Mateusz Marpi Marcinowski is a prolific digital artist who makes trippy, psychedelic, abstract and sometimes interactive installations including a digital terrarium for colorful papercraft arthropods, weird ASCII creatures and living Dali landscapes. But here's what you really want: a toy to spawn endless procedurally generated arthropods all over your screen. You're welcome.
posted to MetaFilter by byanyothername at 1:25 PM on April 9, 2017 (9 comments)

Tom7/SuckerPinch is back. This time, he's written a DOS executable that only uses printable bytes. Because he could.
posted to MetaFilter by DoctorFedora at 6:15 AM on April 3, 2017 (28 comments)

The New York Public Library has digitized 100 "how to do it" cards found in cigarette boxes over 100 years ago.
posted to MetaFilter by standardasparagus at 11:02 AM on March 25, 2017 (53 comments)

Robert Ek is a digital artist from Sweden with an unsettling style.
posted to MetaFilter by growabrain at 8:11 AM on March 25, 2017 (11 comments)

"Previous studies used the wrong algorithm and missed an obvious hypothesis. [A] new study in Nature suggests the trade routes may be 2,500 years older than previously believed and its origins much humbler than the rich cities it spawned.
posted to MetaFilter by Celsius1414 at 9:34 AM on March 13, 2017 (11 comments)

Mapzen (previously) has released a new map for cyclists, with roads and paths which have been categorized into four tiers based on safety. Map overlay technical details. (Note: The map is randomly international and some cities might only have a few road segments highlighted.)
posted to MetaFilter by Room 641-A at 8:58 AM on March 12, 2017 (30 comments)

The watercolor sketches & captions of Diana Sperling (1791-1862) depict vibrant, witty scenes of comfortable Regency life. Her sketchbook was published as Mrs Hurst Dancing & Other Scenes from Regency Life 1812 – 1823, recording for posterity such moments as her younger sister falling off a donkey and the extended family playing with electricity.
posted to MetaFilter by mixedmetaphors at 6:52 AM on March 1, 2017 (11 comments)

Please indundate me with classic, feel-good, hands-in-the-air, early-mid-90s, underground deep house music, with pianos and organs and (optional) gospel hollering and shit! (Newer tunes are fine too, but I'm definitely after the classic sound. And I don't think much of it gets made these days.)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by escape from the potato planet at 6:19 PM on February 27, 2017 (14 comments)

An oldie but a goodie: All 25 of the G.I. Joe PSA parodies, made by Eric Fensler circa 2003, Remastered in HD and Compiled in one youtube video (previously, previouslier)
posted to MetaFilter by mannequito at 5:33 PM on February 21, 2017 (46 comments)

A 5-day summer school will be offered at Tufts University from August 7-11, 2017, with the principal purpose of training mathematicians to be expert witnesses for court cases on redistricting and gerrymandering. How gerrymandered is your congressional district, anyway? You can use geometry as a proxy: compare the perimeter of your district to the perimeter of a circle with the same area. The Washington Post suggests what non-gerrymandered districts might look like. Previouslies, especially compactness
posted to MetaFilter by leahwrenn at 1:31 PM on February 11, 2017 (71 comments)

There is a stereotypical French expression which seems universal in the USA: "Oh ho ho ho!" It's always said with a semi-nasal vocalization, almost "ohn" and "haw". Is this a real thing?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Huffy Puffy at 9:51 AM on February 9, 2017 (15 comments)

The Design & Tech students of Adam's Grammar School in Shropshire, UK built a race bike from scratch and then watched as it was raced in a criterion.
posted to MetaFilter by shimmerbug at 9:42 PM on February 7, 2017 (8 comments)

Webcomic Name is a webcomic by Alex Norris that prominently features a certain running joke. Despite its formal limits, it is often topical, spiritual, and/or experimental.
posted to MetaFilter by HeroZero at 5:03 AM on February 5, 2017 (32 comments)

Weronika Gęsicka is a Polish photographer and artist who creates surreal, fractured variations on mid-century Americana imagery.
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 7:33 AM on January 26, 2017 (8 comments)

Mark Fisher, blogger, editor, and cultural theorist, Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmith's, University of London, and author of Capitalist Realism (2009) died suddenly on 13 January 2017. He was 48 and leaves a wife and young son.
posted to MetaFilter by Sonny Jim at 4:17 AM on January 20, 2017 (24 comments)

Contracts and convicts: how perverse incentives created the death fleet After Australia's First Fleet came the second fleet. Due to contract issues, many people died. (via @smurray38)
posted to MetaFilter by hawthorne at 4:42 AM on January 16, 2017 (8 comments)

I want to be a little more organised with regards to how I approach my weekday evening meals, but I want my planning to incorporate some space for flexibility, to allow for different moods, levels of hunger, etc. Can any of you seasoned meal-planners tell me how you manage this?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ziggy500 at 1:23 AM on January 7, 2017 (14 comments)

