by Kattullus at 3:58 PM PST - 4 comments

Teen Vogue's Nepo Babies
posted by box at 3:10 PM PST - 29 comments

A world database of feathers
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:46 PM PST - 9 comments

The best photos to come out of the Met Gala every year are always the ones where you feel like a voyeur. It’s a weird combination of intimacy, celebrity, modernity, and antiquity that’s hard to replicate and harder, I think, to ignore. Hannah Barbosa Cesnik writes in Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study Guest Interviews series: Inside the Mind-Boggling World of the Antiquities Theft Task Force.
posted by RichardP at 12:52 PM PST - 18 comments

It’s no secret that U.S. government agencies have been obtaining and using location data collected by Americans’ smartphones. However, new documents obtained by the ACLU through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit now reveal the extent of this warrantless data collection. The 6,000-plus records reviewed by the civil rights organization contained approximately 336,000 location points across North America obtained from people’s phones. (a small example to be sure)
posted by sammyo at 10:28 AM PST - 19 comments

Major League Baseball to pay $185 million in settlement with minor league players over minimum-wage and overtime allegations
posted by Etrigan at 8:31 AM PST - 18 comments

AUTOEXEC.CAT, via mefi projects. [Instagramless? lewiseason suggests picyuki]
posted by taz at 4:42 AM PST - 17 comments

I'm sorry, dear friends, I hate to put you in this spot, but you are a prisoner in a vast blue space with endless doors, but only one door leads to freedom ... [more inside]
posted by taz at 2:49 AM PST - 121 comments

If cats sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just what it says on the (cat food?) tin. (SLYT)
posted by zaixfeep at 5:17 PM PST - 17 comments

The science behind sash windows (YouTube) TLDR: Two openings at different heights will maximise airflow/cooling. The Q&A at the end covers building efficiency and ventilation for heat/cool/viral transmission.
posted by Lanark at 4:00 PM PST - 50 comments

Goodbye, My Brother is a short story by John Cheever. ""What are the realities?" he said. "Diana is a foolish and a promiscuous woman. So is Odette. Mother is an alcoholic. If she doesn't discipline herself, she'll be in a hospital in a year or two. Chaddy is dishonest. He always has been. The house is going to fall into the sea." He looked at me and added, as an afterthought, "You're a fool." "You're a gloomy son of a bitch," I said. "You're a gloomy son of a bitch."" [more inside]
posted by storybored at 1:19 PM PST - 15 comments

The Shoebody Bop
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 11:16 AM PST - 10 comments

In Remote Alaska, Meal Planning Is Everything Eating (and eating well!) in the Alaskan Bush. [more inside]
posted by goodbyewaffles at 9:59 AM PST - 16 comments

Drew Austin writes about how "social media feeds’ transition from chronological to algorithmic sorting was a manipulation of time comparable to the railroad’s manipulation of space" and references Robin Sloan pointing out that "social media is an orthographic camera."
posted by signal at 8:45 AM PST - 57 comments

Since antiquity, women’s eyebrows have been sites of intense scrutiny, constantly shifting between trend cycles: A brief history of women's eyebrows in art
posted by iamkimiam at 4:46 AM PST - 12 comments

We have discovered what is almost certainly a previously unknown self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. Yes, you read that right!
posted by Etrigan at 9:33 PM PST - 19 comments

Roy Wood, Jr. rounds up a couple of earlier Daily Show podcast episodes with Jordan Klepper and Desi Lydic [48m] (and some producers and other guests) talking about their work going into, um, difficult situations for news and comedy. It's an interesting look at what goes into that particular style that they do.
posted by hippybear at 7:11 PM PST - 15 comments

"Why Europeans Took So Long to Learn the Crawl" - Slate's excerpt from Karen Eva Carr's new book Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming.
posted by ShooBoo at 12:35 PM PST - 45 comments

Program Overview of Streets to Stability: Safe Rest Villages - What are Safe Rest Villages? · Why are they needed? · How will they work? · Where will they be? · Who has responsibility for what? · How are they funded? [more inside]
posted by aniola at 8:56 AM PST - 18 comments

It's been almost eleven years since the band known as Sonic Youth officially disbanded, over forty since they released their first record, the EP known as Sonic Youth. So it's probably as good a time as any to rank the albums. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 8:01 AM PST - 59 comments

Two very contrasting stories of queer persecution around the globe: Invisible Men (2012) [1h6m] looks at the lives of gay Palestinian men living illegally in Israel to avoid persecution from their families. Proud And Unafraid (2021) [28m] has four outspoken queer individuals speaking from Lagos, Nigeria about their experience with the outlawing of any public display of LGBTQ+ existence in public life.
posted by hippybear at 5:47 PM PST - 3 comments

I've thought a lot about the film over these years, as has anyone else with even a passing interest in film theory, which means I've also fallen down the rabbit hole of, "What's with all the oranges?"
posted by Etrigan at 1:54 PM PST - 26 comments

