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'Glow' Star Betty Gilpin: What It's Like to Have Pea-Sized Confidence With Watermelon-Sized Boobs. An essay touching on struggles many women face, and how the entertainment industry can also intensify them.
posted by smoke at 10:08 PM PST - 21 comments

An island colony of swimming wolves, genetically distinct from the mainland variety, is something that delights me.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:40 PM PST - 11 comments

The Spring 2017 issue of Big Echo features five literary responses to the short fiction of Arthur C. Clarke. Among them is Vajra Chandrasekera's short story "The Negation of the Negation of the Negation," which builds on the events of Clarke's well-known story "The Nine Billion Names of God" (HTML; PDF).
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:29 PM PST - 12 comments

"Don't speed"... "Don't drink and drive" ... what do they know about me and my body? Toby Morris (previously) explains the cognition of denial.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:58 PM PST - 31 comments

Jay-Z Releases His Personal and Political Album ‘4:44’ on Tidal [The New York Times] “Jay-Z is back, and he is vulnerable. But for now, his secrets are digital exclusive . This veteran Brooklyn rapper, 47, ended weeks of speculation near midnight on Thursday, releasing “4:44,” his 13th studio album, as a digital exclusive on that streaming service, which he bought in 2015. The album — Jay-Z’s first since “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail” in 2013 — features 10 intensely personal and provocative tracks that, yes, include a few references to the marriage-baring “Lemonade” album by his wife, Beyoncé, and the recent birth of their twins.”
posted by Fizz at 5:55 PM PST - 20 comments

Rolling Stone recently released their list of the top 100 metal albums of all time, and it is perhaps the least horrifyingly wrong top-whatever list ever created. [more inside]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:17 PM PST - 128 comments

Meet Purrli. Previously seen on the blue, the new Internet Cat has much more customization. From the creator of MyNoise. Now you can get all the benefits of a purring cat, without the drawbacks... until he adds a 'hacking up a hairball' slider, at any rate.
posted by The otter lady at 3:32 PM PST - 10 comments

RIP Gary DeCarlo, who sang the lead vocals on the stadium classic Kiss Him Goodbye (1969). Billboard obit; No no no Newt (1996) (one of a zillion parodies)
posted by Melismata at 2:03 PM PST - 6 comments

One great way to get ready for the Animaniacs reboot is to listen to "Yakko's World"... sung by the movies.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 1:59 PM PST - 15 comments

Darwin is a city in Meeker County, Minnesota, United States. The population
was 350 at the 2010 census. It is one of several places claiming to be home of the
largest ball of twine in the world.

You can go west (Darwin Township, Meeker County, Minnesota).

>_
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:53 PM PST - 25 comments

Never-Before-Published Hannah Arendt on What Freedom and Revolution Really Mean.
posted by sapagan at 12:51 PM PST - 3 comments

A new geopolitics based on emerging tech. After sharing some commonplaces about AI, Kai-Fu Lee (Carnegie Mellon, Microsoft, Google China, now venture capital) offers an intriguing idea. Maybe China and the United States will evolve into new forms of planetary hegemons thanks to their AI supremacy. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 12:10 PM PST - 20 comments

The end of the Long 90s For the last 30 years, what David Goodhart called “the two liberalisms” have prevailed, the economic liberalism of the right and the social liberalism of the left, “Margaret Thatcher tempered by Roy Jenkins.” The Conservatives concentrated on deregulation, union busting and privatisation, while talking tough, but avoiding any action on, on immigration, political correctness and traditional values. Meanwhile, Labour focused on a socially liberal agenda without attempting to roll back the economic gains of the right. It was almost as though a tacit deal had been struck; you can have diversity, minority rights and discrimination laws if we can have privatisation, deregulation and tax cuts. The effect was to take policies that were popular with the public off the agenda on the grounds that they were publicly unacceptable.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:02 PM PST - 17 comments

Lin-Manuel Miranda gets together with ?uestlove and Black Thought to announce the release of The Hamilton Instrumentals, and to freestyle a bit. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:58 AM PST - 7 comments

In February 2017, a scared and badly injured stray cat walked up to Anelida, the compassionate human belonging to Santi the angora cat and Walter the golden retriever. The vocal feline then let out a series of plaintive meows that indicated he was in a great deal of pain and needed help (cw: fresh cat injury). Don't miss the forty-day-update video at the bottom. [h/t Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:39 AM PST - 25 comments

In which a Swedish golfer is interrupted by a playful elk (SLFacebook video). When the young elk started chasing him, he ran, all while his friends laughed at him.
posted by orrnyereg at 9:28 AM PST - 28 comments

The Cyberspace we Forgot - the Neuromancer computer game.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:18 AM PST - 40 comments

Kelan Phil Cohran has died. The pioneering jazz musician was a member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, a cofounder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a teacher, and the father of lots of equally talented children. Haven’t heard his music and unsure where to start? Here’s a primer from Zaid Mudhaffer, or just jump into this huge Youtube playlist. (previously)
posted by goatdog at 9:12 AM PST - 9 comments

Even within America’s imperfect health system, death in childbirth is not an inevitability. The American maternal mortality rate has been increasing. But thanks to Stanford's California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC), it's dropping in California -- now at 7.3 deaths per 100,000, half of what it was in 2006. Why is it so high in the rest of America? And what is California doing to make childbirth safer for women?
posted by Hypatia at 8:19 AM PST - 17 comments

CBO released their review of the Senate's version of Trumpcare, titled Better Care Reconciliation Act, forecasting 22 million people without insurance in 2026, and Medicaid spending 35% lower in 2036. Just 12% of Americans support the Senate Republican health care plan, and the Senate is taking a break, delaying the vote and regrouping, while Trump teases that there's a "big surprise" in store, which may be the plan to bypass the congressional conference committee and ram the revised Senate plan through the House. But we haven't even gotten to Trump's latest inflammatory tweets, or the already contested plan to implement the newly semi-approved travel ban. What the f**k just happened today?
posted by filthy light thief at 8:00 AM PST - 3027 comments

In the Ardmaddy Wishing-Tree Project folklorist Ceri Houlbrook details her excavation of 700 coins which had fallen out of a coin or "wishing" tree near Ardmaddy Castle in Scotland. In addition to documenting these coin encrusted trees, Houlbrook has a larger project The Concealed Reveal which focuses on things deliberately hidden and then found. (prev.)
posted by jessamyn at 7:52 AM PST - 3 comments

Rick & Morty season 3 is finally announced! (7/30) [slyt]
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:18 AM PST - 28 comments

Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?... the english stackexchange investigate (via)
posted by motdiem2 at 7:00 AM PST - 33 comments

Haren mixes, combines, collaborates, composes lo-fi and chill tunes for your ears (slsc) [more inside]
posted by rebent at 5:50 AM PST - 9 comments

Thore Haugstad writes about the early life and career of Alex Ferguson before he took up the managerial role at Manchester United that he became most famous for. [more inside]
posted by Dim Siawns at 1:23 AM PST - 4 comments