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A far-ranging interview between author Nicola Griffith and audiobook narrator Pearl Hewitt on the craft. A warm and thoughtful discussion ranging from the technical details of voice exercises and DIY recording to homesickness and place names and building careers. Hewitt narrated award-winning Hild, a fantastical history of St Hilda of Whitby, and her upcoming sequel Menewood.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:16 PM PST - 3 comments

The Museum of Everyday Life is an ongoing revolutionary museum experiment based in Glover, Vermont. Its mission is a heroic, slow-motion cataloguing of the quotidian–a detailed, theatrical expression of gratitude and love for the minuscule and unglamorous experience of daily life in all its forms. [more inside]
posted by zeptoweasel at 4:42 PM PST - 11 comments

Agma Schwa's second Cursed Conlang Circus is on YouTube! For those who enjoy a good conlang, these are bad ones -- or rather, fantastically difficult and strange ones -- to enjoy even more. Although the links are to YT videos that take some time to watch, you can consult the transcripts or use chapters for quick looks.
Check out the marvelously alien Gurgle, created for a race of hexapods with a central orifice and beak. Or the ridiculous Douleur ("ultraFrench") with its six genders, including insectile and piratical. Tired of noise? Say it with rocks instead, using Geolaŋ, one of the few languages that requires knowledge of local land use regulations.
[more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 12:09 PM PST - 7 comments

“Good Morning sings with an insistent, subtle intelligence. It asks after the origin and purpose of language and suggests that the degree zero of speech is laughter, which is where the farts come in.”
posted by oulipian at 8:58 AM PST - 7 comments

The TikTok account, conversations with victims, and TikTok’s own lack of action on the account show that access to facial recognition technology, combined with a cultural belief that anything public is fair game to exploit for clout, now means that all it takes is one random person on the internet to target you and lead a crowd in your direction. from The End of Privacy is a Taylor Swift Fan TikTok Account Armed with Facial Recognition Tech
posted by chavenet at 4:50 AM PST - 65 comments

Todd in the Shadows uploads a 33 minute 'DELUXE' of his Songs That Stop on the Word "Stop" Supercut compilation (original compilation he posted back in 2015) (previously)
posted by Pachylad at 2:05 AM PST - 18 comments

A BBC audio drama adaptation of Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler featuring Toby Jones, Indira Varma & Tim Crouch. (NB: it says it's only available for 24 days)
posted by juv3nal at 1:33 AM PST - 15 comments

What's Cyriak done this time? Seriously, what has he done. As always, I'm looking right at it and I don't know what it is. All I know is that it's a video about a goose and it's called HONK. (post title source, previously) [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 12:41 AM PST - 10 comments

We need urban trees more than ever: here's how to save them from extreme heat
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:28 PM PST - 10 comments

The city is seeing rainfall patterns that look more like Miami’s or even Singapore’s The city flooded last December, last April, and last July—an unusual seasonal span.
posted by folklore724 at 10:16 PM PST - 41 comments

Benito’s 50 New Streaming Spookums for Halloween 2023 - it’s spooky season so Benito Cereno has another list of streaming movies. It’s the good shit, check it out.
posted by Artw at 4:16 PM PST - 16 comments

Are you ageist? Take a 10-minute implicit bias test and find out. Work against ageism. It's good for you, it's good for society. [more inside]
posted by aniola at 11:12 AM PST - 148 comments

to help save Florida’s dying reef. Not all heroes wear capes. Some are crabs. Benji Jones for Vox.
posted by Hypatia at 7:00 AM PST - 48 comments

“We went from two women senators when I ran for office in 1992 to 24 today – and I know that number will keep climbing.” Dianne Feinstein, whose three decades in the Senate made her the longest-serving female US senator in history, has died. [CNN]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:25 AM PST - 199 comments

Making Dazed [45m] is a 2005 reunion/behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the 1993 film Dazed And Confused. Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, and more look back at the film that helped launch their careers.
posted by hippybear at 5:57 AM PST - 20 comments

BANDCAMP Acquired By SONGTRADR as Epic Games Sells Bandcamp Amid Layoffs [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:44 AM PST - 82 comments

"By me, Richard Heege, because I was at that feast and did not have a drink." [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 12:30 AM PST - 19 comments

Aphex Twin's Xtal, but done with human voice
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:14 AM PST - 7 comments

A farmer set a trap to catch whatever was killing his chooks. He caught a tiger quoll (marsupial carnivore that reaches up to 3.5 kilograms/7.7 pounds) that had been thought to be extinct in South Australia for 130 years. When farmer Pao Ling Tsai set a trap to catch the predator that had been killing his chooks, he expected to catch a feral cat or fox. Instead, he caught a species that was thought extinct in South Australia more than 130 years ago. The quoll has now been vet checked, had DNA samples taken, treated for mange, and will be released into the wild.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:21 PM PST - 22 comments

Sitting is the opposite of standing. Sitting is the opposite of running around. Sitting is a wonderful thing to do. On September 10 2023, an earworm was born. [more inside]
posted by doift at 7:25 PM PST - 11 comments

(double link youtube) Noodle explains why applying smoothing and interpolation to animation ruins it. Just for good measure Knowing Better explains why you don't see in 4K. Some NSFW language
posted by es_de_bah at 7:02 PM PST - 24 comments

16-year-old boy arrested after famous tree ‘deliberately felled’ A famous tree that has stood sentinel on Britain’s Roman-built Hadrian’s Wall for more than 200 years has been “deliberately felled” in what authorities have called an “act of vandalism.” The sycamore tree, located in the Northumberland National Park in northern England, was made famous to millions around the world when it appeared in Kevin Costner’s 1991 blockbuster film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.”
posted by Fizz at 4:04 PM PST - 124 comments

It is time for the 2023 Fat Bear Week, the annual clash of tubby titans in Alaska's Katmai National Park, to see whose ursine heft reigns supreme. This year's Fat Bear Week kicks off with the Fat Bear Junior contest, whose winner gets to join the main bracket. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:51 PM PST - 26 comments

Meet the Catluminati (archive) and his neighborhood cat friends including Mr. Furley, Naptime, Miss Cleo, Toast Malone, Crazy, Walnut, Cow Mary, Area Rug Mary, and Clara von Teethandclaws to name a few. More on the Catluminati. Videos on youtube, tiktok, instagram. [more inside]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 10:15 AM PST - 11 comments

2023 was the 80th anniversary of the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles. The name is misleading because it suggests that the zoot suiters — the young Mexican, Black and Filipino men and boys who wore the flamboyant outfits (wide-legged, high-waisted, pegged trousers and coats with wide lapels and padded shoulders; zoot suit girls had their own spin)— were the perpetrators. Text and post title from the timeline (archive.org version). Short video: The Zoot Suit Riots Cruise brings back ‘a forgotten era’. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:36 AM PST - 13 comments

Inside the secret meeting of Vine stars that ushered in the app’s demise (WaPo gift link)
posted by kyleg at 7:56 AM PST - 39 comments

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things that have been blamed for nearsightedness: pregnancy, pipe smoking, brown hair, long heads, bulging eyes, too much fluid in the eyes, not enough fluid in the eyes, muscle spasms, social class. From The World Is Going Blind. Taiwan Offers a Warning, and a Cure [Wired; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 4:42 AM PST - 47 comments

Gold Ornaments & Precious Stones Adorn Tender Portraits by Tawny Chatmon. More art by Tawny Chatmon at this link. "Often centering her portraiture on adolescents, Chatmon is visionary, imagining a time when children are living in peace, being safe, being protected, being free of stereotypes, living freely and joyously, being treated gently by the world. This dream is rooted in a long-held desire for young Black people to be recognized as inherently valuable and significant, visualized through the artist’s signature glimmering embellishments."
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:11 PM PST - 7 comments

Back in the spring of 2022, professor of linguistics David Pesetsky was talking to an undergraduate class about relative clauses… Before long a student, Kanoe Evile ’23, raised her hand. “How does this account for the ‘whom of which’ construction?” Evile asked. Pesetsky, who has been teaching linguistics at MIT since 1988, had never encountered the phrase “whom of which” before. “I thought, ‘What?’” Pesetsky recalls. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:29 PM PST - 126 comments

US surgeons are killing themselves at an alarming rate. One decided to speak out “I was the top junior tennis player in the United States,” she began. “I am an associate professor of surgery at Harvard.
“But I am also human. I am a person with lifelong depression, anxiety, and now a substance use disorder.”
The room fell silent.
posted by dfm500 at 4:54 PM PST - 37 comments

Again and again, we search for the moderate streak in the extremist, tell ourselves we can find common ground with people who are explicit in their desire to do us harm.
posted by bq at 1:32 PM PST - 21 comments

Consider the impact of bad management: Having a bad manager at the helm of a team can mean employees don’t have clear goals, or they have the wrong goals, or there are no checks in place to monitor progress against those goals. It can mean people don’t hear what they’re doing well or where they need to improve. It can mean problems fester, initiative is snuffed out, strong workers aren’t retained, and poor performers stick around for years while the good ones are driven off. So given how important good management can be, why are so few managers trained well? Ask a Manager's Alison Green tackles the question for Slate.
posted by sciatrix at 1:02 PM PST - 70 comments

Chants of Sennaar [Launch Trailer] “Chants of Sennaar is a language-based puzzle game based on the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. In this retelling, your character makes their way through five floors of a tower, each of which is home to a different community with a different language. Using a pictorial journal, you assign every word you find to a picture, slowly piecing together each language as you go. You use the words you learn to solve other puzzles, navigate the tower, and understand what others are saying. All this is made possible through decoding language — and I can’t overstate how fun the process is.” [via: Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 9:52 AM PST - 20 comments

Nothing Is Better Than This: The Oral History of ‘Stop Making Sense’

This stuff does make you scratch your head. Why choose this? And it’s just sort of like, “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s just part of the entertainment factor.”

[more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 9:31 AM PST - 33 comments

One of the most famous photographers of whom you may not have heard -- but whose work you likely have seen -- Henry Diltz, is being honored with a lifetime achievement award. Diltz has shot more than 250 album covers and thousands of publicity shots in the ‘60s and ‘70s. [more inside]
posted by terrapin at 9:07 AM PST - 9 comments

Dropout is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Dropout, a streaming service born from the ashes of CollegeHumor, is dropping the CH brand altogether; its CEO, Sam Reich, talked about the site's indie rebirth on Vulture and on Polygon, the latter alongside Dropout's resident dungeon master and socialist folk hero, Brennan Lee Mulligan. Apart from the channel's Dimension 20 D&D series (sample episode here), Dropout is best known for the improv-heavy game show Game Changer, in which players imitate mac and cheese, combat unruly lie detectors, improvise full musicals, harsh the vibes, name birds, and generally cause undue amounts of chaos. (Several full episodes are available here.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 6:47 AM PST - 26 comments

But there was a darker side to his innovation. What it meant in practice was that rather than burrowing into a mountain, following a rich seam of ore deep into the earth, miners would now essentially demolish the entire mountain to extract its metal. This was not just mass production, but ‘mass destruction’. from The Discovery of Copper
posted by chavenet at 4:41 AM PST - 18 comments

A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work - "Want to really understand large language models? Here's a gentle primer." [link-heavy FPP!] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:59 PM PST - 28 comments

WGA writers union reaches agreement to end strike vs Hollywood studios "The Negotiating Committee, the WGAW Board and WGAE Council all voted unanimously to recommend the agreement. It will now go to both guilds’ memberships for a ratification vote." WGA's updated chart comparing what the studios offered on May 1st to what the writers got after their 148-day strike [PDF], including writers room protections, streaming residuals based on actual viewership numbers, and more. [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 10:31 PM PST - 63 comments

Google Podcasts is shutting down Google just announced that it is shutting down Google Podcasts in 2024, despite having been installed more than 500 million times since its 2018 launch. They are encouraging users to switch to YouTube music instead.
posted by mijustin at 9:39 PM PST - 52 comments

A story, in cartoon form, about how doctors dismiss women's physical pain.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:31 PM PST - 33 comments

Sixty-two Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking by Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 14 Oct 2020.
posted by Westringia F. at 7:36 PM PST - 17 comments

TikTok, emojis and anime now as physical body language. Touching fingers, silently screaming into your hand, the Bella Swan hair tuck—each of these internet mannerisms all require a grossly exaggerated performance.
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:08 PM PST - 18 comments

Apparently back in 1975, Graham Chapman of Monty Python and Douglas Adams not quite yet of Hitchhiker's Guide wrote a television show. It's an incomprehensible mess that's entirely worth watching. Out Of The Trees [32m]
posted by hippybear at 11:43 AM PST - 25 comments

The US Federal Trade Commission and more than a dozen state attorneys general have filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the e-commerce giant has unlawfully leveraged its market dominance to stamp out would-be competitors.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:55 AM PST - 38 comments

A precious object finds its way home.
posted by bq at 9:44 AM PST - 2 comments

Canada’s House speaker Anthony Rota sorry for honoring Nazi veteran [Washington Post] The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons has apologized for celebrating a man who served in a notorious Nazi military unit during World War II. Speaker Anthony Rota introduced 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka of North Bay, Ontario, to fellow lawmakers on Friday during Ukrainian President Volodymyr’s visit to Parliament. After Zelensky addressed the body, thanking Canada for supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia and urging it to stay committed, Rota pointed out Hunka and described him as a war hero “who fought [for] Ukrainian independence against the Russians, and continues to support the troops today.” But on Sunday, Jewish groups condemned the honor, saying Hunka had been a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, a Waffen-SS unit composed of ethnic Ukrainians. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:14 AM PST - 204 comments

