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After famously playing through Pokemon (previously) and Metal Gear, the Twitch hive mind has decided to try its hand at Dark Souls. [more inside]
posted by mysticreferee at 9:45 PM PST - 45 comments

"Brands can't be as honest as they might like in dealing with haters on Facebook. But sometimes others can do it for them. That dynamic played out in particularly rogue fashion on Target's Facebook page this week. As the retailer received a steady stream of nasty comments from people upset about its move toward gender-neutral labeling of children's products in its stores, Mike Melgaard came to Target's defense—in a most provocative way."
posted by mannequito at 8:34 PM PST - 129 comments

This song is a vessel. It carries the unbearable anguish of millions. We recorded it to channel the pain, fear, and trauma caused by the ongoing slaughter of our black brothers and sisters. We recorded it to challenge the indifference, disregard, and negligence of all who remain quiet about this issue. Silence is our enemy. Sound is our weapon. They say a question lives forever until it gets the answer it deserves ... Won't you say their names? Earlier today, Janelle Monáe and her record label Wondaland Records released the protest song "Hell You Talmbout," after leading a march protesting police brutality in Philadelphia (warning for autoplaying video). [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 8:30 PM PST - 26 comments

It might not be because you're introverted, or because they probably don't give you cancer. Maybe mobile phones just suck. (Hint: Because they sound horrible.) [more inside]
posted by prismatic7 at 8:01 PM PST - 60 comments

While the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was preparing its torture report, the CIA spied on their computers and launched a spurious criminal inquiry against their staff (previously). The CIA and its director, John Brennan, with the support of the White House, have taken a brazen public stance, denying any wrongdoing in directly spying on their nominal overseer. But documents obtained by Jason Leopold and VICE News show that the CIA had prepared a written apology for the spying, which they ultimately decided not to issue (was the White House involved in this decision?). [more inside]
posted by grobstein at 7:52 PM PST - 10 comments

Are you smarter than 45,802 other New York Times Readers?
posted by pravit at 7:37 PM PST - 101 comments

A man ate 35 Chipotle burritos in one week to help determine how to maximize the amount of food one can get in a single Chipotle order.
posted by reenum at 6:51 PM PST - 109 comments

Tufte CSS : "Tufte CSS provides tools to style web articles using the ideas demonstrated by Edward Tufte's books and handouts. Tufte's style is known for its simplicity, extensive use of sidenotes, tight integration of graphics with text, and carefully chosen typography." via mefi projects from Mefi's own daveliepmann, 'maker and maintainer'. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:51 PM PST - 35 comments

Neon Haze Porpentine has made a new twine game, Neon Haze, with art and music by Brenda Neotenomie. [more inside]
posted by bile and syntax at 4:49 PM PST - 9 comments

Hacking, then, looks like a practice with very deep roots – as primally and originally human as disobedience itself. Which makes it all the more disturbing that hacking itself appears to have been hacked.
posted by Lycaste at 4:29 PM PST - 29 comments

Millennials of New York. True stories from real millennials living in New York City.
posted by grouse at 3:04 PM PST - 31 comments

From the Right, a New Slur for G.O.P. Candidates [NY Times]
Cuckservative is an amalgamation of the word cuckold and conservative. [Salon]
Conservatives Are Holding a Conversation About Race [The New Republic]
‘Cuckservative’ — the conservative insult of the month, explained [Washington Post]
‘Cuckservative’ Is A Gloriously Effective Insult That Should Not Be Slurred, Demonised, Or Ridiculed [Breitbart]
“Cuckservative” is a Racist Slur and an Attack on Evangelical Christians [Red State]
posted by andoatnp at 3:00 PM PST - 222 comments

There are numerous reasons for the disappearance of the forty-hour workweek, but journalist Sara Robinson singles out work cultures that promote worker passion as one of them. She sees this culture taking root first in the defense and then in the tech industries in late twentieth-century California. During the Cold War, defense companies like Lockheed in the Santa Clara Valley drew scores of ambitious scientists; these workers seemed to share certain personality traits, including social awkwardness, emotional detachment, and, namely, a single-mindedness about their work to the point at which “they devoted every waking hour to it, usually to the exclusion of nonwork relationships, exercise, sleep, food, and even personal care.”

An excerpt from Do What You Love, and Other Lies About Success and Happiness.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:57 PM PST - 54 comments

Fawn frolics with rabbit (SLYT) (no cats, sorry, but at least it's filmed in landscape).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:21 PM PST - 17 comments

Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period. "I think the great thing about this podcast is, even if people don't think he's the greatest actor of all time—first of all, they'd be wrong—you'd totally get why somebody would be excited about Denzel Washington. He's like black Santa Claus, like he'd walk into the room and everybody gets excited." [more inside]
posted by Gin and Broadband at 1:22 PM PST - 42 comments

Warren G. Harding is known for many things. Teapot Dome, dying in office (or maybe not), having the middle name "Gamaliel", and consistently being ranked one of the worst Presidents ever. His personal life was little better than his presidential one, with allegations of multiple affairs and even one claim of an illegitimate child born just a couple of years before he was elected to the White House. Which, according to DNA testing, is totally true. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 1:21 PM PST - 43 comments

In an article for Glamour, Stephen Colbert acknowledges that late-night TV is a “sausagefest” and pledges to create a show that not only appeals to women, but also celebrates their voices.

