"Bird Calls (1972, recorded in 1981) by Louise Lawler is a six-minute roll call in which the artist squawks, chirps, and warbles the names of twenty-eight of the leading artists of the time—not coincidentally, all men. Each name is subject to distortion and derision as it is transformed into an individual call. This powerful (and powerfully funny) piece, the artist’s only audio work, may seem anomalous in relation to the subtly acerbic photographs and ephemeral multiples for which she is now known...
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:14 AM on October 27, 2023 (4 comments)

The History Behind London's Green Cabmen's Shelters. As you walk around London you may come across one of these green huts by the side of the road. They are Cabmen’s shelters and they are amazing relics of Victorian London, but also a fantastic example of living history, as many of them are still in use today.
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 5:54 PM on October 26, 2023 (20 comments)

Hasan replies in his best medium. Many will make their own decisions.
posted to MetaFilter by skepticallypleased at 4:13 PM on October 26, 2023 (167 comments)

In ep.267 (25/10/2023) of his podcast, Being Human, Rushkoff gives a particular mention of MetaFilter in a long talk about social media.
posted to MetaTalk by UbuRoivas at 9:21 AM on October 25, 2023 (8 comments)

📣📣🫱🏿👋🏽🖐🏼✋Hi everyone,✋🖐🏼👋🏽🫱🏿📣📣

MetaFilter is beginning the transition to becoming a non-profit (seee this thread ) and to begin that process, a temporary transitional board is needed. This board of volunteers would establish a basic framework for the future site, along with defining what to look for in an Executive Director

We have several volunteers already, but most are based in the United States and have similar backgrounds, so we’re casting our net wider to encourage a more globally diverse board.

Interested? Let us know in the October 18, 2023 MetaTalk thread about changing the site to nonprofit.
posted to MetaFilter by Brandon Blatcher at 5:45 AM on October 24, 2023 (8 comments)

"At one time this Pullman railroad car was the apex of luxury -- at least according to Stagecoach Stop USA, which in 1978 parked the car on the attraction's front lawn and opened it as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Railroad Car Museum. Supposedly used by President Eisenhower in the 1950s-..." or was it?
posted to MetaFilter by clavdivs at 7:34 PM on October 23, 2023 (10 comments)

Please enjoy Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five performing two songs about trains: 1. Choo Choo Ch'Boogie - 1946 (recorded live); 2. Texas and Pacific - 1947 (recorded live)
posted to MetaFilter by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 8:06 PM on October 23, 2023 (11 comments)

Froderick gets a home. (SLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by newpotato at 6:04 AM on October 23, 2023 (16 comments)

This week... things that continue: the hostage situation in Gaza, the US House continues failing to elect a new Speaker, and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez facing corruption charges. And Now: Some Things That Turn Stuart Varney On. The main story is management consultants McKinsey & Company, a gigantic organization that advises huge corporations and government agencies alike. They have a pretty high opinion of themselves, while keeping a low profile. "They are, without question, the go-to consultants for managers seeking justification for savage cost cutting[...]as well as a convenient scapegoat on which to blame it." (Duff McDonald, The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence) The episode finishes with a LWT-made "commercial" for McKinsey, who are "capable of anything, and culpable for nothing." The McKinsey segment is on Youtube. (27 minutes)
posted to FanFare by JHarris at 12:27 AM on October 23, 2023 (6 comments)

I’ve known since I was 11 who these people, this Eyebrows McGee and this languagehat, are. After graduating from college, I still thought of Metafilter as a rarified club of experts that I’d somehow snuck into. I also thought of Metafilter as a perfect window onto the world. I was sure I could better understand different life experiences because I read strangers’ thoughts, freed by anonymity to be honest. I knew I lived in a tiny bubble, and Metafilter seemed my best defense against that insularity.
posted to MetaFilter by mecran01 at 5:15 PM on October 21, 2023 (238 comments)

Hi there, MetaFilter!

Welcome to your monthly Site Update! You can find the last Site Update here.

