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It's spaceships all the way down
Need some mesmerization in your life? Gaze deep into Life Universe, a zoomable, infinitely-recursive Game of Life simulator [technical explanation]. Inspired by the classic video Life In Life and the OTCA Metapixel (previously). From shr, the developer behind Bubbles (previously), Blob (previously), and a wide variety of other fascinating and fun physics web toys.
MeFi Nonprofit Update 2/19/2024
The board forming the nonprofit for Metafilter met Feb. 1.
The Blazing World
Margaret Cavendish's multiverse science fiction from 1666 predates Mary Shelly, Jules Verne and Marvel by more than a century. She also published books of poetry under her own name, discussed her science research at the Royal Society, and designed gender neutral clothing that she wore at Queen Mary's court. Samuel Pepy's mentioned her a few times, although he was not a fan.
Comics. Often dirty. Indexed.
A search index for the very-NSFW web comic Oglaf. On Mastodon, Esther talks about how she built it. [previousliest]
This game makes me feel very seen.
Tourist To Your Own Culture By Veerender Singh Jubbal [Gamespot]
“Venba is a game that has been on my radar since its announcement trailer was released in 2020. It comes from a mainly South Asian development team, with its aesthetics, character designs, and sound design drawing its inspiration from the culture to tell a story about a South Asian family trying to reclaim and archive their own underrepresented culture after immigrating to Canada. It is an incredibly ambitious title to pursue when many video games do not try to engage with having cultures or identities outside of the white/western represented. Venba is about trying to figure out your own identity (or sometimes lack thereof) in an all-new environment. This new environment is not kind or accommodating to people who are not considered white, and if you are underrepresented from a culture of color you are swayed and forced to assimilate, leaving what made you unique behind to survive this new place.” [Game Trailer][YouTube]
Taylor Swift has 229 songs?
When you get tired of debating U2's catalog in Bondcliff's post, Rolling Stone has all of Taylor Swift's songs ranked for your consideration.
Musk rolling up his sleeves and getting dirty in new Twitter role.
Get your code personally reviewed by Elon Musk! On paper!
This service is sure to massively disrupt software development, bro. Multiple pricing tiers appropriate to whatever level you're on. Meet Elon Musk personally, and get your code shot into space! But the video explains it better than I could.
Elegy for a Criminal Lawyer
Saul Goodman started as a joke -- a sleazy, motormouthed "two-and-a-half-dimensional" take on TV lawyers, a bit of comic relief brought on for a four-episode stint to help guide Breaking Bad protagonists Walter White and Jesse Pinkman into the criminal underworld. Brought to life by Bob Odenkirk, Saul proved to be one of the show's most popular characters, and in the wake of the show's blockbuster ending AMC announced a prequel spinoff series: Better Call Saul. But what was conceived as a 30-minute case-of-the-week sitcom quickly developed into a compelling legal drama and deep character study of Goodman's past as "Slippin'" Jimmy McGill, his evolution, and bleak future at an Omaha Cinnabon -- "we don’t want to get to Saul Goodman … and that’s the tragedy." Supported by vice-tight writing, masterful cinematography, and impeccable performances by Michael McKean, Patrick Fabian, Jonathan Banks, Michael Mando, Tony Dalton, Giancarlo Esposito, and especially breakout star Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, the series has only grown more acclaimed as it progressed and, with its last batch of astonishing episodes, arguably surpassed its predecessor to become one of the greatest dramas in television history. Now, after seven years, six seasons, 62 episodes, one Peabody Award, multiple hiatuses, a COVID pause, and a brush with death, Better Call Saul is set to air its long-awaited series finale tonight at 9PM Eastern. It's showtime, folks.
closeted status of many patrons precluded nearly all photography inside
San Diego's Gay Bar History from post-WWII to the present (full documentary on Vimeo and on the PBS SoCal website).
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories Of The Dirty Computer
Let's get intersectional with the reviews of Janelle Monáe's new book of afrofuturist queer short stories, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories Of The Dirty Computer. NPR is pretty down the middle (as expected) [article with listen link]. But a work like this, we also have the lens of Ebony, which looks at race and afrofuturism and hope. D.C.'s Metro Weekly has a rainbow prism that brings forward LGBTQ+ themes. And WaPo headlines a half-hour interview with the author herself leading with Race, but there's more going on there.. Also, an article with highlights and transcripts of that interview. If you hurry, you might see her book tour.
In the Shadow of the Star Wars Kid
In 2002, a 15-year-old Quebec boy named Ghyslain Raza filmed himself swinging a golf ball retriever in imitation of Darth Maul's double-bladed light saber from The Phantom Menace. The private video leaked onto the internet and became perhaps the biggest viral video of the pre-Youtube era under the name "The Star Wars Kid." Traumatized by the ensuing ridicule and bullying, Raza has spoken about the video only once before, and the man who initially helped popularize it, Andy Baio (MetaFilter's own), has declined to be interviewed about it. They talk together for the first time about this formative moment in unwelcome internet fame in a new documentary Star Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows/Dans l’ombre du Star Wars Kid streaming free from the National Film Board of Canada.
