MetaFilter

On April 6th at around 4:30, the Las Dispensas controlled burn (North of Las Vegas, New Mexico) got out of control and was declared the Hermits Peak fire by the US Forest Service. On April 19th, the fire had burned 7500 acres and was 80% contained; when a new fire began west of the Hermits Peak... the Calf Canyon fire. The 2 fires merged and by week’s end grew to 65,000 acres. As of today; May 13th, the fire has burned 259,810 acres or roughly 406 square miles (the fire perimeter is over 472 miles long). The fire has caused evacuations in Las Vegas, Mora and is expected to make a run at Red River and even Taos. The Calf Canyon / Hermits Peak fire is now the largest in New Mexico history and the state leads the US in acreage burned so far in 2022. [more inside]
posted by jabo at 11:49 PM PST - 24 comments

Cookingflavr.com may be the worst-disguised food advice site run by an AI. In fact, let's not stop at food. There are a few dozen questions posted (by itself) every day, and almost each answer semantically confuses itself out of correct or useful advice. [Via Janelle Shane's AIWierdness blog] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 11:10 PM PST - 33 comments

Swear-y mashup silliness of George Carlin's regular stuff with his Thomas the Tank Engine dubbing [SLYT] [NSFW]
posted by slater at 9:20 PM PST - 14 comments

Researchers from The Children's Hospital Westmead in Sydney appear to have identified the cause of SIDS (Sudden infant death syndrome), which accounts for about 37% of sudden unexpected infant deaths a year in the United States. This could potentially lead to screening and/or other interventions. [more inside]
posted by gemmy at 8:35 PM PST - 10 comments

While the $800-a-month rent may seem steep for a stacked bunk bed pod, the average rental rate for a studio apartment near Stanford University, is currently around $2,400. Co-founder Christina Lennox has lived in a pod herself for the past year. "The wood kind of allows for relaxation, rather than like going inside of this futuristic-looking plastic object."
posted by geoff. at 5:54 PM PST - 77 comments

Naomi Judd, one-half of the musical duo The Judds with her daughter Wynonna, died April 30, 2022, one day before The Judds were to be inducted into The Country Music Hall of Fame. (CW: suicide) [more inside]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:45 PM PST - 32 comments

Remembering Ian Dury on what would have been his 80th birthday.
Shall I mourn your decline/With some Thunderbird wine/And a black handkerchief? - Sweet Gene Vincent - Lyrics
As national treasures go, Ian Dury was one of the unlikeliest. A cantankerous cripple with a penchant for pills and puns, he was a living breathing saucy seaside postcard, a master of the double or even triple entendre; a Cockney caricature with cleverly constructed couplets coming out of his Aris.
Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 4:19 PM PST - 18 comments

Set to be released in 2024, 40 years after the original 'Spinal Tap': ‘Spinal Tap II’ On Tap As Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest & Harry Shearer Back For Encore: “They’ve played Albert Hall, played Wembley Stadium, all over the country and in Europe,” Reiner said. “They haven’t spent any time together recently, and that became the premise. The idea was that Ian Faith, who was their manager, he passed away. In reality, Tony Hendra passed away. Ian’s widow inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert. She was basically going to sue them if they didn’t. All these years and a lot of bad blood we’ll get into and they’re thrown back together and forced to deal with each other and play this concert.”
posted by ShooBoo at 2:45 PM PST - 38 comments

Ethel Cain, Hayden Anhedönia's dark, evil twin, has released her first album, Preacher's Daughter, described by Paste as "a breathtaking account of a woman, her mysterious partner and her troubled family", and by thelineofbestfit as "If Flannery O’Connor had listened to more Witch House and spent time on r/FlorenceAndTheMachine, she might have ended up making a record as perfectly beautiful and haunting as Preacher’s Daughter." Previously
posted by signal at 2:02 PM PST - 4 comments

The story of the Nation State in five biscuits: Parle G, Milk Bikis, Karachi Bakery’s Fruit Biscuit, Hide & Seek and Little Hearts by Sharanya Deepak for Vittles
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 11:34 AM PST - 9 comments

The band Sub Sub, with Melanie Williams on guest vocals, scored a hit with Ain't no love (alternate). Then, life happened (dropped by label, studio burns down, the usual). But rather than staying with their old style, changes in direction happened. Kingdom of Rust (alternate), their 2009 single which also appeared in the film Zombieland.
posted by Wordshore at 10:07 AM PST - 3 comments

Lisa Lindahl, Hinda Miller, and Polly Smith are among this year's inductees for the US National Inventors Hall of Fame because they created the first sports bra. Jogbra started in 1977 -- five years after Congress passed Title IX. This BBC article details the story and includes cool photos of old advertisements.
posted by brainwane at 9:02 AM PST - 6 comments

Upon casual listening, a magnificent spontaneity seems to permeate The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street (released 5/12/72). A closer perusal of the sixty-seven some minutes, however, reveals an unnerving sense of psychic dislocation. But then, that’s not in the least surprising given the circumstances of the album’s recording: although began in 1969, most of the work took place outside the iconic group’s native England. The imposition of burdensome tax laws prompted the group’s move to France in 1971 and an impending tour commitment compelled vocals and overdubs completed in the United States late that year and early next. Yet, as a direct result of their disenfranchisement, the double album is arguably the Rolling Stones’ most personal work.
posted by Etrigan at 7:29 AM PST - 43 comments

The "earth-size" Event Horizon Telescope has captured a second image of a black hole and this time it's the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Sure, it looks a little blurry, but that's probably for the best, considering what a black hole sounds like.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:27 AM PST - 34 comments

La Conquista is an opera based, more or less, on a lost an score by Vivaldi about Moctezuma II and Cortés. It was performed in Nahuatl/Spanish/Mayan/etc in Mexico City in 2019. Xochicuicatl cuecuechtli is a contemporary opera that uses traditional instruments and was performed by people who probably grew up speaking Nahuatl.
posted by eotvos at 6:31 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I Don't Exercise (my city does that for me) [SLYT]
posted by lazaruslong at 3:35 AM PST - 30 comments