Reminder: I will be the only mod actively monitoring this thread so please be patient. I’ll reply to your feedback and questions at least twice a week. I’m looking forward to your feedback and questions!
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 1:58 PM on October 18, 2023 (10 comments)

Carla Bley , jazz composer, pianist, organist and bandleader, died today aged 87

posted to MetaFilter by thatwhichfalls at 11:07 AM on October 17, 2023 (35 comments)

Queen Shit: The Case for Joan Baez
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 11:55 PM on October 15, 2023 (29 comments)

My Year of Adornment is an essay by Afua Hirsch about embracing aging instead of fighting it.
posted to MetaFilter by RobinofFrocksley at 11:18 AM on October 15, 2023 (38 comments)

Find That Meme, by Matthew Bryant provides full text search for memes.
How it’s made
h/t Today in Tabs, by rusty
posted to MetaFilter by Going To Maine at 1:35 PM on January 12, 2023 (9 comments)

Why Won’t Elite Colleges Deploy the One Race-Neutral Way to Achieve Diversity? Giving a leg up to poor students of all races would diversify elite schools. Officials would rather do anything else.
posted to MetaFilter by crazy with stars at 7:41 AM on October 14, 2023 (54 comments)

“What they’re trying to do offends me at the root of who I am and what I’m about.” - LeVar Burton Wants You to Read Banned Books
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 10:47 PM on October 13, 2023 (12 comments)

Elliott Smith playing "Clementine" for a mostly human crowd. Or as Stereogum put it, Watch An Unearthed Elliott Smith Appearance On A Goofy 1995 Morning Show Co-Hosted By A Puppet.
posted to MetaFilter by betweenthebars at 2:15 PM on October 13, 2023 (20 comments)

From 1986, Susan Sontag's short story "The Way We Live Now." (SL New Yorker) (I only just came across this story yesterday and loved it and thought I would share it with you.)
posted to MetaFilter by mittens at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2023 (3 comments)

The numbers confirm what many of us have long suspected — that Twitter wasn’t worth the effort, at least in terms of traffic
posted to MetaFilter by folklore724 at 10:24 PM on October 12, 2023 (50 comments)

The first word has been discovered from the Herculaneum papyri! The Vesuvius Challenge is a machine learning and computer vision competition to read the Herculaneum Papyri, which are a library of papyrus scrolls, preserved by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. While the scrolls have been preserved, they're too delicate to unfurl without destroying them. However, the scrolls can be virtually unwrapped using 3D scanning and ink detection.
posted to MetaFilter by yasaman at 2:26 PM on October 12, 2023 (44 comments)

A collaborative animation project headed by Jacob Reed, "Our Frasier Remake" has enlisted over 130 animators to remake one Frasier episode, with each contributor imaginatively animating 6-12 seconds of the show's Season One finale, "My Coffee with Niles." Absolutely amazing...
posted to MetaFilter by Seekerofsplendor at 10:41 AM on October 11, 2023 (26 comments)

'The War Horse', by Eavan Boland. "When studying Boland’s poetry, the students rightfully began to discuss their own struggles—and, remembering Yeats’s “I, being poor, have only my dreams”—were better able to resist the oppressive forces in their lives, to understand the strength needed to overcome provincial societal norms, to rally against antiquated ideas and histories that demand women conduct themselves in ways antithetical to a free-thinking person." from, “Shadows in the Story”: An Interview with Eavan Boland.
posted to MetaFilter by clavdivs at 2:27 PM on October 10, 2023 (4 comments)

In Baltic Sea, citizen divers restore seagrass to fight climate change
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:36 AM on October 10, 2023 (4 comments)

Unlike every other IRC client, where communication is done purely in text form, Comic Chat allows you to assume an avatar and use it to chat in the form of an ongoing comic strip. Every line you say can be punctuated with specific emotions/poses. It still works perfectly to this very day. Comic Chat is arguably one of the greatest communication methods out there for autistic people (if not the greatest). It provides all of the advantanges of being able to hear your conversational partner's words and see their facial expressions and body language, without being overwhelming and while still allowing one plenty of time to process everything.
posted to MetaFilter by one for the books at 10:14 PM on October 9, 2023 (21 comments)