Anytime a company lays someone off, there’s a possibility the person will take something with them. Coke, holder of the world’s most famous trade secret, was particularly attuned to that risk. It had an intelligence-bureau-style classification scheme, like other corporations that deal in proprietary information, and it had software that tracked employees’ data use. That summer, as more and more employees learned they were leaving, the data loss prevention system began to ripple with alerts. from The Plot to Steal the Other Secret Inside a Can of Coca-Cola [Bloomberg; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 4:07 AM PST - 46 comments

Ever read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince? Turns out you are not alone. It has been translated into 500+ different languages and dialects, including Irish - see above. Swiss engineering entrepreneur Jean-Marc Probst has, over the last 40 years, collected most of them, and a mass [N = 9,000+] of ancillary material, into one searchable place. Ten minute overview from lingthusiast imshawn getoffmylawn.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:47 AM PST - 12 comments

As the year turns to fall, (it'll be a chilly 85°F for me tomorrow) it's time to think about preserving a larder for the long cold winter. And while you can think about your pickles, your preserves and canned goods for days, let's look instead at the French technique of "confit". [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:12 PM PST - 27 comments

Spider silk is spun by silkworms for the first time, offering a green alternative to synthetic fibers. Scientists in China have synthesized spider silk from genetically modified silkworms, producing fibers six times tougher than the Kevlar used in bulletproof vests.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:26 PM PST - 17 comments

701 Gouldman Lane: The Movie
posted by jacquilynne at 8:39 PM PST - 18 comments

A private US citizen was responsible for rescuing thousands of women from the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. [more inside]
posted by Dashy at 2:33 PM PST - 65 comments

Top 10 Arcades Games Every Year From 1980-1989 (100 Games) [25m] offers without commentary a list of each of the 100 games, showing gameplay and those delicious sound effects. Right away I was struck by "oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that one!"
posted by hippybear at 10:07 AM PST - 104 comments

A guide to modern phone etiquette. (WaPo gift link.) Evidently Apple is bringing old school answering machine "screening" back, although if you're not supposed to use voice mail I don't get the point. Anyway here's a handy guide to the bewilderment that is modern phone use. For those who have a cell phone, anyway.
posted by JanetLand at 7:18 AM PST - 153 comments

To freeboot is to commit an act of piracy without the authorization of any government or state. Derived from the Dutch, from vrijbuit (“plunder, spoils”) +‎ -er or vrijbuiten +‎ -er (from vrijbuit (“plunder”)), from vrij (“free”) + buit (“booty”). Lately the term has been used to refer to the sharing of digital media beyond the limits of restrictive distribution controls. Here's your Monday morning free thread!
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:56 AM PST - 70 comments

Instead, the version of prep that persists is the democratized, constantly reinvigorated version that these three works trace. Always a multiracial, multiethnic project, prep has been shaped by striving women and queer people as much as by the insouciant WASP college men supposedly synonymous with the style. Troublingly, white nationalists in polos and khakis are perhaps the latest group to claim prep, clearly to blend in with people who would look askance at brown shirts and steel-toe boots. The style’s insistent spread beyond campus has spawned so many reinventions and remixes that it can be hard to pinpoint any longer exactly what qualifies as prep. If prep is everywhere, can we still recognize it as distinct? from We're All Preppy Now [The New Republic; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 4:02 AM PST - 58 comments

How to Count a Wolf describes the process of tracking wolves across many seasons in Washington. It's one of my all-time favorite videos on conservation. [more inside]
posted by kaibutsu at 8:06 PM PST - 5 comments

Prometheus Lost in Space mashup trailer.
posted by clavdivs at 7:20 PM PST - 23 comments

New Pack of Endangered Gray Wolves Discovered in California. The pack, which consists of a mother and her four offspring, is now the state’s southernmost wolf group. "California has reached another exciting milestone in gray wolf recovery with the discovery of a new pack in the southern Sierra Nevada," Pamela Flick, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, says in a statement. "This recently detected group of wolves is at least 200 straight-line miles from the nearest known California pack and demonstrates the species’ amazing ability to disperse long distances and take advantage of the state’s plentiful suitable habitat."
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:42 PM PST - 10 comments

Vanity Fair lists 31 feel good movies to boost your mood. Archive link. [more inside]
posted by the primroses were over at 11:15 AM PST - 152 comments

For centuries grape growers in different communities passed down lore about where their grapes came from. Some governments, particularly in Europe, designated appellations—strictly circumscribed regions with rules on how and where a varietal such as burgundy, rioja or barolo was legally allowed to grow and be produced. But genetic studies to discover where vines originated thousands of years ago began in earnest only 10 or 15 years ago. from Wine’s True Origins Are Finally Revealed
posted by chavenet at 4:01 AM PST - 25 comments

Time Commanders is a technological game show which sends contestants back in time to reenact historical battles, with the aid of an unnamed real-time strategic combat simulation and 3D CGI visualisations provided by The Creative Assembly. [more inside]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 2:47 AM PST - 7 comments

On September 20th New York Times pundit David Brooks posted a tweet where he stated the high cost of his meal demonstrated why people had a low opinion of the economy. Unfortunately for Brooks, response was quick and vicious as viewers pointed out that the food portion of the meal was only $18, and that the majority of his bill was in his drink, in a real world example of the "someone who is good at the economy please help me" meme. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:34 AM PST - 130 comments

“I had a dream last night that there was a new popular form of music called Love Honk. Every song was basically just smooth jazz or soft rock instrumentals, but where the lead singer or main instrument should have been playing, there was just a loud, constant car horn.” My fellow Nordics will probably be reminded by Silverspots’ Cohost post of the Ylvis sketch Car Horn Classics (English subtitles in captions).
posted by Kattullus at 11:52 PM PST - 21 comments

Clarkesworld short fiction post
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:28 PM PST - 33 comments

Dancing the Megatropolis is a short web journal about taking public transit from Olive, VA to Amesbury, MA. [more inside]
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:45 PM PST - 21 comments

'Poetic Justice' at 30: Reflecting on the Film and its Impact on the Black Community [ONE37] “On July 23, 1993 music icons Tupac and Janet Jackson came out with a movie that will forever remain a cult classic—Poetic Justice. It's hard to believe that so much time has passed since its original release as Poetic Justice has seemed to be the gift that keeps on giving in the Black community. For us millennials, the film is one of those "right-of-passage" must-see ones that was shown to you by your parents when you were a kid/teenager, and in turn, you are supposed to pass it down to your children and younger siblings/relatives. And don't get us started on Halloween—you can't go a Halloween season without seeing loads of girls dressed as Poetic Justice Janet (and their S/Os as Tupac when they want to team up), and "Janet Jackson braids" are very much a real thing and a real requested hair style. With it being the films 30th anniversary, we figured it would be a good time to take a look back at the impact the movie had at the time of its release, and the impact it continues to have today.” [Poetic Justice (1993) | Film Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:36 AM PST - 15 comments

Answer: It's a lot [Tik Tok]

How Often Does Darius Butler Think About the Roman Empire? [YouTube]

Are Men Obsessed With the Roman Empire? Yes, Say Men. [New York Times]

How often do men think about ancient Rome? Quite frequently, it seems.[Washington Post]
posted by riruro at 7:45 AM PST - 199 comments

Civil Procedure and Family Law legal nerds alike are perking up their ears at news that UK citizen Sophie Turner has filed against US Joe Jonas in federal court for child abduction (or "wrongful retainment"), citing the Hague Convention, for his refusal to return the children's passports and allow them to return to England, thus causing the case to evolve from simple celebrity gossip to a fascinating international legal challenge. Why federal court? What are her likely avenues and what are the likely defenses? How might the court respond? Let's beanplate about it! [more inside]
posted by corb at 7:43 AM PST - 26 comments

Devin Stone (AKA LegalEagle) posted an excellent video about fair use and reaction streamers: xQc Is Stealing Content (and So Are Most Reaction Streamers).
posted by Pendragon at 7:28 AM PST - 18 comments

Rebecca Traister discusses the latest matrimony as economic policy push for The Cut. New York magazine/archive: It’s easy to see why the marriage solution is so appealing. Like telling people that it’s their responsibility to address the climate crisis by using paper straws, or advising Black men that they need to pull up their pants and be better fathers, it off-loads the responsibility for broad and systemic reform by tsk-tskingly placing it on individuals and their intimate behaviors. [more inside]
posted by the primroses were over at 6:20 AM PST - 21 comments

Perhaps, in this era of impostor syndrome, everyone feels like they’re pretending to be someone other than themselves. So the real artistes of the medium, the ones who go all the way—they fascinate us. from Kyle Deschanel, the Rothschild Who Wasn’t [Vanity Fair; ungated] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:00 AM PST - 21 comments

New neon-coloured tropical fish has just been scientifically described: Amanda's flasher wrasse
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:00 AM PST - 8 comments

Fact: if you open a pen of pigs with expected food at the end of a run, the pigs will dash down it to the food at high speed. Some pigkeepers in England decided to take advantage of this essential trait of pigness, and so they bring us LEAGUE OF PIGS, a series of charmingly over-produced pig racing videos, now beginning its epic tenth season! A few selections: the oval track, the most recent video, and a trickier idea to accomplish than you might at first think; racing through water; the most recently completed season and the first season, from two years back. hippybear made a post about the 9th season finals last month, but it turns out there's more fun to be had there! [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 10:21 PM PST - 15 comments

Today, Federal District Court Judge Claudia Wilken, who had overseen the initial O'Bannon and Alston trials, granted class action status to House vs. NCAA, in which the plaintiffs are arguing that the NCAA's remaining restrictions on name, image, and licensing rights prohibiting direct payment of players by schools and conferences represent an unlawful restraint of trade violating antitrust law. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:02 PM PST - 10 comments

"Legal London" is beautiful and functional. Personally, I am not a lawyer, nor do I particularly like them, with their prodigious consumption of booze and cocaine (source: constantly watching my friends at it) but I once spent a lot of time in this area largely because it's rather nice - and I worked very near. I met my wife in the Cheshire Cheese pub; I bought my first suit from this Ede and Ravenscroft. And you too could do those things! I like to ensure that the lawyers can't claim this part of the public space all to themselves - and I'm sure you would too - so please visit, often.
posted by bookbook at 2:53 PM PST - 15 comments

Astarion, Wyll, Shadowheart, Gale, Lae'zal and Karlach, not to mention... the Narrator...
posted by Sebmojo at 2:32 PM PST - 6 comments

As car enthusiasts, we should all try to be advocates of safer infrastructure and increased mobility options. Ethan, a self-proclaimed car enthusiast behind the channel Hello Road makes the case for less car dependency and more options for better modes of everyday transportation. Not everyone needs a car, and not everyone who has one wants to be driving, so why can't the US get behind doing better?
posted by WorkshopGuyPNW at 2:10 PM PST - 145 comments

To celebrate the eightieth birthday of UK composer Gavin Bryars, Leo Chadburn of The Quietus interviews him about his selection of ten pieces from a long and hugely varied career.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:12 AM PST - 4 comments

From her upcoming album Rockstar, Dolly Parton sings 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up?"
posted by Etrigan at 11:02 AM PST - 38 comments

Don’t breathe it in. (one minute, youtube)
posted by aniola at 10:01 AM PST - 20 comments

Repairing an Apple II Clone (1/3) "In the early 80s, the Apple II had was selling well but it was expensive. This is where foreign companies stepped in and started making clones. These machines were much cheaper but also illegal due to them using copied ROMs." [more inside]
posted by kathrynm at 9:15 AM PST - 23 comments

Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Phantom Liberty Is the Game It Should’ve Always Been [Siliconera] “Though examples of other titles having a redemption from its initial launch exist, such as No Man’s Sky, I never had the motivation to give these games a second chance. But this changed with the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC, as CD Projekt RED finally made good on the promises the RPG made when it was originally released in 2020. Even for those who don’t purchase the Phantom Liberty DLC, you’re in for a treat, as the base game feels much more exciting than ever before with the Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update. [...] Everything from the action sequences to the terrific performances to even the storytelling, this is what I hoped Cyberpunk 2077 would have been from the start. I enjoyed my time with the DLC, and the 2.0 update changes so much that I actually plan to finally beat the base game and see the new ending now. If, like me, you’ve been on the fence about this game or were disappointed in the RPG in the past, I recommend giving Cyberpunk 2077 a second chance.” [Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty | Update 2.0 Overview] [Phantom Liberty - Official Cinematic Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:15 AM PST - 34 comments

UAW Extends Walkout (NYT gift link, The Detroit News, Detroit Free Press) At noon today, UAW members will walk out at 38 GM and Stellantis parts distribution centers.
posted by box at 7:53 AM PST - 16 comments

...it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. The Stories Behind The Making Of The Blues Brothers [55m] is a 1998 documentary about the 1980 film that defined an era and the likes of which will likely never be made again.
posted by hippybear at 7:52 AM PST - 57 comments

The war in Ukraine continues with Ukraine seeming to finally break through to the other side the primary defensive line that has been holding up their progress during the summer counter offensive. [more inside]
posted by interogative mood at 6:41 AM PST - 160 comments

The Disturbing Secret Behind the World’s Most Expensive Coffee [CW: abuse of animals ]
posted by chavenet at 3:46 AM PST - 22 comments

"There is a long inspiring pedagogical tradition in physics of putting everything into one log-log plot... We then make the most comprehensive pedagogical plot of the masses and sizes of all the objects in the Universe."
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:12 AM PST - 20 comments

"The first time I saw them it made me cry": Indigenous artefacts returned after decades in English museum. A vast collection of Indigenous artefacts kept in England for decades is being returned to the Northern Territory, ending an emotional years-long repatriation process.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:41 AM PST - 5 comments

How to feel about an "okay" rating of your feet by strangers on the Internet.
posted by latkes at 7:25 PM PST - 12 comments

