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Rescue & Restore is a YouTuber who takes vintage to antique toys and makes them look and work like new. No commentary, no soundtrack, just showing you what it takes to restore old, rusty toys with modern tools and techniques. There are eight videos up to date: Vintage Toy Electric Oven Restoration - Little Lady Range By Kingston | Barn Find Toy Piano Restoration | 1960s Tonka Jeep Restoration - Military Jeep GR2-2431 | 1930s Wyandotte Toy Airplane Restoration | 1920s Dayton Toy Train Restoration - Antique Locomotive | 5 Cent Candy Vending Machine Restoration - Northwestern Model 60 | 1960s Stepside Tonka Pickup Truck Restoration | Vintage Toy Cash Register Restoration - Tom Thumb || Also on Instagram and Facebook.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:19 PM PST - 31 comments

“I can’t go up here and say I promise you UCB will be open forever.” "Is UCB done for? Does bankruptcy loom? Or can the theater survive? There are no easy answers; the hard answers aren’t all that pleasant. If the UCB4 cannot steer the ship out of this crisis, whether by implementing more sustainable practices or selling the business to someone who will, the theater will close." [more inside]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:44 PM PST - 30 comments

Ravelry, the eight-million-strong social network for knitters previously, has announced that it will ban its users from voicing support for the Trump administration on the grounds that doing so “is undeniably support for white supremacy”.
The language of the new policy has been adapted from a similar announcement by RPG.net last November.
Further coverage from: USA Today, The Guardian, Business Insider, The Hill, BuzzFeed, Inquisitr, The A.V. Club, and The Mary Sue.
(For a sense of scale: as of February, Twitter has 126 million daily users, Snap has 186 million, and Facebook has 1.56 billion.)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:20 PM PST - 164 comments

In the small, insular world of the British establishment, every so often a clique of people can exert an extraordinary influence. There is a curious parallel between the 1980s Oxford Tories and the 1930s Cambridge spies. [...] Admittedly, the comparison between the Cambridge and Oxford sets isn’t entirely fair: though both betrayed Britain’s interests to the benefit of Moscow, the Brexiters didn’t mean to.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 6:36 PM PST - 16 comments

Judith Krantz, bestselling author and pioneer of the sex-and-shopping novel, has died of natural causes at 91. Krantz, who wrote prolifically for women's magazines, did not attempt fiction until later life. She published her first novel, Scruples ("about the staggeringly luxurious life of a Beverly Hills boutique and the people who work in it"), when she was 50. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 6:01 PM PST - 14 comments

To find real solitude, you have to go out of range. But every year that’s harder to do, as America’s off-the-grid places disappear. [more inside]
posted by Ahmad Khani at 5:41 PM PST - 21 comments

The Anita Sarkeesian Story: A Look Back at 10 Years of Feminist Frequency [Polygon] “For our interview, Sarkeesian and I are sitting in an apartment in San Francisco’s Mission District. I want to talk to her about her life and her work. I want to find out more about her background and her formative years as a political activist and cultural critic. I want to find out why her non-profit orgaization, Feminist Frequency, is dramatically scaling back its operations, exactly 10 years after its formation. But first, I want to talk about her achievements.” [Previously.] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 1:18 PM PST - 19 comments

It’s your first day on the job and Beyoncé is getting ready for a red carpet. What are you getting her for breakfast? (scroll down to see choose-your-own-adventure-style threading)
posted by Etrigan at 10:54 AM PST - 29 comments

In Russia’s arctic wilderness the remnants of one of the Soviet Union’s most tragic gulag projects now lies largely forgotten. Photojournalist Amos Chapple went to see it.
(Gulag previously.)
posted by adamvasco at 6:24 AM PST - 47 comments