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If a book like Beloved by Toni Morrison is challenged because it is “sexually explicit” and has a “religious viewpoint” and contains “violence” (these are the stated reasons for its challenges in 2012), is it simply accidental that Beloved is also a novel about an African American woman, written by an African American woman?

"I wondered if there was a correlation between books with diverse content — that is, books by and about people of color, LGBT people, and/or disabled people — and book challenges".
posted by MartinWisse at 10:30 PM PST - 27 comments

Eating Junk Food at the Gym (SLYT)
posted by andoatnp at 9:46 PM PST - 9 comments

Zac's Haunted House, the latest by Dennis Cooper, is a free HTML horror novel consisting entirely of animated GIFs. Notre Dame English professor Joyelle McSweeney discusses the book with Mr. Cooper.
posted by Rykey at 9:23 PM PST - 9 comments

Study reveals Unhappiest (and Happiest) Cities in the U.S. “Our research indicates that people care about more than happiness alone, so other factors may encourage them to stay in a city despite their unhappiness,” says Gottlieb. “This means that researchers and policy-makers should not consider an increase in reported happiness as an overriding objective.” [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:45 PM PST - 52 comments

Have you ever thought your life would be better if it included a giant, realistic felted cat head mask? If so, you would be correct.
posted by jeather at 8:27 PM PST - 35 comments

Sailors and Daughters reveals the expansive maritime societies of Zanzibar, the east African coast, and beyond. From the 1840s, cameras traced the international migrations of traders, sailors, sons, and daughters through Indian Ocean ports, continuing trade that dates back over five millennia.
posted by bardophile at 7:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Fruits of the Web is a blog that takes the often clunky and goofy world of scientific modeling out of context, reveling in the surreal effects of block men ironing, masks of points, and skeletons shoveling. Thankfully, they also tend to post source articles and videos so you can find out just why someone would make something like that. They also post other web ephemera, like strange Easter gifs and whatnot. Overall, just a nice little cornucopia of oddities. Occasionally slightly not work safe.
posted by codacorolla at 7:06 PM PST - 11 comments

The Butterfly Child is a short documentary about Jonathan Pitre, a fourteen year old with Epidermolysis Bullosa, a rare skin disorder (NSFW).
posted by Lutoslawski at 5:31 PM PST - 23 comments

A Field Guide to the American Sandwich, with introduction. Both by Sam Sifton. Possibly related to yesterday's ode to the BEC and last week's roast beef tutorial (all NYT).
posted by xowie at 2:19 PM PST - 114 comments

IEEE Spectrum has published a "Special Report: 50 Years of Moore's Law," with a selection of a dozen short articles looking back at Moore's original formulation of the law, how it has developed over time, and prospects for the law continuing. Here are some highlights.
posted by infini at 1:17 PM PST - 34 comments

Graphic artists depict the golden ratio – in pictures [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 12:59 PM PST - 28 comments

Having trouble finding the right condo? Moving from colleting art to collecting passports? Feeling left behind in yacht purchases? Or are you having to budget your 500k a year? (previously) Or worried about pied-a-terre owners changing your neighborhood?
Or maybe the Times coverage of the super-rich is alienating millennials. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:42 PM PST - 94 comments

'F*cking Young' by Tyler, The Creator [YouTube] [Contains NSFW Lyrics] Rapper Tyler, The Creator, a member of LA hip-hop collective Odd Future alongside Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt, has unveiled a video from his newly-released album Cherry Bomb. Full stream available via Spotify.
posted by Fizz at 12:36 PM PST - 9 comments

So, the apocalypse happens, in whatever flavor you prefer, and eventually our descendants (or the cockroaches') are poised to inherit the earth. Lucky for them, we've left a nice cache of information for them (previously on the Blue) so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel or Pokemon or whatever. Question is, will they be able to do that--or, rather, how difficult would it be to do that--if we use up all the fossil fuels first? [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:10 PM PST - 25 comments