New study suggests NFTs have died. [more inside]
posted by antihistameme at 5:52 PM PST - 87 comments

A story about plumbing and people, and a man called Fran: Here was the amazing thing—both men were skilled, even brilliant plumbers. They loved to talk about their craft, and I enjoy being around people like that. They told stories about horrible, disgusting situations they’d been involved in, Ones that left them covered in shit or “things you don’t want to know about.” They admired our guest-room bathroom’s toilet, where the smoke had been. It was vintage. “That is one of the best flushing toilets ever made,” Greg said. He assured me that some people would pay real money to own one of those.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:22 PM PST - 37 comments

Half-million-year-old wooden structure unearthed in Zambia [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 12:02 PM PST - 20 comments

The 'no sabo kids' are pushing back on Spanish-language shaming. Being Latino isn’t a monolith — some may speak Spanish, some may speak Indigenous dialects and some may only know English. Mala Muñoz, co-host of Locatora Radio (episodes): “I grew up just constantly hearing the reason dad speaks terrible Spanish is because he wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish. It was kept from him. They were being beaten at school. And that’s why he speaks his Spanglish, and that’s why we speak our hybridized Spanglish.”
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:34 AM PST - 21 comments

Lead poisoning kills millions annually. One country is showing the way forward.
posted by Etrigan at 10:56 AM PST - 11 comments

Tech Talk with Tim and Ted is a semi-improvised narrative podcast about technology and emotional labour, told in the form of an Apple evangelist podcast. Learn how to download the Spotify app, update your printer firmware, and how to get your wife back. (I haven't listened to anything else in the last two weeks and I can't stop laughing.)
posted by avocet at 9:40 AM PST - 14 comments

News Corporation and Fox News chair Rupert Murdoch announces he will step down from the helm of his media empire, handing control to his son Lachlan. (SLCNN)
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:11 AM PST - 49 comments

There is no “You’re doing great, Mama” discourse on Facebook for those who care for elders. We are still very much in the era where caring for old people is considered a dreadful task worthy of pity. [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 7:17 AM PST - 61 comments

Elon Musk denied claims that Neuralink’s monkey test subjects died as a result of its brain implants — but Wired points out some documents that suggest otherwise. On Tuesday, Neuralink announced it’s starting in-human trials for people with quadriplegia. Letters sent to top officials at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by a medical ethics group call on the agency to investigate Musk’s claims that monkeys who died during trials at the company were terminally ill and did not die as a result of Neuralink implants. [Content Warning: descriptions of animal abuse/cruelty]
posted by Fizz at 6:52 AM PST - 46 comments

Sophie Little, broadcaster on BBC Local Radio in Norfolk has been let go after 15 years. Treasure Quest, which she broadcast on Sunday mornings, has been a Radio Norfolk cult favourite for 15 years. It saw listeners solve a series of clues which guided presenters around Norfolk, visiting communities. She prefaced her last gig with 2 minutes of context & criticism of the cuts. This "rant" was excised from the BBC Sounds [digital on-demand service] version of her programme. [more inside]
posted by BobTheScientist at 4:45 AM PST - 9 comments

The magical credo, “what we think we are”, has a positive and a negative aspect. On the positive side, it promises a world subdued to will. On the negative side, it threatens the possibility of becoming a captive to one’s own thought. If the world is to be subdued to thought, then thought must itself be subdued to will; but that is an unwinnable struggle if “you can no more keep a thought to yourself than you can hold a monopoly in the sunshine”. If your thought can penetrate and control everything, then it can also penetrate you, leaving you merely transparent, the will-less vehicle of thought, spilling in all directions, rather like radiation. from Radioactive Fictions: Marie Corelli and the Omnipotence of Thoughts
posted by chavenet at 2:26 AM PST - 2 comments

Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump's vision - "Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president's return — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024." [link-heavy FPP] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 1:56 AM PST - 60 comments

Finnish manufacturer, Stalatube, brought Jamie Hyneman out of his Reality TV retirement to collaborate with The Hydraulic Press Channel to test the strength of their stainless steel hollow sections. If you watch one viral ad for an industrial product this year, this may be the one.
posted by interogative mood at 9:11 PM PST - 20 comments

Climate silence
posted by aniola at 7:40 PM PST - 32 comments

Mixie and Munchie are 2girls1bottl3 on TikTok. The premise: Munchie has a snack while Mixie makes an elaborate boozy drink, which is then shared. Without a word of dialogue. In fact there is no monetization, no names, nothing more. Often the pair are wearing the fast food uniform, or glam, or not, and while the setting is usually just a booth at a fast food joint, the location is often completely different countries. After a viral tweet Nicolaia Rips attempts to get to the bottom of it all in The Face.
posted by zenon at 4:02 PM PST - 87 comments

When you think of real bangers, you wouldn't generally think of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, because, well, they're the ones tasked on keeping you from a... banger. But they just dropped, very carefully, the album-length We're Safety Now Haven't We, a real, uh, banger?
posted by eschatfische at 3:03 PM PST - 31 comments

The Horrible True Story that Inspired Sound of Freedom Is Probably Our Fault, Part 1. And Part 2: Who took kids from Haiti and why? Part 3: Looking for kids in all the wrong places. Part 4: reconsidering trafficking. Part 5: “the American cultural trafficking narrative.” And don't give your money to Operation Underground Railroad. No really, don't. Plus the OUR founder and now an executive producer of Sound of Freedom are both accused of sexual misconduct. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:41 AM PST - 39 comments

Every day, the calls come. She can tell quickly who might die. CW: descriptions of drug use and overdoses [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:16 AM PST - 15 comments

Why don’t Americans put butter on their sandwiches? When American in Paris Amanda Rollins posted a TikTok about a jambon beurre sandwich, there was a lot of mutual incomprehension on both sides of the Atlantic as to whether it's normal to assume there will be butter in a sandwich — for the Europeans, absolutely de rigeur; for the North Americans, odd and greasy. When The Guardian's Arma Mahdawi realised her American wife was on Team Mayo she wrote the linked op-ed (and took a regrettable swipe at American butter, sadly).
posted by ambrosen at 9:15 AM PST - 159 comments

It was hard to see how this slave complex could exist without cryptocurrency. Crypto bros like to claim they were somehow helping the poor. But it seemed none of them had bothered to look into the darker consequences of a technology that allowed for anonymous, untraceable payments. From ‘Don’t You Remember Me?’ The Crypto Hell on the Other Side of a Spam Text [Bloomberg; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 1:02 AM PST - 97 comments

A surfer wanted to catch waves from Hurricane Lee. A shark bit his face. Around noon, he watched a six-foot-long spinner shark leap out of the water 20 feet away and fall back in, barely missing another surfer. Sumersett was terrified but stayed in the water. Several other surfers, including the one nearly bodied by the spinner shark, seemed unbothered. He kept surfing. He saw another shark fin in the afternoon. Kept surfing. Around dusk, he watched three sharks “come swimming through the waves like dolphins do.” Kept surfing. Five minutes later, he saw three different sharks doing the same thing. Kept surfing.....
posted by Toddles at 10:38 PM PST - 44 comments

Out in the hinterlands of Montana, the nonprofit Working Dogs For Conservation takes dogs from several walks of life - rescues, abandoned at shelters, former law enforcement sniffers - and train them to put their snouts to work in supporting a number of conservation efforts.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:53 PM PST - 7 comments

Two of the best things about the game Death Stranding are the beautiful terrain and the beautiful music. [more inside]
posted by WhackyparseThis at 6:39 PM PST - 8 comments

San Francisco has the world’s oldest aquarium fish. Now we know her age.
posted by brundlefly at 6:20 PM PST - 20 comments

The Palm Cockatoo is only found at the top of Cape York in Far North Queensland and drums on trees by fashioning its own musical instruments from wood and seed pods in a bid to attract potential mates or mark its territory. A study led by the Australian National University has shown another side to the parrots, finding that each bird methodically designs and decorates its musical tools according to individual taste. "We already knew that they have highly personalised rhythms when they drum, allowing other birds to recognise who is drumming from a long way away," lead author Professor Robert Heinsohn said. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 5:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Then this atmospheric animated screensaver, featuring falling leaves and oldies in the background might very well be the right mood for you today!
posted by goblinbox at 3:39 PM PST - 6 comments

Yes, it's another listicle. That said, I like it for several reasons: it does not ignore pre-2000 shows; it indicates where the episodes can be streamed; and it does, for those series with which I'm familiar, make solid (though, as always, debatable) choices. (As a bonus, Andre Braugher appears twice!)
posted by Kat Allison at 10:42 AM PST - 128 comments

Although there are only five written vowels, English has 14-21 different vowel sounds, depending on the dialect. This is a much larger vowel inventory than most languages (the smallest is 3). However the consonant inventory for English is a very typical 22, though it does have "th," a relatively uncommon one. From the World Atlas of Language Structures: Consonant inventories of languages range from a low of 6 consonants to a high of 122 consonants. The more typical consonant inventory size is in the low twenties. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:23 AM PST - 68 comments

Who Walks Always Beside You? 'Twenty-two years ago, a six-year-old girl—my cousin—got lost in the Arkansas Ozarks, prompting what was at the time the largest search and rescue mission in the state’s history.' (Benjamin Hale writing in Harper's Magazine)
TW: the article contains graphic details about the murder of a three year old, and some other upsetting things.
posted by box at 8:52 AM PST - 8 comments

It's been a terrible morning for Team Xbox, as a major leak related to the FTC investigation of the Activision Blizzard deal has revealed all kinds of information that Microsoft surely never intended anyone to see. And seriously, this is huge! We now know that Microsoft has been planning an Xbox Series X refresh (potentially arriving in late 2024), and an entire release schedule from Bethesda dated July 2020 (new Bethesda games including DOOM, Dishonored, Fallout & Oblivion) has also been doing the rounds. There's more coming out of this as well, such as a new Xbox controller that appears to be launching alongside the new Xbox Series X revision, and even the revelation that Phil Spencer was interested in acquiring Nintendo back in 2020! The leak also revealed Microsoft's plans to release a new next-generation console in 2028. Via:[Pure Xbox][Polygon][Eurogamer][The Verge]
posted by Fizz at 6:45 AM PST - 35 comments

'Noctalgia' is a feature of the modern age.
posted by Etrigan at 6:44 AM PST - 54 comments

So, it's possible that one of my favorite albums of this year is by... Dr. Noah Drake? All I can do is ask that you check out the newest album from 74-year-old Rick Springfield, Automatic [YT Playlist ~1h total]. He talked to American Songwriter about this album, which blends dance hooks with punk rock. Here's the first single, title track Automatic. But please check out the full album. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:54 AM PST - 14 comments

We Analyzed 1,626 Banned Books...Here's What We Found ... [data] ... Eight Authors on How It Feels to Have Their Books Banned [includes fashion notes] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 1:01 AM PST - 14 comments

Rice is one of the world's most important crops. Chicken is one of the world's most consumed meats. (In the US to the tune of 100 pounds per person per year). Naturally, there's an large variety of combinations of the two across the world, so let's try a few! Again, as with all things culinary, this is woefully incomplete, short sighted and missing a bunch of other combinations (plus some of these combinations are seen with different meats! [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:39 PM PST - 35 comments

A search index for the very-NSFW web comic Oglaf. On Mastodon, Esther talks about how she built it. [previousliest]
posted by jessamyn at 6:27 PM PST - 55 comments

"All of us came here because the world is hard, because life is hard. And we come here with our burdens to set them down."
posted by Sebmojo at 4:45 PM PST - 3 comments

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has formally accused the Indian government of involvement in the murder of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar this past June. (SLCBC) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:56 PM PST - 55 comments

Earlier this year we talked about the Me Too Movement hitting the world of Chess. Here is a depressing update. [more inside]
posted by interogative mood at 2:51 PM PST - 19 comments

Ketchup on Shawarma Waiver of Liability
posted by jacquilynne at 11:57 AM PST - 94 comments

Light is an online poetry magazine that's been going since 1992. If you often think of poems as stodgy and hard to understand, you might want to give the sparkling light verse produced by their stable of poets a chance -- archives include work by Wendy Cope, frequent higgledy-piggledy (double dactyl) appearances, an "impossible rhymes" compilation including Tom Lehrer, Ogden Nash, and Roy Blount, Jr., and more. Poems reacting to current events, large and small, appear in the magazine's long-running Poems of the Week feature. [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 10:51 AM PST - 12 comments

So let’s summarize things as they stood at the beginning of this summer. I turned sixty-five, had an estimated ten or fifteen years left to live, two volumes to find, and half of volume two still to read in this grubby edition that I couldn’t stand the sight of. Author Geoff Dyer on his search to find a very particular edition of Virginia Woolf's diaries.
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:26 AM PST - 12 comments

The Marx Brothers Duck Soup (full movie on the Internet Archive): Groucho portrays the newly installed president of the mythical country of Freedonia. Zeppo is his secretary, while Chico and Harpo are spies for the neighboring country of Sylvania. Here's your Monday Morning free thread!
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:10 AM PST - 119 comments

The team behind expansions for the hugely popular Terraforming Mars board game has announced that AI art is being used on the project, and this revelation is ruffling the feathers of both fans and industry competitors alike. But what's with all the fuss?
posted by Etrigan at 6:39 AM PST - 91 comments

Red States Quit American Library Association (WaPo gift link) State libraries in Montana, Missouri, and Texas have cut ties with the 150-year-old organization, and Freedom Caucus conservatives in at least ten other states are urging the same.
posted by box at 6:04 AM PST - 88 comments

Fenced off from feral (introduced) predators, these numbats are thrilling ecologists as they repopulate the Eyre Peninsula. Four juvenile numbats have been spotted at Secret Rocks for the first time, sparking new hope for the region's reintroduction program. (Includes cute photo of three baby numbats.)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:23 AM PST - 21 comments

