Eurovision host Petra Mede and 2015 winner Måns Zelmerlöw teach you how to design the ultimate Eurovision song with Love Love, Peace Peace
posted to MetaFilter by Joe in Australia at 7:33 PM on May 14, 2016 (49 comments)

538 crunches the numbers behind 255 years of professional sumo tournaments.
posted to MetaFilter by Chrysostom at 8:28 PM on May 13, 2016 (8 comments)

The Friday poem: 'Monica’, by Hera Lindsay Bird Monica Geller off popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S / Is one of the worst characters in the history of television / She makes me want to wash my hands with hand sanitizer / She makes me want to stand in an abandoned Ukrainian parking lot / And scream her name at a bunch of dead crows
posted to MetaFilter by Sebmojo at 8:37 PM on May 12, 2016 (26 comments)

For your listening pleasure, double-dose of other/worldly Essential Mixes from the recent past: the German trio known as Moderat (Mixcloud/Soundcloud), and the globe-trotting psychedelic Canadian duo known as Blond:ish (YouTube/ Mixcloud/ Soundcloud). Blond:ish started releasing music together in 2010, while Moderat have a more than a decade of work together and more musical history as the separate parts of Modeselektor and Apparat. Which is to say, more music inside.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 8:57 PM on May 11, 2016 (4 comments)

Britain has changed so quickly, the gains of 40 years of social progress undone in half a generation, that most of us are still struggling to compute it, but the evidence is right there in front of us, on our cinema and television screens. It’s not posh-bashing to say this is a problem.

Why Working-class Actors Are a Dying Breed, The Observer (8 May 2016).
posted to MetaFilter by Sonny Jim at 9:00 AM on May 8, 2016 (35 comments)

David Samuels profiles the White House's deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes, and finds "an only slightly updated version of what Holden Caulfield might have been like if he grew up to work in the West Wing." Although the comparison, and the rest of the profile, seem intended to frame Rhodes as a serious thinker and decision-maker, Rhodes's derision toward the press corps ("They literally know nothing"), jaundiced candor about the "spin" used in selling the Iran deal, and statements like “I don’t know anymore where I begin and Obama ends" have set the media establishment afire with hot takes and critiques.
posted to MetaFilter by sallybrown at 7:13 AM on May 7, 2016 (18 comments)

KC Green, the artist behind the "this is fine" meme, talks about its origin and meaning.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 8:19 PM on May 5, 2016 (51 comments)

(Great video + summarizing text) In America, white people are referred to as Caucasians, but outside the U.S. the term refers to people from the Caucasus region, which includes the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, and Turkey. So why do Americans refer to people of European ancestry as Caucasians? In the video above, Franchesca Ramsey from MTV’s Decoded takes a look at the word’s history and it’s really racist.
posted to MetaFilter by Salamandrous at 3:26 PM on May 3, 2016 (27 comments)

To understand how the $60bn company is taking over the world, you need to stop thinking about cars. (sllongreadTheGrauniad)
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 9:43 AM on May 2, 2016 (55 comments)

Ex-soldier Jonathan Pine, the night manager at the Nefertiti hotel in Cairo, is approached by Sophie Alekan, a guest who is the kept woman of businessman Freddie Hamid, and who asks him to copy some documents for her.
posted to FanFare by kanewai at 12:19 PM on April 28, 2016 (9 comments)

Game developers must avoid the "Pay Me For My Work" attitude
posted to MetaFilter by Harvey Kilobit at 11:13 PM on April 19, 2016 (94 comments)

Classic Programmer Paintings. Classical painters depictions of software engineering by @gclaramunt.
posted to MetaFilter by zabuni at 10:21 PM on April 19, 2016 (14 comments)

"The most unappreciated and undervalued forms of technological labour are also the most ordinary: those who repair and maintain technologies that already exist, that were ‘innovated’ long ago....We can think of labour that goes into maintenance and repair as the work of the maintainers, those individuals whose work keeps ordinary existence going rather than introducing novel things." Innovation is overrated: "Hail the Maintainers," an essay by Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell.
posted to MetaFilter by MonkeyToes at 5:38 PM on April 16, 2016 (38 comments)

Being a 'dumb girl' in Computer Science
posted to MetaFilter by the man of twists and turns at 9:49 PM on April 6, 2016 (119 comments)

'Superman,' The Inside Story
posted to MetaFilter by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:36 PM on April 2, 2016 (44 comments)

Perception , the latest mural from French-Tunisian 'calligraffti' artist eL Seed, sprawls across more than 50 buildings in Cairo's Mansyiyat Naser neighbourhood, home of the city's informal garbage collectors and one of the poorest areas in the city. Aerial video of the piece.
posted to MetaFilter by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:47 PM on March 30, 2016 (11 comments)

