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"The thesis of HAVE YOU EATEN, at the start, was "here's how community actually works," & in the process of making this thing happen, I've felt it in my bones. We show up for each other & frustrate each other & make things together & let each other down & mend each other's hearts. We feed each other." Author Sarah Gailey wrote a 4-part novella at Reactor (fka tordotcom) about queer community in a too-possible future USA. [more inside]
posted by curious nu on Apr 9 at 7:57 PM - 5 comments

A post-pandemic fight about racism, the respectful treatment of trans kids, and the role of teachers’ unions has divided Amherst, Massachusetts. [The New Yorker]
posted by riruro on Apr 9 at 7:14 PM - 28 comments

"Besides his outstanding contributions to particle physics, Peter was a very special person, a man of rare modesty, a great teacher and someone who explained physics in a very simple and profound way." [...] "His prediction of the existence of the particle that bears his name was a deep insight, and its discovery at Cern in 2012 was a crowning moment that confirmed his understanding of the way the Universe works." "Even though he didn’t much enjoy it, he felt a responsibility to use the public profile his achievements brought him for the good of science, and he did so many times. The particle that carries his name is perhaps the single most stunning example of how seemingly abstract mathematical ideas can make predictions which turn out to have huge physical consequences."

Peter Higgs, physicist who proposed Higgs boson, dies aged 94 [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Apr 9 at 6:53 PM - 25 comments

Female Hummingbirds Masquerade as Males to Avoid Harassment. One-fifth of female white-necked jacobins sport flashy male-like plumage, which may help them access more food.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Apr 9 at 6:45 PM - 5 comments

A detailed, yet accessible, take on the history of book distribution (mainly but not wholly by small presses), written by Julie Schaper in 2022.
posted by cupcakeninja on Apr 9 at 2:46 PM - 2 comments

As part of a defamation lawsuit against the owner of Twitter for his tweets, Mark Bankston - whom you may recall was the lawyer for the Sandy Hook families in the Texas lawsuit against Alex Jones, where he told the conspiracy theorist that he had recieved a full copy of his phone's contents from his lawyer while cross examining him - has deposed Elon Musk under oath, in a deposition that is a sight to behold. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum on Apr 9 at 11:19 AM - 95 comments

Jennifer and James Crumbley, parents of Michigan school shooter, sentenced to 10 to 15 years for manslaughter "Parents are not expected to be psychic, but these convictions are not about poor parenting. These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train -- about repeatedly ignoring things that would make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck" (Judge) Matthews said.
posted by tiny frying pan on Apr 9 at 11:01 AM - 86 comments

What is a cow magnet? Have you ever heard of this type of magnet? Actually, cow magnets are very popular with farmers, ranchers, and veterinarians since they are a well-known method of preventing hardware disease in cattle. So what’s hardware disease? An informational page from Stanford Magnets.
posted by hippybear on Apr 9 at 10:36 AM - 51 comments

The cashier at Sansan Chicken East Village in NYC is a woman from the Philippines who logs on via Zoom. A photo of this odd arrangement went viral on Twitter this weekend via a post by Brett Goldstein.
posted by DirtyOldTown on Apr 9 at 7:00 AM - 106 comments

Arizona's Split Reality (Olivia Nuzzi for New York, archive.is), on the trail with Senate candidates Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake
posted by box on Apr 9 at 5:34 AM - 10 comments

That well is classical Greek tragedy, understood as a dramatic portrayal of a character who, while navigating the inevitable contingencies of an embodied, time-bound life, is suddenly brought low by extreme suffering unrelieved by God, the gods, or any other transcendent source of meaning. The key to tragedy is the degree to which that character bears the torment without succumbing to despair. From that crucible emerges the steel of virtue. from The Character of Tragedy by [Hedgehog Review]
posted by chavenet on Apr 9 at 2:06 AM - 2 comments

'I’ve never seen ...The Searchers.' "I’ve always imagined John Wayne as the epitome of gun-toting American racism. And I didn’t expect this white-supremacy parable to change my mind …" "(John) Ford is likely the best American historian when it comes to narrative filmmaking 'Printing the Legend: 'The Searchers and a journey into the heart of America’s darkness.' " Scores of film students and enthusiasts have wondered and wrote about what does this last scene of the film mean." Cinemas Greatest Scenes: The Searchers Doorway Scene. { CW: racism in film.}
posted by clavdivs on Apr 8 at 9:35 PM - 26 comments

Vortex rings rise from Italy's Mount Etna volcano. Mount Etna has released volcanic vortex rings, a rare phenomenon caused by a constant release of vapours and gases. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Apr 8 at 8:18 PM - 22 comments