Herb Trimpe, long time artist on The Incredible Hulk, died yesterday at the age of 75. In addition to his seven year run on the Hulk, Trimpe drew the first issues of Marvel's G.I. Joe comic and was the artist on the first appearance of Wolverine. Trimpe attended the School of Visual Arts and began his career inking backgrounds for Dell Comics. After serving in the United State Air Force, Trimpe began his long career with Marvel Comics in 1967 making his debut in Kid Colt Outlaw #134. He penciled The Incredible Hulk in a nearly unbroken run from 1968 - 1972. In May 2014, the original art page by Trimpe featuring the first appearance of Wolverine sold for a record $657,250.00.
posted by marxchivist at 11:51 AM PST - 18 comments

Mars might have liquid water, according to new findings We know Mars has water, and we also know that Mars once had liquid water (a whole ocean, in fact) but now it seems we may have evidence of liquid water today. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 10:53 AM PST - 22 comments

An empirical study by Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci at Cornell University found that when using identical qualifications, but changing the sex of the applicant, "women candidates are favored 2 to 1 over men for tenure-track positions in the science, technology, engineering and math fields." [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 10:47 AM PST - 67 comments

How would you fare in a room full of adolescent math competitors in Singapore? [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:32 AM PST - 76 comments

Tableflip Dot Club: 2015's coolest club is for all those women in tech who had feelings about Ellen Pao & more.
posted by dame at 10:02 AM PST - 57 comments

"If his name was John Brown, he would have been in jail," one criminal justice official with knowledge of the case said. "If a woman says, 'He's the guy that raped me,' and you have corroborating evidence to show they were together and she went to the hospital and she can identify him, that guy goes to jail."

Last week, ProPublica and the New Orleans Advocate published the results of their months-long joint investigation outlining how law enforcement officers in five states repeatedly (and sometimes deliberately) failed to apprehend former NFL star Darren Sharper as he traveled cross-country drugging and raping women: Upon Further Review.

[cw: rape, sexual assault, violent misogyny, law enforcement collusion to cover up same] [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 9:59 AM PST - 24 comments

The Washington Post reports what the rich and poor actually spend their money on, and where [more inside]
posted by ourt at 9:47 AM PST - 52 comments

Soul legend Percy Sledge has passed away at his home in Baton Rouge. Best known for "When a Man Loves a Woman," Sledge started out as a nurse, booking gigs when he could on weekends. Thanks to hits like "Warm and Tender Love," "It Tears Me Up," and "Take Time to Know Her", and "I'll Be Your Everything", Sledge would eventually leave his job at the hospital and go on to enjoy a career that spanned six decades. He was 73.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:42 AM PST - 23 comments

Hans Kühner, of G. Henle Verlag, a publisher of classical music urtexts, hypnotically engraves a sheet of Liszt the old-fashioned way.
posted by theodolite at 9:41 AM PST - 18 comments

In [Anatoly Fomenko's New Chronology] , the events of the New Testament precede those of the Old Testament—and in any case, most of the stories are concocted to reflect later incidents. Joan of Arc was a model for the biblical character Deborah. Jesus Christ was crucified in Constantinople in 1086. Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece were fashioned by Renaissance writers and artists (the time of the Pharoahs, Fomenko suggests, may have lasted into the 1700s). Aristotle instructed Alexander the Great, who was a tsar, in Moscow in the 1400s.

Is Ancient History Completely Made Up By 'The Man'? (Previously)
posted by griphus at 7:42 AM PST - 111 comments

Meet the Stanley Cup
posted by almostmanda at 7:41 AM PST - 62 comments

Did you know that wombats poop in cube shape? It's true. But why? And...how? Here's an explanation, complete with a wombat digestive tract model and jello poops. [more inside]
posted by phunniemee at 6:52 AM PST - 31 comments

David Clear constructs a map of the virtual space of the Intellivision classic Auto Racing, which features each track beside the other. It's part of the Intellivision Flashback game set.
posted by juiceCake at 6:31 AM PST - 12 comments

At first, they tried to provoke the cougar by poking it with a long prod but all they managed to do was to lose the GoPro camera attached to the prod which at one point fell off. Mountain lion hiding under L.A. home can’t be forced out.
posted by hippybear at 3:04 AM PST - 72 comments

"The Corn Flakes trade-off - in which nutrition is sacrificed for convenience, portability, and profitability - is a metonym for food production during the last century." The weird, wonderful story behind Corn Flakes.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 1:51 AM PST - 36 comments