About 3200 years ago, two armies clashed at a river crossing near the Baltic Sea. The confrontation can’t be found in any history books—the written word didn’t become common in these parts for another 2000 years—but this was no skirmish between local clans. Thousands of warriors came together in a brutal struggle, perhaps fought on a single day, using weapons crafted from wood, flint, and bronze, a metal that was then the height of military technology.
posted to MetaFilter by ShooBoo at 8:02 PM on March 24, 2016 (48 comments)

Start To Finish Logging, Biomass Removal, Logs to Lumber (MLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 6:55 AM on March 23, 2016 (19 comments)

SF BART's twitter account admits that their infrastructure is failing and delves into the details: "We have 3 hours a night to do maintenance on a system built to serve 100k per week that now serves 430k per day."
posted to MetaFilter by sibilatorix at 3:10 PM on March 21, 2016 (81 comments)

From July 2007 to April 2013, Arstechnica writer Jeremy Reimer wrote a series of articles covering the History of the Amiga. Now almost 3 years later, part 9 has been released. It covers the game changing (pun not intended but this is the Amiga) Video Toaster.
posted to MetaFilter by juiceCake at 2:16 PM on March 18, 2016 (38 comments)

With trepidation, Weßel ordered a scan, which showed a typed carbon copy, with corrections in Koestler’s handwriting. The date on the title page, March 1940, was the date on which Koestler is known to have finished the novel. There was no doubt. Weßel had stumbled across a copy of the German manuscript of Koestler’s masterpiece. The implications of Weßel’s discovery are considerable, for Darkness at Noon is that rare specimen, a book known to the world only in translation.
posted to MetaFilter by Rustic Etruscan at 10:26 AM on March 15, 2016 (16 comments)

I'd like to read about the connection between the counter culture/alternative culture in the 60s and the first generation of computer culture. I believe our thinking about computers and the internet contains a lot of DNA from the alternative part of the 60s, but I don't know where I can read about this subject. Your suggestions (preferably links to online material) are welcome!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Termite at 8:15 AM on March 10, 2016 (12 comments)

Thomas Frank, perhaps most notable for using his home state of Kansas as a case study for the transformation of the United States by the Republican Party's embrace of the Southern strategy and the Reagan revolution, now draws out the difference between the treatment of Trump's appeal by the mainstream press versus what Trump seems to emphasize in his speeches.

Millions of ordinary Americans support Donald Trump. Here's why (SLGrauniad)

posted to MetaFilter by one weird trick at 5:04 AM on March 10, 2016 (261 comments)

The fleece that launched 1,000 ships.
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 6:07 AM on March 9, 2016 (17 comments)

An excellent short video from the British Geological Survey about Siccar Point. In the spring of 1788 James Hutton set off with John Playfair to the Berwickshire coast. They took a boat trip from Dunglass Burn east along the coast with the geologist Sir James Hall of Dunglass. In the cliff below St. Helens, then just to the east at Siccar Point they found what Hutton called "a beautiful picture of this junction washed bare by the sea", now known as Hutton's Unconformity, the birthplace of modern geology.
posted to MetaFilter by Long Way To Go at 7:30 PM on February 27, 2016 (8 comments)

Y2K Futurism - An investigation into the futurism/aesthetic of the period 1996-02 (SLImgur)
posted to MetaFilter by timshel at 3:14 AM on February 26, 2016 (45 comments)

Christopher Robbins interviews Robert Caro for Gothamist.
posted to MetaFilter by the man of twists and turns at 8:05 AM on February 18, 2016 (18 comments)

Does anyone have experience with the Warm Showers network they'd like to share? I don't want to sign up until I get more information than that on the website.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by partner at 4:11 PM on February 15, 2016 (11 comments)

In a 7-Eleven in Reno on Feb. 2, 2013, around 2:30 am, Julian Acox had a confrontation with the members of a motorcycle club. A few minutes later, as Acox was fleeing in his car, he fired his gun, killing one of the club members, Merlin Herrald.
Self-defense, or first-degree murder? A stand your ground state, and a black defendant. Race, self-defense and making of a murder charge
posted to MetaFilter by ShooBoo at 7:54 PM on February 15, 2016 (33 comments)

How 26 tweets broke my filter bubble -- B. J. May was just an ordinary Javascript developer from Middle America until a series of tweets by Marco Rogers helped him discover a wider world outside his whitebread bubble.
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 1:09 AM on February 9, 2016 (33 comments)

Artisanal Integers - Summer of 2012. Suddenly several “integer-as-a-service-providers” spring from nowhere. They deliver “artisanal integers”. Integers which (they claim) are “hand-crafted and guaranteed to be unique and hella-beautiful”.
posted to MetaFilter by Wolfdog at 4:34 AM on February 4, 2016 (78 comments)

Behold The Frinkiac, a search engine that matches Simpsons quotes to exact screen grabs. Sure, it looks impressive, but I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them.
posted to MetaFilter by Fuzzy Monster at 11:06 AM on February 3, 2016 (95 comments)

We had the opportunity to cycle in a number of North American cities in 2015, including Washington D.C., Montreal, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. And it was through the mixed experiences of sharing their streets with locals that we began to observe a seldom-discussed measure of a city’s bike-friendliness: the speed at which its cyclists travel.

