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They are risen

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence began in 1979 when a small group of gay men in San Francisco donned the habit of Catholic nuns, and used camp to subvert expectations & promote social and political change in San Francisco. Sacrilege or serious parody? Illicit joy or elicit compassionate apraxis? The Sisters have grown into an organization of queer joy with 65 houses in 10 countries. This Sunday Easter in the Park: Hunky Jesus and Foxy Mary Competition is set to attract 10,000+ attendants, but the works of a Sister is never done.
posted to MetaFilter by rubatan at 9:51 AM on March 28, 2024 (9 comments)

“Every day, there were fewer and fewer kings.”

The Achilles Trap doubles as a surprisingly sympathetic study of a man who, as his powers slipped away, spent the last decade of his life jerry-rigging monuments of his own magnificence. Coll draws much of his material from extensive interviews with retired American intelligence officers and former members of Saddam’s bureaucracy, as well as from a previously unavailable archive of audio tapes from Saddam’s own state offices. What emerges is a portrait of Saddam as an eccentric in the mold of G.K. Chesterton—if Chesterton were bloodthirsty, paranoid, and power-mad—a man driven ultimately by deep reverence for the sense that hides beneath nonsense. from Saddam’s Secret Weapon, a review of The Achilles Trap by Steve Coll [The American Conservative]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:42 AM on March 28, 2024 (10 comments)

The idea that it was mostly white guys was totally true

I don’t think it has anything to do with the audience for this stuff. I don’t think it has anything to do with the buzziness or the culture surrounding the site itself. I think it is just these money people coming in and making bad decisions. If they’re going to lay off people in Boeing and cut safety protocols or whatever, they’ll do it to anyone. from The Oral History of Pitchfork [Slate]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:45 AM on March 22, 2024 (9 comments)

—You got the wrong guy, pal.

If Minute 9 is the first time we hear the names Deckard and Blade Runner, it’s also the first time we meet the plainclothes cop who will play a key role in LAPD surveillance of Deckard — and in the changed emphasis of four subsequent versions of Blade Runner released over the next twenty-five years. from Minute 9: Blade Runner [3 am magazine]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 3:59 PM on March 20, 2024 (30 comments)

His invention was instrumental

Shigeichi Negishi, the inventor of the world's first commercially-available karaoke machine, has died in Japan. He was 100 years old.
posted to MetaFilter by snofoam at 4:06 AM on March 16, 2024 (24 comments)

I Spy 🗿

moai.games is a list of 954 examples (and counting) of moai seen in video games, compiled by MeFi's Own game designer gingerbeardman. Why? "Moai are cool. And video games are cool. Oh, and lists are cool too." Read the NintendoLife interview for background on the project, get educated on the history of the grand sculptures (and real-life efforts to preserve them), or if you crave mo' moai, check out MoaiCulture.com's "Popular Culture" page for a comprehensive illustrated guide to 500+ moai in television, film, animation, comic books, literature, poetry, music, board games, magazines, advertising, and more.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 3:20 PM on March 15, 2024 (9 comments)

The head on the car is a dream

Mexican artist crushes Tesla under giant stone head
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 12:52 PM on March 15, 2024 (38 comments)

Posts for Donations?

Is anybody out there up for the old "you donate money to Metafilter, I'll make a post for you" thing? I have a topic I'd really like to see posted, but I don't have the time to do it myself. I'd donate $25 to our Bean Plate Overlords if someone would do this for me. (I feel like someone was doing this project in the past but I don't remember who.)
posted to MetaTalk by BlahLaLa at 2:03 PM on March 12, 2024 (9 comments)

“To read a book well, one should read it as if one were writing it.”

After Mrs. Dalloway and before To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf wrote her first essay for The Yale Review. Nine more followed.
TYR republished them online today, with an introductory essay by Claire Messud.
posted to MetaFilter by thatwhichfalls at 6:08 PM on March 13, 2024 (6 comments)

"We're at the end of a vast, multi-faceted con of internet users"

Are We Watching the Internet Die? (Edward Zitron's 'Where's Your Ed At' newsletter)
posted to MetaFilter by box at 11:52 AM on March 11, 2024 (67 comments)

Serena is an amazing, one-of-a-kind cat!

