MetaFilter

Seven hours of cats sitting under a Kotatsu and being warm
posted by Going To Maine at 10:48 PM PST - 25 comments

Ian Ference curates the blog Brooklyn Stereography where he features and writes about Stereo Photographs from his vintage collection. EG: A Burlesque Fan Dance from 1933 (NSFW), WWI Ruins, Carnaval de Nice 1933, Ambulances from Champagne 1915 & Saint-Mesmes 1916, and, naturally, 3d photos of 1933 Brooklyn. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 9:51 PM PST - 8 comments

laser cut peacock mandala: MeFi's own MillMan walks us through the process of creating a mesmerizing, intricate, absolutely gorgeous mandala from 49 layers of 140lb cardstock. [via mefi projects]
posted by Anonymous at 8:54 PM PST - 43 comments

Michael Gungor, Mike McHargue, Hillary McBride and William Matthews of The Liturgists Podcast try to answer the question How Do We Know What We Know?
Barry Lam of the podcast Hi-Phi Nation enters the Chamber of Facts to determine how people understand information.
Chris Hayes talks with journalist David Roberts on Why Is This Happening podcast about Assessing America's Information Crisis
DAVID ROBERTS: "And so, they don't believe. And all the evidence flying this way and that, and all the arguments and framing, oh my God, so many discussions of framing, all that stuff just turns out to be more or less useless. "
Is America Facing An Epistemic Crisis - ongoing? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:05 PM PST - 15 comments

When she’s not touring as part of the backing bands for such artists as Beck and Lorde, [Alex] Lilly is busy crafting sparkly and smart pop gems that are as spiky as they are sweet. Case in point: the acerbic synth-wave anthem “Pornographic Mind” [NSFW]. It’s Lilly’s exasperated ode to workplace harassment, a darkly comic tale that’s far too relatable.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:33 PM PST - 4 comments

Dick Miller, veteran character actor, Roger Corman regular (and thus MST3k mainstay) and subject of his own documentary, has passed away at the age of 90.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:14 PM PST - 32 comments

I don' t wanna get out of futon by 打首獄門同好会 (Uchikubi Gokumon Doukoukai): A cute and relatable little song for some people in the North American midwest right now.
posted by ardgedee at 5:14 PM PST - 21 comments

How to Think Like a Mathematician - with Eugenia Cheng. For thousands of years, mathematicians have used the timeless art of logic to see the world more clearly. Today, truth is buried under soundbites and spin, and seeing clearly is more important than ever. In this talk, Eugenia Cheng will show how anyone can think like a mathematician to understand what people are really telling us – and how we can argue back. Taking a careful scalpel to fake news, politics, privilege, sexism and dozens of other real-world situations, she will teach us how to find clarity without losing nuance.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:59 PM PST - 26 comments

Human screams occupy a privileged niche in the communication soundscape: "We found that screams occupy a reserved chunk of the auditory spectrum, but we wanted to go through a whole bunch of sounds to verify that this area is unique to screams," says Poeppel, who also directs the Frankfurt Max-Planck-Institute Department of Neuroscience. "In a series of experiments, we saw [that] this observation remained true when we compared screaming to singing and speaking, even across different languages. The only exception--and what was peculiar and cool--is that alarm signals (car alarms, house alarms, etc.) also activate the range set aside for screams." [paper pdf]
posted by not_the_water at 3:52 PM PST - 17 comments

A Redditor posted a picture of their mother holding a painting. Someone else posted a picture of themselves holding a painting of the first picture... [more inside]
posted by zamboni at 2:55 PM PST - 26 comments

The Baghdaddies (official site) are purveyors of Baltics-via-Britain party-starting off-beat gypsy-ska-blues-funk, and have been going strong for more than two decades (Narc Magazine interview). Their official blurb is that their "exuberant and rampant brand of world music is an exhilarating cocktail of Balkan melodies, ska and latin grooves and sizzling brass played with furious energy and theatrical humour, making them as unforgettable on stage as they are when performing as wandering brass troubadours." Sounds good, but don't take their word for it. Enjoy their music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud, and check out five short videos from them on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:36 PM PST - 5 comments

(CW) Rare: Putting edible glitter on your dog’s testicles is a trend now, apparently. Originally posted on a North Carolina salon's Facebook page, the multi-colored edible cake glitter - which is non-toxic - is "applied to the dog's scrotum using corn syrup", making the full ensemble edible (presumably for the dog?). It is unclear whether this results in glitter poop some time later, if this is a career choice, or whether this has yet been tried on cats. (Post title from Facebook comment)
posted by Wordshore at 1:19 PM PST - 83 comments

