July 14, 2018

"He's a perfect example of just a beautiful light that's on this planet"

Today on Little But Fierce, watch how baby boxer Stanley decided he was going to play with his huge foster brothers no matter what — and slowly but surely grew up into a big, rowdy boy! You can keep up with Stanley Woodruff and his family on Facebook. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:10 PM PST - 11 comments

Mefi Loves a Mystery, so...who are these people?

A Goodwill slide projector came with a bonus, family pictures dating from the late 50s or early 60s. Who are these people?
posted by COD at 4:15 PM PST - 43 comments

Duke it from obit

Aliens: Colonial Marines (prev) is a 2013 FPS developed by Gearbox for Sega, that promised an immersive experience in the Alien universe, but after a troubled development cycle was widely panned at release, with the inexplicably poor AI of the enemies being a common target for complains. More than five years later, a modder working on the game discovered a single-word typo that prevented some of the AI code of the xenomorphs to be executed, making the game ever so slightly better. (Via)
posted by lmfsilva at 2:30 PM PST - 32 comments

RECORD/PLAY

RECORD/PLAY. "War, fate, and a broken walkman transcend space and time in this sci-fi love story."
posted by homunculus at 1:55 PM PST - 4 comments

“Be advised, love passes. Work alone remains.”

Paula McClain visits Finca Vigía in search of legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn and reflects on a woman who refused to be erased.
I feel a powerful urge to shout her name to the tourists who peer in at the window, the ones ogling me ogling them. She was here, I want to shout. And she was extraordinary. (slTown&Country)
[more inside]
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 1:04 PM PST - 5 comments

Quilting is fun! Row by row, or as a big, ugly sleeping bag

Do you like to travel AND sew? Great! Row by Row Experience is an annual collaboration between quilting shops in the U.S., Canada, and some locations in England, Scotland, Germany, and the Netherlands with an annual theme to unify designs, available in four different shapes. There are also some patterns available online and mail-order from past years. Or if you already have surplus fabric, old blankets, or any cloth, you can make an ugly quilt sleeping bag for the Sleeping Bag Project to help the homeless (existing groups are in the U.S., but you can start your own, or maybe just do your own thing).
posted by filthy light thief at 12:23 PM PST - 3 comments

Legal to drink in several Canadian provinces

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why. [more inside]
posted by Phire at 9:47 AM PST - 158 comments

profit, privatisation, cupidité

“The France of Tomorrow is now one year old and its contours have begun to take shape. The sleek vision of a society of merit and achievement, a revolution of the “outsiders” against the “insiders” has shown its true colors. Macronism is little more than seizure of the public interest by the French business elite.” The France of No Tomorrow (The Baffler) “The disparity between Paris and its banlieues is stark, and last year, when Emmanuel Macron took office, he promised, like presidents before him, to reduce urban inequalities. But with the afterglow of his victory long faded, his campaign pledge to break with politics-as-usual by embracing a so-called radical centrism has ceded to right-leaning policies” ‘The Social Ladder Is Broken’: Hope and Despair in the French Banlieues (The Nation) Seen as out of touch, Macron hits new low in poll ratings (Reuters) In May, Paris anti-Macron protest sees thousands take to streets to protest changes to the labor market, public service, and student’s rights (Channel 4, 8:13)
posted by The Whelk at 9:29 AM PST - 14 comments

Right all along

Corey Robin reflects on how and why people change their minds on political questions through the lens of Thomas Mann and recent events in US political commentary: How eerie and unsettling it can be when people change their minds
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:18 AM PST - 22 comments

Female Sin = Female Pain as Punishment

The Trump administration’s policies on family separation and abortion are driven by one view: A woman’s pain is fitting punishment. Last spring, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress worked together to pass a bill that would have gutted the Affordable Care Act. That piece of legislation doubled as an ideological manifesto: By letting states waive insurance protections for women who’ve been pregnant, given birth, survived a sexual assault, or experienced domestic violence, the GOP laid out a medical framework that treated women’s bodies as inherently sick, aberrations from the norm.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:11 AM PST - 11 comments

In England, trump means fart

The best protest signs for the anti-Trump rally in England, from the Huffington Post, Elle, The Cut, The Independent, The Standard, and a personal favorite from Twitter featuring a lovely knit sign.
posted by bile and syntax at 7:37 AM PST - 44 comments

In Ireland, Drought And A Drone Revealed The Outline Of An Ancient Henge

A lingering dry spell has exposed a previously unknown monument in Ireland's Boyne Valley... archaeologists confirmed the footprint of an ancient henge, or enclosure, that may be some 4,500 years old. Ireland is famously green... But this summer it's been gripped by an unusual heatwave and a lengthy dry spell. Crops are fading in the drought. And the unusual weather circumstances made the remarkable photos possible. In normal weather, the difference is undetectable — that's why Murphy had flown drones overhead before without noticing it. And even in a drought, it's too subtle to see from the ground. But combine the dry spell with the aerial view, and suddenly the outline is obvious. [more inside]
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:10 AM PST - 27 comments

Crowdfunded archaeology

'Dig Hill 80' explores the WWI Ypres Salient battlefield Raising over €200,000 from the public, volunteer archaeologists have explored a German World War I trench fortress that was about to be bulldozed for a housing development. They found more than 100 fallen soldiers. Recently
posted by infini at 4:45 AM PST - 10 comments

The magic behind the muscles

Let’s rock! Why Dwayne Johnson is the new Schwarzenegger
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:25 AM PST - 48 comments

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