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I believe that Islam as a religion at its core treasured women
Amel Bashir is little known outside her home country; she is a Sudanese fine artist, who was born in Port Sudan and raised in Jedda and now lives in Khartoum.
A Guardian article and some larger reproductions of her intricate work.
A Guardian article and some larger reproductions of her intricate work.
Inside the Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect
“Imagine a world in which nature is intertwined with the industrial: giant lotus flowers replace concrete skyscrapers; an urban forest forms a city constantly in shift through a tree’s life cycle. This is the imaginarium of Belgian architect Luc Schuiten. To discover his work is to fall under the spell of a colourful cosmos, where architectural blueprints are swapped for visionary storyboards that invite the viewer to dive into his utopian dreamscape.”
Mind the Gap, Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin, Update
Mind the Gap, a handbook of clinical signs and symptoms in black and brown skin, is available to be downloaded online at no cost.
"I am not a real celebrity!"
A few weeks ago, Lindsay Ellis got canceled for making a tweet comparing two similar movies.
Here's her very long response to pissing people off on this level. Brief recaps of the topics covered in it (after I watched the whole thing) are below. There's also a discussion of the video over here.
Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero
“It is our best understanding that, if we bring down CO2 to net zero, the warming will level off. The climate will stabilize within a decade or two."
The idea that global warming could stop relatively quickly after emissions go to zero was described as a “game-changing new scientific understanding” by Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of news organizations covering climate.
“This really is true,” he said. “It’s a dramatic change in the paradigm that has been lost on many who cover this issue, perhaps because it hasn’t been well explained by the scientific community. It’s an important development that is still under appreciated.”“It’s definitely the scientific consensus now that warming stabilizes quickly, within 10 years, of emissions going to zero,” he said.
The Savor of Memory
When I left Iran for good in 1985, I carried two books in my massive suitcase.
The first was a boxy little hardcover bound in black cloth: the collected ghazals of Hafez (which apparently every Iranian must own). The version was edited by the great modernist poet Ahmad Shamlu, and it was notorious for his controversial editorial choices, unadorned presentation on the page and blasphemous punctuation. The second book was also bound in black cloth. Roza Montazemi’s venerable cookbook, Honar-e-Ashpazi (The Art of Cooking) was bigger in size but lighter, because its paper was what we called kahi, or lower-quality straw paper, lightweight and liable to yellowing.
Beloved Palestinian Poet and Memoirist Mourid Barghouti Dies at 76
Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti, who was unable to return to his home in Palestine after 1967, was a beloved poet, performer, public speaker, and memoirist.
He wrote the popular memoir I Saw Ramallah, which chronicled his return to the West Bank in 1997 and was translated by novelist Ahdaf Souief. He also wrote a follow-up memoir I Was Born There, I Was Born Here, which tells his story from 1998 to 2010, translated by Humphrey Davies.
Take the Nightline through an infinite Metropolis
Inspired by late nights on the Tristate area MTA system, Nightline (Win/Mac/Linux) is a gorgeous procedural subway experience by @colorfiction, free for the next three days.
Microservices — architecture nihilism in minimalism's clothes
Some recent backtracking from what we have been calling “Microservices” has sparked anew the debate around that software architecture pattern.
It turns out that for increasingly more software people, having a backend with (sometimes several) hundreds of services wasn’t that great an idea after all.
Serene, Afloat
Last November, Venice experienced the second-worst flooding in its history. Last month, Venice’s MOSE flood barriers (the system of 78 inflatable gates, designed in 1984, begun in 2003, plagued by delays, and now expected to be completed in 2021) were successfully deployed.
Age of Discord II
Welcome To The 'Turbulent Twenties'
- "We predicted political upheaval in America in the 2020s. This is why it's here and what we can do to temper it."[1,2] (via)
Conspirituality: alt-health meets alt-right
When (and why) right-wing conspiracy theories converge with faux-progressive wellness utopianism.
