February 12, 2018

Leaning into the life of a dog

"Designing toys is definitely silly and crazy, but we also have a very serious, almost scientific approach to it. Designing dog toys hasn’t really been a category that industrial designers have been trying to break into. It’s been a boring category and we’re aggressively trying to change that."
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:05 PM PST - 24 comments

You've gotta find your way before it's too late

Dionne Farris went from working with Arrested Development [Tennessee] to doing a 1994 solo album which had a pretty big hit with lead-off song I Know [video].. It's a shame the rest of the album didn't garner much attention because Wild Seed-Wild Flower is brilliant: Side A: I Know, Reality, Stop To Think, Passion, Food For Thought, Now Or Later [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 8:47 PM PST - 11 comments

"Shite and onions!"

Ulysses: Good or Bad? "This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first appearance of James Joyce’s Ulysses." [SL LitHub] [more inside]
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:54 PM PST - 83 comments

Biohackers Revolt as CEO Locks Himself In Lab

First, inject yourself with a diy herpes treatment. Then go off the rails.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:51 PM PST - 46 comments

What The Hell Is Gabberdisco?

An hour long mix of hard beats and pop songs? Yes please! Cheese quotient is a little lower than might be expected. Pickle quotient is a little higher.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:32 PM PST - 1 comments

Create, Love, and #Resist

Evan Tyor and Luke McGinnis are roommates who share a 500 sq. ft. apartment in Brooklyn. Each month a bevy of musicians and vocalists cram into their home for the Apartment Sessions. [more inside]
posted by noneuclidean at 6:01 PM PST - 5 comments

"It took me years to get back in the bath."

Decades ago, a kid didn't listen to his mother, and kept making that face. Today, he's just trying to get through life. Cautionary Tales (Vimeo, approx. 8 min.) (via)
posted by Countess Elena at 4:59 PM PST - 20 comments

gliding around on his hardwood living-room floor in our socks

The Bittersweet Beauty of Adam Rippon
posted by minsies at 3:41 PM PST - 11 comments

“Oddvar Bra, I love you!”

The Ski Pole That Norway Will Never Forget "It seems an unlikely event to be emblazoned in a nation’s collective memory. But if you’re from Norway, and you’re over 50, you almost certainly have a vivid recollection of this: A man named Oddvar Bra is skiing the final segment of the men’s 4x10-kilometer cross-country relay at the 1982 world championships in Oslo. Surging up a hill, he passes and sideswipes the only person ahead of him, Alexander Savyalov of the Soviet Union. Immediately, Bra realizes that the impact has had a terrible consequence. His right pole has snapped in two."
posted by ocherdraco at 2:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Vintage Propaganda Pepsi Blue

DeWalt Saws In The War Program [SLYT], a World War II era black-and-white promotional film that showcases the many ways large, industrial scale, radial arm saws could be used in order to speed up wood frame construction. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 2:03 PM PST - 15 comments

Young Angry White Men

“But the dark engine of the movement is reactionary white male resentment. Alt-right propaganda is designed to nourish the precise grievances recited by the disillusioned and indignant young men that dominate its ranks. It provides a coherent—but malicious—worldview. For a recruit, the alt-right helps explain why they don’t have the jobs or the sexual partners or the overall societal and cultural respect that they believe (and are told) to be rightfully theirs. This appeal is resonating at a moment in the United States when economic inequality is worsening and a majority-minority United States is forecasted for 2044—developments exploited by racist propagandists.” The Alt-Right Is Killing People, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s in-depth investigation into the causes, crimes, and online growth of the racist reactionary movement in the US. (CW for all links, hate speech, Nazi ideology, murder.) [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 9:59 AM PST - 316 comments

Smarkly criticize something that isn't wrestling

Wrestling fans on Reddit are taking a break from talking wrestling to criticize things other than wrestling in the same way they criticize wrestling. Spoiler warnings after the break. [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:53 AM PST - 7 comments

“GL-L-L-KSK! KEH-KEEH!♫ FST! FST! RrrrrrrrrrrrKLAGH!♪ CH-CH-ch-ch-mmm”

Animal Crossing is a Dystopian Hellscape [The Verge] “But does something darker lie beneath its cheerful exterior? Animal Crossing has always been a game that is as strange as it is cute, full of odd tics and design choices that raise probing questions about what, exactly, is going on in the larger world of this woodland hamlet. Some might suggest that Animal Crossing is its own answer, an adorable, absurdist experience that exists purely to delight. If you prefer this reading, feel free to exit now. But for those willing to go down the rabbit hole, a closer examination of the series — and, particularly, the recent Pocket Camp mobile game — reveals something much more unsettling: a dark mirror that inadvertently reflects some of the most ruthless and dehumanizing elements of modern society, and how they can degrade our social and ethical bonds.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:47 AM PST - 26 comments

You give me fever

Why is this the worst flu season in years? Inspired by many questions on the green about the flu this year. Should I get the flu shot? Is it a cold or the flu? How can I keep myself and others safe from spreading the flu? I'm worried about side effects, should I be? [more inside]
posted by Toddles at 9:21 AM PST - 54 comments

Obama Presidential Portraits unveiled

The official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama have just been unveiled at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. [more inside]
posted by PussKillian at 8:34 AM PST - 124 comments

wheee!What Was Your Favorite Moment Of This Week’s 20,000 Point Journey

What Was Your Favorite Moment Of This Week’s 20,000 Point Journey Of The Dow? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:04 AM PST - 49 comments

Its entire corpus consists of two dozen texts

Of all the literatures in the world, the smallest and most enigmatic belongs without question to the people of Easter Island. It is written in a script—rongorongo—that no one can decipher. Experts cannot even agree whether it is an alphabet, a syllabary, a mnemonic, or a rebus. Its entire corpus consists of two dozen texts.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:59 AM PST - 10 comments

Not So Fast, Not Cheap, Not Easy

USAF's Controversial New Plan To Retire B-2 And B-1 Bombers Early Is A Good OneThe flying service is making the right sacrifices to ensure the B-21 Raider gets fielded in large numbers while making the B-52 all it can be. (More at Air Force Magazine.)
posted by cenoxo at 7:30 AM PST - 41 comments

Why Do We Need to Sleep?

Biologists call this need “sleep pressure”: Stay up too late, build up sleep pressure. Feeling drowsy in the evenings? Of course you are—by being awake all day, you’ve been generating sleep pressure! But like “dark matter,” this is a name for something whose nature we do not yet understand. The more time you spend thinking about sleep pressure, the more it seems like a riddle game out of Tolkien: What builds up over the course of wakefulness, and disperses during sleep? Is it a timer? A molecule that accrues every day and needs to be flushed away? What is this metaphorical tally of hours, locked in some chamber of the brain, waiting to be wiped clean every night? [slAtlantic]
posted by ellieBOA at 4:33 AM PST - 81 comments

Writing family stories

'A stab at truth': my grandmother and the problem with family histories. Aida Edemariam on writing her grandmother's story through a century of Ethiopian history.
posted by tavegyl at 1:44 AM PST - 5 comments

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