The Weird Analog Delights of Sound Effects. "Roden estimated that only twenty per cent of sounds onscreen are generated by the actual objects represented. This presents certain challenges: when a sound cannot be described by its referent, language starts to falter. Over time, Roesch, Roden, and Curtis have developed a lexicon to describe what they want. Sounds are poofy, slimy, or naturale; they might need to be slappier, or raspier, or nebby (nebulous). They are hingey, ticky, boxy, zippy, or clacky; they are tonal, tasty, punchy, splattery, smacky, spanky. They might be described phonetically—a “kachunk-kachunk-kachunk,” or a “scritcher”—or straightforwardly (“fake”). Tools, too, have their own names. Shings make shiny metallic sounds—a sword being drawn from its scabbard—and wronkers give the impression of metal sliding across a hard surface. “Like, chhhrtz,” Roesch clarified." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 1:30 PM PST - 50 comments

Projectile weapons were essential to the daily lives of ancient people. Although studied by archaeologists for decades, questions and misconceptions remain about the potential of spears, darts, and arrows to incapacitate prey. This project uses an experimental approach with replica weapons, skilled users, and modern observational equipment to study the terminal ballistics (impact and penetration) of stone-tipped atlatl darts and arrows, yielding needed data about early hunting capabilities (pdf).
posted by dhruva at 1:30 PM PST - 19 comments

Princess Mononoke: The masterpiece that flummoxed the US.
posted by Pendragon at 1:20 PM PST - 48 comments

"At a whopping 1.6 billion tesla, a pulsar called Swift J0243.6+6124 smashes the previous records of around 1 billion tesla, discovered surrounding the pulsars GRO J1008-57 and 1A 0535+262." [more inside]
posted by mhoye at 11:55 AM PST - 25 comments

We now track our sleeping and fitness, so why not our alcohol consumption too? Lick it to find out. A new initiative at a Finnish music festival is paving the way for more responsible and enjoyable drinking. The new lickable technology accurately detects from saliva samples various levels of BAC, ranging from zero to 0.02% and 0.05%
posted by folklore724 at 10:37 AM PST - 39 comments

"The Great Green Wall is one of the most inspirational and urgent movements of our times" but there's also this.
posted by aniola at 11:15 PM PST - 13 comments

I tried 21 flavors of Mountain Dew for some reason.
posted by Literaryhero at 9:44 PM PST - 114 comments

Talk Description to Me Where the visuals of current events and the world around us get hashed out in description-rich conversations. J.J. Hunt is an innovative Audio Describer and a natural-born storyteller. Christine Malec is a perpetually inquisitive member of the blind and partially sighted community who’s always wondering about something. [more inside]
posted by Francies at 7:42 PM PST - 3 comments

Lizzo's new album Special comes out tomorrow, and she sat down yesterday for a 40 minute interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe about where she is in life and the release of her album and a lot of other things. Lizzo is always amazing, but this interview felt really electric to me.
posted by hippybear at 4:49 PM PST - 8 comments

That concept might be the reason her trailblazing stand-up career has been overshadowed; it may also be the reason she’s still so sharp. (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan at 1:24 PM PST - 73 comments

The Merlin Bird App from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology draws upon 750 million eBird observations to help you identify a bird you just spotted. You can also upload a photo and let it do some AI-magic. "Merlin looks at the frequency of eBird reports from the area, and is able to give results more accurate than any field guide by using the local information on bird distribution provided by eBirders. And the computer vision tools that are used to identify the image? They’re developed from the images that [people] have added to the Macaulay Library—more than 1.85 million photos over the past 13 months."
posted by storybored at 10:58 AM PST - 41 comments

Ryan Stiles in the hot seat for the most adorable eight-year old ever (she’s almost nine!). (SLYT)
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 12:23 AM PST - 34 comments

Long distance running champion and British hero of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Sir Mo Farah has taken part in a BBC documentary about his origins. He has previously said he was a refugee who came to the UK to join his father as an 8 year old, but his story is not exactly as we previously knew it. [more inside]
posted by plonkee at 2:41 PM PST - 25 comments

If you're having troubles figuring out all the angles and dramas with the 'Funny Girl' revival, this is for you.
posted by Etrigan at 1:04 PM PST - 67 comments

Coming soon to a theater near you: Rob Zombie's 'The Munsters' [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:00 PM PST - 106 comments

After his wife told him for years that he needed to do something other than teaching, Joe Grand - "Kingpin" in the well-known hacker collective L0pht - decided to get back into cracking. Watch a master fail until he succeeds while nervous clients watch over his shoulder: How I hacked a hardware crypto wallet and recovered $2 million, and Hacking a Samsung Galaxy for $6,000,000 in Bitcoin!?
posted by clawsoon at 10:06 AM PST - 34 comments

“Inclusivity might not mean everybody,” Lin writes. “It could indicate the rest of us.” Emily Witt takes on Feeld, the inclusive and curious hookup app.
posted by burningyrboats at 8:13 AM PST - 33 comments

Brian Eno created Music for Airports by recording single notes, 3-4 note phrases, and choral harmonies each on their own track of magnetic tape. Then, cutting the tapes to different lengths and splicing them into a loop, he fed them through a tape player at the same time, creating his famous, infinitely-long, never-repeating composition. Reverb Machine isolated each loop, letting you recreate the composition as it was originally designed. At the other extreme, you can watch humans trying to precisely recreate this randomness live in an airport. [more inside]
posted by rebent at 5:22 AM PST - 32 comments

