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Arthur Heming, the Canadian painter who — having been diagnosed with colourblindness as a child — worked for most of his life in a distinctive pallete of black, yellow, and white. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:22 PM PST - 6 comments

Lorde, Flight of the Conchords, Peter Jackson and All Blacks record charity song. Just about every famous New Zealander packed into Neil Finn’s studio for Team Ball Player Thing, a fundraiser for Battens disease research.
posted by spreadsheetzu at 9:32 PM PST - 24 comments

Next Saturday the electorate of Canning, in Western Australia, will go to the polls for a by-election triggered by the death of the sitting member, Don Randall. All eyes* are on Canning because its outcome will likely determine the fate of Australia's current Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. In February, in the aftermath of an attempted leadership spill of his position and amongst flagging opinion polls, Abbott declared 'good government starts today' and pleaded with his party room to give him six more months in which to turn his position in the polls around. Canning is currently a government-held seat, sitting on a margin of 11.8%, and it seems that the metric on which Abbott will be judged is how much that margin shifts. [more inside]
posted by Quilford at 8:48 PM PST - 210 comments

The Tracks Go Off In This Direction - a 30 minute Star Wars audio visual mix by DJ Food/Strictly Kev.
posted by Artw at 7:42 PM PST - 5 comments

Uber would like to buy your robotics department Today’s early-stage inquiry — so-called basic research, the Level 1 work, where scientists are still puzzling over fundamental questions — is financed almost exclusively by the federal government. It’s too far out, too speculative, to attract much investment; it isn’t clear if anyone will make any money on it. This wasn’t always the case.
posted by modernnomad at 7:40 PM PST - 27 comments

The oldest use of the f-word has been discovered, dating the word some 165 years earlier that had ever been seen. It appeared in the name "Roger Fuckebythenavele" in court plea rolls from December 8, 1310. Fuckebythenavele was being outlawed. [more inside]
posted by gusandrews at 7:39 PM PST - 33 comments

Picture yourself as a stereotypical male "As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman."
posted by dhruva at 7:06 PM PST - 29 comments

Here's a live set by Leo Kottke, the phenomenal acoustic guitarist, who turns 70 today. [more inside]
posted by John Cohen at 5:54 PM PST - 30 comments

California Legislature Approves Assisted Suicide [New York Times]

In a landmark victory for supporters of assisted suicide, the California State Legislature on Friday gave final approval to a bill that would allow doctors to help terminally ill people end their own lives. Four states — Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont — already allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to some patients. The California bill, which passed Friday in the State Senate by a vote of 23-14, will now go to Gov. Jerry Brown, who will roughly triple access to doctor-assisted suicide across the country if he signs it. Mr. Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, has given little indication of his intentions.

posted by Fizz at 4:35 PM PST - 36 comments

You can look up property records and confirm the person you are going to meet is in fact the owner of the building, but that only proves that the name on the property record and the name on the Craigslist email you received match. So then you start searching online for photographs, to make sure the person you meet matches the photo of the person he or she claims to be [...] You’re doing all of this in about 10 minutes, by the way, because you need to be the first person to the listing after it posts.

The People You Have to Trust to Rent an Apartment
posted by griphus at 1:55 PM PST - 67 comments

'Dry Eye' Has Ruined People's Lives — And Stumped The Medical Community
Some people suffer eye pain so excruciating they feel suicidal, yet ophthalmologists see nothing wrong. Meet the 82-year-old doctor whose radical idea about the real source of this pain is turning heads.
posted by Pfardentrott at 1:29 PM PST - 42 comments

It’s important to remember that scientists present their data in ways that their fellow scientists can comprehend. Technical jargon and statistical error bars can efficiently communicate the legitimacy of a scientific breakthrough to a scientific audience. However, these same features can be both confusing and distracting when presented to a wider audience. For the public to be excited and informed about the latest scientific breakthroughs, technical data visualizations need to be transformed into engaging visual stories that a wider community can understand.
posted by sciatrix at 1:20 PM PST - 6 comments

An enemy is just a frend you don't really know yet. So the new series of Dr Who is fast approaching, here's the prologue. (Iplayer link here)
posted by biffa at 1:19 PM PST - 36 comments

Anytime fraternities come up on Metafilter a lot of people express confusion as to why anybody would join. This essay, in addition to be well written and insightful in general, does a really good job of answering that question.
posted by COD at 12:53 PM PST - 62 comments

Since 1933, the Cambridge University Library has had a pristine copy of Shi zhu zhai shu hua pu, the Ten Bamboo Studio collection of calligraphy and painting from 1633. Because the book was so fragile, the butterfly bound (Google books preview) manual for teachers of art and writing was not opened until it could be properly digitized. That day has come, and the entire book is online, giving the world a view of “the earliest and the most beautiful example of multicolor printing anywhere in the world,” according to Charles Aylmer, head of the Chinese department at Cambridge University Library. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:05 PM PST - 13 comments

