MetaFilter

Terrible, awful, no good really bad heavy metal album covers from all over the world. Many more at Assorted Thoughts From An Unsorted Mind.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:48 PM PST - 48 comments

Caroline Herschel never expected to be an astronomer. Her oboeist father indulged her voracious mind, but her strict mother restricted her to housework. In 1772, she followed her beloved organist brother William to England to escape the drudgery and become a concert singer. Before long, she found herself assisting in his astronomical endeavors -- first providing his food, then polishing his mirrors, then doing all of his advanced math, despite having never been educated in the times tables as a girl. In 1781, William discovered Uranus, and in 1782 began earning a salary from George III. In 1783, Caroline made her first independent discovery (M110). In 1787, the British Crown began paying her £50/year for her work, making her the first woman scientist to ever earn a salary for scientific work. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:36 PM PST - 14 comments

At his death in 1988, Luis Barragán, the Pritzker laureate Mexican architect of poetic modernist reknown, left his house and library to an architect friend, and his voluminous professional archive to his business associate. This archive eventually found its way to a New York gallerist, from whom it was bought in 1998 and shipped to Basel by a wealthy Swiss businessman for his fiancé - and has been inaccessible ever since. When conceptual artist Jill Magid (previously) heard of the archive's predicament in 2013, she devised her project The Barragán Archives, whose final chapter might bring about a resoluton: in a pact with the architect's family and the Mexican authorities, by way of a transubstantiation of ashes into a diamond, as a participant in "a gothic love story, with a copyright-and-intellectual-property-rights subplot", she would approach the guarded, private owners of Barragán's legacy with a profound, confounding offer about his body of work - she would make The Proposal. [more inside]
posted by progosk at 4:26 PM PST - 4 comments

I can’t say who’s great or who isn’t. If somebody does achieve greatness it’s only for a minute and anyone is capable of that. Greatness is beyond your control – I think you get it by chance, but it’s only for a short time.

Bob Dylan discusses Sinatra, North Minnesota, arrangements, Joan Baez, new CDs, favorites drummers, Rock and Roll, first tracks, playing piano, John Wayne and much more in a broad, fascinating, recently conducted Q&A with Bill Flanagan
posted by timshel at 2:55 PM PST - 14 comments

Probably. We're not in the guarantee business here. (via) Please note that cats in this study were tested after being deprived of food, toys, awesome scents and people for only a few hours. Further study is required to confirm any changes in categorization, motivation and general niceness after longer periods of deprivation. [more inside]
posted by maudlin at 2:27 PM PST - 46 comments

Journalist Jancee Dunn examines the inequality in her own family and does something about it. She documented it for everyone. Dunn, mostly known for her work in Rolling Stone, has a new book How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids. This is a "self-help" book, but better because it is funny and well-researched. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 1:30 PM PST - 45 comments

Here's a smattering of musical Seuss from the Seventies: The Hoober-Bloob Highway, an original story about a baby in space being given the option to pick their future, which picked up some elements from Seuss's books, and Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?, another original story about a young fellow and his magical piano, with songs by Joe Raposo. Bonus Dr. Seuss short: "Я жду птенца" (I'm waiting for a chick), a stop-motion Russian animation interpretation of Horton Hatches the Egg from 1966. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:26 PM PST - 8 comments

So you wanna learn to play the drums? Need some inspiration? Here some sessions from Swedish educational broadcaster UR’s drum school TRUM, featuring Morgan Ågren and friends, for you to play along with. How about starting with some jazz fusion? There’s also jazz funk, experimental metal, blues rock, and more experimental stuff. Grab your sticks and have a go! [more inside]
posted by effbot at 11:45 AM PST - 10 comments

Venezuala, Brazil, property transfer Venezuela has a serious food shortage, but electricity is subsidized. People are mining bitcoins because it's worthwhile to use bitcoins to buy food across the border. Bitcoin is a way for Brazillians to get around currency controls and tarriffs. It's possible that blockchains will be useful to make property transfer easier and cheaper-- even in the US, proving ownership can be complicated for real estate and cars.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:26 AM PST - 22 comments

Pretor-Pinney described the formations as “localized waves in the cloud base, either smooth or dappled with smaller features, sometimes descending into sharp points, as if viewing a roughened sea surface from below. Varying levels of illumination and thickness of cloud can lead to dramatic visual effects.” Asperitas clouds tend to be low-lying, and are caused by weather fronts that create undulating waves in the atmosphere.
posted by curious nu at 8:15 AM PST - 16 comments

My life with Oliver Sacks: ‘He was the most unusual person I had ever known’
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:18 AM PST - 20 comments