Mickie Meinhardt interviews 6 of Assateague Island's park rangers for The Bitter Southerner Photos by Gunner Hughes. Single link state park, civil servant and wild pony appreciation post. [more inside]
posted by the primroses were over at 4:43 AM PST - 15 comments

Jalopnik's multi-part series on the history of gasoline by Jamie Kitman: Prelude: A Century And A Half Of Lies • Part 1: How Gasoline Got Into Our Lives • Part 2: They Trashed Pennsylvania First • Part 3: How Standard Oil Built Its Toxic Monopoly • Part 4: How Standard Oil Got Away With It • Part 5: Better Things For Deader Living ... Through Chemistry • Part 6: The Original Sin Of General Motors • Part 7: They Lied About The Science • Part 8: Searching For The Magic Bullet • Part 9: Charles Kettering, Prophet Of Profit
posted by ShooBoo at 7:53 PM PST - 25 comments

Two very different documentaries about LGBTQ+ participation in sports: Light In The Water [1h14m] is a multi-generational look at the West Hollywood Aquatics team and how much it has mattered across decades for gay sports. Scrum [55m] is a look at a single gay Australian rugby team and their fight to win the 2015 Bingham Cup. Both are inspiring in very different ways.
posted by hippybear at 2:42 PM PST - 6 comments

German cast of HAMILTON Performs 'Alexander Hamilton' ahead of the German premier. [more inside]
posted by Gorgik at 1:58 PM PST - 23 comments

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol resumes its hearings today at 1:00 pm ET. There is another hearing scheduled for prime time on Thursday. [more inside]
posted by bcd at 8:52 AM PST - 347 comments

Forty years ago, one of Disney's weirdest failures started changing movies forever. TRON stumbled, so that Neo could be the One and Ralph could break the Internet. [more inside]
posted by mephron at 7:00 AM PST - 104 comments

Carolyn Chen in Guernica: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation.

I think all the teachers had some qualms about being forced to leave the ethical aspects of Buddhism out of the workplace. They were not being hired to make the employees more ethical; they were being hired to make them more productive.

posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:13 PM PST - 52 comments

Today NASA published the first image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. That makes this a fine day to catch up on all of the other ways people and our machines are exploring space. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 6:40 PM PST - 163 comments

Eve Peyser writes about why watching Jackass in 2022 makes her feel better about the world.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 3:13 PM PST - 20 comments

On July 8, Canada experienced a nation-wide telecommunications outage that brought many essential services to a halt, including emergency services, government services, and banking. Rogers Communications, which was responsible for the outage, is one of only a handful of telecom companies in Canada, and one of three that dominate the market. Rogers is currently pursuing a merger with Shaw Communications; Canada’s Competition Bureau has opposed the deal, which would further narrow Canada’s telecoms oligopoly. Meanwhile, Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy program, says it’s time to consider other options such as nationalizing telecoms infrastructure. [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:06 PM PST - 71 comments

Complexity The 2022 show of handwoven art from the Complex Weavers.
posted by janell at 12:28 PM PST - 13 comments

A PSA aimed at emotionally-struggling young people, built around the song "Up on the Roof" (written by Carole King, first popularized by the Drifters) started as an idea Kate Morris had after her barn burned down, and then got unexpected support from many quarters, up to and including an invitation to the White House.
posted by beagle at 12:06 PM PST - 7 comments

Baby It's Cold Outside, but it's gay. Jolene but it's gay. I'm Not That Girl but it's gay. [playlist]
posted by simmering octagon at 11:12 AM PST - 26 comments

Ulster County in New York is asking for a public online vote — they’re getting a landslide.
posted by Etrigan at 8:50 AM PST - 36 comments

vagonWeb.cz has a wide range of information on European railway passenger trains and cars, including historical train compositions and schedules and photos, generally covering 1968 to the present.
posted by jedicus at 7:45 AM PST - 3 comments

Salt Lake City Confronts a Future Without a Lake - "In July 2021, the Great Salt Lake reached its lowest level since measurements began in 1875. The lake's surface area has shrunk to about 950 square miles, according to the US Geological Survey, less than a third of the 3,300 recorded in 1987. This week, the record was broken again."[1,2] (previously) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:09 AM PST - 63 comments

Aaand it's time for another pop quiz! See if you can answer the following ... [more inside]
posted by taz at 2:48 AM PST - 119 comments

Yuxi Lin writes an essay for Longreads on Costco, childhood, and the immigrant experience.
posted by redct at 11:33 PM PST - 18 comments

In Races to Run Elections, Candidates Are Backed by Key 2020 Deniers -- America First candidates could be competitive in at least four battleground states: Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan. [more inside]
posted by NotLost at 9:52 PM PST - 13 comments

Contemporary Color [1h37m] is a 2016 documentary music performance of only the kind David Byrne could envision: championship-level color guard / flag corps performances matched with live musical acts like St Vincent, Nelly Furtado, Ad-Rock and others. Here's the trailer [2m8s] if you just want a taste. Here's Rolling Stone loving the project, and Matt Zoller Seitz for RogerEbert.com not so much. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:58 PM PST - 14 comments

