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OKAY. The Princess Bride. Super well known and beloved film, and I have absolutely no idea what it's about. Now I did initially think it was the one (also not seen) where the lady comes down on a meteor or something but apparently not so, and I think I also got it mixed up with Zorro? Idk i've not seen that one either. So my best guess is 1) there's a princess and 2) she's a bride. Now this seems, to me, pretty standard so idk why this movie is so beloved. […]

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posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:18 PM PST - 162 comments

"It struck me that, at least in theory, organ pipes should generate quite primitive sound waves. If so, how come a church organ doesn't sound like a chip tune, which is also built up from simple waveforms? Well, actually it will, if you remove the church."
posted by mhoye at 7:05 PM PST - 25 comments

If you watched the recent streaming series The Mandalorian, you may have noticed that the theme song , by Ludwig Göransson, used as a major element a woodwind not normally featured: the recorder. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:38 PM PST - 30 comments

If so, you might find “American Flowers” by Birds of Chicago comforting.
posted by HuronBob at 4:28 PM PST - 5 comments

The Imagine Project was a studio album released by Herbie Hancock released on June 22, 2010 The title song was Imagine by John Lennon, a reminder that Lennon was an excellent songwriter. Other songs were Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up", Moraes and Baden Powell's "Tempo de Amor", Matthew Moores "Space Captain", Bob Dylans "The Times, They Are A' Changin'", Larry Klein's "The Song Goes On", "La Tierra" by Juan Esteban Aristizabal. While the chosen songs were all international hits, the main point was the international musical collaboration. [more inside]
posted by mumimor at 3:29 PM PST - 4 comments

Are the kids in your life asking difficult questions about representative democracy in the U.S.? Asking you to talk about how impeachment and conviction work? Supplement your explanations with iCivics, a free online resource whose goal is to help students become more familiar with citizenship through play. Run a county! Oversee the federal budget! Be a juror! [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:48 PM PST - 6 comments

Trevor Jones' early film score career was full of 80s rock elements. He is perhaps remembered best from the instrumentals from Labyrinth. His 1985 score for Runaway Train (Jon Voight, Rebecca De Mornay, Eric Roberts) is more of that, only much more. If you like the non-Bowie bits of Labyrinth music, then maybe this propulsive soundtrack album is worth a listen! Side A: Jail Break!, Moving On, Destination Unknown, Clear The Tracks!, Reflections, Runaway Train [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:04 PM PST - 2 comments

Sasi Kumar is a 20-year-old university student based in Vellore, India who’s also an amateur photographer in his free time. His passion is to go into the fields around his city and photograph the hidden world of bugs that most people just travel past. [...] “I use various types of lenses to capture tiny insects which provide me with a much closer magnification,” Kumar tells SWNS. “All the photos are captured through my mobile phone.” (PetaPixel | sasikumar_ksk on Instagram) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:03 PM PST - 7 comments

Back before the adults of the Western World depended almost exclusively upon digital sprites for their entertainment and began dressing up as toys and cartoons, one of the world’s most popular games was synonymous with the image of an immaculately groomed, middle-aged Caucasian man and a beautiful Asian woman. Fingers steepled, he sat staring condescendingly down his nose at we, his potential opponents, while she stood behind him, regarding us with enigmatic detachment. ... The game was Mastermind.
posted by Etrigan at 12:45 PM PST - 36 comments

Oakland’s Moms 4 Housing Were Evicted by a Giant Corporation That Runs National Home-Flipping Operation "But where housing activists once faced off against major banks, they’re increasingly coming up against faceless corporations operating with even less transparency. The West Oakland home occupied by Moms 4 Housing was purchased at a foreclosure auction by a subsidiary of Wedgewood Properties, a home-flipping giant that does business nationwide through an alphabet-soup of companies such as HMC Assets LLC and FI-337 LLC." [more inside]
posted by ziggly at 12:11 PM PST - 20 comments

We recently obtained a clock that flew on a Soyuz space mission. The clock, manufactured in 1984, contains over 100 integrated circuits on ten circuit boards. Why is the clock so complicated? In this blog post, I examine the clock's circuitry and explain why so many chips were needed. The clock also provides a glimpse into the little-known world of Soviet aerospace electronics and how it compares to American technology.
posted by zamboni at 11:15 AM PST - 19 comments

Artist Kristina Wong just released Season 2 of Radical Cram School, a kid-centered web series mixing humor and political critique. In Season 2, the Young Rebels retell the herstory of Grace Lee Boggs, and find how what happens when kids cross the border into Puppetland, where no humans are allowed. In Season 1, Wong brought her comedic verve to episodes like "Media Studies" in which Resistance Auntie finds out why Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth and "Statistics," in which the Young Rebels learn the bitter taste of wage inequality through sweet sweet cookies.
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:53 AM PST - 5 comments

There are genes, of course. And environment. And gene-environment interactions. But inside of us there are also molecules bouncing around randomly, sloppy transcription, retrotransposons escaping their jails, and not nearly enough DNA to specify all of our 100 trillion (or 1 quadrillion?) synapses. Nature versus nurture misses the importance of noise. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 8:03 AM PST - 31 comments