A weekly podcast hosted by Derek Beres, Matthew Remski and Julian Walker whose experiences as cult survivors and yoga teachers inform their insights. In addition to the podcast and the extensive notes for each episode, resources include Redpilled , an "ever-growing list of wellness industry figures that have posted, shared, or explicitly created QAnon-related content."
Demystifying Game Development
Bijan Stephen interviews Frank Cifaldi and Kelsey Lewin (The Verge) of the Video Game History Foundation on their efforts to preserve videogame history by studying original source code, art, sketchbooks, documentation, and correspondence. They’ve already deconstructed Aladdin, reconstructed Days of Thunder, and recovered the NES version of SimCity. On October 30, they’ll be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the The Secret of Monkey Island by looking through its source material with creator Ron Gilbert.
1998 Live in 2020
Remember Hum? No? Okay. Remember "Stars?" Yeah. Thought you might. Hum was a very influential, very 90s shoegaze/space rock/alt metal band whose last release was in 1998. Wait, no, sorry, whose last release came out in 2020. It's called Inlet. It's pretty good! “Folding” is my favorite.
A Simple Swedish Life
A Korean man living in Sweden documents his paternity leave with carefully crafted short videos. Using only subtitles, he reflects, narrates and tells stories from his daily life. The cinematography is excellent and he is a master of Swedish-Korean fusion cuisine.
Metatalktail Hour: Whither jetpacks?
I look at Classic Era scifi as a string of broken promises. Never went back to the Moon. Hardly any jetpacks. Gigabit internet in the city, dial-up in the country. But still I dream. What's a thing you'd like to invent, something maybe near-plausible, or something entirely fanciful? Can solve a societal problem, a personal problem, or no problem at all. Technological, biological, philosophical, what do you dream about improving?
What is a plural person?
People with multiple personalities have been documented in culture and society for a long time. There's a decent overview in a reasonably recent Stuff You Should Know podcast. However, read on.
PT Anderson directs Thom Yorke in ANIMA
Along with his new self-described “dystopian” solo album ANIMA, Thom Yorke has released a companion one-reeler of the same name, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Shot in Prague and Les Baux-de-Provence, the short film (watch here) follows Yorke dozing off while riding an underground train. When he finds himself unable to exit the station, he leaps across the turnstile and lands into a surreal world where he dances with a small army of people.
The US and UK are running death squads in Kenya
Clandestine Kenyan team has been paid and assisted by the CIA to take down terror suspects since 2004. “We’re really hands-on. We don’t just hand them the money once a month”, one US official said.The CIA and MI6 run a paramilitary execution squad in Kenya (part 2), started under Bush and continuing under Obama and Trump.
“Unconstitutional killings” include a family man wrongly slain due to mistaken identity, and allegations a terror suspect was summarily executed.
Britain’s MI6 plays a key role in identifying suspects for a ‘kill or capture’ list and finding and fixing their location.
"Look at What I Did"
Kellyanne Conway will step down from her role as White House counselor (previously, she was Donald Trump's third campaign manager, following Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandowski) at the end of this month to spend more time with her family (she promises 'less drama, more mama'). Her husband, DC lawyer George Conway, will step away from his role in the Lincoln Project (previously). He added that he'll continue to support the project 'passionately.' These announcements came as good news to at least one person--daughter Claudia Conway, 15, who announced yesterday that she was seeking emancipation from her parents. Kellyanne, George, and Claudia all mentioned taking a break from social media.
Denmark's Ghetto Package
Facing Eviction, Residents Of Denmark's 'Ghettos' Are Suing The Government Earlier this summer, after it became clear that his housing project, called Mjølnerparken, would be targeted as part of a sweeping plan to rid the country of immigrant-heavy areas by 2030, Mehmood and 11 of his neighbors filed a lawsuit against the Danish government, with support from the Open Society Justice Initiative. The lawsuit, which alleges discrimination and seeks to invalidate a section of the government's so-called "ghetto package," comes as the country begins to grapple with broader questions about racism in light of global focus on the issue.
