August 2, 2017

"We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs"

From Teen Vogue: "There’s no prescriptive or proscriptive step-by-step rulebook to follow, nobody’s coming to take GIFs away. But no digital behavior exists in a deracialized vacuum." [more inside]
posted by Charity Garfein at 9:18 PM PST - 74 comments

The Kid Who Didn't Die at Riverfront Stadium

On April 22, 1981, an Ohio teenager named Randy Kobman almost fell to his death at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium when he flipped over a railing trying to catch a foul ball. Deadspin's Dave McKenna tracked him down recently to get the story of what happened on that day and what he's been up to since his amazing avoidance of death.
posted by goatdog at 7:06 PM PST - 25 comments

Moral Quandry

Would you kill a random person for a million dollars? Made by comedy troupe Picnic Face, creaters of Infomercial Voice . Based on a 1985 Twilight Zone episode, (which was also made into a film with Frank Langella). Through a Pictures for Sad Children panel by John Campbell, which was found on mltshp
posted by growabrain at 6:39 PM PST - 44 comments

Resistance Rising

The 2017 Democratic Socialists of America convention will be held this weekend from August 3-6 at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Over the past year, membership in the DSA has quadrupled to make it the largest socialist organization in America with 25,000 due-paying members. Of course, there's a lot at stake. [more inside]
posted by R.F.Simpson at 6:16 PM PST - 188 comments

‘The whole experience was horrifying,’

Cable giants step up piracy battle by interrogating Montreal software developer and searching his home: According to court documents, the group stayed for 16 hours and the plaintiffs' lawyer and independent counsel interrogated Lackman for more than nine hours. He was given a break for dinner and to speak to his lawyer, who was present. Lackman was "not permitted to refuse to answer questions" and his lawyer wasn't permitted to counsel him in his answers. "Any time I would question the process, they would threaten me with contempt of court proceedings," says Lackman.
posted by crazy with stars at 5:51 PM PST - 12 comments

"1000 crickets for thirty bucks. I think that's a pretty good deal."

Guy feeds a whole box of crickets to a bunch of different reptiles. (SLYT, NSFC)
posted by loquacious at 5:20 PM PST - 28 comments

The World's Greatest Car

"You can tell by the way it responds. You just feel the lightness immediately. It’s a joy to drive, a very honest car. Sitting in the middle isn’t disorienting, and the only thing that’s complicated is paying tolls in a foreign country. When you have half of Italy behind you, standing on their horn, when you’re trying to figure out how to get the toll in the damn booth." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:51 PM PST - 53 comments

“It's like a mini car wash for books, minus the water!”

This Machine Helps Libraries Clean Books With Ease. [Popular Mechanics] “Libraries have been early tech adopters for decades now, with public internet and digital lending a staple for many municipalities. These innovations, while useful, look past the library's books. No more. Meet the Depulvera, seen here at the Boston Public Library [@BPLBoston]. From a company called Oracle, the Depulvera can handle twelve books a minute, fed by a human librarian. The company calls it a "complete automatic book cleaning system realized to remove dust from books." It's completely portable, which means you could even use it in your tiny shed library in the woods. You can watch a surprisingly dramatic promotional video for the product.
posted by Fizz at 4:26 PM PST - 11 comments

RIP Whittaker the Turkey

As 2016 gave way to 2017, a turkey moved into the left turn lane of a major intersection in my hometown. Some say he arrived in January of this year; others are sure he was around in late 2016. But regardless, once he was there, he was there to stay. (SL The Atlantic)
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:49 PM PST - 10 comments

Don't smell the food

Dietary restriction has been shown to extend lifespan in a number of species. But scientists have learned that there's one caveat: Smelling the food you're eating reduces the effect, at least if you're a fly. Using a worm model, they've now found a pathway by which smelling induces the insulin-like growth factor pathway that's involved in aging.
posted by clawsoon at 3:37 PM PST - 25 comments

Architectural Photography as a Construct

These pictures by David Cardelus may be the finest architectural photographs I've ever seen, and they're beautifully presented. And, as an added bonus is a link to a specific piece of architecture, a facade by the Catalan architectect jeroni Granell, which has been preserved even though the house behind is totally rebuilt. 75 Padua St. Barcelona.
posted by MovableBookLady at 3:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Swing Dancers vs. Street Dancers

Vintage and Modern Street Dancers battle it out to their own and each others' music, creating an awesome mix of styles. Part One has the first dances from each group, Part Two has the finale and -- starting at 7:00 -- the crossover section. Vintage street dancers represented vernacular jazz dances like 20s Charleston, the Lindy Hop, St Louis Shag, Tap, Balboa, Solo Jazz and Airsteps, and Modern Street Dancers represent locking, popping, waacking, break, krump, house and hip hop. [more inside]
posted by metaBugs at 3:20 PM PST - 4 comments

“We have a fire station that no one wants to operate.”