Douglas [Adams] enjoyed being a famous writer, but he loathed the process of becoming one. That entailed writing. He just hated doing it. It was hard work and lonely. He was a man who coped badly on his own; he needed company. Without it, he could fall into a kind of listless vacancy. from The Berkeley Hotel hostage [The Bookseller; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 1:00 AM PST - 37 comments

She wrote to a scientist about her fatigue. It inspired a breakthrough: Her dogged efforts lead to a new scientific discovery that may help others with long covid and other chronically fatiguing illnesses (For those who aren't reading things that include animal research, this contains animal research) (Archive.org, abstract) [more inside]
posted by aniola at 6:58 PM PST - 17 comments

Jill Repman — formerly known as Jill Parisi — has been paid more than a half million dollars since being accused of tampering with the fire department payroll in 2016. The allegation against her was never resolved and she's worked at a private-sector job while continuing to collect a check from the city. By Geoff Kelly
posted by crazy with stars at 6:48 PM PST - 27 comments

Poison ivy is poised to be one of the big winners in this global, human-caused phenomenon. Scientists expect the dreaded three-leafed vine will take full advantage of warmer temperatures and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to grow faster and bigger — and become even more toxic...
posted by jim in austin at 2:12 PM PST - 48 comments

In an expose by The Times, several women have come forth to accuse comedian, BBC presenter, and "wellness guru" Russell Brand of rape (both statutory and physical), sexual assault, and emotional abuse - and the BBC of covering it up. (SLThe Times, ungated, cw: rape, sexual assault, grooming, abuse)
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:38 AM PST - 125 comments

In translating Pessoa’s heteronyms, one thing we see clearly is the influence of reading on Pessoa’s plural and inquiring mind. I have no doubt that reading more than writing was his primary and long-lasting literary occupation. His marginalia are of great interest; so are his many influences. This is to say that the more we know about what Pessoa read and when, the better equipped we are as translators of his works—especially to see more clearly his poetical diction, meters, and rhythms at the core of each heteronymic voice. from Fernando Pessoa’s Unselving [The Paris Review; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 12:58 AM PST - 11 comments

Boucher, backbone, and Blake: the legacy of Blake’s 7 by Erin Horáková.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:23 AM PST - 19 comments

"In Austria, inflation is way above the EU average. There's no end in sight. This is especially true for basic needs like energy and food. Our government stated in May that they'd build a food price database together with the big grocery chains. But...." [more inside]
posted by autopilot at 12:00 AM PST - 45 comments

Writing for the New Yorker, Clare Malone has fact-checked a number of stand-up comic / Daily Show alum / Patriot Act host / Obama-interviewer Hassan Minhaj’s stories of his experiences as an Indian-American and fond them short on accuracy: “Hasan Minhaj’s ‘Emotional Truths’”
Or, as Minhaj puts it, “[S]eventy per cent emotional truth—this happened—and then thirty per cent hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”
posted by Going To Maine at 11:16 PM PST - 75 comments

When people mention Strider, they tend to think of Capcom's flashy classic arcade platformer, with Strider Hiryu slashing apart fur cap-wearing robots with his plasma sword. Hardcore Gaming 101 has its history. The arcade game was a classic; the NES game, somewhat less so. It was extremely badly implemented, and not even released in Japan. Displaced Gamers' Behind The Code series currently has two videos about it, about why it displays garbage sprites (15m) and its awful physics (19m), which let you wall jump, but only with frame-perfect timing, and not even the right frame. It's rather technical, but I trust that you can fast-forward through the bits you're not interested in.
posted by JHarris at 9:55 PM PST - 23 comments

The Taliban has fresher trucks than us. The Honda Fit is dead. U can’t find a sauced-out 2-door to save your life. How did we get here?? [more inside]
posted by bongerino at 9:30 PM PST - 89 comments

The Naturalists Companion, Containing drawings with suitable descriptions of a vast variety of Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Serpent and Insects; &c accurately copied either from Living Animals or from the stuffed Specimens in the Museums of the College and Dublin Society "This volume, of a miscellany of museum artefacts, natural history specimens, and material culture, exemplified the way many Europeans encountered natural history from the new world: not with Enlightenment rigour but with eclectic and unsystematic enthusiasm." An article about this unusual book from the State Library of New South Wales and, of course, all the photos in one Flickr album and a keyword searchable set of page scans. [via]
posted by jessamyn at 2:53 PM PST - 6 comments

But you need to know, because it offers a glimpse into the dark future of streaming (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan at 12:55 PM PST - 69 comments

The origins of Granada's resplendent Mezquita Mayor. The Mezquita Mayor of the Spanish city of Granada traces its beginnings to a curious meeting on Portobello Road in London, on the very same day in 1975 that Francisco Franco died. [more inside]
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 10:08 AM PST - 5 comments

Lies of P carves a singular space out of the Soulsborne genre [Polygon] “Lies of P is the latest addition in the ever-growing lineup of Soulsborne-inspired games. On paper, it definitely dresses the part. It’s a hack-and-slash game with obtuse mechanics; challenging areas delimited by sweet, sweet checkpoints; and dramatic entrances for each and every boss encounter. The standout element is its narrative, which sets the tale of renowned lying apologist Pinocchio against the Belle Époque era.” [Gameplay Trailer][Story Trailer][1 Hour of Midgame Gameplay] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:02 AM PST - 10 comments

“We saw people were upset and we just wanted to try and fix it." A trio of tourists went to Nashville for a birthday celebration, only to find themselves temporarily running the La Quinta hotel they were supposed to be staying at, in a saga that has captivated TikTok. [more inside]
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:44 AM PST - 34 comments

Yet if the generational pop sociology of The Big Chill has enduringly shaped both cultural constructions of American generations and our political understanding of the baby boomers, it obscures as much as it reveals. from You Can Always Get What You Want: On “The Big Chill” and American Politics [LARB]
posted by chavenet at 12:27 AM PST - 40 comments

Here's a couple examples. The present: A young woman walks down a street in Tehran, her hair uncovered, her jeans ripped, a bit of midriff exposed to the hot Iranian sun. An unmarried couple walk hand in hand. A woman holds her head high when asked by Iran's once-feared morality police to put a hijab on, and tells them: "Screw you!" [more inside]
posted by aniola at 10:14 PM PST - 16 comments

How Scientists Working in Antarctica Inadvertently Developed a New Accent. A 2019 study of scientists over-wintering in Antarctica revealed subtle but measurable changes in the participants’ speech. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:38 PM PST - 34 comments

It’s that time of year again. Research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think.
posted by rubatan at 4:44 PM PST - 16 comments

Even in fiction, brands are important. In a richly-illustrated discussion, members of the Barbie, Wes Anderson, and Adult Swim design teams share their thoughts on bringing the fictional brands to life and furthering the story.
posted by bbrown at 2:02 PM PST - 10 comments

...it is one thing to accept a job as the internet's best-compensated rodeo clown and another thing to perform it.
posted by signal at 12:11 PM PST - 53 comments

Author Jeff VanderMeer on rewilding your own backyard,the good and bad. [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 11:46 AM PST - 13 comments

The United Auto Workers union is on strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the first time in its history that it has struck all three of America’s unionized automakers at the same time.
posted by Etrigan at 11:10 AM PST - 45 comments

Fernando Botero has died. [more inside]
posted by essexjan at 10:58 AM PST - 26 comments

Millions Saw His Paintings on TV. In the Art World, His Work Still Went Unnoticed: In his lifetime, Ernie Barnes was largely dismissed and ignored by the industry. He became an icon anyway. [more inside]
posted by praemunire at 10:36 AM PST - 14 comments

Writer John Scalzi celebrates the 25th anniversary of his blog, Whatever, with some cromulent retrospection and a great big surprise party. [more inside]
posted by kristi at 10:24 AM PST - 12 comments

In April this Year a 'Wanted Poster' for a Picasso painting ''Femme Assise sur Fond Jaune et Rose, II' was posted by the The Art Newspaper to the Finding Ady Instagram page.
Ady Fidelin was Man Ray's lover and muse, whose obitury was only published last year by the NYT (might need subscription)
Art Historian Wendy Grossman put a lot of the backstory together. Ady was the first Black model to feature in a major American Fashion magazine - Harpers Bazaar 1937. That was the year she was painted by Picasso when some Surrealists spent a summer of sun, sea and sex on the French Riviera, where Paul Eluard, Nusch, Man Ray, Ady, Roland Penrose, Lee Miller and Eilean Agar all joined Picasso and Dora Maar in Mougins. Several repeat photos, Some probably NSW
posted by adamvasco at 9:28 AM PST - 2 comments

iNaturalist Strikes Out on Its Own "This summer, iNaturalist, the global social network for recording and collectively identifying the biodiversity around us, went independent. With the help of a $10 million startup grant, the organization that started as a UC Berkeley master’s project separated from the California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic Society and became its own 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization."
posted by dhruva at 6:37 AM PST - 13 comments

When you think about food too much, it becomes grotesque: meat in pools of its own juices, tangled spaghetti with clams like small scabs. I hadn’t felt hunger in weeks, but it was my obligation to eat. I felt heavy moving between kitchen and table as the guests got drunker and drunker, as they slumped in their seats but egged each other on to finish the crémeux. I watched Maria lowering a fat chunk of glistening steak into the dog’s mouth. The dog barely even registered the meat, just ate it dutifully. He was inured to it; every night he was pumped full of veal and velouté. Of course, the guests were also worried about the constant indulgence. They liked to look horrified as I brought out each new course, but really they were enthralled. They were paying for pleasure. They didn’t need to finish their plates or worry about what failing to do might signal to the kitchen. from La Dolce Vita
posted by chavenet at 11:23 PM PST - 56 comments

Natasha Lyonne Will Help You Solve the New York Times Sunday Crossword. The Cast of Bob's Burgers Will Sing a Song Written Just for You. Adam Scott Will Walk Your Dog, or John Lithgow Will Paint It. [more inside]
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:50 PM PST - 51 comments

How Lego bricks went from five colors to nearly 200 and then back down to about 70.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:16 PM PST - 13 comments

As of now, 15 September 2023, the comic book property called Fables, including all related Fables spin-offs and characters, is now in the public domain. What was once wholly owned by Bill Willingham is now owned by everyone, for all time. It’s done, and as most experts will tell you, once done it cannot be undone. Take-backs are neither contemplated nor possible.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:01 PM PST - 51 comments

The wonderfully-named Muptown Funk makes a couple of fairly new video series: The Muppets Deep Dive and Muppet History Lesson. They offer comforting and entertaining information on Rowlf, Lew Zealand, the Muppets' Lipton Tea Ads, Thog, Walter, Croönchy Stars cereal, Danny Trejo(?), and Fully Operational Automated Tony Bennett. (Avg length 10 minutes) [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 2:21 PM PST - 14 comments

Gary Klein, a guru of efficient hot water delivery (awesome podcast interview), developed the "hot water rectangle" to quantify the efficiency of a hot water distribution system: the smallest rectangle possible that includes the water heater and all the hot water fixtures in a house. In other words, why does your hot water take so long? The big reason is that the water heater and the wet rooms (i.e., the rooms where water is used) are too spread out. When you put a water heater in an attached garage, for example, and a bathroom on the opposite end of the house, there’s a whole lot of pipe for the hot water to traverse on its way to the showerhead.
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:23 PM PST - 26 comments

Meet wage access apps — or payday loans by another name.
posted by Etrigan at 9:03 AM PST - 63 comments

You will recall it as "“Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impress’d thereon.” Or words to that effect. Newton, however, wrote in Latin, and his first translator either took a liberty with or had his own views of a critical word. [more inside]
posted by BWA at 7:40 AM PST - 87 comments

Dr. Robert Hartley is having a really bad day. His dream last night of a strange little inn in Vermont seemed to last for years, and now he can't get anyone to take seriously how disturbing it was. I never even knew this existed! From 1991, The Bob Newhart Show: The 19th Anniversary Special [47m]. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 6:54 AM PST - 25 comments

The 2023 Vuelta España has been filled with drama, as super domestique Sepp Kuss wears the red leader jersey ahead of teammates Primož Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard, winners of this year's other two "Grand Tour" stage races: the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, respectively. With last year's winner Remco Evenepoel far in arrears it would appear that nothing can stop Team Jumbo Visma from winning this year's race, but who will stand atop the podium on Sunday? [more inside]
posted by St. Oops at 5:40 AM PST - 16 comments

The Front Fell Off (Clarke and Dawe). This is a comedy skit based on an actual incident and an actual interview.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 11:56 PM PST - 29 comments

In 1980, renowned Russian animators Yuri Norstein and Francheska Yarbusova began production on a beautiful stop-motion film called The Overcoat. After 40 years of work, the film remains unfinished, and The Overcoat has taken the record for longest animation production of all time. (SLYT)
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 11:45 PM PST - 8 comments

‘A fairytale wooden world’: Soviet country cottages "Widespread in the former USSR, dachas set in rural idylls were inhabited by writers, architects and those looking to escape the city for a self-sufficient life"
posted by dhruva at 7:49 PM PST - 19 comments

"In a mouse model of a multiple sclerosis-like disease, researchers used an inverse vaccine where pGal was linked to myelin proteins. They found that the immune system stopped attacking myelin, to the point where nerves regained their function and symptoms were reversed."
posted by polecat at 6:22 PM PST - 9 comments

CNN article on the upcoming book, The Six: The Untold Stories of America’s First Women Astronauts Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, but she was not the only woman trained for that mission. [more inside]
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 6:19 PM PST - 9 comments