Uber broke laws, duped police and secretly lobbied governments, leak reveals [Grauniad] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:14 AM PST - 61 comments

Bret Devereaux (previously, many times) goes on a deep dive into how things were made in pre-modern societies, looking at how grain is farmed and eventually turned into bread, with a particular focus on the people and social structures involved. [more inside]
posted by wesleyac at 10:40 AM PST - 17 comments

An Artist Sued Maurizio Cattelan for Allegedly Copying His Duct-Taped Banana. A Miami Judge Just Allowed the Case to Proceed - United States District Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. asked: "Did Joe Morford sufficiently allege that Cattelan’s banana infringes his banana?” (Previously)
posted by bitteschoen at 12:47 AM PST - 59 comments

Women’s business - Meet the Black matriarchs changing the narrative of First Nations births. (Australia) [more inside]
posted by freethefeet at 9:15 PM PST - 3 comments

Telekom Electronic Beats has been running an entertaining series since 2019: six well-known DJs and producers compete to identify the artist and title of 10 classic tracks in their genre, by sound alone. Watch as they listen and guess along! Blind Test: Club Classics • 90s Techno #1 • 80s EBM / Industrial • 90s House Music • 90s Drum ’n’ Bass / Jungle • 90s Techno #2 • 2000s Dubstep • 90s Techno #3 • 90s US House • 80s Electro • 80s Dance Tracks • 90s Trance • 90s Techno #04 • 90s House #02 • 90s Hardcore / Gabber • 90s Jungle • 90s Jungle Blind Test Prequel Exchange • 1995-2000 UK Garage • 90s Trance #2 • 2000s Techno • The Ultimate Techno Blind Test • 2000s Techno #2 • 2000s Liquid Drum ’n’ Bass • 90s Gabber #2 • Drum Machines
posted by mubba at 9:35 AM PST - 22 comments

Eric Topol explores in detail the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 variant and our response to it.
posted by eotvos at 8:58 PM PST - 289 comments

"It’s better to use your heart. It's where the love is, and that was what you were supposed to spread instead of money. Except here, love came at a price."
posted by blue shadows at 6:29 PM PST - 27 comments

It doesn't matter if you hate Slack or love Slack, we just need to talk about that dusty stick emoji.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:09 PM PST - 22 comments

Some details about legal issues of Musk backing out "Legal experts have said Musk can’t just walk away from the deal. His April agreement to buy the company included a commitment to go through with the acquisition unless there’s a major change to the business, and legal experts say nothing has happened to meet that threshold. Musk has previously threatened to scuttle the deal if Twitter didn’t give him more data to run his own analysis on how many spam bots it has, while Twitter has said it can’t give up personal information on its users like their names, emails and IP addresses, which it uses to come up with its own bot numbers."
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:14 PM PST - 167 comments

Former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos dies at 79 ... Won Angola's war and took the spoils [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 3:07 PM PST - 3 comments

Dave Isay talks about StoryCorps and shares three heartfelt true stories. Since 2003, StoryCorps has made more than half a million audio recordings of people's conversations and memories for the Library of Congress. In the talk Isay also shares his newest initiative One Small Step, that he sees as critical to getting through the polarization crisis brought by "the hate industrial complex". [more inside]
posted by storybored at 2:02 PM PST - 7 comments

"Go Ask Alice" is a 1971 novel about teenage drug use, purported to be the "found diary" of a real teenage girl (but almost certainly a complete fabrication) and a contributor to the moral panic of Nixon's war on drugs. It has never been out of print. Carmen Maria Machado is the guest in a 3-part You're Wrong About podcast series with host Sarah Marshall and guest Rick Emerson (author of Unmask Alice) to talk about the book's influence on American culture. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 [more inside]
posted by AlSweigart at 11:18 AM PST - 69 comments

A new law will require the school day to start later in California — and other states may soon follow.
posted by Etrigan at 10:43 AM PST - 56 comments

"And every minute you spend with me is a minute that they too get to look for beauty." "The Unweaving of a Beautiful Thing" by atb depicts a battle between a witch and Death. It was posted to the Effective Altruism forum but is much more about character than calculations. 'There were two words that Superman lived by, and they were “pay me”.' Over on Archive of Our Own, "A Common Sense Guide to Doing the Most Good" by cthulhuraejepsen is an unfinished narrative of "Clark Kent, effective altruist" that addresses "the Crank Problem".
posted by brainwane at 6:56 AM PST - 23 comments

Xiao Qian Feng, a maker from Guangdong, China, recorded the process of building her own home and studio from scratch over the course of 300 days. The end result: a calming, satisfying, beautiful nearly-wordless video featuring both the beauty of her surroundings and the very cool process of building her own space from start to finish. [more inside]
posted by Stacey at 6:26 AM PST - 25 comments

Today is the first International Day of Og(h)am, an Irish alphabet mainly found on Ogham stones (pdf) and the subject of two projects using digital tools to understand more. Ogham in 3D was an Irish project which produced 3D images of some of the Irish Ogham inscriptions, whereas OG(H)AM is an ongoing collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Maynooth University, which expands the scope to outside Ireland, and beyond stone monuments. [more inside]
posted by scorbet at 4:38 AM PST - 9 comments