GiftFilter: Raspberry Pi and Firmware Development
Six years ago, you did my son righteous for Christmas with electronics gifts, and now he's absolutely loving his life as a (Rust) software and sometime firmware developer. He's convinced his company to use Raspberry Pi for some projects. What can I get him to help with firmware development? I got him a Saleae Logic 8 already. Is that the right thing? What excellent weird tool will delight him -- and astound him that his ol' Ma ever knew to get it? Because that's how you win Christmas.
Skittish, a playful space for online events
For the last year, I've worked on Skittish, a weird space for virtual events and gatherings of all kinds, where everyone's a goofy-looking animal and you talk to others with spatial audio in a customizable browser-based 3D world. It's now open to everyone with a demo that doesn't require registering, and it's free to create a world of your own.
How to make modern web apps look like tn3270 apps?
I miss using tn3270 apps like old university library catalogs and such. Is there a way for me to share this experience by creating modern web apps, where the forms have the look and feel of tn3270? Possibly some kind of javascript/css framework?
Metafilter Pride
Let's hear it for hippybear, who has done a spectacular job of making LGBTQ+ posts on Mefi throughout Pride Month.
I woke up like this.
The China National Space Administration's Zhurong Mars rover has taken a selfie [image heavy link in Chinese]; and it is cute as hell.
Would MetaFilter be a better place without relentless negativity?
I'm increasingly concerned about the effects of insistently negative comments on MetaFilter.
New Dating of the Nebra Sky Disc
Until now the Nebra sky disk was deemed to be from the Early Bronze Age and therefore the world's oldest depiction of the cosmos. Archaeologists from Goethe University Frankfurt and Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich have now reanalysed diverse data on the reconstruction of the discovery site and surrounding circumstances of the find. Their findings are that the disk must be dated in the Iron Age, making it about 1,000 years younger than previously assumed. This makes all previous astronomical interpretations obsolete.New dating of Nebra sky disk
"A remarkable consecutive history"
The Codex Zouche-Nuttall is a pre-Columbian document of Mixtec pictography, one of six known to survive. The codex is named for two women: Baroness Zouche, its donor and Zelia Nuttall, who first published it in 1902. Nuttall was a Mexican-American archaeologist who "investigated Mexico’s past to give recognition and pride to its present" at a time when Western archaeology was still obsessed with racist caricatures of Indigenous people. Shortly after publishing the Codex with a lengthy introduction, Nuttall moved to live full-time in Mexico as a single mother and towards the end of her life advocated for the revival of Mexican New Year traditions that had been eradicated after Spanish conquest. Aztec New Year is still celebrated in Mexico today.
From My Ranch to your Home
Nothing says Christmas in Mexico like Atole and Buñuelos, (Atole is a corn meal/masa hot drink and buñuelos are fried dough, dipped in sugary syrup with cinnamon) prepared here by Doña Angela from De Mi Rancho a Tu Cocina.
Doña Angela (Youtube, FB, Insta) is a star, She started her channel only a few months ago, showing viewers how to make traditional Mexican recipes from her rustic kitchen in Michoacan, Mexico. She has millions of viewers and is beloved by Mexican media for her unpretentious grandmotherly vibe.
What's this? A piece of toast? A pretzel stick? Popcorn?
In the coming onslaught of Christmas music, the Vince Guaraldi Trio's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" figures large as both a popular and critical favorite. But Guaraldi doesn't get enough love for the equally excellent music of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," with its groovier early 70s sound. Here for your USian celebrating enjoyment are a few of the songs Guaraldi wrote for the 3rd animated TV special featuring Charlie Brown: Thanksgiving Theme, Little Birdie, Is It James or Charlie?, Charlie Brown Blues, and a sightly different setting of Linus and Lucy than the more familiar Christmas-special one. Or just set it and forget it with the complete soundtrack.
The Black Feminists Who Saw the Alt-Right Threat Coming
Before Gamergate, before the 2016 election, they launched a campaign against Twitter trolls masquerading as women of color. If only more people had paid attention.
In 2014 Shafiqah Hudson noticed an odd hashtag purporting to be from black feminists arguing against father's day. But the language these accounts were using read to her as a parody of AAVE, and some of the photos were of people she knew didn't use twitter. This led her and I’Nasah Crockett down a racist rabbit hole that led to 4-chan, right before gamergate.
Podcast: Reply All: #138 The Great Momo Panic
We investigate the mystery of why parents across the world became convinced that a half-bird/half-woman monster was going to harm their kids over the internet.And we answer the question of how robocallers are able to fake your telephone number when they call you.