My Cat Shoots Rubber Bands From Her Paws [6m16s] My black cat Serena has not only learned how to shoot rubber bands, she has mastered the art. I feel like a circus hawker, but YOU WON'T SEE THIS ANYWHERE ELSE BUT HERE! ... Serena is a 4 year old Domestic Short Hair. She has no top incisors, so her tongue sticks out ALL THE TIME!!!! 😺
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:59 AM on March 9, 2024 (20 comments)

Why Can’t People Be Normal About Sydney Sweeney?

To be born beautiful is a gift, but to end up hot can be a curse. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it is also true that you can look in the mirror and be the beholder of yourself. Beauty is something intriguing; “beauty is not a need but an ecstasy,” the poet Kahlil Gibran once wrote. “A heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.” This is not the same thing as being hot.
posted to MetaFilter by Carillon at 2:50 PM on March 8, 2024 (76 comments)

That's a beautiful speech, but nobody's listening. Let's go.

"As of 2024, UbuWeb is no longer active. The archive is preserved for perpetuity, in is entirety."
Ubuweb, founded by poet Kenneth Goldsmith in 1996, was the best repository of avant-garde material in the Internet. Over the decades it accumulated an unparalleled collection of poetry, mp3's and video.
posted to MetaFilter by thatwhichfalls at 6:32 PM on March 7, 2024 (18 comments)

¡¡CERVEZA CRISTAL!!

In the past week or so, the internet has suddenly become incredibly aware of a unique approach to sponsorship taken around twenty years ago, when a beer company in Chile sponsored TV broadcasts of the Star Wars trilogy with no commercial breaks. Instead, they inserted small, subtle edits for product placement along the way from time to time. Needless to say, people have been enjoying riffing on this particular theme.
posted to MetaFilter by DoctorFedora at 11:38 PM on March 6, 2024 (22 comments)

Live those dreams, Scheme those schemes

Todd In the Shadows undertakes an epic troll of Brits with ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
posted to MetaFilter by rongorongo at 11:16 PM on February 25, 2024 (40 comments)

What’s More Unsettling? The Prospect of 2024 or Another Ghost Story?

It’s early 2024, nights are shortening (at least in the northern hemisphere), and here’s another roundup of weird audio dramas to take your mind off other horrors. While these roundups are, of course, invaluable, you might want to check out the Audio Drama Directory as a searchable guide to audio dramas and actual plays (mostly SF, Fantasy, and/or Horror).
posted to MetaFilter by GenjiandProust at 4:41 PM on March 2, 2024 (11 comments)

Asian Elephants mourn and bury their babies, Indian study finds

Asian Elephants mourn and bury their babies, Indian study finds. A study conducted between 2022 and 2023 finds elephants travel a great distance to bury their young with care.
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:23 AM on March 2, 2024 (14 comments)

Sometimes a sandworm is just a sandworm

What do King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Aragorn and Paul Atreides have in common? Call it Magic Dick Theory. (Although on closer inspection, maybe not Paul so much.) The Ringer offers up a "psychoanalytic reading of canonical chosen-one narratives in fantasy and science fiction."
posted to MetaFilter by gottabefunky at 3:11 PM on March 1, 2024 (62 comments)

Can I have some Moor? The saucy metaphysics of moles, chili, and curry

"There are, however, a few surpring similiarites in our practices and customs. For example, the prominenance of chilies in both Indian and Mexican cooking. In the global gastronomic geography the two cuisines share a single place that can only be called eccentric: they are both imaginative and passionate infractions.... There is an undeniable similarity between curry and mole: the combination of sweet and the spicy, the reddish color full of sumptuous reflections, and its accompaniment to a meat or vegetable. ...Is [mole] an ingenious Mexican version of curry, or is curry a Hindu adaptation of a Mexican sauce? Our perplexity increases when we consider that there is not one but many kinds of curries and moles." -"In Light of India", Octavio Paz, Nobel Laureate in Literature & Mexican Ambassador to India
posted to MetaFilter by rubatan at 10:18 AM on March 1, 2024 (21 comments)