Histography: Timeline of History - "Histography is an interactive timeline that spans across 14 billion years of history, from the Big Bang to 2015. The site draws historical events from Wikipedia and self-updates daily with new recorded events. The interface allows for users to view between decades to millions of years. The viewer can choose to watch a variety of events which have happened in a particular period or to target a specific event in time. For example you can look at the past century within the categories of war and inventions."[1,2,3] (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 1:49 AM PST - 5 comments

Controversy continues over whether hot water freezes faster than cold water, decades after teenage Erasto Mpemba initiated the first systematic, scientific studies. In the effort to confirm or refute the ‘Mpemba effect’ physicists are developing new theories about how substances relax to equilibrium.
posted by theory at 8:23 PM PST - 27 comments

Newsfilter: former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe seemingly shot at a public appearance in Nara
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:11 PM PST - 120 comments

A beautiful but heartbreaking goodbye poem from a dying cat. Warning, this one's is a real tear-jerker, especially if you've ever lost a beloved pet. By Reddit's unofficial poet laureate, SchnoodleDoodleDo. Previously.
posted by mikeand1 at 5:45 PM PST - 17 comments

Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self Part 7 The saga continues. With a "mood-lightening" gas mask. [more inside]
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:25 PM PST - 15 comments

... (1) you have done something terrible but (2) it is absolutely their problem, not yours. from Matt Levine's delicious dissection of a Bloomberg story about Big Shot [Archive versions 1, 2]
posted by chavenet at 11:50 AM PST - 24 comments

Rogan Shannon is a queer deaf guy who makes YouTube videos about a lot of different topics. This video (turn captions on, it's silent) discusses the creation and evolution of signs for trans people and topics in ASL. It's a few years old and he's updated some of the terms in this video and gone a little more into some of the history of the ASL word for trans (blog post, video). This video by Britton, a non-binary trans person (no captions, read transcript below) talks about the use of the sign for trans within the trans Deaf community. Rogan has also made a video and blog post about queer signs in other countries.
posted by jessamyn at 9:11 AM PST - 3 comments

The Living New Deal project is mapping WPA projects across the US. Primarily featuring work created under the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, which were rarely marked and many have fallen into obscurity. [more inside]
posted by zenon at 8:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Four and a half months after being detained in Russia, WNBA star Brittney Griner has pled guilty to drug charges, admitting that she had vape cartridges containing hashish oil and saying "I did not have any intention on breaking Russian law." Griner faces up to 10 years in prison.
posted by Etrigan at 8:41 AM PST - 79 comments

Olivia Snow, a writer, professor, and dominatrix explains how the surveillance techniques tested on sex-workers will be deployed against those seeking abortions and offers some tips to protect your privacy. [more inside]
posted by signal at 6:15 AM PST - 25 comments

Kazuki Takahashi, the creator of the hugely successful manga, anime, and trading card game franchise Yu-Gi-Oh!, has passed away at the age of 60. [more inside]
posted by May Kasahara at 5:24 AM PST - 7 comments

Ottessa Moshfegh in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado. [more inside]
posted by dmh at 3:59 AM PST - 15 comments

Jack De Sena is a former child actor and the voice of Sokka and the Dragon Prince. His longtime pal Chris W. Smith is a former Blue Man, actor/writer/producer, and juggler. Together they make Chris & Jack [trailer, Twitter, previously], a criminally underrated YouTube channel featuring high-concept, high-production value comedy sketches shot through with smartly-written metahumor and and a surprising amount of wholesome emotional honesty. Highlights: Groundhog Daying - Wormhole Monocle - The White Room - The Secret Weakness - Abduction and Mind Wipe - Body Swap - Secret Alien - Your Whole Life is a TV Show - The Art of the Heist - The Moments Between the Montage - If Scrooge Slept In - What's My Line? - Deja Vu - The epic struggle to invent a new holiday: July Sixth Park - 15-minute magnum opus MOVIES IN SPACE, about a cultural-exchange astronaut who is catapulted by host Eepgarg into the strange, strange world of alien movie production. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 4:55 PM PST - 10 comments

The Potato Problem (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by Don Pepino at 12:54 PM PST - 12 comments

In Melville’s epic, the singular Ahab goes on a hunt for an equally singular creature; in Senges’s satire, everything and everyone has become generic: an act, an imitation, a copy, a plagiarism—a sequel. from The Hunted by Ryan Ruby [Archive] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:45 AM PST - 4 comments

The Georgia Guidestones are a weird monument in Northeast Georgia built in 1980 with an odd ecofascist message. Nobody knows who exactly paid to have them built. Recently, they have been a target of QAnoners, including minor, unsuccessful candidate for Georgia Governor, Kandiss Taylor, who called them "Satanic" and included plans to destroy them in her platform. Last night, someone attempted to blow them up, with partial success. [more inside]
posted by hydropsyche at 11:24 AM PST - 74 comments