When he was 10, Stephen’s father and two brothers died in a plane crash. His mother, Lorna Colbert, raised him and 8 remaining siblings. If one wanted to evaluate whether his feminist stance is real, a good place to start is the touching tribute that he shared when he returned to The Colbert Report after her funeral.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 12:16 PM PST - 75 comments

With Celebrity Lifestyle Sites proliferating like an algal bloom as of late, actress and neuroscientist PhD Mayim Bialik raises the bar with Grok Nation. [more inside]
posted by romakimmy at 10:25 AM PST - 85 comments

On 24 April 2015, Pakistani "social and human rights activist" Sabeen Mahmud was shot to death by two men on a motorbike after hosting an event for killed and disappeared journalists at her space The Second Floor (T2F).
The Anatomy Of A Murder [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:57 AM PST - 5 comments

A Lazarus Beside Me by Avies Platt [London Review of Books]

“‘Are you, by any chance, going to Norman Haire’s party?’ I inquired. ‘I rather think that is where I’m supposed to be going,’ he replied. A little strange, that, I thought. But I said, ‘That’s where I’m going, so perhaps I may give you a lift?’ ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s very kind of you.’ And we got into the car and drove off. At first neither of us spoke. I was concerned with joining the stream of traffic in Lower Regent Street. Then he asked abruptly: ‘Are you connected with the arts?’ ‘I don’t know about connected,’ I replied guardedly. ‘I’m interested.’ ‘And may I ask the name of my kind chauffeur?’ he continued. ‘Platt,’ I said. ‘Avies Platt. And may I ask yours?’ ‘Yeats,’ he said! ‘W.B. Yeats.’ And added: ‘I’m a poet.’.”

posted by Fizz at 9:35 AM PST - 17 comments

The Cosmic Web Imager at Palomar Observatory has been studying a system 10 billion light years away illuminated by two quasars. Now, a Caltech team has published pictures of the giant swirling disk of a protogalaxy being fed cool - 30,000 degree - gas by a filament of the cosmic web. This is the first time we have ever seen a galaxy being built, and it reveals unique new evidence about the early Universe and the still poorly-understood life and evolution of the galactic population. Abstract of letter in Nature (full paper paywalled).
posted by Devonian at 9:19 AM PST - 11 comments

When Science Fiction writer Lou Antonelli felt slighted by David Gerrold, presenter of this year’s Hugo Awards, he did the obvious thing: Wrote to the Spokane police in an attempt to SWAT Gerrold at WorldCon. [more inside]
posted by Artw at 9:03 AM PST - 211 comments

Here's what happened.
posted by femmegrrr at 8:34 AM PST - 105 comments

This morning, Sesame Street announced that the new season, which begins next month, will air on HBO. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:31 AM PST - 127 comments

Paul Ford (MeFi's Own) looks through the Social Security Death Master File, the federal government's list of U.S. citizens who have died since the creation of Social Security in 1935. (NOTE: Not everyone on the list has actually died. Also, not everyone who has died in on the list.) You can explore the database yourself: The Database of the Dead -- Are You in It?
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:30 AM PST - 30 comments

Meet the world's first Ned Flanders-themed metal band. “In reality, this is all just an over-the-top attempt at getting Matt Groening’s autograph, even if it comes on a cease and desist letter.” Here's a direct link to their demo album.
posted by moonmilk at 7:50 AM PST - 31 comments

From A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible to Our Bodies, Ourselves. In 2012 the United States Library of Congress held an exhibition on what it saw as the most influential books in American history. (via) [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 6:58 AM PST - 7 comments

Since April 20, 2011, Japanese artist Tatsuya Tanaka has created tiny dioramas with common household objects as landscape for tiny people. One every day. [more inside]
posted by numaner at 6:53 AM PST - 17 comments

Sydney University has Queen Elizabeth doing some voice over work. It's a single link. It's YouTube. It's a currently used teaching video in Risk Communication. [more inside]
posted by taff at 6:48 AM PST - 6 comments

As it turned out, we spent more money for Todd Akin in the last two weeks of the primary than he spent on his whole primary campaign - how Claire McCaskill got her opponent nominated, in order to beat him. [more inside]
posted by hepta at 5:55 AM PST - 54 comments

"Jenny Who’s Been Around the Block had six seats, hard fiberglass benches that we’d padded with yoga-type mats, and there were eight of us to fill them. Carmen was in the bow, with a narrow bench to herself, and a second Carmen alone behind her. Then came Anna and Syd, on a wide middle bench, and Jacqueline and me behind them. Cristi, alone in the second-to-last seat, and Vanessa, in the stern, rounded out the lineup... Jacqueline, by coincidence, was my closest friend in the boat, and we had joked that sharing a canoe bench for 50 or 60 hours was likely to make or break the relationship." By Eva Holland for SB Nation
posted by valkane at 3:36 AM PST - 10 comments

William S. Burroughs Teaches a Free Course on Creative Reading and Writing
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:28 AM PST - 10 comments

Ralph Steadman (previously here), the illustrator best known for his collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson, has illustrated other people's books, notably some newer editions of older volumes: Alice in Wonderland (previously here, but with dead links), George Orwell's Animal Farm, and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, not as well known because the edition was limited to 451 copies, all autographed by both Bradbury and Steadman. He has also written and illustrated I, Leonardo, an "imaginary autobiography" of Leonardo DaVinci, adding more centuries to his historical reach.
Trigger Warning: Large Quantities of Visual Gonzo-ness
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:30 AM PST - 14 comments