Long-deceased humans found in peat bogs

"Archaeologists in Northern Ireland have uncovered well-preserved remains of a teenage boy dating back up to 2,500 years - including bones, skin and possibly a kidney - in a rare find that may shed new light on the region's ancient history." Did you know that Wikipedia has a page entitled "List of bog bodies"? Now you do. The Finns have bog bodies, and peat bogs have a special role in Finland [PDF]. Finally, van Beek, Quik, Bergerbrant, Huisman, and Kama have conducted an exciting large-scale overview study [PDF] "of well-dated human remains from northern European mires, based on a database of 266 sites and more than 1000 bog mummies, bog skeletons and disarticulated/partial skeletal remains."
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 4:08 AM on February 29, 2024 (11 comments)

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Pig Butchering Scams

This week: West Virginia considers a law that would impose criminal penalties to people who expose children to "obscene literature," and similar moral panics grip lawmakers across the nation. The Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen embryos are people "regardless of developmental stage," putting the legality of in vitro fertilization in jeopardy. Anti-abortion figures try to keep quiet that the Comstock Act could be used, in a second Trump term, to harm access to abortion drugs nationwide without going through Congress. And Now: More Explicit Readings From Concerned Citizens At Public Meetings. Main story: "Pig Butchering Scams," where malign entities send out-of-the-blue messages to people attempting to engage them in conversation, build a connection with them, and eventually con them. And Now: Local News Loses It Over Major League Baseball's New Pants.
posted to FanFare by JHarris at 10:42 PM on February 25, 2024 (4 comments)

I know you will probably put it up again

just to tick me off. In the early 2000s, gaming magazine GameNOW spent two years sneaking the same screenshot of Final Fantasy VIII into every issue, just to needle a single irate reader.
posted to MetaFilter by signsofrain at 12:14 PM on February 27, 2024 (11 comments)

Not every prediction came true

The top thinkers of 1974 were gathered together in the pages of “Saturday Review,” for a special issue celebrating that magazine’s 50th anniversary. In a series of essays, each one tried to imagine their world 50 more years into the future, in the far-away year of 2024 ... The future they’d hoped for — or feared for — is detailed and debated, offering readers of today a surprisingly clear picture of the future they’d expected in 1974. from 50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974 [The New Stack]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:46 AM on February 27, 2024 (49 comments)

The food is not what it seems

While Minnesota sushi can ostensibly be found in restaurants, and has appeared on television, its origins are both obscure and humble. The "Minnesota" part of the claim is, however, base calumny. The European mode is another variant. The dish may share some DNA, cultural or otherwise, with molded salmon mousse. Could it be traced back to the Roman tradition of "concealed food?" Probably knot, that would be stretching it. Order falls, chaos reigns.
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 4:14 AM on February 26, 2024 (31 comments)

The Lost Meteorite

A giant meteorite has been lost in the desert since 1916—here’s how we might find it "Captain Gaston Ripert was in charge of the Chinguetti camel corps. One day he overheard a conversation among the chameliers (camel drivers) about an unusual iron hill in the desert. He convinced a local chief to guide him there one night, taking Ripert on a 10-hour camel ride along a "disorienting" route, making a few detours along the way....The 4-kilogram fragment Ripert collected was later analyzed by noted geologist Alfred Lacroix, who considered it a significant discovery. But when others failed to locate the larger Chinguetti meteorite, people started to doubt Ripert's story."
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 5:10 AM on February 24, 2024 (6 comments)

