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Après plusieurs propositions controversées de droit du travail, les cheminots, les étudiants, contrôleurs aériens, et les fonctionnaires en France sont en grève, perturbant le pays. Macron déterminé à réformer la SNCF, il promet d'aller «au bout» [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:37 PM PST - 13 comments

When Pittsburgh's rivers were full of houseboats.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:11 PM PST - 6 comments

The Spectacular Personal Mythology of Rammellzee by Hua Hsu is a fine introduction to the works of New York graffiti artist, sculptor, rapper, and painter Rammellzee, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 49. Known to hip hop afficionados for Beat Bop, his collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat and K-Rob, which was the subject of a Spin oral history. To get a feel for his aesthetic, this interview excerpted from the documentary Guerilla Art is a good place to start. If you want to know more, Alexxa Gotthardt wrote a good overview of his career and hip hop historian Dave Tompkins reminisced about Rammellzee and placed him in context.
posted by Kattullus at 5:24 PM PST - 3 comments

Aronofsky, allegory, authorial intent and auteurship. The Partially Examined Life discusses Darren Aronofsky's philosophical 2017 film mother!.
posted by spaceburglar at 4:52 PM PST - 10 comments

Anais Granofsky, who played Lucy Ferndandez on Degrassi has a life story filled with as much drama and pathos as her fictional counterpart. [more inside]
posted by Cuke at 4:41 PM PST - 13 comments

Airing on PBS, new doc explores ups and downs of growing up—and growing in stature—online. The documentary on the polarizing Jeopardy champion airs tonight. And speaking of polarizing, here's Ken Jennings opinion of how Chu played the game: Jennings on Chu
posted by MovableBookLady at 3:12 PM PST - 41 comments

Ranyin Fa: Photography and the Appropriation of Kodak Dye Transfer in Socialist China
posted by klangklangston at 1:47 PM PST - 6 comments

Alanis Morrisette's Jagged Little Pill has been made into a musical opening May 24th at the American Repertory Theater. NPR has a piece with Diablo Cody. [more inside]
posted by blurker at 12:48 PM PST - 26 comments

Richard N. Goodwin, husband of Doris Kearns Goodwin and (among other things) speechwriter for politicians from John F. Kennedy to Al Gore has died of cancer at age 86 [more inside]
posted by TedW at 12:43 PM PST - 7 comments

He was young and handsome, his mother’s pride and joy—but he died in torment, blind, sick and paralyzed—at the age of seventeen. If only he’d known the perils of masturbation, then he might have lived a better life.

There are ways to prevent this tragedy (NSFW).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:36 PM PST - 42 comments

Steam Is Cracking Down on Visual Novels [Motherboard] “Fans of visual novel games and adult-themed anime games around the world woke up to some troubling news this morning. According to several independent developers, Steam, the largest digital storefront for computer games, is cracking down on a number of games that feature scantily clad cartoon women. According to these developers, Valve, the company that operates Steam, has given them until the end of the month to remove adult content from their games. If they don't, Valve will boot their games from the store.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 12:31 PM PST - 56 comments

In the latest episode of Dorktown, SB Nation editor and national treasure Jon Bois, along with compatriot Alex Rubenstein, discuss the career of the Arsene Lupin of the baseball diamond, Rickey Henderson, and how his shattering the stolen bases record is a feat you just don't see anymore. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:30 PM PST - 16 comments

Eyebrows, we all have them, but what are they actually for?
posted by Rumple at 11:58 AM PST - 65 comments

The ACLU has obtained new documents detailing law enforcement usage of Amazon's facial detection software known as Rekognition. The Bezos-owned Washington Post reports that the sheriff’s office of Washington County, Ore. pays Amazon between $6 and $12 a month to scan footage of potential suspects against a database of 300k mugshots, and the service has even been used to identify guests at a recent royal wedding. [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 11:04 AM PST - 40 comments

"In 1918, 1,121 people in Michigan were “hospitalized at the expense of the state” because the authorities believed they had STIs. 49 were men; 1,072 were women, and one of them was a 19-year-old, impoverished white woman named Nina McCall. She was arrested, forcibly examined by a local health officer named Dr. Carney, deemed infected with gonorrhea and then syphilis, pumped full of arsenic, and imprisoned at the dilapidated Bay City Detention Hospital for three months. Like so many others, she found the courage to fight back. But instead of staging a prison riot or burning down the “reformatories,” as some of her incarcerated sisters did, Nina did something perhaps even more audacious for a working-class woman of her time. She took her tormentors to court."
posted by palindromic at 10:10 AM PST - 6 comments

Psst, kid, you wanna see some magnets colliding at a thousand frames per second
posted by cortex at 9:20 AM PST - 46 comments

Now-retired Baltimore Ravens guard and center John Urschel discusses his favorite mathematical theorem (one for the graph theory fans), among other things. This is generally what people do at My Favorite Theorem.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:50 AM PST - 13 comments

Robert Indiana, the American Pop Art artist, has passed away at the age of 89. His work featured bold shapes and colors and declarative words inspired by advertising. Sadly, his last days were marred with accusations of isolation by his caretakers and lawsuits being filed. [more inside]
posted by PussKillian at 8:41 AM PST - 15 comments

An Unsung Lawyer and Officer Who Shattered Racial Barriers [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 7:09 AM PST - 13 comments

Just like in the US, where a lack of insurance leaves millions of impoverished people with addiction lacking access to care, most people with addiction in Nigeria’s 190-million strong population struggle to find the kind of ongoing support addiction requires amid the country’s bare-bones health care system. In theory, Bolu was fortunate to fall onto the state’s radar, but studies show that the kind of sudden-withdrawal detox offered at rehab doesn’t work very well to treat addiction. The first sight that greeted Bolu was a man lying facedown on the concrete floor, his legs tied to a pillar in the middle of the room. “I came in and I saw someone chained. I thought this was just — you know, Nigeria, people don’t really have information on drugs — rehab is, like, for mad people. Everybody just thinks there’s mad people in here.”
posted by ChuraChura at 6:38 AM PST - 2 comments

The great transformation: Labour's proposals to democratise the economy - "This analysis mirrors Polanyi's of the Soviet Union. A centralised system of economic management, he said, took power away from ordinary people. Labour therefore proposes a different sort of public ownership. Local authorities, trade unions and workers, all of whom are seen as more responsive than expert panels to local needs, would play a greater role in the management of services. Councils would help run regionally owned utilities, for instance. '[N]ational state ownership of the grid and infrastructure of electricity and gas sectors could be combined with local, regional and community ownership', the report says." [ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF OWNERSHIP] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 4:44 AM PST - 6 comments

There is no depression in New Zealand; there are no sheep on our farms, There is no depression in New Zealand; we can all keep perfectly calm. Everybody's talking about World War Three, everybody's talking about World War Three, but we're as safe as safe can be, there's no unrest in this country [more inside]
posted by supercrayon at 4:17 AM PST - 29 comments

NASA's Juno spacecraft has been on a 2-year photoshoot assignment, and here are a few of the best snaps. [more inside]
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 1:21 AM PST - 7 comments