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Comic artist Leah Elliott remixes Scott McCloud in another webcomic about Google Chrome. Chrome’s original announcement on September 1 2008 featured a 38 page comic from McCloud explaining why Google was introducing the new web browser. The new comic is not about the promise of a bright and open future, but about what Chrome has become.
posted by zenon at 7:48 PM PST - 78 comments

To independent booksellers, the enormous chain was once a threat. Now it’s vital to their survival. And it’s doing well. “It’s funny how the industry has evolved so that they are now a good guy,” said Ellen Adler, the publisher of the independent New Press. “I would say their rehabilitation has been total.”
posted by folklore724 at 11:48 AM PST - 31 comments

Infinite procedurally generated Chinese landscape painting. [more inside]
posted by smcg at 10:27 AM PST - 11 comments

A series of experiments have suggested that mindfulness meditation may reduce prosocial behaviours by reducing the guilt which leads to them. Article, study (paywalled). [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 10:12 AM PST - 65 comments

Cornwall’s sleeping beauty: the tale of Heligan’s lost gardens The story of the rediscovery of the Lost Gardens of Heligan just over 30 years ago has all the ingredients and romance of a modern-day Sleeping Beauty: a brave prince battles through impenetrable thorns to awaken a beautiful princess who has fallen asleep for nearly 80 years. He rouses her with a kiss and they live happily ever after. [more inside]
posted by ominous_paws at 9:32 AM PST - 16 comments

Ever Forward is moving on! We need a new post to rejoice, because the previous thread is closed.
posted by alygator at 9:08 AM PST - 21 comments

We Spoke to 'Let Me Solo Her,' the Elden Ring Community Hero We Need and Deserve [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:32 AM PST - 10 comments

Engineer Who Tried To Kamikaze A US Navy Hospital Ship With A Train Gets Prison – At the Port of Los Angeles, the locomotive engineer who purposefully ran his train off the tracks at full-speed in an apparent attempt to sink the US Navy hospital ship USNS Mercy has been sentenced to prison for committing a terrorist attack. According to the US Justice Department, neither the USNS Mercy nor anyone else was harmed in the derailment of the train in 2020. The train tracks ended 250 meters before the ship pier, so Moreno did not even come close to damaging the ship, but he did damage his train and cause a 2,000-gallon diesel oil spill. gCaptain, John Konrad, April 16, 2022 (original story, CBS News LA video).
posted by cenoxo at 6:33 AM PST - 30 comments

How would a divine epiphany appear to an artificial intelligence? Artist Diemut Strebe's installation The Prayer is an animatronic silicone mouth driven by a GPT2 instance trained on religious texts that attempts to produce original sermons and chants. [more inside]
posted by eotvos at 5:44 AM PST - 28 comments