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Yo La Tengo are once again playing requests for pledges beginning at 3pm US EDT TODAY (Sat March 18) on WFMU. Every year, Yo La Tengo perform requests live on-air in exchange for pledges, to help keep freeform noncommercial radio station WFMU (91.1 FM in Jersey City, NJ) on the air. This year is no exception. They will begin playing at 3pm US EDT today, and will be playing listener requests for several more hours.
posted by trashflow at 10:48 PM PST - 35 comments

Ignore the Snobs, Drink the Cheap, Delicious Wine. "...This technological revolution has democratized decent wine. Thanks to pumps and powders, drinkers who can’t splurge no longer have to settle for plonk. The gap between fine wine and commercial wine is shrinking as producers use chemical shortcuts not only to avoid blatant flaws, but also to mimic high-end bottles. They can replicate the effects of oak for a fraction of the price of real barrels, correct for inferior climates and keep quality high in crummy vintages." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 5:06 PM PST - 122 comments

Dancing woodcocks: Walk like an Egyptian — Milkshake — Smooth Criminal — What is Love — Shine. And one jack snipe: Rubber Ball
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 4:24 PM PST - 15 comments

What do you get if you compare the culture of 2007 to 2017? The GIGABORE is an interesting (if bare bones) attempt to compare a decade of cultural change which identifies both the strengths and weaknesses of the last 10 years of culture.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 3:29 PM PST - 35 comments

Sino-Futurism (SLVimeo) [more inside]
posted by R.F.Simpson at 2:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Educational Attainment in America. Kyle Walker used US Census data, OpenStreetMap, and some programming to produce the visualization. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 2:32 PM PST - 28 comments

"She started her first book off “It was a gloriously sunny day and the call from Carson Advertising came at nine-fifteen.” She’s never looked back. Nearly half her of introductions involve weather—mostly benign, positive weather (“perfect deliciously warm Saturday afternoons,” “perfect balmy May evening”, “absolutely perfect June day,” or simply: “The weather was magnificent.”)," from Danielle Steel Loves the Weather and Elmore Leonard Hates Exclamation Points: Literature by the Numbers, excerpts from Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve: And Other Experiments in Literature by Ben Blatt.
posted by palindromic at 1:55 PM PST - 7 comments

Snapchat isn't just for human animals, y'all. Here are 26 snapchats from your dog. Here are many, many more. If your tastes are a bit a lot more twee, here are 15 dogs on Snapchat that you need to add now. (animal snapchats previously.) BONUS: Shiba Singception [howling howling howling howling howling].

What? Okay fine, whatever, here are some cats.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:34 PM PST - 8 comments

Around the same time Jane Jacobs was going toe-to-toe with Robert Moses in New York, Dana Crawford was fighting to preserve a historic part of downtown Denver, Larimer Square, from the "clean slate" style of "urban renewal" that was popular in the 1960's. How Dana Crawford’s heart saved the soul of Denver. "I’m attracted to beautiful places, and, a lot of times, they happen to be places that have been ignored. When I go around the country on consulting jobs and I get to the towns, I always say, ‘Take me to your pigeons and your pensioners,’ and then I find the beautiful buildings." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:45 AM PST - 9 comments

From the team that brought you March Sadness (previously), March Fadness "features one-hit wonders of the 1990s pitted against each other in ridiculous and possibly pointless games, all in search of understanding the 1990s and its culture as well as the uses and failures of memory." [more inside]
posted by carrienation at 11:32 AM PST - 56 comments

Derek Walcott, Poet and Nobel Laureate of the Caribbean, Dies at 87 [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 10:54 AM PST - 17 comments

Everything. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:44 AM PST - 10 comments

Longreads has “Hrafnkell,” the first chapter of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, by Kory Stamper. (Previously)
posted by gladly at 10:18 AM PST - 12 comments

As any motorcycle rider knows, some of the greatest fun you can have is a nice, sedate ride along a twisted mountain road. Sports bike enthusiasts sometimes like to make that ride a little more exciting. But every now and again, you get a big boy who shows the sports bikes how to do it.
posted by hanov3r at 9:41 AM PST - 62 comments

Plungers work: After anonymous stunt, Wichita makes bike lane protection permanent
posted by aniola at 9:36 AM PST - 20 comments

How the assumption that males* are the "gold standard" has led science to ignore women, with harmful and even fatal results. [more inside]
posted by John Cohen at 9:28 AM PST - 26 comments

This Saint Patrick’s Day essay will briefly review Ireland’s anti-slavery history before focussing on the more representative and troubling issue of slave ownership among those of Irish descent. What could be more appropriate? - “Kiss me, my slave owners were Irish”
posted by Artw at 8:51 AM PST - 17 comments

Strange Beasts in Poison Cave
posted by Dim Siawns at 8:46 AM PST - 21 comments

The Search for a Black Self in the American West - Carvell Wallace, MTV News [via]
posted by Think_Long at 8:29 AM PST - 3 comments

Watch Inuit mussel gatherers in Kangiqsujuaq, Quebec descend into caves that are created under Arctic ice during low tide.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:40 AM PST - 15 comments

Paul and Carl are roommates. There's just one problem: Carl is a "dangerous psychopath with a history of violence." Also, they are llamas. Llamas with Hats. [This tastelessly funny series of animated shorts is probably NSFW.]
posted by Room 641-A at 4:49 AM PST - 21 comments

Will circular runways ever take off? (autoplay video) Maybe not. [more inside]
posted by zanni at 2:10 AM PST - 46 comments