Music For Activities Freaks
You may know True Stories as a 1986 movie by Talking Heads with an accompanying album. What isn't widely known is there is a second album, released on vinyl and cassette only -- Sounds From True Stories: Music For Activities Freaks, a score album from the movie [41m]. It's worth a listen! Side A: Cocktail Desperado (Terry Allen And The Panhandle Mystery Band), Road Song (Meredith Monk), Freeway Son (David Byrne), Brownie's Theme (David Byrne), Mall Muzak: Building A Highway / Puppy Polka / Party Girls (Carl Finch), Dinner Music (Kronos Quartet)
Save me from tomorrow / I don't want to sail with this ship of fools
The 2018 US elections have gone into overtime.
The Handmaid's Tale: "Women's Work"
A sick baby tests Offred and Serena; Janine finally faces Naomi.
The fabled San Buenaventura river: it must exist because it had to
In 1776, two Franciscan missionaries Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante sought to find a land route between Santa Fe in Nuevo México to Monterey in Alta California. They were part of a ten-man expedition including Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco (Meira) acting as the cartographer. On September 13, they encountered a southwest-flowing tributary of the Colorado and named it San Buenaventura after the catholic saint Bonaventure. From there, the initial depiction of the river (large copy) was repeated and warped, extending west to the Pacific Ocean, repeated in various forms up through 1844 (Google books preview). Given the lengthy history of the river's existence on maps, even President Polk was reluctant to let the fabled river disappear.
Chapelier Fou, the musical mad hatter from France
Chapelier Fou (fr.wiki; Mad Hatter via auto-translation) is the stage name of Louis Warynski, a multi-instrumentalist who composes complex pieces on violin, mandolin, harp and various electronic pieces and synthesizers, as you can see in this live clip of "Darling, Darling, Darling" as a solo piece in 2009, and for some proper madness, an augmented live video, featuring more artists accompanying Warynski and delightfully weird, surreal animations. You can find more videos from his YouTube channel, and most of his discography (Discogs) on Bandcamp.
“Can Star Citizen be made?”
Inside the Troubled Development of Star Citizen by Julian Benson [Kotaku]
“Star Citizen’s development has been high-profile enough, expensive enough and, yes, troubled enough to spawn a whole ecosystem of theories as to what’s going on at Cloud Imperium Games, from theorising about the project’s technical challenges to wild accusations about what’s happening to the money. Various community scandals have added yet more fuel to the fire, turning Star Citizen into a lightning rod for controversy. The questions I wanted answers to were: what exactly has been happening over the past five six years? What are the reasons behind Star Citizen’s various delays, and what specific development problems has it encountered? Have things been mismanaged? And, as many Star Citizen backers are now beginning to wonder, can it ever actually be finished?”
You’re Not the Customer; You’re the Product
Quote Investigator looks at the history of this quotation: Richard Serra? Carlota Fay Schoolman? Steve Atkins? Tom Johnson? Andrew Lewis? blue_beetle? Tim O’Reilly?
photographic copyright
This AskMe question is looking for help in order to do something of dubious legality.
The Leftovers: The Book of Kevin
In the first episode of The Leftovers' third and final season, there's an intriguing prologue, a time jump, we catch up with most of the regular characters and we're left with a fascinating epilogue. Only 14 Days To Go until the end of the world.
State of MetaFilter, 2017
Heya, folks, it's time (and then some!) for a State of MetaFilter post. I want to give everybody an update on how the site is doing financially, and catch y'all up on the major goings-on in both the business and community aspects of MetaFilter in the time since the last State of MeFi post.
The very short version: it's been a weird couple years out there in the world; we've hired a couple staff and wished pb well; and things are financially pretty stable, thanks in significant part to the ongoing generosity of the MetaFilter community whose contributions continue to represent a vital chunk of the site's operating revenue. But come on inside for a much less short version!
The very short version: it's been a weird couple years out there in the world; we've hired a couple staff and wished pb well; and things are financially pretty stable, thanks in significant part to the ongoing generosity of the MetaFilter community whose contributions continue to represent a vital chunk of the site's operating revenue. But come on inside for a much less short version!
Are top-name artists giving their new albums away on archive.org?
Noticed today that Kate Bush's recent live triple CD Before the Dawn is available for download from archive.org, plus there's the 2016 LP from Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker. Are these legal downloads? Did I miss an announcement from the archive.org people?
Where to find well-balanced rationals behind Trump policies?
Where can I find non-confrontational sources that discuss the reasons behind Trump's policies, particularly ones that present well-argued, rational arguments in support of the policies?
I just gave many, many personal details to a fake Paypal page, now what?
I received an email from 'Paypal' stating that an unknown device had attempted to change my password and to click on the link to verify my account. I went to the link and provided a stupid amount of details and as soon as I submitted them I realised what I had done.