Almost six months after she was hired, the shop had an opening for a full-time mechanic. Layton wasn’t moved into the position, as she’d been promised. Instead, the store hired a young man who hadn’t gone to bike school, and whose experience came from volunteering at the same bike shop where Layton had previously worked. “On his first day,” she says, “he overtightened a seatcollar on a carbon seatpost and cracked it, smashed it. I fucking would have known not to do that.”
posted to MetaFilter by Atreides at 12:26 PM on January 6, 2017 (38 comments)

DJ Kutski is keeping the rave alive via podcast mixes, "representing 360 degrees of the harder styles of dance music," an hour at a time. He's up to 244 episodes, and if you check out a few, you'll quickly notice a pattern in the shows. They generally feature a mix of old and new tracks, a cheeky check to see "does it sound good at 170 BPM", a bit of sample mania, and a guest mini-mix from such names as Dune and Charlie Lownoise & Mental Theo from the living history of the scenes, with folks like Sound Rush and AniMe representing the new generation. PLUR!
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 8:51 PM on December 7, 2016 (3 comments)

For most of its 146 years, Deutsche Bank was the embodiment of German values: reliable and safe. Now, the once-proud institution is facing the abyss. SPIEGEL tells the story of how Deutsche's 1990s rush to join the world banking elite paved the way for its own downfall.
posted to MetaFilter by gen at 4:51 PM on November 26, 2016 (20 comments)

I've recently noticed a particular, highly pitchy snare sound in lots of trap songs (see eg the snare in this Clams Casino track). I'm curious as to (a) where it originated and (b) how it was produced (to my ears it sounds like a heavily band-filtered snare sample, perhaps layered with pitched noise). Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Frobenius Twist at 9:19 AM on November 24, 2016 (6 comments)

I need a happy place online - give to me your your funny, your odd, your interesting, your happy twitter account suggestions!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by pseudonymph at 7:36 AM on November 13, 2016 (22 comments)

At age 16, Alexandra Ansanelli was anointed a prodigy. By 22, she was a principal for the New York City Ballet. At 26, she was a principal for the Royal Ballet. By 28, she had given it all up.

posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 5:09 PM on November 5, 2016 (14 comments)

What makes an image NSFW, according to Yahoo's recently open sourced neural network, open_nsfw?
posted to MetaFilter by Pyrogenesis at 12:41 AM on October 21, 2016 (36 comments)

It’s the evening of April 30th of this year. I’m sitting on the edge of my bathtub smoking. I smoke almost every day. I am standing on the edge of an abyss. Everything feels wrong and I have no idea why. I’m covered in molasses, dragged to earth. I have strange ideas, strange fantasies. Nothing makes sense. I don’t know why.
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 10:33 AM on October 19, 2016 (46 comments)

Tales from India's First War of Independence Eyewitness accounts of survivors of the Mughal family who fled from Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi) after the Revolt of 1857.
posted to MetaFilter by infini at 12:15 AM on October 8, 2016 (5 comments)

Greg Rucka on Queer Narrative and Wonder Woman [Comicosity] [Interview] “Ah. We’re talking about the “Northstar Problem.” The character has to stand up and say, “I’M GAY!” in all bold caps for it to be evident. For my purposes, that’s bad writing. That’s a character stating something that’s not impacting the story. I get nothing for my narrative out of that in almost any case. When a character is being asked point blank, if it’s germane to the story, then you get the answer. But for me, and I think for Nicola as well, for any story we tell — be it Black Magick, be it Wonder Woman, be it a Batman story — we want to show you these characters and their lives, and what they are doing. We want to show, not tell.”
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 7:43 AM on October 1, 2016 (19 comments)

Why The Princess Bride Is a Perfect Fantasy Movie. Discuss.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Wallflower at 12:13 PM on September 27, 2016 (124 comments)

This is a pretty good domino spiral. It took 25 hours to build over 8 days with 15,000 dominoes.
posted to MetaFilter by SpacemanStix at 9:51 PM on September 10, 2016 (29 comments)

Film acting is built from the very stuff of social life: norms of behavior, standards of interaction and communication, communally legible gestures, and personality tropes and dynamics. But if this poses a challenge for the critic, it’s also the reason acting styles, taken in the aggregate, are such unusually good barometers of cultural modes, themes, and ideas, whether they respond to prevalent motifs or are generated themselves.
posted to MetaFilter by felix grundy at 12:45 PM on September 8, 2016 (17 comments)

Yesterday marked the 35th anniversary of the founding of what would become known as the the Gay Men's Health Crisis. On August 11, 1981, Nathan Fain, Larry Kramer, Lawrence Mass, Paul Popham, Paul Rapoport, and Edmund White met with Dr. Alvin Friedman-Kien and discussed the "gay cancer" that was affecting their friends and lovers. "In 1983 Larry Kramer, one of the founders of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, was kicked out of the organization he helped create, due to his loud and often controversial methods of raising public awareness about the AIDS epidemic." Today, GMHC serves more than 10,000 people per year.
posted to MetaFilter by roomthreeseventeen at 12:06 PM on August 12, 2016 (14 comments)