Maria Farrell wrote advice for people struggling with the effects of COVID in 2020: "Indefinitely Ill – Post-Covid Fatigue: What to do when your body forgets how to be well": "Because I really only want to say one thing; if you have had Covid-19 (tested or not), and are getting to a month or two on and still feel like you’ve been hit by a bus, please, for the love of God, rest." Last year Ada Palmer wrote about a bad turn in her health: "the resistance to taking medical leave came from me, not others." This month Farrell wrote "Settling in for the long haul": "about how I habituated, or; how I learnt to lie not with my words but my deeds" when coping with life-changing chronic illness. [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 10:37 AM PST - 12 comments

‘No Aliens, No Spaceships, No Invasion of Earth’ is an oral history of the making Robert Zemeckis’ 1997 film Contact. Come for the description of Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan having the idea, stay for the many different ways people attempt to describe how hot Matthew McConaughey was, bail out emotionally at the end when David Morse talks about meeting a father and daughter after the film had been released.
posted by Kattullus at 10:28 AM PST - 59 comments

Christian Nationalists have declared war on most of their fellow US citizens. Archive.org link.
The repealing of the Constitutional right to an abortion has emboldened a powerful coalition of far-right conservatives in the United States to consider a wave of draconian measures designed to turn the American experiment into a theocracy with its roots in Puritanism and the most extreme Biblical literalism of the present day.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 9:25 AM PST - 89 comments

Take a high-energy ride along the MBTA Green Line's new Union Square service, through the central subway and out the "E" Branch! How about a relaxing inbound trip through the woods along the "D" Branch? Or a magical journey through the snow on the "B" Branch or the Mattapan Trolley? [more inside]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:48 AM PST - 13 comments

As musicians express their dissatisfaction with the US Supreme Court ruling on abortion, and the recontextualizing of protest songs, the important question has become "Which song would you fist fight the (US) Supreme Court to in a White Castle parking lot?"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:17 AM PST - 91 comments

Stewart Brand is not a scientist. He’s not an artist, an engineer, or a programmer. Nor is he much of a writer or editor, though as the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, that’s what he’s best known for. Brand, 83, is a huckster—one of the great hucksters in a time and place full of them. [more inside]
posted by wesleyac at 5:53 AM PST - 61 comments

A series of increasingly absurd philosophical quandaries. CW: a lot of cartoon death by trolley, moral philosophy. What's the trolley problem? Who's Chidi? previously previouslier still more previously
posted by nightcoast at 4:25 AM PST - 60 comments

"There can be no separating an act of theater into the political, the spiritual, the joyful." [more inside]
posted by praemunire at 9:00 PM PST - 14 comments

Matthew Fairbrother is a 17-year-old from Christchurch, New Zealand. This is his first time outside of New Zealand and he's in Europe by himself. He's racing the MTB Enduro World Series but, being short on funds, he rides up to 250km a day on his Enduro mountain bike between the events as he bikepacks through Europe. [more inside]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:19 PM PST - 12 comments

The recipients of the 2022 Fields Medal, awarded every four years to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement, have been announced: Hugo Duminil-Copin, June Huh, James Maynard, and Maryna Viazovska. [more inside]
posted by mubba at 1:43 PM PST - 8 comments

In the essay [PDF], Moss is not so much describing that we hate in the third person plural, but how we come to do so. Moss doesn’t argue that only white people have what he calls Parasitic Whiteness, but he notes that white people are much more susceptible to it. What is it they’re sick with? Moss metaphorizes how this particular psychic complex — a way of being, of categorizing the other, and of understanding the self — comes to take root in an individual via the social. He traces how it comes to live inside them, and how, once inside, it “infiltrates our drives” — the drives of its “host.” Once there, writes Moss, “Parasitic Whiteness generates a state of constantly erotized excitement, a drift toward frenzy. Fix, control, and arouse; want, hate, and terrorize.” from Unfree Associations [Archive] by Hannah Zeavin [CW: racism, antisemitism, fascism, neonazis, nazis, death threats, alt-right, white supremacists, Tucker Carlson, Fox News, Daily Mail]
posted by chavenet at 10:59 AM PST - 9 comments

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Health Secretary have both resigned. [more inside]
posted by YoungStencil at 10:50 AM PST - 486 comments

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Lilith Fair (NPR, today) touring music festival (Jessica Hopper oral history for Vanity Fair, 2019, 20th-anniversary appreciation, Rolling Stone, 2017). [more inside]
posted by box at 10:10 AM PST - 19 comments

CERN has announced that "the international LHCb collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has observed three never-before-seen particles." [more inside]
posted by mhoye at 9:30 AM PST - 33 comments

A Cognitive Skill to Magnify Humanity. Krista Tippett of On Being talks to Trabian Shorters. "Shorters is a visionary who has seen and named a task that is necessary for all healing and building, for every vision and plan, whether in a family or a world, to flourish. It’s called Asset Framing — and it works with both new understandings of the brain and an age-old understanding of the real-world power of the words we use, the stories we tell, and the way we name things and people. From everyday social media, to hallowed modes of journalistic, academic, and policy analyses, we have a habit of seeing deficits — and of defining people in need in terms of their problems. This has not only doomed some of our best efforts to failure — it leaves all of us prone to cynicism and hopelessness. What’s exciting is that what Trabian Shorters proposes is not only more effective, it is simple and straightforward to grasp." Also: Trabian Shorters and the Genius of Asset Framing. (podcast) [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:41 AM PST - 11 comments

