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The inexorable pressures of economy, personalized. We are people!
posted by kozad at 11:48 PM PST - 14 comments

Up until his passing last June at 93, Reese Palley, "a flamboyant entrepreneur, art impresario, adventurer, promoter of eccentric business enterprises around the globe, and public scold on matters as diverse as nuclear energy and how to revive Atlantic City", influential in the San Francisco art scene, seller of Boehm birds and Dali prints, sailor extraordinare, rescuer of communities and torahs ... well, Reese was a hell of a guy, settled in Key West and built a home out of the greatest material ever devised. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:22 PM PST - 6 comments

Your frog's name is Gugget. They are a Orange-Banded Tree Frog. Cherish this frog. Begin Frog.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:38 PM PST - 30 comments

The Mysterious, Murky Story Behind Soy-Sauce Packets: How Chinese takeout, a Jewish businessman from the Bronx, and NASA-approved packaging have shaped the 50-year reign of a well-loved American condiment (The Atlantic) [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 8:27 PM PST - 31 comments

Yes, he really did.
posted by maudlin at 5:51 PM PST - 98 comments

The Open Syllabus Project is pleased to make the beta version of our Syllabus Explorer publicly available. The Explorer leverages a collection of over 1 million syllabi collected from university and departmental websites. [more inside]
posted by betweenthebars at 5:15 PM PST - 22 comments

A short exploration of the history, present and future of the Internet's most animated image format, The Digital Materiality of GIFs.
posted by dragoon at 3:13 PM PST - 21 comments

Steven Moffat is stepping down as showrunner of Doctor Who. Chris Chibnall, a longtime Who fan who has written episodes for both Who and Torchwood, as well as acting as showrunner for David Tennant in Broadchurch, will be taking his place. (Here's Chibnall expressing his opinions on Who in 1986.) The bad news is there will be no new Who in 2016, just a Christmas special, and Moffat's last series will air in 2017. The good news for Broadchurch fans is that they'll apparently get a Season Three filmed this year before Who takes Chibnall over, or vice versa.
posted by immlass at 2:42 PM PST - 195 comments

This is Griffin McElroy. Welcome to Griffin's Amiibo Corner, a weekly series about a delightful new creation from Nintendo. (2) (3)
posted by Navelgazer at 1:50 PM PST - 18 comments

Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history - 2015 marks the first year that catalog albums, albums over 18 months old, outsold newer ones in the US.
posted by Artw at 1:15 PM PST - 70 comments

Someone draws a large penis in the snow in a canal in Gothenburg, Sweden. A concerned citizen removes it when the City decides it is too dangerous to remove due to thin ice. This is what happens next. [more inside]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:47 AM PST - 81 comments

On Thursday, Macklemore released his new 8 minute long song White Privilege II, a sequel to White Privilege off his 2005 album. Lyrics to the new song with citations available on Genius.com and commentary from Slate.com.
posted by all about eevee at 11:45 AM PST - 92 comments

Leaders in different fields share the 10 books they’d take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. For his bookshop installation, One Grand, the editor Aaron Hicklin asked people to name the 10 books they’d take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. [more inside]
posted by pjsky at 11:44 AM PST - 37 comments

Finally, courtesy of The Clickhole: An Oral History of Facebook. It features exclusive interviews with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker, identical river giants Cameron And Tyler Winklevoss, and many others.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:01 AM PST - 17 comments

A 15-second Olive Garden commercial is reviewed. While playing 120 times.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:55 AM PST - 21 comments

"They said they were going to put me on hold, and then hung up on me. But I had their #, a 20-minute drive ahead of me, and I do improv."
Comedian Dave Holmes trolls a couple of hapless IRS telephone scammers.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:05 AM PST - 61 comments

From Pickup Artist to Pariah Jared Rutledge fancied himself a big man of the 'manosphere.' But when his online musings about 46 women were exposed, his whole town turned against him.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 9:53 AM PST - 104 comments

For the first time [ever], NASA’s latest class of astronauts is 50 percent female. And, NASA has announced, in 15 years they could all be selected for an inaugural trip to Mars.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 9:43 AM PST - 27 comments

How will we dance in the future? The 1966 German science fiction series Raumpatrouille Orion has a few ideas. (previously)
posted by bibliowench at 8:58 AM PST - 24 comments

Time to slink into the weekend with this chill music video for De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig's 'Manon', starring a gang of imperious Dutch cats, custom scratching posts. Directed by powerhouse creative duo Lennert & Sander. [more inside]
posted by nerdfish at 8:48 AM PST - 9 comments

Threadbase purchased 800 of the most popular Men's t-shirts in every size that they could get their hands on. They then measured the shirts, washed them repeatedly, and tracked their shrinkage/stretching over time. Notably, they observed that shirts get wider and shorter over time, but actually wearing the shirt undoes most of the shrinkage that happens in the wash. Also, sizing systems vary wildly across manufacturers.
posted by schmod at 8:20 AM PST - 40 comments

Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones? Lost mobile phones are reporting that they're at a suburban Atlanta address, but they're not there. "The missing phones don’t seem to have anything in common. Some are iPhones. Some are Androids. They’re on different carriers: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Boost Mobile."
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 8:13 AM PST - 38 comments

"An econ buff in the year 2500 might know all about the Great Depression that happened in the early 20th century and the major recession that happened about 80 years later, but that same person might mistake the two world wars for happening in the 1800s or the 2200s.... Likewise, I might know that Copernicus began writing his seminal work... in the early 1510s, but by learning that right around that same time in Italy, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, I get a better picture of the times. [It]allows me to see the 1510s horizontally, like cutting out a complete segment of the vine tangle and examining it all together."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:06 AM PST - 37 comments

25 Steps To Being A Traditionally Published Author: Lazy Bastard Edition. Your brief guide through the process, from drafting (5. All First Drafts Are Word Vomit Made Of Horse Shit) to querying (14. I Have Queried Every Agent In The Entire Universe, And No) to post-publication (25. My Book Sales Did Not Exceed My Wildest Dreams And I’m Disappointed Because My Publisher Didn’t Get Me Enough Publicity And Barnes And Noble Doesn’t Carry It And I Wasn’t On Oprah And 50 Shades Sucked Butt And Wah). [more inside]
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:37 AM PST - 13 comments

It's an familiar fable in New York City: Dumped on the curb by the West Side Highway, a stranger to the city with no name and no connections, just a ferocious will. With a little luck and a lot of talent, a year later she's making her Broadway debut: The Story of Rose, a white rat. (SLNYTimes)
posted by Diablevert at 7:02 AM PST - 9 comments

She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By the Sink
posted by Dressed to Kill at 6:42 AM PST - 257 comments

This is an aerial drone footage of a herd moving in Norway.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:33 AM PST - 12 comments

The story of two women who set out to have a baby together, and were more successful than they ever imagined.
posted by ellieBOA at 5:08 AM PST - 10 comments