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The Only Living Boy in New York [more inside]
posted by noiseanoise at 11:36 PM PST - 36 comments

Dr. Hassan Diab is the prime (and only) suspect in a crime he did not commit. His fingerprints, palm prints, and physical description do not match those in the police files. The handwriting analysis, presented as evidence against him during his extradition from Canada, in fact now establishes his innocence. Judges decided eight times that Dr. Diab should be released on bail from the French prison, only to overruled by the Prosecutor. Official documents and witness statements show that he was not even in the France at the time of the 1980 attack. Amnesty International Canada has called Dr. Diab’s experience with the Canadian extradition and French justice systems Kafkaesque, cruel and nightmarish. [more inside]
posted by thisclickableme at 4:06 PM PST - 14 comments

Code Name: Höga [Archive] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:32 PM PST - 16 comments

Project Starline is Google's latest and greatest prototype of the future of videoconferencing. How good is it? "Call it hyper-telepresence. Call it whatever you want. Either way, it’s pretty wild."
posted by storybored at 2:18 PM PST - 60 comments

A genre of “feminist” filmmaking conflates suffering and empowerment.
posted by sapagan at 1:54 PM PST - 15 comments

GalaxyKate has a very nice long blog post on different approaches to generative content, ranging from distributions to grammars to constraint solving. She also developed Tracery, a grammar-based generative text tool, which has a nice web demo and a how-to guide for integrating with video games, and is apparently also useful for making Twitter bots.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:09 PM PST - 7 comments

The threat narrative was a brilliant bit of framing, turning a story of poltergeist hunters battling a cabal of demon-believers into a national security issue. [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 12:23 PM PST - 54 comments

Passengers on board a Ryanair flight that was suddenly diverted as it began its descent into Vilnius, Lithuania, have described their panic as they changed course with no explanation. Flight FR4978 was bound for Lithuania from Greece when it was forced to switch direction for the Belarusian capital Minsk on Sunday so the authorities there could arrest dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, 26. Belarus used a fighter jet to force the plane - bound for Lithuania - to land, claiming a bomb threat. Police took Roman Protasevich away when passengers disembarked. [more inside]
posted by M. at 10:38 AM PST - 75 comments

Making Sense of the Great Whip Spider Boom "She [Hebets] couldn’t stop looking at the creature’s front legs. These are the whips that give whip spiders their name — elongated, antenna-like — and they were sweeping around in all directions, as if piecing together a picture of the world. Even now, over 20 years later, she isn’t sure how to describe the grace of that movement. It was like a blade of grass fluttering in the wind, if a blade of grass were purposeful. It was like an octopus tentacle. “I just immediately fell in love,” she said."
posted by dhruva at 8:36 AM PST - 14 comments

A farmer from Crawford County with a family history of winning as a Democrat in rural Western Iowa announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Chuck Grassley today. Dave Muhlbauer, a recent county supervisor and fifth-generation family farmer, kicked off his bid with a video that sought to redefine to Iowa voters what a rural Democrat looks like.
posted by Bella Donna at 7:37 AM PST - 40 comments