All of a sudden, these days, happy throngs, take this joy

Michael Idov's stellar article for GQ.com about being In Athens With Michael Shannon, the Night He (Sort of) Reunited R.E.M. And you better believe there's
posted to MetaFilter by Hey Dean Yeager! at 9:46 PM on February 21, 2024 (26 comments)

Death, Lonely Death

Billions of miles away at the edge of the Solar System Voyager 1 has gone mad and has begun to die
posted to MetaFilter by signsofrain at 5:03 PM on February 21, 2024 (134 comments)

What an absolute unit

On its maiden voyage in 1628, the Vasa warship capsized and sank. Originally thought to be caused by too many cannons on too many decks, one of the leading theories now is that shipbuilders used different rulers. Four were found in the wreckage, two calibrated with the Swedish Foot and the other two rulers used the Amsterdam Foot. Not only are they different lengths (29.69 cm versus 28.31 cm), the Dutch Foot was divided into 11 instead of 12 inches. These errors multiplied over the size of the ship led to lopsided construction and potentially the inevitable sinking.
posted to MetaFilter by autopilot at 12:14 PM on February 19, 2024 (58 comments)

The unauthorized adventure of Tom Bombadil

Redditor "whypic" has been posting daily installments to the Glorious Tom Bombadil subreddit of an original webcomic work of fan-fiction describing an adventure of the mysterious side-character Tom Bombadil from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In the webcomic, Bombadil is portrayed like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, and his naive enthusiasm is contrasted with the more worldly and serious elf-king Gil-Galad who is more of a "Hobbes" figure. Who is Tom Bombadil? Let "Jess of the Shire" explain. Webcomic installments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 (Previously: Dark Bombadil) (Previously)
posted to MetaFilter by Schmucko at 5:59 PM on February 18, 2024 (24 comments)

MeFi Nonprofit Update 2/19/2024

The board forming the nonprofit for Metafilter met Feb. 1.
posted to MetaTalk by NotLost at 8:57 AM on February 19, 2024 (20 comments)

She wrote Lives of the Monster Dogs and then, silence.

Twenty-seven years later, Kirsten Bakis is publishing her second novel: King Nyx.
posted to MetaFilter by Winnie the Proust at 11:09 AM on February 17, 2024 (11 comments)

The Curmudgeon of Rivington Street

As his apartment on the Lower East Side crumbled, a former Club Kid resented the moneyed millennials who filled his building. Then he let them in on a secret that transformed their lives. (NYTimes gift link)
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 1:39 PM on February 17, 2024 (25 comments)

Burrowed out in ancient times by the slithering of a giant worm

Many an ancient road is a sunken road. They are formed by the passage of people, animals, and vehicles over time. Things of beauty, they are found hither and yon, including in Middle Earth. They should be considered as critical sites of the Anthropocene, signature human impacts on the land that are important, perhaps vital, and still not wholly understood. Also known as holloways, they have inspired literary and artistic reflection, conjuring images of fantastic landscapes. Note that, per Wikipedia, a holloway is not the same thing as a tree tunnel, an excavated road, or a gully.
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 4:46 AM on February 16, 2024 (13 comments)

JS+TDS=?

Here's Jon Stewart's first episode back at The Daily Show. [21m]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:23 PM on February 12, 2024 (85 comments)

Protection and freedom to communicate

You’d have heard it in gay pubs and bars, as well as being spoken on cruise ships where lots of gay men worked, up until the 1970s. You might also hear it in cruising areas: cinemas, Turkish baths, parks and public loos, although it might be more of a hissed warning: “Lily!” when the police were spotted. And you might hear it on public transport so that two people could have a conversation without others understanding. from The Secret Gay Language Still in Use Today [Huck Magazine]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 12:33 AM on February 13, 2024 (16 comments)

Making the Blue LED

Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED One of the main reasons we have blue LEDs, and therefore white LED light bulbs, is that a brilliant Japanese scientist spent a miserable year working in a lab at the University of Florida, where the only thing he was allowed to do was repair an old, broken vapor deposition machine.
posted to MetaFilter by Artifice_Eternity at 5:21 PM on February 12, 2024 (35 comments)