Enjoy a short interview with LEGO builder Jack Carleson as he shows off his Minifigure-scale Airbus A380. This completely freestanding model weighs nearly 100 lbs and has moving flaps, working lights and retractable landing gear.
posted by bondcliff at 8:00 AM PST - 6 comments

Gwendolyn Ann Smith remembers when you could almost fit the entire trans internet into a single (virtual) room. This was the early ’90s, when only a few million people worldwide were on the web. Even though users were sparse, the benefits of getting online for trans people were acute. For those who didn’t live near significant numbers of other trans people, or for those who were not yet out to their loved ones, finding refuge online was an especially vital lifeline that has only grown more powerful over time. The Gazebo was a 48-person chatroom, named in honor of Lauren D. Wilson, a trans woman who died by suicide, and who dreamed of precisely this kind of safe digital space.
posted by gestalt saloon at 7:41 AM PST - 6 comments

Twyla Tharp and David Byrne's The Catherine Wheel is a dance piece about unhappy families, striving for perfection, war, and other things. (Includes a full recording of the stage production after a 13 minute introduction.) [more inside]
posted by eotvos at 3:07 AM PST - 8 comments

For Lt. Kara Hultgreen, the F-14 started out as a consolation prize. The 29-year-old hotshot had wanted to fly an F/A-18 Hornet, the sharpest and newest member of the Navy’s fleet. But after a few months of training, the F-14 won Hultgreen’s heart. She came to consider it a remarkable plane, complicated and humbling.
posted by ChrisR at 8:26 PM PST - 35 comments

Like all forms of Gen Z internet humor, the #Gentleminions meme is based off a bunch of other bits of internet ephemera that are all in conversation with each other.
posted by Etrigan at 1:56 PM PST - 53 comments

Many Gentlemen in high Stations and of great Influence have been duped, by the ministerial Bubble of Commissioners to treat .... And in real, sincere Expectation of this e̶f̶f̶o̶r̶t̶ Event," [more inside]
posted by clavdivs at 1:46 PM PST - 7 comments

"I just took a DNA test" from bunny of the week (SLInstaP)
posted by joannemerriam at 8:05 AM PST - 12 comments

Krautrock/Kosmische (A guide by Sasha Frere-Jones for Shfl)
posted by box at 6:43 AM PST - 11 comments

Erika Kobayashi on growing up in a house of Sherlock translators. Translated into English by Brian Bergstrom. [more inside]
posted by the primroses were over at 6:07 AM PST - 8 comments

So, a string walks into a bar ... [more inside]
posted by taz at 2:49 AM PST - 130 comments

The $10+ Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds features more than 790 projects (and counting) from all across itch.io, with 100% of the proceeds being donated to the National Network for Abortion Fund's Collective Power Fund, which moves money directly to abortion funds across 20+ U.S. states. The bundle includes titles like Hypnospace Outlaw (detective/'90s internet simulator indie darling), Calico (incredibly cute coffee shop / lifesim), Buck Up And Drive! (PINK. BACKFLIPPING. TRUCKS. ON THE MOON) and Catlateral Damage (a first-person destructive cat simulator). [more inside]
posted by simmering octagon at 3:40 PM PST - 22 comments

Fun—when your rulers would rather you not have it, and when the agents of social programming insist on stirring nonstop apprehension over the current crisis and the next one, the better to keep you submissive and in suspense—is elementally subversive. Fun is ideologically neutral, advancing and empowering no cause. Fun is self-serving and without ambition. It wishes only to be. It produces nothing for the collective and may represent a withdrawal from the collective, temporarily at least. Your fun belongs to you alone. from The Holy Anarchy of Fun by Walter Kirn
posted by chavenet at 12:28 PM PST - 51 comments

How Weather Forecasting Works (SLYT)
posted by Gyan at 1:10 AM PST - 12 comments

First-of-its-kind requirement for electric trucks will help communities hardest hit by air pollution
posted by aniola at 8:42 PM PST - 63 comments

How To Cope With Big Feelings. Liz Fosslien on the myths of Big Feelings: Myths about uncertainty. Tools to help cope with perfectionism. Emotions as a response to stimuli we’re taking in and a result of our brain chemistry. How to stop “anxious fixing.” The helpful phrase “I’m a person learning to….” How extreme language produces extreme emotions. Naming your inner perfectionist. Finding a non-perfectionist role model. The red flag of thinking “I’ll be happy when…” How envy can reveal what you value, and then thinking about your willingness to live the life that leads to that. Why 'approach' goals are better than 'avoidance' goals. How to just make it through when you’re in the worst of it in life.
posted by storybored at 1:41 PM PST - 26 comments

The problem with private boarding schools in Britain: A former pupil describes on Twitter the roots of amorality and predation in Boris Johnson’s cabinet (Nitter link for those without a Twitter account) [more inside]
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 11:18 AM PST - 55 comments

2013 BBC series Precision: The Measure Of All Things has three hours, one on each of three topics of measurement, and how they were developed: Time And Distance; Mass And Moles; Heat, Light, And Electricity. I enjoyed the sort of James Burke / Connections feel of these episodes quite a bit.
posted by hippybear at 8:52 AM PST - 13 comments