What happened to Google Maps?
Justin O'Beirne compares the 2010 and 2016 editions of Google Maps and finds a lack of balance — especially after looking at a map printed in the 1960s.
"There was no support system for this shit."
"The obscurity of this music, that someone had found, catalogued and championed it pre-Internet, boggled my mind. It was an esoteric document in the sense that it was full of obscure knowledge intended for a small number of people. But it was also esoteric in the sense that there seemed to be something mystical about it. A sort of musical Nag Hammadi Library of hidden music, rare artifacts, treasures reverently compiled, to be listened to in a ritual way."
The story of the Nurse With Wound List.
How to Write a History of Video Game Warfare
How to Write a History of Video Game Warfare
- A look at journalist Andrew Groen's new book, Empires of Eve, a detailed history of The Great War in Eve Online, a MMORPG of spaceships, star systems, intrigue, betrayal, and diplomacy.
And for a more academic look at the game, Internet Spaceships Are Serious Business, also recently published. (Link for those with university Shibboleth access)
And for a more academic look at the game, Internet Spaceships Are Serious Business, also recently published. (Link for those with university Shibboleth access)
Nothing ſucceeds like long s
This Chrome extenſion replaces the unſightly "terminal" or "ſhort" s with the elegant "long" ſ according to the rules of ſtandard uſage.
Eureka! I've invented the road trip!
From 1914 to 1924, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and nature writer John Burroughs took off every summer to "rough it" (shaving was forbidden), camp on the roadside, and visit the country's most beautiful places by automobile, creating a media sensation and kicking off the tradition of the Great American Road Trip.
Grown men and women put tighty-whitey underwear on a goat--competitively
Over the years, gay rodeos have become a centrally welcoming space for LGBTQ people in rural areas and an important place for people of all genders to compete in events which have been historically divided strongly along gender lines (such as bull riding and barrel racing). They've come a long way from their origins as a means of raising money for charity. But the people who participate in gay rodeos are aging and attendence is declining, raising questions about the future of gay rodeo. A new documentary shines a spotlight on this important piece of LGBTQ history.
Dick pics are mundane and funny to me
Cobra Club ... the newest game by developer Robert Yang, doesn’t just feature dicks: the game is fundamentally about dicks, how they look, and the many ways people try to make them look good. Yang’s previous games have had the fortune of being picked up by major YouTubers, meaning that millions of gamers around the world are familiar with his work. But Yang doesn’t feel comfortable with the way in which some YouTubers treated his creations. “[Cobra Club] is more ‘direct’ in response to all these dudes playing my abstract gay sex innuendo games and saying ‘this is so gay! eww’…basically, when people are being homophobic and gross, the proper response is to be even gayer at them,” Yang told me.
Should I ask my uncle about his Big Secret car crash from 50 years ago?
This AskMe from 2010 is me. When I wrote that, I had just heard about a car crash my uncle was allegedly in when he was in his early 20s, where he was driving and a passenger died. I never asked about the crash and a newspaper search didn't pull anything up at the time. But I recently stumbled upon an old newspaper article that confirmed it. I don't know what to do, or not do, with this information. He has never even hinted about anything like this.
The Great & Beautiful Lost Kingdoms
Yet to tell the diffusion of Indian influence at this period as two separate processes partially obscures a still more extraordinary story. For it is now increasingly clear that between the fourth and twelfth centuries the influence of India in both Southeast and Central Asia, and to some degree also China, was comparable to the influence of Greece in Aegean Turkey and Rome, and then in the rest of Europe in the early centuries BC. From the empire of the Gupta dynasty in the north and that of the Pallava dynasty in the south, India during this period radiated its philosophies, political ideas, and architectural forms out over an entire continent not by conquest but by sheer cultural sophistication.
Sixteen Years
After 16 years of doing a bit of everything under the sun here, I’m stepping away from the day to day of running MetaFilter and moving into the background. Never fear, I’m leaving it in the best of hands and things are looking good for the future.
Now playing: yrCodeIsBadAndYouShouldFeelBad
Gibber
is a creative coding environment for audiovisual performance and composition. It contains features for audio synthesis and musical sequencing, 2d drawing, 3d scene construction and manipulation, and live-coding shaders.
It comes with a few demos (autoplaying audio)
To stop the current audio or animation, press Control-.
It comes with a few demos (autoplaying audio)
To stop the current audio or animation, press Control-.
You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of 2% annual CPI growth
In the years since the financial crisis, central banks across the world have struggled to stimulate adequate aggregate demand. Most mainstream economists agree that this is due to inherent impotence of monetary policy at the zero lower bound, although some, including some central banks, now say that the effective lower bound, though finite, is below zero. The Swiss and Danish central banks are currently testing that idea.