Back in June, the historian Jenny Bulstrode published a paper, Black Metallurgists and the Making of the Industrial Revolution, in which she argued that one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution had been pioneered by (and stolen from) enslaved ironworkers in Jamaica. Now another historian, Oliver Jelf, has published a reply, which, to put it mildly, casts considerable doubt on Bulstrode's claims (it's been described as a 'ruthless demolition job which makes for a gruesomely compelling read'). Anton Howes asks: does history have a replication crisis? [more inside]
posted by verstegan at 3:26 PM PST - 65 comments

The 50 best music videos of all time, ranked
posted by box at 2:18 PM PST - 104 comments

A major fall bird migration will begin on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 12, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology bird cast. “Bird migration forecasts show predicted nocturnal migration 3 hours after local sunset,” they say in an email blast. Bird cast Folks in the eastern United States states will have a high probability of seeing a migration this evening. May want to wear a hat.
posted by waving at 2:14 PM PST - 18 comments

Top 100 CG animations of Boss Fights from 2880 submissions. [more inside]
posted by Gyan at 12:44 PM PST - 10 comments

What do you do when Case stopped manufacturing your favourite tractor 110 years ago and none are available on the used market? If you are Kory Anderson you start a foundry so you can build, with help from your friends, a brand new Case 150 steam road tractor.
posted by Mitheral at 12:26 PM PST - 17 comments

Looking back at Julia Allison (SL Rolling Stone- Exerpt from Taylor Lorenz's forthcoming book Extremely Online)
posted by wowenthusiast at 12:26 PM PST - 11 comments

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met yesterday and recommended everyone 6 months or older get an updated mRNA COVID vaccine dose this fall [gift link]. The non-mRNA Novavax vaccine is still under review in the U.S., though it has approval in Europe, with some evidence suggesting that following mRNA doses with Novavax leads to better protection against breakthrough infections. "ACIP Cliff Notes" from Your Local Epidemiologist. Reminder tweet to swab throat, cheeks and nostrils for best results from rapid at-home testing.
posted by mediareport at 9:49 AM PST - 93 comments

In a Green New Deal for New York state, the NY legislature passed the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) which instructs the New York Power Authority to switch to renewable energy by 2030. Many municipal properties are also required to transition away from fossil fuels, and the bill makes allowances for low income customers. In These Times reports how grassroots organizing by socialists made this happen. [more inside]
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:22 AM PST - 5 comments

The video for Wu-Tang Clan's Triumph superimposed a story of invasion by killer bees onto the one of greatest posse cuts of all time. [more inside]
posted by ignignokt at 7:26 AM PST - 3 comments

There once was a band called XTC. This is their story. This Is Pop [1h13m, 2017].
posted by hippybear at 6:53 AM PST - 41 comments

So long, Smurfs. Adios, Alvin and the Chipmunks. Hello, "Saved by the Bell."
posted by Etrigan at 6:28 AM PST - 60 comments

Unity has changed its pricing model, and game developers are pissed off [The Verge]

“We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user,” the company shared on its blog. “We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.”

Popular video game engine Unity is making big changes to its pricing structure that’s causing confusion and anger among developers. On Tuesday, Unity announced that on January 1st, 2024, it would be implementing a pay-per-download pricing scheme that would charge developers a flat fee any time a game using Unity software is installed. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:38 AM PST - 150 comments

At least 5 years of experience required.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:42 AM PST - 29 comments

Human beings drive close to 100 million miles between fatal crashes, so it will take hundreds of millions of driverless miles for 100 percent certainty on this question. But the evidence for better-than-human performance is starting to pile up, especially for Waymo. It’s important for policymakers to allow this experiment to continue because, at scale, safer-than-human driving technology would save a lot of lives. from Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers? [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:13 PM PST - 99 comments

Neil Cicierega edited a bunch of George Lucas and Panasonic-related Japanese things together into THE GEORGE LUCAS EGGSPERIENCE. (4 minutes)
posted by JHarris at 10:29 PM PST - 10 comments

Fish once thought extinct released into wild. Native southern purple-spotted gudgeon fish (once thought to have been extinct for two decades) have been released into a Victorian wetland.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:05 PM PST - 5 comments

OK I heard you like bees. So what better than this speed-run of a forgotten bee-themed game for the Commodore 64. [more inside]
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:15 PM PST - 6 comments

Meet the Shadowy Global Network Vilifying Climate Protesters
“They’ll throw something out into the public sphere, which will get a little bit of press, and then before you know it, a new law has been written, possibly by one of them. And now you have the criminalization of what was previously seen as legitimate civil protest.”
Atlas decribed as a think tank that creates think tanks.
All the usual culprits: AFD in Germany, Agribiz in Brazil, US evangelicals, The IEA in UK, Koch, & Murdoch in Australia, Big Oil, etc etc
posted by adamvasco at 5:16 PM PST - 42 comments

Then leave complaints: fools only strive / to make a great an honest hive. Attacked by his critics as the "Man-Devil", Bernard Mandeville, an Anglo-Dutch social philosopher, caused a scandal in 18th-century Europe by arguing that “Bare virtue can’t make nations live...Thus every part was full of Vice / Yet the whole mass a paradise”. [more inside]
posted by Tarn at 2:45 PM PST - 3 comments

Bee orchids mimic the shape and scent of bees in order to lure them into ‘pseudocopulation’, where the male insect attempts to mate with the flower. While the bee gets nothing but a wasted effort, the orchid transfers some of its pollen to the bee. (previously)
posted by sammyo at 2:11 PM PST - 4 comments

Sylvia Plath and the Bees....in February 1963, Sylvia Plath wrote a cluster of extraordinary poems about Bees. She had taken up beekeeping that June and wrote excitedly to her mother in America to describe the events of attending a local beekeepers’ meeting in the Devon village of North Tawton", Sylvia Plath and the Bee Poems
posted by clavdivs at 12:07 PM PST - 6 comments

Thomas Seeley is the Horace White Professor Emeritus of Biology at Cornell, where he has been studying honeybees for 40 years. Initially he was interested in how a hive allocated its strongest foragers to the most productive foraging sites, but this has led into a general investigation into swarm intelligence and decision making, and how individual bees in a hive function similarly to neurons in a brain: "[...] even though each unit (bee or neuron) has limited information and limited intelligence, the group as a whole makes first-rate collective decisions." [more inside]
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 11:31 AM PST - 3 comments

Dark, smelly and 'completely bonkers': Welcome to the world of bog snorkeling [CBC]
posted by readinghippo at 11:19 AM PST - 12 comments

Steam, Valve Software's massive online PC gaming store and platform, turns 20 years old today. PC gaming site Rock Paper Shotgun has posted a thoughtful article about this milestone.
posted by May Kasahara at 11:08 AM PST - 12 comments

Florida and Oklahoma have just approved PragerU Kids for use in public school classrooms. In “Poland: Ania’s Energy Crisis,” a young girl learning about climate change decides to stand up for fossil fuel energy. Though ostracized by her peers, she is supported by her family members, who compare her bravery to that of the Polish Jews in the Warsaw Uprising.
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:05 AM PST - 41 comments

The oldest known depiction of the bee in art is The man (or woman) of bicorp an (at least) 8000 year old cave painting in the Coves de l'Aranya in Bicorp, Valencia, Spain.
posted by donut_princess at 10:12 AM PST - 2 comments

When Twitter Died, So Did Independent Journalism
posted by Artw at 9:40 AM PST - 31 comments

Tim Scott's Girlfriend (slWaPo)
posted by box at 9:10 AM PST - 21 comments

Honeycomb Hotel (gameplay video) is a traditional logic puzzle: given a honeycomb of 7, 19, or 37 cells, determine which icon should appear in each cell, and which nonbranching path connects every cell. There are ~65000 different puzzles, each with only one right answer. Clues are simple ones like "Mouse is in the same diagonal as Tulip" or "there's a wall between Cherry and Cat," but graphical: from these individual clues you solve the entire puzzle. Solving shows a brief animation of bees flying around, like in Solitaire. No time limit, no storyline, no microtransactions, only pick-up-and-play logic puzzles by Everett Kaser, one of the nearly 40 different logic games he has made since 1991: [more inside]
posted by one for the books at 8:08 AM PST - 7 comments

I'm not always a fan of Drew Gooden's videos. His style is a bit irritating at times. But the video Buying the weirdest cat toys on the internet [20m] really made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Plus, it's about cats. And toys. Always a great combination.
posted by hippybear at 6:33 AM PST - 3 comments

Eddie Izzard talks about growing up trans and coming out in the 80s at the 2022 Utah Equality Allies Gala.
posted by Kattullus at 5:39 AM PST - 11 comments

BBC: Patrick Grant, best known for being a judge on the BBC's The Great British Sewing Bee, has launched a campaign to reignite underwear manufacturing in the south Wales valleys ... Welsh stars, including singer and radio presenter Wynne Evans and comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean, have joined Patrick to be photographed in their pants for the Hello Boyos! campaign, a nod to Wonderbra's Hello Boys campaign from 1994. Nation Cymru: Not many people know this but until not that long ago the best pants in the world were made in Wales. They made the world famous Wonderbra in Pontllanfraith. But then one by one the factories closed and a proud manufacturing tradition was lost. BBC: The Great British Sewing Bee, and trailer.
posted by Wordshore at 2:51 AM PST - 10 comments

Betty Lou Music offers uncluttered chord guides to thousands of songs behind several attractive low-resolution pictures of shaggy dogs.
posted by solarion at 12:00 AM PST - 12 comments

Bees are capable of social learning to solve new problems. Social species of bees show the ability to learn from each other. In fact, a bee that's new to a particular pollen-retrieving problem, for example, will learn faster from an experienced fellow bee than it will on its own. [more inside]
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:27 PM PST - 4 comments

The worker bee has been a symbol of Manchester (England) since it attained city status in 1842. Does it represent the diligent productivity of the city's mill workers during the Industrial Revolution, the solidarity and committment to the common good of the Co-operative Movement, or something else? One thing's for sure, there are lots of them around. [more inside]
posted by sudasana at 11:18 PM PST - 1 comment

Among the virtues of bees you may not be aware of is their knack for detecting bombs. How? Science! Also: Pavlov
posted by chavenet at 10:52 PM PST - 1 comment

Painting Wind Turbine Blades Black Helps Birds Avoid Deadly Collisions. A recent study found the simple intervention reduced bird mortality by 72 percent. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:45 PM PST - 9 comments

Thanks to it's long storage life and medicinal properties, honey has long been a staple "luxury" for humanity featuring in countless recipes across the globe. Again, as with all things culinary, this is woefully incomplete, short sighted and missing a bunch of other uses for the wonder product! [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault Is That?
posted by crazy with stars at 8:13 PM PST - 58 comments

... the bee-52s in 1978!! This is a grainy black and white video, but the sound's decent and the vibes come right through
posted by pyramid termite at 6:47 PM PST - 10 comments

"Telling the bees is a European tradition in which bees are told of important events, including deaths, births, marriages and departures and returns in the keeper's household. If the custom was omitted or forgotten and the bees were not "put into mourning" then it was believed a penalty would be paid, such as the bees leaving their hive, stopping the production of honey or dying." The most high profile recent practice of this was last year at about this time but it's also historically been the subject of poetry and paintings. More about John Chapple, who was the royal beekeeper until retiring in May. [via]
posted by jessamyn at 5:30 PM PST - 21 comments

CT scanning could help researchers understand how pollinators benefit soil, find new ways to protect them
posted by Etrigan at 5:22 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the September 11, 1973 Chilean coup that ended the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, and inaugurated the 17-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Pablo Larraín's newest film, El Conde, satirizes the life of Pinochet as a 250-year old vampire and swindler suffering an existential crisis, receiving both accolades and critique. More below the fold for a history and docu-binge before the film is release on Netflix September 15th. [more inside]
posted by rubatan at 12:47 PM PST - 6 comments

Apiary is a worker-placement game in which players choose one of twenty unique factions of hyper-intelligent bees to gather resources, develop technologies and explore new planets. [more inside]
posted by vverse23 at 12:08 PM PST - 10 comments

I Killed My Southern Accent and a Piece of Myself With It (slJezebel) [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 11:38 AM PST - 108 comments

In an excerpt from his biography of Elon Musk, Walter Issacson recounts how the mercurial owner of Twitter and his supporters personally went to Sacramento to decommission the company's server farm collocated there. (SLCNBC)
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:33 AM PST - 90 comments

Thank God for Worker Bees is a song by Seattle-area mathcore band Botch. [more inside]
posted by saladin at 10:40 AM PST - 4 comments

Ask A Bee!!! In other buzz Queen Reminds Worker Bees - Declining Bee Population Linked To - Bee Wishes It Could Hang Around Open Soda Can - Bee, Man Allergic To Bees [more inside]
posted by lalochezia at 10:25 AM PST - 2 comments

Blode and the Giant Bee (SLYT) It seems like a good day to repost this classic song, as it's been over 20 years since the last time it was on the front page.
posted by moonmilk at 10:07 AM PST - 3 comments

Here's a bee. It's a freebie, like this free thread. That is all. [more inside]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:50 AM PST - 107 comments

Michael Bush has a website about bees. Bush is an opinionated apiarist who espouses natural beekeeping, and has the kind of old school website you might expect.
posted by zamboni at 8:53 AM PST - 7 comments

It's that time of year again. A.R. Moxon reflects, 22 years later, on the World Trade Center attack's enduring legacy of jingoism, tacky commemoratives, and giving liars a pass on their abuses of power. (SLSubstack)
posted by jackbishop at 8:49 AM PST - 54 comments

Getting to Genius, Part I (NYT gift link, here's Part II) On improving one's skills in Spelling Bee, the New York Times daily word puzzle. [more inside]
posted by box at 7:57 AM PST - 28 comments