Rachel Pollack saw miracles in the world, and she was someone who taught other people to see them. (slXtra Magazine)
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 6:40 AM on October 9, 2023 (9 comments)

Busting myths about daddy-long-legs spiders. You probably have a daddy-long-legs in your house right now, but there's so much about them that is commonly misunderstood.
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:02 AM on October 8, 2023 (55 comments)

Sudbury, ON woman goes viral for scathing obit about her dead father. Original TikTok here.
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 1:54 PM on October 7, 2023 (35 comments)

Rick Beetham on Mastodon asked a local food bank for the best items to donate to them, and came up with a list of 20 tips. The comments also has useful info, including that it's better to donate directly to the food bank instead of through the grocery store (and that way you might even get a receipt for writing it off on your taxes), and that giving money is usually best, because food banks often can get discounts that are unavailable to donators.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 11:09 PM on October 6, 2023 (31 comments)

As with any disruptive phenomenon, there are both enthusiasts, whose close-meshed nets catch some dubious fish, and deniers, who insist that even the big ones should be thrown back. For many years, insanity was a common metaphor employed for those who believe acrostics in ancient poetry are intentional. The most influential one-paragraph Classics article ever written, Don Fowler’s playful intervention about the acrostic MARS spanning Vergil’s description of the Gates of War, ends with the memorable sentence: ‘I await the men in white coats.’ What Fowler did not anticipate was that, four decades later, acrostics would begin to be recognised as not just an occasional jeu d’esprit in ancient poetry, but a widespread phenomenon and a major source of meaning. from Vergil’s secret message
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 6:54 AM on October 5, 2023 (17 comments)

Manitoba has elected Canada's first ever Indigenous provincial premier, Wab Kinew. Kinew's father was not allowed to vote as a young man under Canadian law at the time.
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 6:02 AM on October 4, 2023 (27 comments)

In the mid-1930s, Harry Beck, of London Underground 'Tube' Map fame (previously), created a similar map showing air routes from London, England, to destinations across the globe.
posted to MetaFilter by atlantica at 4:02 AM on October 4, 2023 (12 comments)

Thanks for your patience as I have worked through talking with lawyers who talk with their experts. This is a substantive update with some news and some questions for the community. The short form is: everyone on the team of people I spoke with agrees that MeFi could potentially be a non-profit organization (with the ultimate determination being made by the IRS). Now we need to decide how to move forward and make MeFi into a community-run organization. I'll give some backstory and a "where we are with this" situation inside.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:52 AM on October 3, 2023 (182 comments)

Cory Doctorow writes: "Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers. Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing."
posted to MetaFilter by AlSweigart at 9:01 AM on October 3, 2023 (63 comments)

Waste coffee grounds make concrete 30% stronger. Researchers have found that concrete can be made 30% stronger by replacing a percentage of sand with spent coffee grounds, an organic waste product produced in huge amounts that usually ends up in landfill. The method also reduces the use of natural resources like sand, further contributing to a greener circular economy approach to construction.
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:20 PM on October 2, 2023 (56 comments)

The pool of podcast listeners is growing, but the flood of shows on various streaming platforms makes it tough to break new hits. Facing competition across genres and formats, Spotify found that exclusive podcasts generally don’t draw subscribers away from its rivals. Podcast costs at the company rose €29 million in the first half of this year. from Spotify’s $1 Billion Podcast Bet Turns Into a Serial Drama [WSJ; ungated]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 6:14 AM on October 2, 2023 (52 comments)

It's Mabel's birthday and she wants to spend it solving a crime! Official rundown from IMDB: Having amassed a plethora of clues, suspects and theories but no concrete answers about Ben's murder, the trio devise a peculiar method of recreating the final moments of his life. AV Club review.
posted to FanFare by jenfullmoon at 12:47 PM on September 26, 2023 (32 comments)