Six years ago (really? wow) I posted about Zee Bashew's terrific D&D explainer videos. Well he's still making them, and is trying to do one a week for the next few months! Here are some he's made since I last told you all about them: What is a grognard? - Ceremony - Encumbrance in 5E - The Awful Way I Ran 5E Survival - Magic Mouth - Oops! All Wizards - 5E Players Try 1E (AD&D) - Healer Feat - The Problem With The Awaken Spell (sad/funny) - Dangers of Metagaming - Option: Quantum Inventory - Grappling in 1E. If you enjoy D&D, or just learning or watching videos about it, Zee Bashew's Channel is great.
posted by JHarris on Apr 8 at 2:36 PM - 8 comments

"The Space Explorers" was a series of animated, educational Sci-Fi shorts shown on morning kids' TV in the US, around 1961. Astronomy enthusiast Jimmy Perry stows away on the Polaris II, flying to rescue his Dad who crashed on the moon on his way to Mars, in the Polaris 1. Set in 1978, each episode had little bits of this story padded out with educational lessons about astronomy. A very few sequences from the show are available at the Internet Archive, but there's much [more inside]
posted by Rash on Apr 8 at 2:09 PM - 2 comments

When Candace Owens, the far-right political commentator, parted ways with conservative media company the Daily Wire in late March, the news unleashed something strange on the internet. Factions emerged to yell at each other about theology, censorship, and bigotry. Extremists chatted with establishment right-wingers in audio chatrooms on social media. Content creators wrote blog posts and produced YouTube videos with their take on one particular phrase: “Christ Is King.” That phrase gripped the right for days, leaving movement leaders struggling with layers of infighting that proved difficult to parse for all but the most egregiously online people. It was also, for those tracking the right’s strange coalition-building, a warning sign: The establishment conservatives’ pragmatic alliance with hateful white supremacist groups may finally be breaking under the awkwardness of having avowed antisemites in a pro-Israel movement. from The Establishment Right’s Alliance With Open Bigots Is Under a New Kind of Pressure [Slate]
posted by chavenet on Apr 8 at 1:08 PM - 35 comments

The USENIX Association have published a Report (PDF) Analysing Cookie Notice Compliance. We show that 56.7% of cookie notices do not include an option to opt out of consent, that more than 65.4% of websites with an opt-out option collect users’ data despite explicit negative consent, and that 73.4% of websites do so even when users do not interact with the cookie notice.
posted by Lanark on Apr 8 at 12:50 PM - 28 comments

This is a particularly interesting find -- a full television special from 1978 focussed on Olivia Newton -John called Olivia [50m]. The guest starts are Andy Gibb and ABBA! The first 33 minutes are high-quality standard fare Seventies variety show material, but the last bit of the show has six people sitting stage having a little hootenanny, improvising sing-a-longs, and we eve get to hear Frida sing in her opera voice a bit! It's entirely charming that turns transcendent at the end.
posted by hippybear on Apr 8 at 10:36 AM - 15 comments

The MacAdam Shield Shovel, also known as the Hughes Shovel, was designed and patented by Sam Hughes, the Canadian minister for the Department of Militia and Defence in 1913, to be staked in the ground for alternate use as cover. It was thicker and heavier than normal spades but failed to stop even small caliber bullets. It also had a large sight hole in the shovel blade for a rifle to poke through, making it a poor shovel. In 1914, 25,000 shield-shovels were ordered and shipped to Europe for use by the 1st Canadian Division, and then later scrapped. Sam Hughes had a string of failed inventions: "Hughes equated masculinity with toughness, and argued that militia service would toughen up Canadian men who might otherwise go soft living in an urban environment full of labor-saving devices."
posted by AlSweigart on Apr 8 at 10:29 AM - 19 comments

Excerpts from Lyn Hejinian's My Life: "A name trimmed with colored ribbons"; "Reason looks for two, then arranges it from there"; "As for we who 'love to be astonished'"; "Yet we insist that life is full of happy chance"; "One begins as a student but becomes a friend of clouds." Lisa Samuels, "Eight justifications for canonizing Lyn Hejinian's My Life." "The Rejection of Closure," "Continuing Against Closure," and other work online. Obits: NYT (ungated / archived), Jacket2, and The Nation. Remembrances: Berkeley English, LARB, and The Paris Review. Colin Vanderburg (n+1, Apr. 5), "Tree, Chair, Cone, Dog, Bishop, Piano, Vineyard, Door, or Penny: On Lyn Hejinian": "There is no better way to end, or to begin, or to continue. The facts are finished, but the life is still open."
posted by Wobbuffet on Apr 8 at 10:26 AM - 8 comments