Need a safety sign?
Need an ANSI Z535-compliant safety sign? Sure you do. Here's a convenient sign generator in case you need to let people know that something is dangerous.
Come for the setar, stay for the kamencheh
Kayhan Kalhor, playing a solo setar performance in Tehran's Abgineh museum (runs 55:34). Kalhor is also a master kamencheh player, an instrument he discusses here. More about the setar, previously.
Star Trek INtakes
Bloopers, when edited back into the finished episodes, can add a bit of humanity to characters, like Geordi and Worf Celebrate Their Rescue. Sometimes they just add a bit of absurdity, like Something’s Wrong With Worf. Both are good. All are made by Ryan’s Edits.
Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin
Malone Mukwende, 20, is a second-year medical student at St George’s, University of London. “On arrival at medical school I noticed the lack of teaching in darker skin. We were often being taught to look for symptoms such as red rashes which I was aware would not appear as described in my own skin,” he told BME Medics. “When flagging this to tutors it was clear that they didn’t know of any other way to describe these conditions on patients of darker skin tones and I knew that I had to make a change to that.” (Atlanta Black Star, July 9, 2020) The result is "Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin."
Rhiannon Giddens named artistic director of Silkroad
Rhiannon Giddens has been named artistic director of Silkroad. Silkroad was founded by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, and conceived on the question "What happens when strangers meet?". What happened when Rhiannon and Yo-Yo met: They created a piece of music that gives texture to these times.
MeFi Mag revisited
Let's travel back to the spring of 2011, where several Mefites had the idea of starting a Metafilter magazine.
Sunday is a good day for railway history
Can I interest you in TEE luxury? A tale of two alpinists and their railway posters? Travel for foreigners across the Soviet Union? Spend your Sunday delving into the history and design of Europe's railways with https://retours.eu/.
They even voted on whether to stop the bus for a bathroom break
After two decades of Brazilian military dictatorship, Brazilians were inspired by a football club which made a point of voting on absolutely everything. Socrates and Corinthian Democracy. It was the "greatest team I ever played in because it was more than sport."
images that reveal themselves only to distort and disappear
When a decomposing, century-old film becomes a haunting meditation on memory (Aeon): Created using a decomposing 35mm print of the crime drama The Bells (1926), the experimental short Light Is Calling (2004) depicts a dreamy encounter between a soldier and a mysterious woman.
A thank you, and a question for you.
Hi everybody. Yesterday* I posted this question, asking about sending my son to preschool. And today...
Flat Stanley would be perfect for this
I send monthly letters to my two-year-old nephew, and started included small crafts with them - origami, window stars, coffee filter snowflakes, a friendship bracelet. What are other small, flat-ish things that I can make for him?
Paper Engineering: Over 700 years of Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn
The history of paper engineering in books, or the making of "pop-up books" didn't start as a way to entertain children, but in the search for more tools to educate adults, including some proto-computers from as early as the 13th century. Let Ellen G. K. Rubin, known also as The Popup Lady, regale and inform you at length, in either the form of a 50 minute presentation for the Smithsonian Libraries, or read through her website, where she has a timeline of movable books and see the glossary for definitions of the different movements as starting points. Or you can browse the Smithsonian's digital exhibition (the physical exhibition ended a few years ago). And of course, there's plenty more online.
Create your own 1980s police sketch, online via virtual Mac
MeFite odinsdream recently came across some old abandoned police sketch software for Macintosh systems from the 1980s, then wrapped it up in a web-based emulator, and now you can play with it in your browser! Make your own face sketches. [via mefi projects]
The Islamic History of Coffee
Sufi Muslims in Yemen would boil up the grounds of their coffee cherry leaves and pass around a dark potion as they prepared for a night of dhikr, or meditative chanting.
A sixteenth-century Muslim writer named Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri noted the habits of the mystics:
The Piano Is Still There
The video
for Hania Rani's new song, F Major, is a single shot featuring the pianist and 3 dancers performing outdoors in -7C weather in Iceland.