"The Rise and Fall of the "Freest Little City in Texas." The town of Von Ormy, TX (pop 1,500) incorporated in 2008 as a an experiment in libertarian city management, relying largely on volunteers for their police, fire, water treatment, and animal control departments, while completely phasing out property taxes. [more inside]
posted by joechip at 3:17 PM PST - 51 comments

What would you do if you found a bunch of old dinosaur bones?

Would you write a song about it? [more inside]
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 2:34 PM PST - 2 comments

Ijeoma Oluo's #Crackerbarrelgate

Ijeoma Oluo (previously and previouslier) writes on Medium about Facebook and Twitter's corporate responses to online abuse she has received on those services in response to her apprehension in visiting Cracker Barrel, an establishment that has already had a rocky past regarding diversity. [more inside]
posted by subversiveasset at 2:07 PM PST - 20 comments

Of Course Abortion Should Be a Litmus Test for Democrats

Abortion is not a fringe issue. Abortion is liberty. (SL NYT)
posted by stillmoving at 11:47 AM PST - 166 comments

Mountains of Mordor, Pyroclastic Flows of Valyria

Geologist and science fiction writer Alex Acks has some problems with the geology of the mountains of Middle Earth, but less of an issue about Tatooine-like desert worlds, and also gleans insights on what the map of Panem of the Hunger Games tells us about global warming. Meanwhile, geologist Miles Traer has exhaustively developed the geography of Game of Thrones, including a fascinating description of geologic causes of the the Doom of Valyria. If you aren't a geologist but want to build a world, you can follow geologic rules when building your own worlds or simulate your own plate tectonics and create a planet from scratch.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:20 AM PST - 37 comments

WE'RE GONNA FIX 'EM ALL!

Vet Ranch is a YouTube Channel created by Dr. Matt Carriker in 2014. Our goal is to spread awareness of the many homeless animals in need of medical attention. It all started when he received an after hours call to euthanize a stray dog that had been hit by a car. After picking up the dying pup from a dark road and taking it to the clinic, Dr. Matt saw a glimmer of life in her eyes and made the decision to try to save her rather than euthanizing. He pulled out his trusty iphone and began to film the process of bringing the sweet black lab back to life [graphic injuries].
[more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:43 AM PST - 13 comments

"It was like Yelp for prostitution."

In January 2016, a Seattle, WA-area, wide-ranging investigation resulted in the shutdown of two sex-trafficking websites, the shuttering of 12 brothels and the initial arrest of about a dozen people. More than two dozen would eventually be arrested. The brothels were operated out of high-end apartment complexes in Bellevue, where prostituted women from South Korea were forced to work -- often for 12 hours a day, seven days a week -- to pay off debts. A Seattle Times report: Busted: How the police brought down the tech-savvy prostitution network. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:41 AM PST - 17 comments

They're All Good Employees, Brent

Like most businesses, New Jersey's Josephson Hardwood Floors - a floor refinishing service - has a Facebook page. The owner likes to do a little something fun alongside the usual business posts, though - he takes pictures of the pets at each of the houses where he works and posts them to the site as "Our Employees Of The Week". [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:14 AM PST - 17 comments

A Field in Which the Old Devours the Young is a Field that is Dying

Alison Harbin shares her three part story about how and why she came to leave academia: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 [more inside]
posted by PussKillian at 8:09 AM PST - 69 comments

You Can’t Sue People for Being Mean to You, Bob

ACLU brief on behalf of John Oliver The ACLU finally gets to enjoy itself.
posted by blurker at 7:50 AM PST - 56 comments

"That’s your problem buddy, think about it, grow."

Aly Stosz is a designer and event planner who also happens to be 6'9" tall. Her older but smaller sister Amanda interviewed her for Got A Girl Crush.
posted by Etrigan at 6:26 AM PST - 18 comments

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