The Bees of Childeric I "The 27th May 1653 likely started as any other for mason Adrien Quinquin. A man working on a construction site in Tournai, modern-day Belgium, he was several feet under the ground swinging his pickaxe when he hit something unusual. A glint of gold shimmered up at him. After gathering the attention of nearby people, the rest of Quinquin’s hole was dug up. Inside was a real treasure trove: human bones, hundreds of silver coins, a highly decorated sword and scabbard, and many more gold items including buckles, rings and brooches. Key for us, there were also 300 little bees made from gold. " [via]
posted by dhruva at 7:03 AM PST - 13 comments

It took three years for Colin Hay's band to rise from playing pubs to being the biggest band in the world. Three more years, and Men At Work was over, as was all the momentum for Colin Hay's career. Colin Hay: Waiting For My Real Life [1h24m, 2015] documents the rise, fall, and continuing lingering legacy of one of Australia's biggest musical heroes.
posted by hippybear at 6:17 AM PST - 25 comments

Yesterday (September 10th) was the 30th anniversary of the premiere of The X-Files, the paranormal-sorta television phenomenon starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. To mark the occasion, Rolling Stone has posted its ranking of all 217 episodes, worst to best.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:02 AM PST - 77 comments

Government-approved “private detectives” and “private security services”—they have their exams and licenses, and all that crap. That’s gatekeeping meant to distract the sheeple from the power of peer-to-peer, decentralized, distributed knowledge. I didn’t need a stinkin’ badge. Crypto is a private banking system, and I was a private bank guard—that was easy. Money in the Bank - new fiction from John Kessel and Bruce Sterling.
posted by Artw at 9:06 PM PST - 12 comments

John Farnham's You’re the Voice song becomes Yes referendum campaign ad. The ad looks at several key Australian historical/cultural events from the 1967 Australian referendum onwards to the present day. The upcoming referendum (which this ad is for the Yes campaign) is to ask people to vote Yes or No on A Proposed Law: To alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration? [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:57 PM PST - 45 comments

What did the Roman ships, or rather boats, that the Romans used to advance deep into the region along the Rhine and Danube and later used to patrol the river boundaries look like? How were they constructed, by whom and with what materials and methods?

Prof. Dr. Boris Dreyer, an expert in ancient history, has been exploring these questions in a very special way since 2016, when he began reconstructing and testing Roman river boats, taking them as far as the Black Sea.

[more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 6:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 5:56 PM PST - 31 comments

What's my place in the world population? How long will I live?
posted by chavenet at 4:54 PM PST - 32 comments

States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations, professions, sports teams, causes and other groups. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 4:44 PM PST - 34 comments

Millions of American schoolchildren grew up in the 1920s and 1930s with “Narcotic Education Week,” using textbooks that emphasized how bad drugs could be for destroying morals, health, and respectability... Although it’s been forgotten about today, Narcotic Education Week was wildly successful by the early 1930s, earning praise from sources as diverse as Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, the Vatican, and literary icon Rabindranath Tagore. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:35 PM PST - 8 comments

Today marks the beginning of the 2023 NFL Season with football every Sunday through to next year. As with all NFL Seasons, there's multi-year chaos, drama and changes - and that's off field. This years biggest change has been in the ownership of the Washington Commanders with the sale of the team by the reviled Dan Snyder to a team lead by private equity investor Josh Harris who already owns or holds stake in the Philadelphia 76ers, the New Jersey Devils and EFL's Crystal Palace F.C. (Warning: Yes, that name is used in a bunch of older news articles) [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:26 PM PST - 21 comments

For students of tone, it’s interesting to see how long the editors can keep a straight face as, soberly and diligently, they write entry after entry, using a printed source for each and acknowledging the help of many named Joyceans. At times, you can almost hear a sigh or muffled laughter. In the Cyclops episode, there is a long, long list of saints, the majority only too real, that includes ‘S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. Synonymous’. The annotation tells us: ‘Not actually saints.’

–Arruginated by Colm Tóibín, with an accompanying podcast discussion.
posted by Kattullus at 2:20 PM PST - 13 comments

Dennis Austin, co-creator of PowerPoint, has died. Originally released in 1987, Austin served as PowerPoint’s primary developer from 1985 to 1996. No word yet on what unnecessary animation was used to transition him from this life to the next.
posted by zooropa at 9:37 AM PST - 31 comments

In the future, the most innovative companies will no longer report on just annual profits and losses, or greenhouse gas emissions. They will also publicly disclose general wellness markers. The last thing employees need right now is more tracking software. Yet, stress and burnout are different: Because of the stigma, people are hesitant to discuss early signs or worsening symptoms. Many employees might not even be aware of the initial indicators of burnout risk. That limits the extent to which employers can help. The employees’ worries around job security are valid; the solution is to focus on objective, nameless data capture. What executives need is anonymized group data on burnout risk: something that protects the individual’s privacy, but is also specific, measurable, and immediate. These real-time markers could, for example, be heart rate- or heart rate variability-related measures, which indicate stress at the workplace. Or they could be emotion-driven: conversational sentiment analysis tools that, with audio, can discern whether the general feeling in meetings is one of fear, defensiveness, happiness, or some other mode.
posted by folklore724 at 7:46 AM PST - 51 comments

There's something satisfying about watching a skilled person practice their craft. When you combine that with education, that's even better. A Visual Guide to the Cuts of Beef: Learn Where Every Cut Comes From! [1h16m] has The Bearded Butchers beginning with a full side of beef, disassembling it piece by piece and explaining how the cuts are released, and then reassembling the side of beef with all the cuts so you can see exactly where they come from. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 6:16 AM PST - 13 comments

Meet Leo, who lives at a Home Depot in New Jersey. (Single link WaPo gift article)
posted by Melismata at 5:24 AM PST - 17 comments

How ancient horticulture helped First Nations people create southern Western Australia's water trees. Pruned and trimmed for hundreds of years by the region's Menang traditional owners, these unique marri trees provide a critical source of water.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:46 PM PST - 5 comments

What's behind Americans’ declining interest in organized religion? Jessica Gross muses on the relative roles of personality and environment. Researchers at the University of Mannheim analyzed data about religiosity from 166 countries and found “that about 96 percent of people in Saudi Arabia say religion is very important in their daily lives compared to only 22 percent of people in Norway. But a lack of desire to join groups probably comes from a combination of personality, identity, family environment, the wider culture, and even genetics. [alt link]
posted by binturong at 6:51 PM PST - 55 comments

I Am Obsessed With The Tiny TVs Of ‘Escape To The Country’ [Libby Watson, Defector] “The TVs might be very small, or very old. You often see actual cathode-ray tube TVs (most of the episodes I see on YouTube are from the mid-2010s, long past Acceptable CRT Time). Frequently they are placed such that the sofa doesn’t directly face the screen, and sometimes a chair or a set of stairs is firmly in the way of the TV. There are tiny kitchen tellies, tiny bedroom tellies mounted to the wall or perched on a dresser, perpendicular to the bed. I have yet to see a tiny bathroom telly, but I know it’s out there.”
posted by Atom Eyes at 6:31 PM PST - 32 comments

The urban fog that has trailed shibboleths of progress to the Pacific Rim hovers over a reflection in once-clear water that looks final in its murkiness: finding the barbarisms of modernity exacerbated and multiplied on the outer cusp of the American continent, settled under the false assurance of beginning anew, we can no longer dispute that the monsters are us. It is through [Lana] Del Rey, a moody transplant with a made-up name, that this lineage finds its most opportune and poignant expression. A damsel in distress inured to the fatalism of our time, her songbook is a secular Revelation for the coming fall, illusions of redemption having all but burned out. from California Gothic [The Baffler; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 4:54 PM PST - 4 comments

Rare Earth is a youtube travel documentary series by Evan Hadfield (son of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield). [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 2:49 PM PST - 5 comments

Atari Archive, an excellent game-by-game video retrospective of the library of the Atari VCS (aka the Atari 2600) covers its infamous port of Pac-Man. (38 minutes)
posted by JHarris at 10:51 AM PST - 31 comments

From the Duolingo Blog: Are any words the same in all languages?
posted by Etrigan at 10:08 AM PST - 51 comments

“All anyone needs to nail a pregnancy photo shoot is a big belly, and I’ve got one right here.” The photoshoot presented an opportunity for Virgie Tovar to work through emotions on deciding not to be a parent in a way that would be fun, creative and collaborative. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:52 AM PST - 10 comments

Fae Farm is the cozy game I’ve been waiting for since Animal Crossing: New Horizons [CNN] “Fae Farm places you in the sprawling land of Azoria, where you can harvest crops, catch critters, reel in fish, raise animals, defeat monsters, show off fashionable looks, craft items and decorate to your heart’s content, not to mention befriend villagers and even date and marry one. The game takes a lot of cues from cozy games that came before it, including Wylde Flowers, Littlewood, Stardew Valley and, of course, Animal Crossing: New Horizons — but its magical world and abilities, plus its unique art style and convenient game mechanics, make it stand apart from some of the competition and may even set a new standard for cozy games in general.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:25 AM PST - 20 comments

The prog rock band The Toxhards recently rose to fame after a video of them performing at wedding went viral. [more inside]
posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy at 1:09 AM PST - 8 comments

The most illuminating way to analyze the function of criticism is, first, to situate its authority, or lack thereof, within the politics of the state; second, to relate it to the institutions of cultural production and distribution; third, to orient it to the intellectual practices by which the genre is produced; and fourth, to credit it as the product of the critic’s idiosyncratic mind. To narrate the authority of criticism in all its richness and variety requires starting from the inside of this arrangement, from the critic’s mind, and working our way outward, to the contexts in which criticism circulates. from The Function of Criticism at the Present Time, by Merve Emre
posted by chavenet at 4:53 PM PST - 4 comments

The case of Disco Elysium illustrates the shortcomings of IP rights as protection for artists. Consequently, it contains a lot of lessons for the labor movement when it comes to the arts, and serves as a reminder that creative workers are, at the end of the day, workers. But this is not just an academic exercise. It’s a human story about the intimate consequences of capitalist exploitation. “I got my soul ripped out of me,” Kurvitz told me over Zoom in April of 2023. “I got my skull cracked open and my brain lifted out of it by a fifty-five-year-old financial criminal.” (text from article)
posted by antihistameme at 4:27 PM PST - 15 comments

A neglected workers’ housing project by Alvar Aalto is being lovingly revived by design-minded Finns. New residents, who include museum directors and high-ranking public servants, have been restoring the interiors to their original state and giving façades gentle nips and tucks.
posted by folklore724 at 10:39 AM PST - 21 comments

All of Powell's 500 employees engaged in a one-day strike on Labor Day. Powell's announced via Instagram that it will close all its locations for the day "due to the lack of staffing." Portlanders are concerned: the post garnered hundreds of comments and nearly 4,000 likes in a day. The current conflict dates to the beginning of the pandemic, when Powell's laid off most of its staff. Many workers were rehired after the union contract's six-month recall period expired, and though they retained their prior compensation levels they lost tenure benefits like accrued paid leave. The store's employees have been represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) since 2000.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:07 AM PST - 18 comments

Jim Ray riffs on the satirical 2021 tweet about "Don't Create The Torment Nexus" with a short fiction story told as a thread on Mastodon starting: "Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about the launch of The Torment Nexus, the opening of the Xthonic Gateway, and release of the arch-demon Tzaunh MAY HIS REIGN BE DARK AND ETERNAL, who has begun his foretold 10,000 years of suffering and torment. I figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company." The skewerings in the 17 following posts call to my mind The Bug by Ellen Ullman or the Knives Out films. Ray noted, "The Call of PMthulu writes itself". [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 9:30 AM PST - 26 comments

I have sat in this moment, staring into the expanse of the bottom of a white porcelain mug and wondering what fresh Hell I have brought to my own front door. [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 8:17 AM PST - 11 comments

Cindy Wilson, one of The B-52s, has released her second solo album. Early single, Delirious, is a new wave synth soundscape, while Wait plays with sampled vocals, and Midnight is Eighties pop deliciousness. Yahoo Music has a lengthy write-up of the album and the artist, and you can find it all at Bandcamp. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 6:50 AM PST - 8 comments

In a new essay, A. R. Moxon looks at calls for "civility" decrying how people are shunning others for holding hateful positions, and how the position dismisses the harm of such positions, as well as what friendship and acceptance actually mean. (SLSubstack) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:52 AM PST - 83 comments

Fake termites "In what may be one of Earth’s craziest forms of mimicry, researchers have discovered a new species of rove beetle that grows a termite puppet on its back to fool real termites into feeding it. "
posted by dhruva at 2:55 AM PST - 15 comments

In 2010 Female council workers in Birmingham (Britain's second-largest city) won a £200m equal pay case after the Tory-Liberal Democrat administration gave 'bonuses' to male workers only. Along with other losses over the years, this led to the council finally issuing a section 114 notice, effectively declaring itself bankrupt in Sept 2023. [more inside]
posted by Lanark at 2:32 AM PST - 24 comments

With just 315 northern hairy-nosed wombats left, conservationists are looking to map their underground homes. With only 315 of the marsupials left, conservationists are using subsurface mapping with ground-penetrating radar to investigate the wombats' burrows in a bid to find potential new habitats for the critically endangered species. (Note that there are three different species of wombat: Common wombat [Vombatus ursinus]; Northern hairy-nosed wombat or yaminon [Lasiorhinus krefftii]; Southern hairy-nosed wombat [Lasiorhinus latifrons].)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:24 AM PST - 1 comment

