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Are you a woodworker, or have been thinking about getting into woodworking? A rite of passage is to build your own workbench and a go-to resource the last decade or so has been Christopher Schwarz. Despite or maybe because of a couple of books, a slew of articles and the many, many hands-on courses under his belt, Schwarz is approached regularly for advice. Luckily he has put his anthropologist cap on and provided us with his insights into the six personalities of workbench builders. [more inside]
posted by Harald74 at 11:32 PM PST - 52 comments

The (free) Google Arts and Culture app was already pretty awesome but now it can find portraits in museums that look just like you.
posted by storybored at 10:34 PM PST - 31 comments

In case you needed to pass on to your post-apocalyptic descendants a catchy folk song about piling stones and corpses on top of fallout shelter exits to make sure the demons stay in hell, here's the Digwell Carol by filk artist Leslie Fish. [more inside]
posted by moonmilk at 8:05 PM PST - 13 comments

A lost figure from a bygone era: Yokohama Mary

"An enigmatic woman wearing a frilly white dress stands silently outside Matsuzakaya department store in Yokohama’s Isezakicho district during a local festival. Her face is caked in white makeup and her eyes are lined in black."

Yokohama Mary lived on the streets of Yokohama for something like fifty years, until times changed and the neighborhood was no longer a welcome place for her. [more inside]
posted by mustard seeds at 7:15 PM PST - 6 comments

New Trailer Proves Red Sparrow Is the Best Black Widow Movie We're Probably Ever Going to Get [YouTube] “It isn’t exactly fair to hold up every single movie about a female assassin to Marvel Studios and ask when the hell we’re finally going to see a Black Widow solo movie, but the similarities between Natasha Romanov and Red Sparrow’s titular ballerina-turned-super-spy are too striking to ignore. [...] On its face, Red Sparrow seems like a rather straightforward kind of spy film, but the Black Widow comparisons really do come to mind when you realize that much of the movie follows Dominika’s earliest days during her Sparrow training that takes place in a Red Room-like facility.” [via: io9]
posted by Fizz at 6:29 PM PST - 38 comments

According to the International Organisation of Book Towns, a book town is "a small rural town or village in which second–hand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated". Most Book Towns have developed in villages of historic interest or of scenic beauty. Here is a list of book towns around the world. And here is an Atlas Obscura story about The village of Hobart, in Delaware County, New York, with a population of 441 people, at the 2010 census, and 5 independent book stores.
posted by growabrain at 5:57 PM PST - 20 comments

Permanent Redirect is a new piece of art by Donald Hansen, who previously created Shybot, a bot that fled through the desert to avoid people. The trick to Permanent Redirect is that it moves URLs every time it is seen. If you want to chase it down, it was here a few days ago.
posted by blahblahblah at 5:51 PM PST - 42 comments

Having trouble starting your steam engine? Here's your no-talking, no-music guide.
posted by clawsoon at 5:36 PM PST - 8 comments

The History of Video Synthesizers - from 60s video art to station identification to the invention of the Chyron.
posted by Artw at 4:54 PM PST - 17 comments

Ever wanted to see the Arthurian legend retold in space? Time to see a weird and obscure kids show from 1989 New Zealand. [more inside]
posted by Start with Dessert at 4:26 PM PST - 16 comments

When people ask me what my greatest fear is, I lie. I tell them about my fear of snakes. I say I have nightmares of being stuck in Fear Factor, lying for a full minute in a pit filled with writhing serpents, just so I can win $1 million. That fear is real. I have those nightmares. But the truth is, my greatest fear is being lonely. [more inside]
posted by cynical pinnacle at 3:44 PM PST - 19 comments

Casa Xochiquetzal opened in 2006 by former sex worker Carmen Munoz as a haven for her aging colleagues. More in a brief interview from the founder here. A bit more on the house and its rules from a 2014 interview and photoseries here. And a link to that photographer's full gallery (and other work) is here. And the house's Twitter feed is here and their website is here (in Spanish).
posted by stillmoving at 2:36 PM PST - 7 comments

Frank T Zumbach ~ Welcome to my Nightmares ~
Photo - blogging - prolifically - since - January - 2010.
posted by adamvasco at 2:30 PM PST - 3 comments

