August 11, 2015

The Sci-Fi Corridor Archive

Screenshots of corridors from SF movies. [more inside]
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:17 PM PST - 35 comments

Cgate

Hillary Clinton instructed aides today to give the Justice Department computer equipment that had been used as a private email server while she was Secretary of State. Earlier in the day, the Inspector General for Intelligence stated that two of the 30,000 "work-related" emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department in December were now considered Top Secret (a larger number were earlier deemed to be Classified at a lower level). [more inside]
posted by pjenks at 9:10 PM PST - 225 comments

Why should women be punished? But what the hell can we do?

Kiran Gandhi has attracted a certain amount of attention for running the London Marathon while menstruating without using a tampon, pad or otherwise "cleaning up" her period. Meanwhile, in Nepal, menstruation is dirty, and a menstruating girl is a powerful, polluting thing. A thing to be feared and shunned. [more inside]
posted by Athanassiel at 8:57 PM PST - 129 comments

Accumulating Stitch by Stitch

Nina Paley Animates the Passover song Chad Gadya In one of the most labor intensive feat taking a year and a half, Nina Paley animates Chad Gadya on matzoh covers. She calls the process "embrodermation" Her work had been featured on the site previously and 1, 2
posted by 27kjmm at 8:21 PM PST - 11 comments

Benjamin Shine - Tulle Works

Benjamin Shine is a fashion designer and fabric artist, who has done some fantastic three dimensional works created in tulle. He talks about and demonstrates his process with an iron and thread in this video.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:05 PM PST - 3 comments

"The changes we make to existing pages are rarely challenged.”

Is it really a concern that some high-level decision maker at Medicare or a hospital system might be making billion-dollar decisions based on information from Wikipedia? “Yes,” Heilman insisted. “Definitely.”
Even minor changes in wording have the potential to influence ... how millions of dollars are spent. How can a site run by volunteers inoculate itself against well-funded PR efforts?
In The Atlantic.
posted by grobstein at 7:39 PM PST - 11 comments

Lessig Running for "Referendum" President

Lawrence Lessig is (probably) running for President of the United States. But he only wants to be President long enough to pass the Citizen Equality Act, which includes publicly funded elections, an end to gerrymandering, online voter registration, and making election day a national holiday. After that, he'll resign. [more inside]
posted by scottreynen at 6:08 PM PST - 102 comments

JK Rowling: "[he] has sat in a darkened room and been witty on paper..."

"He probably finds himself the most attractive person that you could possibly meet." James O'Briend, friend of Morrissey, in the documentary, The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003) [SLYT]. From the video details: "UK TV Documentary Narrated by Christopher Eccleston, With contributions from Johnny Marr, Alan Bennett, Kathy Burke, Noel Gallagher, Nancy Sinatra, Linder & others."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:59 PM PST - 12 comments

Oracle's CSO praises Free Software

Oracle's CSO wrote a (now deleted) blog post arguing against reverse engineering in which she mocked security researchers, compared them to cheating spouses, accused them of wasting her time, discounted bug-bounty programs, refused to credit vulnerability reporters, and promoted her sister's murder-mystery books. The reaction from the security community was unanimously opposed (1, 2, 3, ...) and some are looking on the lighter side by writing Oracle Fan Fiction.
posted by autopilot at 4:30 PM PST - 50 comments

Cosmic Call

“In 1999, two Canadian astrophysicists, Stéphane Dumas and Yvan Dutil, composed and sent a message into space. The message was composed of twenty-three pages of bitmapped data, and was sent from the RT-70 radio telescope in Yevpatoria, Ukraine, as part of a set of messages called Cosmic Call.” [more inside]
posted by mbrubeck at 4:16 PM PST - 20 comments

10 truths about Europe’s migrant crisis

When you’re facing the world’s biggest refugee crisis since the second world war, it helps to have a sober debate about how to respond.
posted by standardasparagus at 3:26 PM PST - 37 comments

U2 Talk 2 U

In the midst of their five night engagement at Madison Square Garden, members of U2 took a bit of time off from their usual gig. First, Adam Clayton and the Edge made a surprise appearance at the 20th anniversary party of fansite @U2, joining a tribute band onstage to play a couple of songs. Then, the entire band sat down with the Scotts for the U Talkin' U2 To Me? episode years in the making, including multiple I Love Films segments and the band finally giving the Scotts some swag. (Still no t-shirts.)
posted by kmz at 2:31 PM PST - 26 comments

A Time-Honored Tradition

Draw Where You Think Your [NYC] Neighborhood Borders Are on This Map
posted by griphus at 2:27 PM PST - 39 comments

The Curb-Cut Effect

You probably haven't thought about curb cuts recently, but you've almost certainly used one. Curb cuts were originally introduced to benefit mobility impaired people in wheelchairs, but they're used by nearly everyone. This is an example of the curb cut effect: accommodations are often initially developed for disabled people but prove to make everyone's lives a little easier. The philosophy of inclusive design incorporates building accommodation for disabilities into products and architecture as a way to improve the product for everyone who might use it.
posted by sciatrix at 2:15 PM PST - 60 comments