A farmer set a trap to catch whatever was killing his chooks. He caught a tiger quoll (marsupial carnivore that reaches up to 3.5 kilograms/7.7 pounds) that had been thought to be extinct in South Australia for 130 years. When farmer Pao Ling Tsai set a trap to catch the predator that had been killing his chooks, he expected to catch a feral cat or fox. Instead, he caught a species that was thought extinct in South Australia more than 130 years ago. The quoll has now been vet checked, had DNA samples taken, treated for mange, and will be released into the wild.
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:21 PM on September 28, 2023 (22 comments)

Inside the secret meeting of Vine stars that ushered in the app’s demise (WaPo gift link)
posted to MetaFilter by kyleg at 7:56 AM on September 28, 2023 (39 comments)

Back in the spring of 2022, professor of linguistics David Pesetsky was talking to an undergraduate class about relative clauses… Before long a student, Kanoe Evile ’23, raised her hand. “How does this account for the ‘whom of which’ construction?” Evile asked. Pesetsky, who has been teaching linguistics at MIT since 1988, had never encountered the phrase “whom of which” before. “I thought, ‘What?’” Pesetsky recalls.
posted to MetaFilter by Horace Rumpole at 5:29 PM on September 27, 2023 (126 comments)

Hera must face the New Republic, while in a galaxy far, far away a reunion takes place.
posted to FanFare by EndsOfInvention at 2:38 AM on September 27, 2023 (27 comments)

WGA writers union reaches agreement to end strike vs Hollywood studios "The Negotiating Committee, the WGAW Board and WGAE Council all voted unanimously to recommend the agreement. It will now go to both guilds’ memberships for a ratification vote." WGA's updated chart comparing what the studios offered on May 1st to what the writers got after their 148-day strike [PDF], including writers room protections, streaming residuals based on actual viewership numbers, and more.
posted to MetaFilter by mediareport at 10:31 PM on September 26, 2023 (63 comments)

Prometheus Lost in Space mashup trailer.
posted to MetaFilter by clavdivs at 7:20 PM on September 24, 2023 (23 comments)

For centuries grape growers in different communities passed down lore about where their grapes came from. Some governments, particularly in Europe, designated appellations—strictly circumscribed regions with rules on how and where a varietal such as burgundy, rioja or barolo was legally allowed to grow and be produced. But genetic studies to discover where vines originated thousands of years ago began in earnest only 10 or 15 years ago. from Wine’s True Origins Are Finally Revealed
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 4:01 AM on September 24, 2023 (25 comments)

Many vehicles have horns. There are some who think bicycles should have one. And then there are those who just want to make a little music with them.
posted to MetaFilter by But tomorrow is another day... at 4:24 PM on October 31, 2016 (23 comments)

To celebrate the eightieth birthday of UK composer Gavin Bryars, Leo Chadburn of The Quietus interviews him about his selection of ten pieces from a long and hugely varied career.
posted to MetaFilter by thatwhichfalls at 11:12 AM on September 22, 2023 (4 comments)

The war in Ukraine continues with Ukraine seeming to finally break through to the other side the primary defensive line that has been holding up their progress during the summer counter offensive.
posted to MetaFilter by interogative mood at 6:41 AM on September 22, 2023 (160 comments)

Welcome to your monthly Site Update for MetaFilter, our beloved community weblog! The last update is here. You’ll find some updates regarding the site below. I’m looking forward to your feedback and questions.

Reminder: I will be the only mod monitoring this thread so please be patient and constructive as I reply to your feedback and questions.
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 12:28 PM on September 20, 2023 (188 comments)

Half-million-year-old wooden structure unearthed in Zambia
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 12:02 PM on September 21, 2023 (20 comments)

Charles finds an unexpected source for a major clue; a Broadway icon comes knocking at Oliver's door; Mabel forms an alternate trio to pursue a lead that sheds light on Ben's bro and CoBro history.
posted to FanFare by Navelgazer at 10:54 AM on September 13, 2023 (25 comments)