January 27, 2021
Doctor Do-Little
Cloris Leachman, 1926-2021
Actress Cloris Leachman, Who Played Both Silly And Serious, Dies At 94 (NPR) Cloris Leachman, the Miss America contestant who won an Oscar for her work in The Last Picture Show, then collected two of her record nine Emmys for playing the quirky Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died. Leachman, the bawdy Iowa native also known for her hilarious turns in the Mel Brooks-Gene Wilder classic Young Frankenstein (1974) and on the TV shows Malcolm in the Middle and Raising Hope, died of natural causes Wednesday in Encinitas, California, according to her manager, Juliet Green. (The Hollywood Reporter) (Variety obituary) [more inside]
One Country Has Jumped Ahead on Vaccinations
If a shrunk-down hand were to squeeze the coronavirus...
Physical virology (SLNYT) Of all the pandemic questions bedeviling scientists, the one that Juan Perilla is asking might be among the strangest: If a shrunk-down hand were to squeeze the coronavirus, would it squish, or would it shatter?
"No Ocean for Young Women" by Anat Deracine
An essay on learning to surf, on a career as a woman in technology, and on people helping each other: "when someone spreads a myth (such as, perhaps, a half-baked theory about biological predisposition towards shark attacks or software engineering), it acts like an oil spill. It can only be cleaned up to a certain extent. The damage has already been done." Deracine previously on MetaFilter. [more inside]
No, I don't know why all the comments are in Russian
I watched this entire hour-and-thirteen-minute-long wordless video of cakes being made at a commercial bakery in Korea and so should you.
I did not come out of the cupboard under the stairs for this.
The pandemic is breaking women
(Source link: Men Yell at Me) Women, America’s only real social safety net, have broken. A declining birth rate in conjunction with the devastating loss of life with a pandemic will further erode America’s social safety net. After all, who is going to pay into Social Security if we don’t have a tax base? But it’s exactly that lack of a social safety net that means women do not want to have children. [more inside]
from daily poetry to chicken poo
Take Care of Yourself
A train station in Japan's Fukuoka Prefecture posted public service messages about the country's current Covid-19-related state of emergency using a typographical style reminiscent of legendary anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Japanese social media users have noticed and have been having some fun with it.
truth and reconciliation
"To understand what is happening now requires a long lens, but Ethiopia’s pride in its uninterrupted national durée, as evidenced by references in the Bible, the Iliad, Herodotus’ Histories and other ancient texts, can be an impediment to reckoning with that history. It is not enough simply to preface accounts of the current conflict with ancient historical descriptions. Everything is at stake in discussions of Ethiopia’s political present; not only our future, but our past. What might justice look like?" Ethiopian author Maaza Mengiste writes about how Ethiopia's history and national memory inform the present conflict for London Review of Books.
hi, you around?
“Imagine calling someone on the phone, going hello! then putting them on hold... 🤦♀️” No Hello says we shouldn’t start chats with a “hello”, but instead just ask the question!
Malign creativity
Kamala Harris abuse campaign shows how trolls evade social media moderation (The Conversation UK) – Alexandra Pavliuc, a researcher in Social Data Science at the Oxford Internet Institute, presents some findings from her and her colleagues’ report on gendered and sexualized disinformation, Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex, and Lies are Weaponized Against Women Online. Another brief summary available also here – some highlights: [more inside]
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a violin.
Nicolas Bras builds a sympathetic nail violin.
Knot fun
What's historically inaccurate with this picture?
Why are movie swords always wrong? How period drama costume design works. What's wrong with this still from Gladiator?
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