A news site gave would-be commenters a quiz. Here’s what happened: NRKBeta, the technology website of Norway's public broadcaster, "first began forcing would-be commenters to take such quizzes on select stories back in February after one of its journalists, Ståle Grut, had the idea in the shower before his commute. Grut works for NRKBeta, a subsite that both focuses its coverage on technology and offers its journalists a live space to try out media innovations. Grut’s big brainstorm, aimed at improving the quality of the comments on the site, is to require visitors to prove they have read and understood a story with a quiz written by the story’s author." NRKBeta's initiative, previously: RTFA
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:57 PM PST - 25 comments

Bob Allison's Home Page gives helpful tips and tricks for web masters. "Web page designer Bob Allison provides a compendium of resources and information on creating a Web presence." - InfoWorld [more inside]
posted by hexaflexagon at 1:15 PM PST - 35 comments

Feinberg says that she would love, above all else, to “catch Donald Trump Jr. stealing valor,” the act in which a civilian poses fraudulently as a member or veteran of the armed forces. “Don Jr. humiliating himself in general is a good story,” she deadpans. Feinberg has also been scraping the internet, in vain, for the digital slime trail of Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner, who, she says, don’t have any sort of online presence, “which seems impossible given their age,” she tells me. “It’s driven me nuts.”

The Columbia Journalism Review profiles Ashley Feinberg. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 12:32 PM PST - 23 comments

Lost treasure stories are a dime a dozen in the Southwest. But when the Army; Air Force; the White House; Congressmen; New Mexico's Governor and F. Lee Bailey and dozens of other lawyers get into a single treasure saga, only confusion and rumors remain cheap (New York Times, 1973). It is one of the most celebrated legends of buried treasure in the history of the American West, a thriller that includes a gunfight, nuclear weapons and the Watergate hearings (N.Y. Times, 1992) These are two period-specific introductions to the ongoing saga of the treasure of the hollow mountain (Atlantis Rising Magazine, 2009), a cache of gold and loot that was re-discovered in 1937 by "Doc" Noss, in what is now part of the White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:11 PM PST - 11 comments

In New York, Drawing Flood Maps Is a ‘Game of Inches.’ As FEMA revises the maps to account for climate change, deciding who is in the flood zone will be a battle with millions of dollars at stake. (SLNYT by David W. Chen) [more inside]
posted by crazy with stars at 10:56 AM PST - 29 comments

After Alabama (13-1) rallies to a comeback win over Georgia (13-2), 26-23, in OT in the College Football Playoff National Championship, undefeated University of Central Florida Knights, snubbed in one of a series of controversial playoff selections this year (and years past), is declared National Champions - by Rick Scott, governor of Florida, and has the parade at Disney World and will pay National Championship bonuses to staff. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:47 AM PST - 17 comments

Cinamon Hadley, the woman whose portrait became the model for the iconic character Death from The Sandman series of comics for DC/Vertigo, has died at the age of 48. She was interviewed in 2011 about her life and experiences as a recognizable figure within fan culture. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 8:50 AM PST - 40 comments

"The postwar passion for highway construction saw cities around the world carved up in the name of progress. But as communities fought back many schemes were abandoned – their half-built traces showing what might have been." Unbuilt Cities: the outrageous highway schemes left as roads to nowhere
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:43 AM PST - 28 comments

A furry muppety guy teaches you all about art! How to read it and make it, and some people who are good at it! This is a smattering:
Copying and Stealing (With a playful remake of a Picasso painting) - Learning How to Draw ("No matter what Mommy and Daddy say, you're not great, you're not great!") - Magic Goldfish Sandwich (What does it feel like to walk in gold boots?) - Giant Terrible Robot ("But why did they give him a face?") - Monkey Shark Pizza ("Weird is where the good stuff comes from!") [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 8:14 AM PST - 7 comments

Some Child Protective Service Departments in the US are moving towards a a model to rate children's risk during screening calls.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:33 AM PST - 35 comments

Did or did not the classified Zuma satellite survive launch?
posted by Literaryhero at 12:58 AM PST - 48 comments

Erykah [previously] Badu [previously] Rates Aliens, Period Tracker Apps and Porky Pig for Pitchfork [slyt] [previously Flaming and previously indecent] [more inside]
posted by prismatic7 at 12:22 AM PST - 5 comments