September 22, 2019

Prepare To Drop

Following the cancellation of Neill Blomkamp's Halo movie and Peter Jackson's Halo Chronicles, a team at Bungie had a chance to take Halo in a different direction. First known as "Recon", ten years ago today Bungie released Halo 3: ODST. [more inside]
posted by mhoye at 6:14 PM PST - 18 comments

Crazy Horse Memorial

Who Speaks for Crazy Horse? "Is the Crazy Horse Memorial, in South Dakota, a tribute to the Lakota warrior, or the strangest and crassest historical irony in a region, and a nation, that is full of them? ... The world’s largest monument is decades in the making and more than a little controversial." [Previously, Via]
posted by homunculus at 4:58 PM PST - 14 comments

Their 7-year-old Border collie, Katie, was no longer in the room.

She Quit Her Job. He Got Night Goggles. They Searched 57 Days for Their Dog. A couple combed a rural Montana community for their Border collie, Katie. [SLNYT]
posted by hippybear at 4:12 PM PST - 36 comments

the entire park was a monument to the memory of his young body

Veijo Rönkkönen was a recluse who spent his days between the paper mill where he worked for 41 years, and his farm, tucked away in a Finnish forest. By all accounts, he didn’t like to talk to people, and he never took an art lesson in his life. But by the time of his death in 2010, Rönkkönen had covered his land with around 550 sculptures. Nearly all of them depicted human figures: people of all ages and ethnicities, frozen in moments of play, athleticism, and even agony.
posted by cardioid at 3:28 PM PST - 27 comments

Mary When You Follow Her

In the autumn of Maria’s eighteenth year...

So begins a story by Carmen Maria Machado, of multiple lives, of a single moment, told in one sentence.
posted by Etrigan at 12:21 PM PST - 10 comments

Otter Appreciation Station 2019

It's Sea Otter Awareness Week, but since river otters are sadly missing a week of their own this will be your all-in-one otter shop, so let's dive in! [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 12:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Let’s go flying!

Dave Pecotta collects flyable antique balsa-wood toy aircraft. He posts images and descriptions of many, including Oregon-made aircraft from North Pacific, Massachusetts-made specimens from Guillow, and many more.
posted by mwhybark at 11:56 AM PST - 11 comments

TASTES GREAT! LESS FILLING!

A massive brewery with a new light beer brand to market. But how to market it? Chemist Joseph Owades, working for Rheingold Breweries in New York City, broke apart beer’s long carbohydrate chains to produce the world’s first “light” beer in 1967. Marketed nearly exclusively to diabetics, it went nowhere. Thus, the development of “light” beer came with a commensurate marketing challenge: how to persuade the traditionally masculine beer-drinking audience to try a lower-calorie version of their favorite brew.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:36 AM PST - 41 comments

this post is full of neon

How Youtube’s Algorithm Turned an Obscure 1980s Japanese Song Into an Enormously Popular Hit Building on the video essay by Stevem ("What Is Plastic Love?"; 10m SLYT), a short explainer on the song that was probably cropping up in your Youtube recommendations for most of 2018. But an unusual copyright claim took it off the internet (10:40m SLYT), further amplifying its Streisand Effect popularity, though an amicable agreement was soon reached (6:39m SLYT), restoring the song that's now become the face of the City Pop genre. [more inside]
posted by cendawanita at 9:28 AM PST - 22 comments

Aron Eisenberg (1969-2019)

Best known for playing Nog in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, actor Aron Eisenberg passed away at the age of 50.
posted by KTamas at 7:53 AM PST - 83 comments

My father was IBM’s first black software engineer.

First black software engineer The racism he fought persists in the high-tech world today
posted by robbyrobs at 7:23 AM PST - 8 comments

Goddamn biogenic, silica-based, uh... mud.

Some Sunday nature walk'n'chat: A Blue Collar Slob's Introduction to the Rare Oakland Manzanita [SLYT]
posted by slater at 6:54 AM PST - 11 comments

Untitled goose game

The most highly anticipated goose simulator of 2019 is here. RPS. Previously.
posted by adept256 at 4:45 AM PST - 185 comments

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