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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).
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.
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."
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
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."
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.
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.
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]
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.
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."
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
Death, Lonely Death
Billions of miles away
at the edge of the Solar System Voyager 1 has gone mad and has begun to die
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.
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)
MeFi Nonprofit Update 2/19/2024
The board forming the nonprofit for Metafilter met Feb. 1.
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)
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.
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]
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.
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
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.
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!
We are thrilled to announce the latest addition to our team, a hire that has been highly anticipated - Kirkaracha!
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]
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.
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."
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."
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.
The Ukraine War Is Dividing Europe’s Arctic Indigenous People
It has driven a wedge between Sámi in Russia and those in Nordic countries
[Foreign Policy Magazine]
Russia’s war is splitting the indigenous Sami in two [The Economist]
Russia’s war is splitting the indigenous Sami in two [The Economist]
Do not try to print this PDF
Alex Chan: I was browsing social media this morning, and I saw a claim I’ve seen go past a few times now – that there’s a maximum size for a PDF document: 381 km × 381 km... Eventually I ended up with a PDF that Preview claimed is larger than the entire universe – approximately 37 trillion light years square. [via BoingBoing][
MeFite Book Birthday Announcement!
Hi Everyone! One of the locals, albeit more quiet these days, just had a second book birthday! Depending on whether you order from the publisher, or from online retailers, CoyoteattheDogShow's history of a turn of a century gang of confidence men in the Midwest Men of No Reputation is now out in the world!
flushable computing
In electrical engineering class, I was told to think of electric circuits with a kind of hydraulic analogy. But could you extend this to entire computers? The Rube Goldberg Machine That Mastered Keynesian Economics, built by John Horton Conway[PDF] from a urinal flush mechanism.
Здорово! ser la leche! macizo! ヤバイ! knorke!
untranslatable.co
is a searchable database of slang from nearly 100 languages.
Rock of Ages
A Strange Plastic Rock Has Ominously Invaded 5 Continents
That probably shouldn't have happened.
Nothings which are made Great and dignified by an ardent pursuit
Keats had no particular regard for consistency, and what he says in his letters about poetry and the imagination constitutes no systematic defence. Poetry was essential to his existence; for others, he knew, its value might be less. Nevertheless, even in playful musings on the unreal and the unvalued he is thinking about the power of address, of recognition, to bring into being what might not otherwise exist. from Hooted from the Stage [LRB; ungated]
Songs For A Friend
Around 1970, in the back of Nielsen's Music Store, 17-year-old Linda Bruner recorded one original and five cover songs to a portable half-track borrowed from ALS Studios while accompanied by Jim Krein: Song Linda Wrote Herself, Wichita Lineman, Thorn Tree In The Garden, Georgia On My Mind, Don't Let Me Down, and Rainy Night in Georgia.
Not the Quiet One
Penn Jillette Wants to Talk It All Out
(SL Cracked Interview) Jillette has renounced libertarianism (after being asked to MC an anti-masking event) and is terrified of Trump. He still has a lot on his mind.
lay down, lay down
Melanie Safka passes away at 76.
She became famous as a singer at Woodstock and her song about that, was a top ten hit. She was symbolic of her time and now she is gone.
Bizarre Fossils Are Neither Plant Nor Animal, But a Weird Fusion of Life
Bizarre Fossils Are Neither Plant Nor Animal, But a Weird Fusion of Life. Euglenids are a group of unicellular eukaryotes that gain energy through both photosynthesis, like a plant, and through consuming other beings, like an animal.
These aquatic organisms split off from other eukaryotes roughly a billion years ago, and yet their fossil record for all that time on Earth is scarce.
Now, an international team of scientists argues that they have found ancient Euglenid fossils hiding in "an extensive paper trail" of already published scientific research.
For years, the shell-like fossils were misidentified as possible worm eggs, algal cysts, or fern spores, partly because of their tiny circular 'ribs' on the inside.
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.
[MeFi Site Update] January 17th
Hi, MetaFilter!
Here comes the first site Site Update of the year. You can find the last one here.
Reminder: I will be the only mod actively monitoring this thread and will reply to your feedback and questions as I'm able to. You can expect a reply at least twice a week.
I’m looking forward to your feedback and questions!
Here comes the first site Site Update of the year. You can find the last one here.
Reminder: I will be the only mod actively monitoring this thread and will reply to your feedback and questions as I'm able to. You can expect a reply at least twice a week.
I’m looking forward to your feedback and questions!
Howard Waldrop 1946-2024
Howard Waldrop, award winning speculative fiction author of stories such as The Ugly Chickens and Night of the Cooters died on 14 January age 77.
Waldrop was a true original and wrote many short stories that often played with alternative history or remixes of other SF and fantasy stories by drawing on a large and eclectic knowledge of history and genre. He never achieved wide popularity but he was well known and appreciated within the SFF community.
An image of Hercules, standing alone, carrying his club above his head
Steven Morris (The Guardian, 01/01/2024), "Cerne Abbas giant is Hercules and was army meeting point, say historians" (archive.org). Thomas Morcom and Helen Gittos (Speculum, Jan. 2024), "The Cerne Giant in Its Early Medieval Context" (PDF): "This huge, naked figure was cut into a Dorset hillside not, as many have supposed, in prehistory, nor in the early modern period, but in the early Middle Ages ... In this article, we propose an explanation for when and why he was originally cut as an image of Hercules." Hercules in the Old English Liber Monstrorum. Hercules in an Old English dream book. Hercules in Ælfric's Lives of Saints. Previouslies: 2021. 2019, 2007, and also 2007.