Tamsyn Muir -- creator of a queer gothic necromantic space dystopia/paradise from which only she is personally barred -- has nonetheless invited the rest of us back to her world in a new short story. The multi-genre script that is the story occurs midway through Nona the Ninth inside a nested set of souls and also a graduate seminar and also a British country house murder mystery. (Previously and previously).

Famed musical writers Howard Ashman and Alan Menken have an abandoned song that I'd never heard of before. Aria For A Cow was made into an animated short several years ago, and it's delightful. 7m

Ten children drew their favourite sea creatures. Then Australia’s leading artists responded. Ken Done, Jonathan Zawada, Blak Douglas and others created companion pieces to children’s works celebrating sharks and rays. They’re now on display at the Australian Museum.

Tishani Doshi (Aeon, 09/16/2024), "Tender, yet creepy": "Tom sits in his box, one blue eye blinkered shut. I reach for him, and I am a girl again, gently rattling his head so his eye can become unstuck." Topics include Freud's "The Uncanny" [PDF], Baudelaire's "The Philosophy of Toys" (a.k.a. "Morale du joujou" and its excerpt "The Plaything of the Poor"), Rilke's "The Unfortunate Fate of Childhood Dolls" (a.k.a. "Puppen" with illustrations by Lotte Pritzel related to her dolls, etc., etc.), Ibsen's A Doll's House, and Mahasweta Devi's Urvashi and Johnny. See also Tishani Doshi's entry at the Poetry Foundation.

On Thursday afternoon, (Shohei) Ohtani’s legend continued to grow as he wrote the next chapter of one of the best individual offensive seasons in Major League history with arguably the best single-game performance the sport has ever seen. In an otherworldly game in which he stole two bases and went 6-for-6 with a career-high three homers and 10 RBIs, Ohtani proved he’s in a class of his own once again, becoming the first player to hit 50 or more homers and steal 50 or more bases in a single season in Major League history. from Otherworldly Ohtani creates 50-50 club in a 6-for-6 game for the ages [MLB]

It’s Friday, so it’s a good time to try to Guess the (video/computer) game! Or to go back into the archives and try to guess some of the 859 previous games. (hat tip to Buried Treasure.)

Which is More Difficult - Violin or Piano? (SLYT)

New York magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi placed on leave after disclosing RFK relationship Nuzzi disclosed that she “had engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign.” While the magazine did not identify the subject, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that the relationship was with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who ran for president as an independent candidate and recently endorsed Donald Trump. The person said the relationship was emotional and digital in nature, not physical. A Kennedy spokesperson told CNN, “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.” [more inside]

Cards Against Humanity is suing Elon Musk for $15 million dollars

"Google has decided that Forbes is the authority in everything. Credit cards, cockroach removal, and getting too high from gummies. Forbes is now the dominant authority in damn near everything. [...] I know a lot of folks in the SEO industry. Not one person thinks this is normal or okay. I even heard from a source that I deeply trust that Google employees were complaining about Forbes internally. That was two years ago." A deep dive on the underpinnings of Forbes Marketplace, the parasite SEO operation launched in 2019 by Lars Lofgren.

Farmer invents machinery that smashes bejesus out of weed seeds. Weeds cost Australia's crop farming industry around $3.3 billion dollars [US $2.25 billion dollars] each year, but a home-grown invention that crushes herbicide-resistant weed seeds could make that a problem of the past.

In 2021, House House, the makers of Untitled Goose Game, created a proof-of-concept for an animation series involving the Goose and its hapless victims. It never made it to production, but they've released the proof-of-concept animation to Youtube. So for just four minutes of your time, please journey back to the beleaguered village, and watch the Untitled Goose Programme. (Previously and first on Untitled Goose Game)

"conventional wisdom has been that black hole jets can’t be larger than about a quarter the radius of a cosmic void, and none larger has ever been seen. That all changed with the discovery of Porphyrion..." [bigthink] [more inside]

It is now difficult to imagine the mass of general readers—assuming they exist—being reached even by a historian of genius. The exigencies of modern academic publishing, declining levels of general culture among historians themselves, and, in some cases, what occasionally looks less like sloppiness or indifference and more like a positive hostility toward good writing among peer reviewers, above all the atrophying of readers’ own attention spans—for all these reasons, it seems to me unlikely that we will ever see a classic on the order of Runciman capture the public imagination. from The Rise of Post-Literate History by Matthew Walther [Compact]

Hopes for future hatchlings outside Perth as rare western swamp tortoise returns to southern home. An endangered tortoise that excited wildlife carers by surviving outside its only known habitats in Perth has returned home to its birthplace and site of a relocation trial in Western Australia's South West. [more inside]

At least according to Carter Vail, a musician on YouTube (and probably Tik Tok, but I am old). Let him tell you about the thing all guys do, how to succeed at wizarding school, or how to appreciate marine life. Or you could listen to his really good serious music if you are into that sort of thing, I guess.

There are some interesting people moving their bodies interestingly in the music video half•alive - Sophie's House (Official Video). [5m]

Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year - tracked from America's busiest ports to the open ocean via AIS marine tracking data.