Pynchon and Gaddis are “wild talents” not in Fort’s original sense, but in their daring willingness to incorporate such exotic material into their novels, which previously had been confined to science fiction, fantasy, and occult novels. At any rate, it is an extraordinary coincidence that two of the greatest American novels of the 20th century evoke Charles Fort, of all people, despite what he thought of coincidences. from Wild Talents: Pynchon, Gaddis, and Charles Fort by Steven Moore
posted by chavenet at 4:52 PM PST - 5 comments

WrestleQuest [Launch Trailer] “WrestleQuest fuses turn-based gameplay of traditional fantasy RPGs like Final Fantasy or Earthbound, with the fantastical world of pro wrestling. In WrestleQuest, players explore a fantasy realm dotted with gyms, arenas, and even shrines to the legends of yesteryear. Combat takes place in the ring (usually) and follows a familiar turn-based cadence, with wrestling moves and action points nimbly taking the place of spells and mana. Land a particularly devastating move from the top rope, and a guy’s plastic arm might pop off. No worries, he just sticks it back on. [...] The characters — 12 of them playable, 400 of them NPCs, and about 30 of those real-life, old-school heroes from the past 40 years — are all action-figure representations. Some aren’t even wrestlers. The world in which the main protagonist “Muchacho Man” lives is a fantasy realm of toys, the kind a middle-schooler would spread out on the bedroom floor and mash up in glorious crossover, non-canonical throwdowns.” [via: Polygon | Game Review]
posted by Fizz at 1:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Your State-by-State Guide to Every State Supreme Court (+ D.C. and Puerto Rico). Bolts Magazine explains the structure (5, 7, or 9 members?), selection procedures (gubernatorial appointment? statewide election?), and functions of each state’s highest court. Does this court have anything to do with setting bail schedules? Is it involved in certifying election results? Is anyone on its bench old enough they’ll soon have to retire? Will a vacancy spark a special election?
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:22 PM PST - 4 comments

Eric Meyer's kind remembrance of his friend. If you came up as a designer or webmaster in the early days of the internet, it was very likely you knew Molly. I didn't see anything about this posted here on the blue, one of the last places on the web that espouses the values Molly fought for—openness, extensibility, and putting humans before algorithmic or financial motive. She will be missed.
posted by littlerobothead at 11:03 AM PST - 37 comments

They Never Got To Spend Enough Time In The Boxcar [more inside]
posted by praemunire at 10:21 AM PST - 17 comments

It was the world’s hottest June since humans started keeping track. July was even worse. Phoenix—which averaged 102 degrees in July—got so hot that people received third-degree burns from touching doorknobs. In Iowa, livestock dropped dead in their pens.
posted by folklore724 at 10:01 AM PST - 82 comments

Stained Glass Sundials Imagine a beautiful stained glass window that has a sundial face somewhere on it which permits you to tell the correct time from inside or outside! The main purpose of this not-for-profit website is to reawaken interest in these rare jewels of art and science so that new ones will be constructed and the old ones will be preserved.
posted by zamboni at 9:35 AM PST - 8 comments

The legacy of Star Trek: The Animated Series, 50 years on
posted by Artw at 6:40 AM PST - 50 comments

The streets of India’s capital were rife with speculation Wednesday that the government might be about to scrap the use of the country’s English name — a dramatic new step in an effort to break with its colonial heritage and appeal to its hard-line Hindu nationalist base.
posted by Etrigan at 5:32 AM PST - 32 comments

Coercion versus care. The problems that always develop when an organization deliberately deprives their employees of the ability to make things right in favour of funding the ways to enforce compliance with the policies as written, or as predatorily enforced.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:51 PM PST - 37 comments

The Mozilla Foundation has published a study on the data privacy of 25 major car brands. Highlights include Hyundai collecting olfactory data and Nissan collecting and sharing "sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic information." [more inside]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 9:34 PM PST - 64 comments

What is distraction? Maybe it is just the need to be diverted: from the direction you originally set out on, from what it was you thought you wanted to do. After all, to desire something requires projecting yourself into the future—how do you know you’ll still want it when you get there? And along the way there are so many attractions, way stations, spots of time. Even an annoyance can be a pleasure: a fly keeps buzzing around your head while you try to write the next sentence, a ringtone interrupts the movie, and—it’s you. Just this one time you’ve forgotten to turn your phone off. If only the world would stop bothering you, you could finally get down to work. from In This Essay I Will: On Distraction [The Paris Review; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 4:33 PM PST - 20 comments

that whole pluto thing was wild and depressing for a while but now space is cool again
posted by flabdablet at 1:41 PM PST - 23 comments

American Oligarchy How Warren Buffett’s billionaire son took over a U.S. city and made it his personal playground.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 1:00 PM PST - 36 comments

There are some gorgeous photographs among the winners of the 2023 Bird Photographer of the Year. [more inside]
posted by kristi at 10:37 AM PST - 10 comments

This pie sold for $15,000 at an Ontario fair auction. Lonie Kady loved pie. And pie auctions. After his death, his business partner paid tribute by bidding high on pie.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:44 AM PST - 23 comments

Sure, you probably know there are major and minor scales. But unless you're really into music theory you might not realize those scales come in a whole variety of flavors called "modes"... [more inside]
posted by Zargon X at 6:31 AM PST - 41 comments

"This is a gentle and slightly absurdist documentary about the Ardoteli family in the mountains of Georgia who discovered that a Chechen helicopter carrying cheese had crashed by their house. Dropped into the life of this family, a helicopter is gradually enfolded into their daily rhythms, transformed into something utterly unexpected. In this land free of electric cables, cows find a shelter and children set up their private playground in it. Patient observations through the rusted “eyes” of this helicopter unfold a story of a remote place exposed to just one piece of civilization." (22 mins, 2006) [more inside]
posted by kmt at 5:56 AM PST - 10 comments

The most overrated metric in movies is erratic, reductive, and easily hacked — and yet has Hollywood in its grip.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:51 AM PST - 69 comments

Godzilla Minus One [Trailer] “It’s widely thought that Godzilla, the giant monster who rose from the sea in Ishiro Honda’s 1954 film, was a manifestation of Japan’s postwar trauma; an allegory for nuclear weapons, perhaps, after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or an avatar of a vengeful and destructive U.S.A. Since then the giant lizard has taken many forms, some kindlier than others. But its historical link to Japan’s darkest days has perhaps never been clearer than in Godzilla Minus One, the new live-action Japanese Godzilla movie from Toho, which will be released in U.S. theaters on Dec. 1. The latest trailer for the movie makes that explicit. Godzilla Minus One is set in the late 1940s, and the creature is shown attacking a country that’s already been brought to its knees by defeat in World War II. Explaining the film’s title in a press release, Toho put it in stark terms: “After the war, Japan’s economic state has been reduced to zero. Godzilla appears and plunges the country into a negative state.”” [via: Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 5:46 AM PST - 35 comments

In 1994, during the heyday of the run of Absolutely Fabulous [and well before Survivor], Joanna Lumley decided to do a a reality show where she was "stranded" on a desert island. Very early reality television, utterly breaking the fourth wall, and completely charming. Girl Friday [Wikipedia] Part 1, Part 2 [75m total] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 5:26 AM PST - 7 comments

How feeding little fat balls to coral could combat damage from climate change. A team of scientists are getting creative about how to provide these underwater gardens with the best chance of survival against global warming, starting with coral found in Sydney Harbour. (Note that this is not a perfect solution: it's more like applying firm pressure to a bleeding wound while you wait for the-ambulance-of-reduced-carbon-emissions.)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:28 PM PST - 3 comments

So deep are American cities’ reliance on bonds that without access to them, most would simply be unable to provide even the most rudimentary social services. When lockdowns spread in the spring of 2020, slowing cities’ revenues from sales taxes and user fees to a trickle, the Federal Reserve stepped in almost immediately to offer $500 billion in short-term municipal debt financing. The measure, called the Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF), backstopped the market as it “imploded in real time.” from Bond Villains
posted by chavenet at 4:32 PM PST - 35 comments

Our only source of music was a borrowed pocket radio, hooked up to earbuds that cost three dollars at the commissary. At night, we’d crank up the volume and lay the earbuds on the desk in our cell. Those tiny speakers radiated crickety renditions of Top Forty hits. During that time, I heard tracks from “Red,” Swift’s fourth studio album, virtually every hour. I was starting to enjoy them. [The New Yorker]
posted by DarlingBri at 1:41 PM PST - 14 comments

In 2018, retro indie studio Morphcat Games create Micro Mages for the 8-bit Nintendo. Playable as a Windows PC game or on an NES emulator, they discuss how they fit an entire game into 40 kilobytes. [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by AlSweigart at 1:23 PM PST - 8 comments

Space.com looks back on the historic launch Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space in 2012. The spacecraft’s next big encounter will take place in about 40,000 years, when it will fly by another star system. [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 11:35 AM PST - 33 comments

'All This and World War II': The Beatles Movie Nobody Asked For, Nobody Saw, and Nobody Remembers
posted by box at 10:41 AM PST - 27 comments

60+ people indicted on RICO, other charges over allegations tied to protesting of Atlanta Public Safety Training Center [more inside]
posted by hydropsyche at 10:35 AM PST - 82 comments

72 years ago in Iowa, a worker named Mary Foss wrote a message onto an egg. She put the egg into a carton and sent the carton out for distribution. Last month, someone responded.
posted by gauche at 7:34 AM PST - 34 comments

Pete Beard is a British historian of illustration and illustrators. In an age of clipart and ML-generated content, it is worthwhile to look back and celebrate the forgotten artists of the past. Pete Beard has just published his 100th episode of 'Unsung Heroes of Illustration', a series which covers illustrators born between 1850 and 1910. CW: Whilst all the illustrations are skilfully rendered, there might be the odd one that does not conform to modern sensibilities.
posted by bouvin at 7:13 AM PST - 9 comments

Australia has rescued their sick team member from Antarctica. [more inside]
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:59 AM PST - 19 comments

Start With Creation by Simon Sarris [Substack] [The Map Is Mostly Water] “In fact, when you stop waiting for others—for either their permission or instruction—and instead begin on your own, fumbling through, regardless of how ready you are, this could be considered one of the true beginnings of adulthood. I think there is value in pushing learning and doing as close together as possible. I wish to learn like an apprentice with no fixed master, instead with repeated trial and sharing the results. If no teacher is found along the way, then the mistakes will be my teacher. Every undertaking is a series of questions and experiments. I believe every hard thing you do, for that matter, acts as a multiplier on the rest of your knowledge. Failure is something you want to tempt. You should court it the way the bullfighter courts the bull. When I wish to learn something, I begin with this in mind.”
posted by Fizz at 5:05 AM PST - 19 comments

The Albanian town that TikTok emptied Since the fall of communism in 1991, Kukes has lost roughly half of its population. In recent years, thousands of young people — mostly boys and men — have rolled the dice and journeyed to England, often on small boats and without proper paperwork.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 3:40 AM PST - 8 comments

Across the course of the modern foodscape, there have been countless labor strikes at all levels of the food industry particularly with the hard working men and women harvesting crops from the fields. Big California examples include the Delano Grape Picker Strike and the largest farm worker strike in US history - The Salad Bowl Strike. In the spirit of Salad for Lettuce Boycotters, how about some salads without lettuce. We'll come back to the world of "salads" later when we look at things like Snicker Salad Again, as with all things culinarily inclined, this list is short sighted, full of gaps, holes, glaring errors and misconceptions, etc. Feel free to toss your ideas to cover the bare spots! (And yes, cabbage and spinach are lettuce adjacent, but....) [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:20 PM PST - 13 comments

“What did I do,” he began. He took a deep breath. Without visible emotion, he described gaining access to bank accounts belonging to Sidney Kimmel and to the doctor in Alabama, using their funds to buy gold coins, and shipping the coins to Atlanta. “I got possession of it,” he started to say, when one of his attorneys cut him off. “I think that’s enough,” the lawyer said. The judge accepted this, then shook his head. “If you would have taken the ability and knowledge you have and put it towards something that was legal and right—” he said, in Cofield’s direction. “I would be investing my money with him,” one of the lawyers said. from How a Man in Prison Stole Millions from Billionaires [The New Yorker; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 4:32 PM PST - 12 comments

Here's your weekly free thread!
posted by Gorgik at 3:34 PM PST - 101 comments

The Most Famous Photos in the World and the Cameras that Captured them When looking at old pictures, we rarely think about the photographers that took them, let alone the cameras they used. From album covers to unnerving pictures of War, get the stories behind the most famous photos in the world and see the cameras that were used to capture them. CONTENT WARNING: images of violence, injury, and death
posted by robbyrobs at 3:17 PM PST - 24 comments

Bread and Roses Strike of 1912. In 1911, to ease (?) the harsh working conditions, the Massachusetts State Legislature cut the work week to 54 from 56 hours, effective Jan. 1, 1912. On January 11, Polish weavers at the Everett Mill (in Lawrence MA) got their first paychecks since the law took effect. Their pay had been cut by 32 cents, enough to buy three loaves of bread. As many as 25,000 walked off the job to the cry, ‘Short pay, all out!’ Most were women between the age of 14 and 18, and nearly half had been in the country for less than five years. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:26 PM PST - 7 comments

Let's say you want to build yourself a fantasy home. What would it contain? A hedge maze? Formal gardens? A lake, surrounded by trees, upon which to row? Maybe greenhouses? Perhaps an alpine garden with a forced-perspective Matterhorn? How about secret caves? How about all this AND MORE? Friar Park: A Magical Journey Through George Harrison's Estate [1h5m] is a leisurely look at Sir Frank Crisp's [Wikipedia] wonderland [Wikipedia] which Harrison eventually purchased in 1970. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:15 PM PST - 2 comments