Last year (previous Metafilter discussion), Facebook got castigated for pushing users to install their VPN that gave FB access to anything they sent through the supposedly-secure VPN. Like a zombie, it's baaaaaack as Project Atlas... with more hoops for users to go through, an offer to pay them as subjects, and the same Onavo code under the hood. For extra evil added to last year's go-around? Recruiting teens as subjects, and being very sloppy about parental consent. Apple, at least, is very unamused that Facebook has been using Apple's Enterprise program to get around the consequences of last year's go-around with this, and just yanked Facebook's certificate. [more inside]
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 12:17 PM PST - 61 comments

“What time is the Super Bowl?” It’s the question on everyone’s mind this time of year. We know this because millions across the globe type this seemingly simple question into their internet search engine of choice, and thousands of websites (including this one) publish a story purporting to provide the answer. But these responses merely scratch the surface of much deeper issues and larger truths. To truly comprehend the scope of the question, and the problems it involves, we need a deeper understanding of just what “time” is... and what it isn’t. What Time Is the Super Bowl? We Asked Theoretical Physicist Carlo Rovelli
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:14 PM PST - 27 comments

You Know the Lorena Bobbitt Story. But Not All of It. [Amy Chozick, The New York Times]

Even though the “War of the Bobbitts,” as People magazine called it, happened two years after Anita Hill inserted sexual harassment into the conversation and “Thelma & Louise” turned a housewife and a waitress into renegade icons of female revenge, most people never really thought of Lorena in those terms. Men, speaking from Charlie Rose’s table and Geraldo Rivera’s armchairs, made Lorena seem like an unsatisfied, unhinged wife who had dealt a ghastly blow in the gender wars. And while many women defended Lorena and wondered what John must have done to drive her to it, some feminists argued that she had hurt the cause, making the sisterhood look deranged. “It was like, ‘Oh yeah, so now a lot of women are going to do this,’” remembered Katha Pollitt, who wrote about the trial for The Nation. “I do not remember Lorena Bobbitt, feminist hero.”

posted by Atom Eyes at 11:48 AM PST - 43 comments

When the Ukrainian band Brunettes Shoot Blondes purchased a vintage, albeit broken, grand piano they decided to recreate this concept in analog form. The group secured twenty instruments to the inside of the piano and its sides so they could effectively play each as they pressed certain keys. [slyt] [via]
posted by ellieBOA at 11:32 AM PST - 5 comments

Puritanism has its roots in the late sixteenth century, after Henry VIII broke ties with the Catholic Church. The Puritans believed that reforms had not gone far enough and advocated for a church entirely divorced from Catholic ceremonies. For over a century, Puritans argued amongst themselves, schismed, predicted the end of the world, and still found time to fight the English Civil War and start colonies in the Northeastern United States.Perhaps their greatest gift to history, however, is their wonderfully strange taste in names.
posted by sciatrix at 10:25 AM PST - 65 comments

The Upper Midwestern US, recovering from Winter Storm Jayden, is caught in the grips of a "polar vortex", bringing record setting cold (autoplaying video) across the nation, leading to cities like Minneapolis and Chicago virtually shutting down. Of note, the US Postal Service suspended mail delivery in parts or all of 10 states today. [more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:24 AM PST - 78 comments

As Brazil fights to cope with it's second mineral tailings dam disaster in 3 years Piaui magazine publishes a long form investigative report on the first dam failure known as the Mariana disaster. Both mines were at least partly owned by the multinational Vale.
posted by adamvasco at 9:50 AM PST - 7 comments

Aaron - a stale chocolate bar; Brandon - flat Coke; Charlotte - raspberry lollipop Freelance journalist and Twitter user Julie McDowall (@JulieAMcDowell) specializes in the Cold War and the nuclear threat and happens to have synesthesia. She recently tweeted that she “tastes” words and encouraged people to ask her the flavor of their name. The Mail Online compiled a list of McDowall’s “greatest hits” which McDowall tweeted.
posted by pjsky at 9:00 AM PST - 60 comments

From Muckrock: Government investigations into California’s electricity shortage, ultimately determined to be caused by intentional market manipulations and capped retail electricity prices by the now infamous Enron Corporation, resulted in terabytes of information being collected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This included several extremely large databases, some of which had nearly 200 million rows of data, including Enron’s bidding and price processes, their trading and risk management systems, emails, audio recordings, and nearly 100,000 additional documents. That information has quietly disappeared, and not even its custodians seem to know why. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 7:10 AM PST - 24 comments

Making the Times-Sotheby Index; exposing art bidding deceptions: how Geraldine Norman (née Keen) built up the idea of art as an investment commodity and then fell out of favor with the auction system she'd abetted for trying to keep them honest.
posted by cortex at 7:07 AM PST - 6 comments

Siorapaluk, Greenland is one of the world's northermost inhabited settlements. French photographer Camille Michel spent a month there.
posted by Vesihiisi at 12:52 AM PST - 5 comments