Porta Polonica is a site (courtesy of the Westphalian State Museum of Industrial Heritage) devoted to the culture and history of Poles in Germany. Some examples of the dozens of articles therein: an account of the novelist Witold Gombrowicz’s year in Berlin; a biography of the pioneering harpsichordist, pianist and composer Wanda Landowska; a piece about Jan Łukasiewicz, who devised what was once known as ‘Reverse Polish Notation’; a brief account of Rosa Luxemburg’s career; an article about star of stage & (silent) screen Pola Negri; and a piece about the letter ‘P’ worn by the millions of Polish forced labourers in wartime Germany.
posted to MetaFilter by misteraitch at 6:03 AM on August 2, 2016 (1 comment)

European refugees in India, Africa and the Middle East

During World War II in Europe over 40 million refugees sought shelter away from the catastrophic bloodshed that engulfed the continent for over six years.

posted to MetaFilter by infini at 7:53 AM on July 26, 2016 (12 comments)

Mariana Mazzucato is Rethinking Capitalism (pdf; via)
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 7:22 AM on July 22, 2016 (16 comments)

Tea Party activist Norm Novitsky crowd-funded for the production of his movie "In Search of Liberty" (preview here), a movie on the US Constitution . Last week, after the crew was dissatisfied with their wages and working conditions, they voted to have the IATSE represent them and went on strike.
posted to MetaFilter by ShooBoo at 10:38 PM on July 9, 2016 (34 comments)

Photographer Johnny Miller uses drones to portray scenes of inequality in South Africa.
posted to MetaFilter by Brandon Blatcher at 3:46 PM on July 6, 2016 (11 comments)

Badge of Dishonor: Top Oakland Police Department Officials Looked Away as East Bay Cops Sexually Exploited and Trafficked a Teenager [East Bay Express] According to a stunning set of allegations, a teenage human trafficking victim in the Bay Area was coerced into sex by at least 22 officers over a six month period.
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 5:19 PM on June 18, 2016 (109 comments)

Smithsonian Magazine goes in-depth with Christo and his new project Floating Piers which will open on June 18 and run through July 3 on Italy's Lake Iseo. His last major installation with with his late wife Jeanne-Claude in New York City's Central Park -- The Gates (2005).
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:31 PM on June 17, 2016 (30 comments)

An astoundingly accurate and thorough piece of work.
posted to MetaFilter by lattiboy at 7:13 PM on June 14, 2016 (54 comments)

Researchers have decoded more writing on the 2,000-year-old Antikythera mechanism and found it may have an astrological purpose
posted to MetaFilter by y2karl at 10:46 AM on June 13, 2016 (27 comments)

Revealed: Cambodia's Vast Medieval Cities Hidden Beneath the Jungle [The Guardian] Archaeologists in Cambodia have found multiple, previously undocumented medieval cities not far from the ancient temple city of Angkor Wat, the Guardian can reveal, in groundbreaking discoveries that promise to upend key assumptions about south-east Asia’s history. The Australian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans, whose findings will be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Monday, will announce that cutting-edge airborne laser scanning technology has revealed multiple cities between 900 and 1,400 years old beneath the tropical forest floor, some of which rival the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 3:41 PM on June 12, 2016 (16 comments)

Image Dithering: Eleven Algorithms and Source Code
posted to MetaFilter by a lungful of dragon at 11:04 PM on June 10, 2016 (25 comments)

Blogger Michelle "Mimi" Villemaire takes pictures of herself as Asian characters played by white women in film.
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 8:38 AM on June 8, 2016 (52 comments)

One hundred years ago today, an enormous Russian offensive begins. The attack surprised nearly everyone, including enemies and the rest of the Russian command.

The massive assault on Austro-Hungarian forces was intended to aid already or soon-to-be hard-pressed Russian allies France, Italy, and Britain, while also hoping to knock an enemy empire out of the war.


posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:50 AM on June 4, 2016 (14 comments)

A sweeping wave of acquisitions has decimated the ranks of independent agencies and formed two clashing clans. On the one side are the giants of advertising and marketing and on the other the titans of management consultancy. Meanwhile the market over which they are fighting is in the midst of a multi-faceted existential crisis.

Jules Ehrhardt presents the state of digital ad agencies in 2016, and how they are coping with ad blockers, the rise of apps, and the other massive changes in both media and consumption in the past few years.
posted to MetaFilter by jenkinsEar at 12:03 PM on June 3, 2016 (8 comments)

You’re witnessing the death of neoliberalism – from within Aditya Chakrabortty comments about the IMF paper titled, "Neoliberalism, Oversold?" that has been making waves. To put it mildly.
posted to MetaFilter by cendawanita at 2:33 AM on June 1, 2016 (41 comments)

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.
posted to MetaFilter by metaquarry at 7:59 AM on May 28, 2016 (129 comments)

The tenants at the Burbank Shopping Plaza change frequently.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Wallflower at 2:47 PM on May 22, 2016 (22 comments)

Don't bring your feelings to prison, son... They'll only wind up getting hurt. (SLImgur)

5FrogMargin relates a month spent in the Baldwin Alabama County Jail.
posted to MetaFilter by endotoxin at 2:59 PM on May 22, 2016 (6 comments)

Astronomers crack the secret of this gorgeous poem by Sappho
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 12:55 AM on May 21, 2016 (25 comments)