“Well, maybe best not to vote for people who think of you as a 'herd'.”
(CW: Dark coronavirus/pandemic humour) Frankie Boyle on the pandemic: “Mistakes have been made in the handling of the crisis. Like flying the Buckingham Palace flag at half mast when the Queen’s not in, which is just an advert for burglars. In my local park, someone has tried to cheer people up by chalking 'You Got This!' on the ground. Literally the last thing you want to hear in a pandemic.” ... “The Prime Minister has written to every household in the UK. As that letter lands on the doormat, I won’t be the only one who’ll be picking it up with a couple of snooker cues, like a contestant on a Japanese game show.” Previous Frankie: [1][2][3]
The world's strangest and most compelling “sports”
Inspired by the movie Dodgeball, here are some obscure or 'less seen' competitive sports:
Buttacrobatics
If you look in the same direction your opponent points, you lose
10 year old girl wins Kent Bazemore's UNO tournament
Bike Football
T-shirt Relay
PG-13 remake of The Human Centipede
Trampoline Roman candle battle
Portable belt sander races
Ice soccer
Brick Racing
I can't remember where I left my library card
The Radiohead Public Library is now open for business.
“Almost everyone is gone now. Maybe at last it will be my turn next.”
35 years later, the Bhopal disaster continues to destroy lives: “It would be better if there was another gas leak which could kill us all and put us all out of this misery,” said Omwati Yadav, 67, who can see the Union Carbide factory from the roof of her tiny one-room stone house, painted peppermint green with orange doors. Her body shaking with sobs, she cries out: “Thirty five years we have suffered through this, please just let it end. This is not life, this is not death, we are in the terrible place in between.” [Photos]
A More Dangerous Workplace Than Sawmills, Coalmines
“ She started the job in April 2018, and within two months, or nearly 100,000 items, the lifting had destroyed her back. An Amazon-approved doctor said she had bulging discs and diagnosed her with a back sprain, joint inflammation and chronic pain, determining that her injuries were 100% due to her job. She could no longer work at Amazon. Today, she can barely climb stairs. Walking her dog, doing the dishes, getting out of her chair – everything is painful. According to her medical records, her condition is unlikely to improve.” Amazon’s internal injury records expose the true toll of its relentless drive for speed (Reveal) "We already knew that the facility had serious problems with injuries, but what we now know is Amazon is fully aware of these problems” New Report Shows 'Shockingly High' Number Of Injuries At Amazon's Staten Island Warehouse (Gothamist) Amazon’s On-Site Emergency Care Harms Those It’s There To Protect (Intercept)
AI dictionary, from cybertriumph to wringie, and beyond!
AI Dictionary is a Twitter bot that tweets a . I wanted to see how much OpenAI's language model actually knew, so I tried to get it to define words... but I accidentally had it set to 'random', not 'best'. [via mefi projects] Semi-related: OpenAI’s GPT-2: the model, the hype, and the controversy (Towards Data Science), and Experimenting with OpenAI’s Improved Language Model (short post on Medium), which notes "The public at large will need to become more skeptical of the content they consume online."
A man who sits at his computer and makes a MetaFilter post.
Japan's Best Boring Halloween Costumes [Kotaku]
“...at this annual event in Japan, participants are trying to do something far simpler—boring, even. This event is called “Jimi Halloween” (地味ハロウィン), with jimi (地味) meaning “mundane,” “plain,” or “subdued.” [...] Here are some of the best mundane costumes: Someone who cannot get a seat at the food court in the mall. The costume of a person wearing black clothing that has played with a cat. This woman is dressed as a person who is taking a photo of a meal. The person who cleans the escalator’s handrail. Someone about to win Old Maid. This man is dressed as a right-handed person. A person who is drinking a hot beverage. This is a costume of a person who would get mistaken as store staff at an eyeglasses shop. A person who has just purchased an umbrella the moment it stops raining. A guy who can’t find where his seat is at the baseball stadium.”