Helping Anxious Kids Might be Easy. "Sometimes the impact is a little goofier. Ever since her elementary school started doing the Let Grow Project, one principal told Lenore, “Fewer kids are sticking their feet out.” “They’d been tripping each other?” Lenore asked. No, said the principal: “Fewer kids are asking their teacher to tie their shoes.”"
posted by storybored at 1:07 PM PST - 29 comments

Had ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface. Let's check in on humanity's exploration of space as autumn 2023 draws nigh, starting with the Sun and working outwards from there. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 12:30 PM PST - 13 comments

Digging the Greats is a YouTube channel by bass player and DJ Brandon Shaw, with 10-20 minute videos with musical analysis of individual songs and albums, mostly hip hop, but also soul, R&B and whatever takes his fancy, and how they fit into music history. Shaw’s explored The Roots’ Dynamite, the story of Native Tongues, the album Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, how J Dilla’s timefeel works, Daft Punk’s Discovery, Queen Latifah’s U.N.I.T.Y. and dozens more. He’s also got a separate channel for long-form interviews, which are also released in podcast form.
posted by Kattullus at 11:47 AM PST - 2 comments

A documentary about wrestling, art, and human rights. SLYT, 45:49 CW: blood, simulated violence, fascism
posted by Etrigan at 11:21 AM PST - 1 comment

How Sheffield Illinois saved its last remaining grocery store. [Archive.ph]
posted by jacquilynne at 9:22 AM PST - 18 comments

A Hidden Currency of Incalculable Worth [ungated] - "We need to start thinking about policies aimed at freeing up time for impoverished families as a form of aid. We could begin by defining a healthy society as one in which everyone has a place to stay, food to eat and time to enjoy the fruits of their labor with those for whom they labor. A living wage should be one in which there is space for something beyond work." [link-heavy FPP! ;] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 9:06 AM PST - 7 comments

The Finding Out Part: Proud Boys face sentencing
posted by Artw at 8:34 AM PST - 94 comments

debuglive asks the big question: an Amiga 500, Stereo Master and handful of $1 records from a 1990 Sunday market: can we make a dance track on a budget home computer?
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 3:30 AM PST - 17 comments

"A massive step forward": Rare glossy black cockatoo nests discovered in bushfire-damaged country. For the first time in more than 20 years, glossy black cockatoo nests are discovered on the NSW Mid North Coast, in an area ravaged during the Black Summer bushfires.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:58 PM PST - 7 comments

a 3D reconstruction of the capital of the Aztec Empire The year is 1518. Mexico-Tenochtitlan, once an unassuming settlement in the middle of Lake Texcoco, now a bustling metropolis. It is the capital of an empire ruling over, and receiving tribute from, more than 5 million people. Tenochtitlan is home to 200.000 farmers, artisans, merchants, soldiers, priests and aristocrats. At this time, it is one of the largest cities in the world. Today, we call this city Ciudad de Mexico - Mexico City. Not much is left of the old Aztec - or Mexica - capital Tenochtitlan. What did this city, raised from the lake bed by hand, look like? Using historical and archeological sources, and the expertise of many, I have tried to faithfully bring this iconic city to life.
posted by aniola at 9:25 PM PST - 31 comments

Thankfully, there are still off-the-beaten-path pockets of astonishment out there and I thought it might be nice to gather some of them together. So, here is a selection of online things I love, and that other people I asked love – old and new stuff that is fascinating, beautiful, edifying and, above all, fun. Maybe one or two of them might give you a bit of internet joy back, too. from Fish doorbells! Historic sandwiches! 50 of the weirdest, most wonderful corners of the web – picked by an expert [Grauniad; ungated] CW: sadly, lacks all MetaFilter]
posted by chavenet at 4:23 PM PST - 22 comments

A developer calling themselves Nea Paw has demonstrated a project for creating targeted propaganda using ChatGPT or other LLMs. The CounterCloud project was built in just a few weeks and costs only a few hundred dollars to run. [more inside]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:21 AM PST - 44 comments

Massive rainstorms in Nevada have deluged the dry lakebed that has served as the site of Black Rock City, the pop up home for the Burning Man festival. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:31 AM PST - 354 comments

What's missing from this list? This seems fairly comprehensive. But one of my favorites "The Second Civil War" didn't make the cut. Others you might recommend?
posted by Mesaverdian at 8:33 AM PST - 75 comments

Forests once deemed resilient are suffering surprising die-offs. To predict the fate of the world’s woods in the face of climate change, researchers need to understand how trees die.
posted by Etrigan at 7:38 AM PST - 15 comments

“A restaurant is a lot of work… I’m not gonna give someone my satisfaction of judging all my work and the hundreds of hours my partner and I put in with one bite. It’s not fair. I was like, fuck that guy.” - Dragon Pizza owner Charlie Redd speaks to Rolling stone about his feud with Barstool Sports CEO and Tucker Carlson guest Dave Portnoy.
posted by Artw at 7:18 AM PST - 40 comments

The story of a long lost hotel told through newspapers, postcards, and tin plates. What little remains of its once great presence leaves a lot to the imagination about what it might have been like to stay in the luxurious 1920s hotel.
posted by donuy at 6:42 AM PST - 9 comments

These solar energy modules generate enough heat to melt metal. It's hoped they can help solve renewable storage issues. Renewable energy company RayGen has officially opened its $27 million solar and thermal power plant project, in north-west Victoria.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:15 PM PST - 24 comments

We built a giant eagle puppet for Iceland's national day [via mefi projects]
posted by sardonyx at 7:49 PM PST - 7 comments

Fonts are a ubiquitous commodity. Every font you see — on your computer screen, a street sign, a T-shirt, or your car’s dashboard — has been crafted by a designer. With 4.5k independent artists selling on MyFonts today, many struggle to attract customers and to make a living in an oversaturated market. It’s only getting harder, as designers must compete with and abide by the terms of one company that’s approaching behemoth status: Monotype. from Where do fonts come from? This one business, mostly
posted by chavenet at 4:14 PM PST - 31 comments

Wearing her now iconic extra-long inseam running shorts, Courtney Dauwalter has cemented her status as the greatest ultrarunner of all time by completing the unprecedented hat trick of winning the Western States 100, the Hardrock 100, and UTMB in the same summer. [more inside]
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 4:10 PM PST - 21 comments

"Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who was associated with the Vorticist movement in London, certainly died youngest. He was killed at 23, and, except for a few surviving sketches, and several small pieces of sculpture made while he was in the trenches (now lost), the period of his full artistic production actually ended when he left for the Front, in September of 1914, when he was still 22." Henri Gaudier-Brzeska: The Process of Discovery. [more inside]
posted by clavdivs at 4:08 PM PST - 4 comments

This Labor Day Weekend, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation has an important message for people moving to Boston. [more inside]
posted by Adridne at 3:58 PM PST - 29 comments

Battle Royale, revisited [The Verge] “Before The Hunger Games, Fortnite, or Squid Game, the concept of the “battle royale” came from a pulpy 1999 Japanese novel by Koushun Takami. The movie, directed by Kinji Fukasaku and released just a year later, slims down some of the book’s context (scrubbed is the alternate history of Japan winning World War II), but the setup is more or less the same: a class of 15-year-old students are randomly selected to be made an example of. They are dropped on a remote island, given some weapons, and forced to kill each other off until a single person remains — the victor. Kids murdering each other? How cruel! But that’s the point. The violence of the battle royale is supposed to scare the authoritarian regime’s citizens into productive submission. As the students die, the movie counts down the remaining ones, like sport. Battle Royale is mean, and it’s not subtle.” [YouTube][Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 11:32 AM PST - 38 comments

How 'Weird: The Al Yankovic Story' Pulled Off the Cameo Filled Pool Scene [12m15s] is a look at the insanely celebrity-cameo-laden pool scene from the entirely accurate biopic. Everyone is so enthusiastic about the project, it's charming. It's a thing you'd enjoy if you enjoy this kind of thing.
posted by hippybear at 8:52 AM PST - 20 comments

For centuries, Ireland’s stones were more than just a feature of the rugged landscape: The ability to pick them up off of the ground had deep practical and spiritual meaning. Lifting stones were used in tests of manhood (and, in a few cases, womanhood), hoisted at funerals to honor the dead, carried at weddings in celebration of the couple, and used to determine whether a man was strong enough to earn work as a farmhand. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, during British colonization, the practice largely vanished. Most of the stones remained untouched where they were last lifted. (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan at 7:15 AM PST - 12 comments

Jimmy Buffett , 1946-2023. [more inside]
posted by box at 4:35 AM PST - 120 comments

alternate endings to hamlet by Jennifer Peepas (aka Captain Awkward). A quick but worthwhile read (there's also a 10 min. audio version) that ends with a killer reimagining of Hamlet. Content warning: threats of sexual violence.
posted by mpark at 1:16 AM PST - 35 comments

Badgers, or Badgers Badgers Badgers, or The Badger Song, is 20 years old. Developed by Jonti Picking (Mr Weebl) the animation consists of 12 cartoon badgers doing calisthenics, a mushroom in front of a tree, and a snake in the desert. Related: the sentence "Badger badgers Badger badgers badger badger Badger badgers" is grammatically valid. And as we close in on Christmas...
posted by Wordshore at 11:48 PM PST - 41 comments

This Arrowhead Was Made From a Meteorite 3000 Years Ago. Found in Switzerland, the 1.5-inch-long artifact was fashioned from meteoric iron during the Bronze Age.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:00 PM PST - 13 comments

Sarah Elizabeth, author of the upcoming book The Art of Fantasy, posted in May that she'd been searching for years for the name of the artist who painted the cover for the 1976 Dell Laurel Leaf edition of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Four months of dead ends from various internet sleuths later, the folks at WBUR's Endless Thread podcast have announced the mystery is solved and described how they did it. (Full transcript available at the link.)
posted by mediareport at 8:28 PM PST - 18 comments

A Writing Studies Primer attempts to supplement and enhance the necessarily instrumental nature of a handbook for composition courses by cultivating students’ awareness of writing as a culturally determined act. This is great. But, teeming with factual errors and underpinned by a triumphalist Eurocentrism, it only embraces the surface relativism of liberal values, which ultimately needs history to be quaint so that the surface relativisms of modernity can emerge as modernity’s greatest distinction. from Slanting the History of Handwriting [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:00 PM PST - 2 comments

Gift link from today's Washington Post: The most popular pizza style in every state, mapped -‌- the 'Pineapple Belt' and America's hidden culinary divide. Contrast with The Spruce Eats' Definitive Guide to Pizza Styles in the United States. [more inside]
posted by Rash at 3:12 PM PST - 75 comments

MSIOTHM (Mercury Stardust Is Our Trans Handy Ma'am) on TikTok: Need to find a wall stud? No problem! Plugged up tub drain? She's here for you. Podcast: Handy Ma'am Hotline. And Instagram.
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:21 PM PST - 12 comments

Colin Woodard (previously) and the Nationhood Lab have found that "the most impoverished quartile of U.S. counties in Yankeedom (ones where around 30 to 60 percent of children live in poverty) have a higher life expectancy than the least impoverished quartile of U.S. counties (where child poverty ranges from 3 to 15 percent) in the Deep South." They argue that the difference is not explained by race, income, or population density, but by culture and government.
posted by clawsoon at 11:32 AM PST - 33 comments

Figures in the Sky by Nadieh Bremer, astronomer and data visualization designer, shows how stars have been grouped into constellations by different “sky cultures”, ranging from the familiar modern ones, to those of the Sardinian, Norse, Hopi, Hawaiian, Chinese, Boorong, Arabic and 20 others. You can read a bit more on Bremer’s page for the project.
posted by Kattullus at 11:12 AM PST - 17 comments

Casseptember! Sixty years of cassette tape culture: BBC Radio 3 "...will feature specially-commissioned works from an array of artists whose work makes use of the particular qualities unique to the cassette tape. And, throughout the month, we’ll also hear from dedicated collectors and artists with a soft spot for the format." [hissssss << tktktkt >> KA-CHUNK]
posted by not_on_display at 8:51 AM PST - 19 comments

CUNY TV brings us Stephen Sondheim's Legacy, part of their Theater: All the Moving Parts series. It's an hour looking back at Sondheim, with the first half-hour in conversation with three Stephenstans [Sondheimistas?], and the second part with his official biographer and a CUNY music scholar.
posted by hippybear at 8:51 AM PST - 1 comment

Andrew Huberman is having a bit of a moment. An Associate Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford Medical School, Huberman started posting science education content to his nascent Instagram account in 2019. [more inside]
posted by sid at 7:41 AM PST - 41 comments

Millions of shoppers agree: It’s OK to eat supermarket sushi. At U.S. retailers, sales are up over 70% in the past year. (archive,today link)
posted by Etrigan at 7:10 AM PST - 95 comments

Let's feast! (single link to reddit video post)
posted by the primroses were over at 5:01 AM PST - 32 comments

Starfield | Overwhelming Scope [Game Informer] “Even in the increasingly crowded marketplace of big, expansive games, Starfield stands out. Leveraging the gameplay Bethesda popularized with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, Starfield expands the breadth of exploration to a galaxy of solar systems, planets, and ships. It populates those environments with a rich palette of activities and missions that tap into the outer space fantasy. It’s a staggering span of content to wrap one’s head around. At times, that scope threatens to impair the focus and pacing, and moment-to-moment gameplay is not always a strong suit. But players can expect to uncover hundreds of hours of experimentation in a richly imagined sci-fi playground, and that thrill is worth experiencing.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:42 AM PST - 48 comments

"The cash transfer is such a no-brainer. But nobody is willing to try it:" Dr. Jiaying Zhao, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, was part of a team that gave 50 unhoused people in Vancouver $7,500 and then followed them for a year.
posted by Shepherd at 4:03 AM PST - 59 comments