posted to MetaFilter by aniola at 10:04 PM on January 26, 2016 (40 comments)

I saw a pair of amazing paintings in San Jose, CA, around 2007. They were called "Heaven" and "Hell", and each showed a very detailed fantasy cityscape on a hill, covered in freeways.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Nibbly Fang at 7:06 PM on January 16, 2016 (4 comments)

For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions -"The very richest are able to quietly shape tax policy that will allow them to shield billions in income." (via)
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 4:20 AM on January 4, 2016 (31 comments)

MeFi fave Tony Zhou returns with a look at ensemble staging.
posted to MetaFilter by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:51 AM on January 2, 2016 (7 comments)

The Website Obesity Crisis Maciej Cegłowski calls for downsizing web pages. And "I shouldn't need sled dogs and pemmican to navigate your visual design." (previously)
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:46 AM on January 1, 2016 (71 comments)

The story of the 2007-2008 credit and housing bubble collapse, seen through the eyes of a handful of misfit financial investors who predicted it would happen. Based on the book by Michael Lewis.
posted to FanFare by zarq at 4:38 PM on December 28, 2015 (42 comments)

"Despite Trump’s apparent strength in national polls, Cruz’s targeting of Iowa focuses on the most logical schwerpunkt for defeating Trump (puncturing his air of being a winner) by using the sequential nature of primaries to hand him a defeat in the first state to actually vote." Applying the theories of military strategist John Boyd to explain why Donald Trump has proven so successful in the primary so far, and why he will fail. Also, schwerpunkt!
posted to MetaFilter by macross city flaneur at 9:12 AM on December 19, 2015 (106 comments)

"So when I started programming in 2001, it was du jour in the communities I participated in to be highly critical of other languages. Other languages sucked, the people using them were losers or stupid, if they would just use a real language, such as the one we used, everything would just be better.

Right?"

Contempt Culture, Aurynn Shaw (The Particular Finest)
posted to MetaFilter by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:48 AM on December 18, 2015 (207 comments)

John Ott is a model railroad enthusiast and an H.P. Lovecraft fan. Perhaps inevitably, he has produced part of Arkham, Mass. in HO scale.
posted to MetaFilter by ricochet biscuit at 8:07 AM on December 12, 2015 (27 comments)

The state of California just announced that the new technology underpinning its Child Welfare System [pdf] won't be the usual "IT Solution" bought up in one big lump to follow a 4000-page specification. Instead, it's going to be built as a series of smaller modular projects driven by user needs, drawing on agile methodologies, a wider range of vendors, and, wherever possible, open standards and open source software. The decision, made in collaboration with Code for America and the federal government, sets an important precedent for how governments on all levels can get past the pitfalls of the standard procurement model.
posted to MetaFilter by holgate at 10:42 AM on December 8, 2015 (63 comments)

So long as I was smoking, I would never reach the point where there would be nothing more to be done. Emmett Rensin on the peculiar self-management of anxiety.
posted to MetaFilter by Zarkonnen at 10:41 AM on November 30, 2015 (14 comments)

Legofy is a python program (hosted on github) that takes a static image or gif and makes it so that it looks as if it was created by 1x1 LEGO bricks. For example: a gif; a small work of art; a large work of art; recursive LEGO-ification. [via reddit]
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 8:24 PM on November 30, 2015 (10 comments)

I don't remember buying these gaudy mother fuckin shoes but am i gonna wear em? you bet your ass
posted to MetaFilter by Rustic Etruscan at 12:18 PM on November 25, 2015 (92 comments)

When workers first arrived on the lot that Monday morning, they got a message through a security guard or a colleague or a handwritten sign taped up to the wall: Don’t turn on your computer. Later, someone might pop in and deliver the latest directive fourth-hand: “Unplug your computer from the wall.“ Which plug? The network cable? The power cord? Who knows? Just unplug everything. Says one worker: “It was all the hysteria of not knowing.” --One year later, what it was like to work at Sony when all their internal systems got hacked.
posted to MetaFilter by Potomac Avenue at 12:50 PM on November 24, 2015 (16 comments)

Nebulae run through a tilt-shift filter come out looking tiny and adorable and precious.
posted to MetaFilter by nebulawindphone at 2:48 PM on November 21, 2015 (25 comments)

What was it like to be a Nintendo game play counselor? The A.V. Club interviews three former Nintento Hotline gameplay experts.
posted to MetaFilter by figurant at 10:42 PM on November 20, 2015 (25 comments)

Pinboard's (and MeFi's own) Maciej Cegłowski live-tweets O'Reilly's Next:Economy conference.
posted to MetaFilter by tonycpsu at 9:51 PM on November 15, 2015 (23 comments)

The Kesla 28RH is a machine that turns trees into logs. Very quickly. (SLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by theodolite at 12:00 PM on November 14, 2015 (75 comments)