The Philosopher of Surveillance

When intelligence officials justify surveillance, they tend to use the stilted language of national security, and we typically hear only from senior officials who stick to their platitudes. It is rare for mid-level experts — the ones conducting the actual surveillance — to frankly explain what they do and why. And in this case, the candid confessions come from the NSA’s own surveillance philosopher. The columns answer a sociological curiosity: How does working at an intelligence agency turn a privacy hawk into a prophet of eavesdropping?
What Happens When a Failed Writer Becomes a Loyal Spy? Peter Maass for The Intercept
posted by p3on at 11:56 AM PST - 28 comments

New Pentagons

Mathematicians discover a new type of pentagon that can cover the plane leaving no gaps and with no overlaps. It becomes only the 15th type of pentagon known that can do this, and the first discovered in 30 years. [more inside]
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:50 AM PST - 53 comments

Canids will be canids

Two foxes come across dog's ball. Adorableness and frivolity ensue. slyt
posted by Existential Dread at 11:44 AM PST - 32 comments

The perils of the 'de Blasio feature'

"Leading technology companies are increasingly soliciting their users to take political action on their behalf to defend controversial business models from regulation, support new programs, and promote their moral values in active political battles." Matt Stempeck explores the implications [alt link] of Uber and Facebook (among others) turning their users into lobbyists for the companies.
posted by librarylis at 11:22 AM PST - 25 comments

Trigger Warnings and Respect in the Classroom

An teacher's experience orchestrating student led trigger warnings in adult basic education. Story #1 Story #2
posted by klausman at 10:26 AM PST - 143 comments

Graceful Sunset Mix

“For any service that interoperates with content on the open web, yes, we think this is going to get more common, for the next little while anyway. Trends tend to be cyclical. We can all see where the current one is going, but it’s hard to say what the next swing of the pendulum might look like.” - Popular (at least on Metafilter) Music Discovery and Microblogging service This Is My Jam is shutting down, without screwing its users, but with some dire predictions about the open web.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:07 AM PST - 21 comments

"Re-Compositions, Not Covers"

Sam Amidon is a fiddler, guitarist, banjoist, and songwriter who writes and performs distinctly American music. [more inside]
posted by rossination at 8:48 AM PST - 10 comments

Paper people not included.

A growing paper city, models by Charles Young. [via] [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 7:57 AM PST - 6 comments

Don't forget yourself

Unfinished Letters From the Most Popular Kid in the Psych Ward (TW: mentions of sexual assault, profound mental illness events). , an article by woman of colour, poet, sometime interviewer, and activist Casey Rocheteau. Her blog is well worth reading, too. In 2014, she became the first recipient of the Write a House writer's residency in Detroit.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:51 AM PST - 12 comments

"Live the healthiest life that you can enjoy - [...] do your best."

Yoni Freedhoff is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa and the founder of the Bariatric Medical Institute which is a multi-disciplinary, ethical, evidence-based nutrition and weight management centre. Dr. Freedhoff has been referred to as Canada's most outspoken obesity expert and the Canadian Medical Association Journal once dubbed him a Canadian "nutritional watchdog". In other words, he's a respected professional - and he's using that power for good. [more inside]
posted by VioletU at 7:12 AM PST - 73 comments

Startups Vie to Build an Uber for Health Care

"House calls, which accounted for 40% of all doctor visits in 1930, dwindled to less than 1% by 1980 as physicians found it far more efficient to see 20 or 30 patients a day in an office than just a handful in their homes. But in-home care is starting to be seen as cost-efficient again—particularly for the most expensive patients." [SLWSJ]
posted by Jacqueline at 6:34 AM PST - 41 comments

“Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?”

Visiting Tokyo Snake Center: A 'Snake Cafe' in Jingumae, Shibuya Ward [YouTube]
Who needs a cafe full of cute kittens or fluffy owls when you can unwind and enjoy a refreshing beverage in the company of …SNAKES! A new snake-themed cafe has just opened up in Tokyo that makes such beautiful dreams possible. For a mere 1000 yen, patrons can enjoy a spot of orange juice and a sit-down with a non-venomous viper. [via: Crunchyroll]
Official Site: Tokyo Snake Center
posted by Fizz at 6:02 AM PST - 63 comments

ROTFLMAO

According to an analysis of Facebook posts, using "LOL" as a way to express laughter... is dead. (at least on Facebook)
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:18 AM PST - 111 comments

I made this!

The stories behind TV production company closing logos
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:03 AM PST - 30 comments

A how not to guide for special collection librarians

So you're an university or research institute with a special collections library full of interesting books and other cool stuff and you're pressured to get down with the kids in social media but don't want to? Sarah Werner has you covered: How to Destroy Special Collections with Social Media.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:41 AM PST - 33 comments

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