The Women Who Built Grunge Artists mentioned include L7, 7 Year Bitch, Babes in Toyland, Maxi Badd, Hammerbox, Fastbacks, Lazy Susan, Bam Bam, Heavens to Betsy, Sleater-Kinney, Bratmobile, Bikini Kill, Sonic Youth, The Slits, Chalk Circle, Shonen Knife, The Breeders, and The Gits. [more inside]
posted by box at 5:59 AM PST - 32 comments

When you think about government surveillance in the United States, you likely think of the National Security Agency or the FBI. You might even think of a powerful police agency, such as the New York Police Department. But unless you or someone you love has been targeted for deportation, you probably don’t immediately think of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This report argues that you should. [more inside]
posted by aniola at 8:30 PM PST - 14 comments

"Though Pac-Man doesn’t know it, he’s got a very important job to do: manage the pigeon population at the above ground BART station." More about the falconry, Falcon Force and "the staff." Just want to dish on some dumb pigeons? Check out @BadNests.
posted by jessamyn at 8:12 PM PST - 12 comments

Potato physics with a knife is one of many videos made by Texas A&M University, featuring Prof. Tatiana Erukhimova, to have gone viral on TikTok. You can also find videos of Erukhimova on the Texas A&M physics and astronomy department’s YouTube channel, including such gems as Break a Ruler With Atmospheric Pressure, Pulling a Tablecloth with Inertia Physics and Will It Break? Egg Drop.
posted by Kattullus at 3:54 PM PST - 10 comments

Suppose your story situation is this. Character A is telling a story, but it's a lie. Character B realizes it's a lie, but doesn't signal that recognition. This is really two problems in one: How do you tell the audience A is lying? And how do you convey that B knows but doesn't reveal that knowledge? [more inside]
posted by smcg at 1:55 PM PST - 12 comments

Lush, "Sunbathing," 1990 * The Sundays, "Summertime," 1997 * Camera Obscura, "Swimming Pool," 2001 * Florence + the Machine, "Swimming," 2009 * Wye Oak, "Hot as Day," 2011 * The Jezebels, "Endless Summer," 2011 * Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Mosquito," 2013 * Courtney Barnett, "Avant Gardener," 2013 * Snail Mail, "Heat Wave," 2018 * Lanterns on the Lake, "Swimming Lessons," 2020 * Wolf Alice, "The Beach," 2021
posted by rikschell at 1:25 PM PST - 46 comments

45 years ago, some people invented the future. In the summer of 1977, Donna Summer (an American), Giorgio Moroder (an Italian) and Pete Bellotte (a Brit) were all living and working in Germany. Alongside engineer Robbie Wedel (an actual German) and a pile of Moog kit, they managed for the first time to sync up all the music tracks to a steady pulse, adding sinuous, ecstatic vocals to a robotic bassline. [more inside]
posted by YoungStencil at 11:41 AM PST - 50 comments

Jean Garnett writes about opening up a relationship. [more inside]
posted by ominous_paws at 9:58 AM PST - 40 comments

A free "workbook on the kind of bullshit you need to do when someone you love dies", available as a "version with lots of swearing at the useless, shitty situation you're in" or a "version with a fair amount of black humor but no cursewords". Including "Prepare to spend a long and miserable time on the phone," "Depressing Mad Libs" (obituary templates), "So You Suddenly Have To Become Some Kind of Hacker," and "How to plan a non-religious death party". Published 2019.
posted by brainwane at 9:37 AM PST - 27 comments

The United States' 2018 Farm Bill legalized the production of hemp and the extraction of cannabidiol (CBD) from hemp. In May, the 9th Circuit ruled that other hemp-derived cannabinoids, like delta-8 THC, are also federally legal under the Farm Bill. In an effort to regulate the sale of intoxicating delta-8 products, the Minnesota legislature amended state law to limit the level of hemp-derived THC in products and, perhaps inadvertently, explicitly legalized hemp-derived delta-9 THC edible products in the state, beginning today. [more inside]
posted by uncleozzy at 9:10 AM PST - 33 comments

The Ancient Art of Falconry on the Jersey Shore (archive.org link) Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times
posted by bq at 9:10 AM PST - 5 comments

Introduce yourself with the wildest feedback you’ve ever received, a thread. Featuring all the greatest hits, including such gems as, "Hi, I'm Mary. I should go to trade school and learn how to become a receptionist." -- Mary L. Trump
posted by BeBoth at 8:39 AM PST - 142 comments

It's July and, like every year, Spanish speakers are spreading memes punning on Julio Iglesias and the Spanish word for July.
posted by signal at 7:48 AM PST - 7 comments

The Big Ten Conference started as a Midwestern group of colleges. It grew beyond its original number in the 1990s by adding Penn State, then in the 2010s by poaching Nebraska from the Big 12, then Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers from the Big East. And now it's made its biggest expansion yet in both prestige and geography, stretching the B1G footprint all the way to Los Angeles with the addition of USC and UCLA. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:08 AM PST - 19 comments

Two Megacities , Los Angeles and Mumbai, have large felines that breed, hunt, and maintain territory within urban boundaries.
posted by box at 4:36 AM PST - 19 comments