The latest research on giraffe sounds... This was some fairly interesting reading. I have personally heard a giraffe make the sound described as a 'burst'. I have had a giraffe snort at me. I also have heard a sort of whiffling sound not described in this article. Take a listen.. it's pretty cool
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:07 AM PST - 19 comments

Inside the Lost 1980s Dungeon and Dragons Movie
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:37 AM PST - 76 comments

Sweden Simulator; a browser-based virtual-reality simulation of many of the common experiences of Swedish life. [more inside]
posted by acb at 10:17 AM PST - 24 comments

Test your knowledge of science facts and applications of scientific principles by taking our short 12-question quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with a nationally representative group of 3,278 randomly selected U.S. adults surveyed online and by mail between Aug. 11 and Sept. 3, 2014 as members of the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.

posted by infini at 9:41 AM PST - 163 comments

Did Thomas Pynchon publish a novel under the pseudonym Adrian Jones Pearson?
posted by holmesian at 9:40 AM PST - 40 comments

Chuck Wendig, author of the new Star Wars novel Aftermath, has told fans who have objected to his inclusion of a gay character that “You’re not the good guys ... You’re the shitty, oppressive, totalitarian Empire.” [more inside]
posted by Gin and Comics at 9:10 AM PST - 66 comments

"We should imagine instead a three-way relation of aggressor, victim, and witness" : ruminations on bullying and victimhood from David Graeber.
posted by doctornemo at 8:54 AM PST - 29 comments

Many millennials – the age group generally defined as those between 18 and 34 – don’t think much of their own generation, according to a new poll. (Guardian)

[more inside]
posted by postcommunism at 8:43 AM PST - 140 comments

"Considering the conditions at the time, we understood that the Hittites were highly successful in the kitchen as well as in other areas." In case you're tempted, though, keep in mind that their FDA agents were pretty brutal: "Underlining the hygienic measures taken in Hittite kitchens, Akkor said if a chef with a large, unmanaged beard or long, unmanaged hair cooks in the kitchen or an animal wandered into the kitchen, he or she used to receive a death penalty along with their family."
posted by Amberlyza at 8:26 AM PST - 17 comments

From NiemanStoryboard's Annotation Tuesdays, Josh Roiland annotates his ‘Literary Journalism in America’ Syllabus. NiemanStoryboard previously.
posted by OmieWise at 8:25 AM PST - 2 comments

Scholars who use the New York Public Library are boiling with frustration. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2014 the library, under pressure from a coalition that included four senior scholars, abandoned its controversial Central Library Plan, which entailed gutting the stacks at the 42nd Street Library and selling the popular Mid-Manhattan Library across the street. But the situation hasn’t turned out how many critics had hoped.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:20 AM PST - 22 comments

According this latest numbers from IFPI, while the music-buying audience in the USA is still the biggest in the world, the most valuable music fans are actually the proud people of Norway. This may be due, in large part, to the fact that since 2009 piracy in Norway has plunged by 76%.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:26 AM PST - 18 comments

Here is Justin Alexander's "Jaquaying the Dungeon," a crash course in old-school D&D adventure complex design, for all you grognards out there.

• 1.Definition - Jennell Jaquays wrote many classic RPG adventures for a variety of systems and publishers, notable for their non-linearity.
• 2.Techniques - On non-linear dungeon construction.
• 3.Philosophy - Why do non-linear dungeons matter, how to make good use of it.
• 4. Applied to Keep on the Shadowfell - Jaquaying a typical linear dungeon module.
• 5. General application - Othter ways Shadowfell could have been improved, summation.
• 6.Ways to connect dungeon levels - An appendix of ways to connect dungeon levels to each other.
• 7.Tips and Tricks - Tricky ideas to delight/annoy players.
• Justin Alexander's Gamemastery 101 is further loaded with good GMing advice.

posted by JHarris at 6:10 AM PST - 60 comments

GoPro on a weather balloon over Arizona (photo)
Reddit comment describing the student project
Video showing preparation details and more footage of the earth (stay for the slo-mo shot of the balloon bursting at high altitude) [more inside]
posted by michaelh at 4:26 AM PST - 5 comments

stories.. that expose both the depths of what was taken from them and the challenges of rebuilding the lives they once had
posted by pos at 3:52 AM PST - 14 comments

She didn't actually get expelled...[update in article] History Professor Denies Native Genocide: Native Student Disagreed, Then Says Professor Expelled Her From Course
posted by hippybear at 2:46 AM PST - 84 comments

Glen Keane drawing in VR -- (SLVimeo) Glen Keane, animator (The Little Mermaid, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast) & son of Bil Keane, explores drawing with the Valve/HTC Vive VR system. [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 12:55 AM PST - 11 comments