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Playboy founder Hugh M. Hefner, the pipe-smoking hedonist who revved up the sexual revolution in the 1950s and built a multimedia empire of clubs, mansions, movies and television, symbolized by bow-tied women in bunny costumes, has died at age 91. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:23 PM PST - 186 comments

“Thomasson: noun \ to-ma-son \ a preserved architectural relic which serves no purpose”. #トマソン is the Instagram community hashtag for the The Inexplicably Fascinating Secret World of Thomasson (previously.)
posted by Room 641-A at 6:29 PM PST - 40 comments

Interspecies friendships? FUCK YEAH! KnowYourMeme has some better-known ones. The titular kittens. (Interspecies love previously and previously.)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:13 PM PST - 18 comments

“I am not sleeping too well at the moment and that’s because all those things keep running through my head,” says Marcio. But his actions on the night were key to their escape. He was calm and organised, filling the bath, wetting towels, giving clear instructions to the others about how they might make it out of the building. Six of the seven people who escaped from the 21st floor that night did so under his guidance. - Interviews with and the stories of people who did and didn't escape from the 21st story of Grenfell Tower. (previously)
posted by ambrosen at 4:05 PM PST - 23 comments

It's February of this year and California has been drenched by a number of pounding storms filling its reservoirs. No better time to pull out our drones and take a mesmerizing ride into the mouth of Lake Berryessa's vertical spillway as it drains for the first time in over a decade. [more inside]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:27 PM PST - 32 comments

"I don't consider myself a martial-arts star." One-time Rinpoche. Victim of Mafia shakedowns. Former reserve deputy sheriff. Alleged sex criminal. Would-be Chechnya tour guide. Would-be governor of Arizona. Friend of Vladimir Putin. National-security threat to Ukraine. Steven Seagal has led many lives.
posted by box at 2:11 PM PST - 103 comments

The Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková has died aged 90. Růžičková survived a childhood bout of tuberculosis; terrible years in Terezin, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen; and, as a Jew who refused to join the Communist Party, persecution by the authorities in post-war Czechoslovakia. Despite all this, she established an international career playing the harpsichord, becoming the first person to record the complete keyboard works of J. S. Bach on that instrument. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 12:46 PM PST - 12 comments

Annihilation (slyt) - trailer for the forthcoming movie by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Dredd), based on the Southern Reach Trilogy books by Jeff VanderMeer.
posted by Artw at 12:30 PM PST - 77 comments

A Helping Hand, but Whose? by Betsey Steeger [The New York Times]
posted by Fizz at 10:42 AM PST - 16 comments

Ain't It Cool's Harry Knowles is stepping back from his website after sexual assault allegations have come to light. More women have come forward. This comes hot on the heels of Devin Faraci's re-resignation from Austin's Fantastic Fest. Faraci had been dismissed from the Alamo Drafthouse's blog Birth.Movies.Death last year after allegations regarding his own conduct were made, but was apparently brought back into the fold quickly afterwards. /film has perhaps the best available rundown of these events and the issues facing the Drafthouse and Austin film community going forward.
posted by yellowbinder at 9:40 AM PST - 201 comments

Because sea levels rise and fall over time, geological definitions of continents consider the continental crust and not just the part above sea level today. Over the past twenty years, mounting evidence has pointed to a lost continent straddling the Australian and Pacific plates: Zealandia. This week, findings from a drilling expedition suggest that it may have been closer to land level than once thought, providing pathways for animals and plants. [more inside]
posted by rory at 5:05 AM PST - 10 comments