Carved with curious but distinctive signs

June 1, 1952, was Whitsunday, and provided the young Michael Ventris with a convenient break from his duties as an architect. At the end of the day he would write his 20th Work Note on Minoan Language Research, with the somewhat disbelieving title, “Are the Knossos and Pylos Tablets Written in Greek?” Responsibility was disclaimed: this was only “a frivolous digression”, that would “sooner or later come to an impasse, or dissipate itself in absurdities.” It became instead one of the great intellectual achievements of the 20th century. from Cracking the Code of Linear B by Theodore Nash
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 2:22 AM on February 11, 2024 (16 comments)

A difficult year ahead for Ukraine

After a not very successful campaign in 2023 Ukraine is facing some difficult obstacles and tough choices in 2024. Inside is a collection of status reports and commentary on where the war is now.
posted to MetaFilter by Harald74 at 1:16 PM on February 10, 2024 (130 comments)

Welcome Kirkaracha: Our New Web Development Team Member

Hello MetaFilter!

We are thrilled to announce the latest addition to our team, a hire that has been highly anticipated - Kirkaracha!

posted to MetaTalk by loup at 12:32 PM on February 9, 2024 (60 comments)

45 Years.

"The composition of Opening dates back to 1979, where Glass was commissioned by the Alberta Piano Institute to write a set of varying piano pieces for educational use. It was originally published for solo piano as part of his 'Solo Piano' album in 1989, and since then has been re-recorded and re-arranged in numerous other forms. Opening was also re-contextualised in 1996 as part of the album ‘The Essential Philip Glass’ and was even re-arranged again in 2010 as an orchestral score." Phillip Glass - 'Opening' ( offical version) [slyt. 7:17]
posted to MetaFilter by clavdivs at 9:06 PM on February 6, 2024 (15 comments)

Toby Keith Arrives at the Great Oil Rig in the Sky.

Toby Keith - 1961-2024 Country singer Toby Keith passed away over night in his sleep at the age of 62. He revealed he'd been battling stomach cancer in 2022 Known for his ultra patriotic songs post 9/11 (e.g. “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue,”) and big hits like his duet with Willie Nelson ("Beer for My Horses"), he had more than 60 charting hits. He was also known for being aggressively outspoken and was notable for his feud with the "Chicks" after their comments regarding the war in Iraq. He billed himself a conservative Democrat, became independent in 2008, praised Obama and then played at the "Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration" prior to Trump's inauguration.
posted to MetaFilter by drewbage1847 at 10:11 AM on February 6, 2024 (54 comments)

The Paranormalization of the Plastic Bag

No, Aliens Haven’t Visited the Earth. Why are so many smart people insisting otherwise? via Longreads. "Thoughtful, sensible-seeming, non-crankish people at Harvard, at The New Yorker, at the New York Times, and at the Pentagon seemed to be drifting ever closer to the conclusion that alien spaceships had visited Earth. Everyone was being appallingly open-minded. Yet even after more than 70 years of claimed sightings, there was simply no good evidence. In an age of ubiquitous cameras and fancy scopes, there was no footage that wasn’t blurry and jumpy and taken from far away."
posted to MetaFilter by storybored at 9:15 PM on February 5, 2024 (132 comments)

A Gorey/Bellairs Discovery

"Sometimes treasures are hidden in plain sight and it only takes the curiosity of an astute observer to properly identify them. Such was the case with a piece of original artwork by Edward Gorey that is on display at the F. Brooke Whiting Museum in Cumberland, Maryland."
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 3:17 AM on February 5, 2024 (26 comments)

What's inside this crater in Madagascar?

What's inside this crater in Madagascar? Vox went to insane lengths to discover who lived in a remote village in a remote extinct volcano in Madagascar they discovered on Google Earth and satellite images.
posted to MetaFilter by peacay at 4:13 PM on January 26, 2024 (15 comments)
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