Draw Lines ... Make Music ... Share your Instrument

Euripides Unbound is an account of the recent discovery by archeologist Heba Adly of a papyrus containing 97 lines from Polyidus and Ino, lost plays by Euripides, written by Robert Cioffi who participated in the dig led by Basem Gehad. The fragment was deciphered by classicists Yvona Trnka-Amrhein and John Gibert, who have been interviewed about it by Johanna Hanink on the Lesche Podcast. Bill Allan wrote a short essay about the fragment for the Times Literary Supplement, which led Mary Beard to discuss it on the TLS Podcast.

"It is not often that one in the process of learning of, or reading, a book develops three different opinions about the book. I have heard of Lea Ypi’s Free after it became an international bestseller. I was even then somewhat intrigued by the topic, an autobiographical story of growing up in Albania at “the end of history”, given that Albania was somewhat of a black box (because of the isolationist policies followed by its long-time president Enver Hoxha). Yet since I had a uniform negative view about any personal reminiscences coming out of Eastern Europe, I was almost sure not to read the book? Why such mistrust?" Branko Milanovic with a thoughtful review of Lea Ypi's awardwinning Free: Coming of Age at the End of History.

A few short, brisk fantasy stories, published this year, involving peril and rescue. "The Dragon Shepherd" by George S. Walker, in Electric Spec: a young girl challenges complacent dragonslayers. "The Doomsday Book of Labyrinths" by LM Zaerr, in Uncharted Magazine: a tax assessor (who doesn't care to look too closely at his own emotions) needs to figure out why a scared kid is running a shop. "Labyrinths for Wayward Teens", also by Zaerr (and, like "Doomsday Book", ending abruptly), in Electric Spec: an exploited hero-for-hire, paid to rescue thrillseeking customers from magical escape rooms, faces (mostly gratuitous) danger when his own daughter gets trapped.

How to be a butler to the super rich. (archive link here) [more inside]

All large planets in our Solar System have rings, and it has been suggested that Mars may have had a ring in the past. This raises the question of whether Earth also had a ring in the past.

Ring of Gyges: A shepherd named Gyges discovers a magical ring that grants him the power of invisibility when he twists the ring on his finger. With this newfound power, Gyges seduces the queen, kills the king, and takes over the kingdom. The Ring of Gyges is a dialogue featured in The Republic by Plato. The story raises a moral question: would people still act justly if they could act unjustly without fear of being caught or punished? [more inside]

For the second time ever (the first was in 2020), Scientific American endorses a presidential candidate. For the first time since 1996, the Teamsters union does not. [more inside]

BatCam offers glimpse into secret life of threatened flying fox species. A live-streaming camera is offering insights into a grey-headed flying fox colony in northern New South Wales, aiming to change public perception that the animals are pests, and guide conservation work. [more inside]

Everyone was bereft and unnerved at the loss of this soft-spoken person they had been tending to near constantly for months. “I couldn’t believe it,” Cheatham says. “I was so sad that he died. They were telling me that they were hoping he would get over the spell that he was in.” But that day, Flores and Moore also managed to spend $7,017.73 at Ted Baker, $289.85 at Erewhon, $220.50 at Tory Burch, $992.25 at Coach, and $2,477.90 at the Apple Store. They dined at Nobu, too. from The Parasites of Malibu [The Cut; ungated]

She was literally the biggest story on the planet in 1952. Her story knocked the story of testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific off the front page. It blew Queen Elizabeth's coronation off the front page. A former GI, who knew from childhood that she was in the wrong body, went to Copenhagen and became Christine, who she really was all along. [more inside]

Jiang Zemin meets the press, candidly. (slyt)

UN General Assembly overwhelmingly calls for end of Israeli occupation The UNGA demanded that “Israel brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which constitutes a wrongful act of a continuing character entailing its international responsibility, and do so no later than 12 months”. || previously [more inside]

Ever Tried Nacho-Doms? Crispy popadoms, spicy keema, melted cheese, salsa & dips as created by Latifs Inspired. UMAMI-BOMB! Bismillah.

An esoteric branch of math called fraction theory may hold the answers to science’s deepest mysteries. You may think you know what numbers are. Chances are, you learned to count before you entered kindergarten, and number-names like “one”, “two”, and “three” were among the first words you learned...

Schoolgirl's dinosaur footprint find on Vale of Glamorgan beach (on the south Wales coast.) Experts think 10-year-old Tegan uncovered prints of a huge herbivore from the late triassic period.

Everyone who joins the US military, seeks a security clearance, or applies for some government jobs must, as part of the background check process, fill out Standard Form 86. Questions on this form require applicants to disclose if they're members of organizations that seek to overthrow the US government or deprive people of their civil rights. Lying on this form is a felony, a serious crime that can result in months in prison, but indictments involving lying on this form are quite rare. Molly Conger, host of the Cool Zone Media podcast Weird Little Guys, looks into why this is, and the history of its use, in the episode titled Liar, Liar (57 minutes).

Combs (P Diddy) was denied bail and will remain in custody as he faces charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, [more inside]

The Office, fittingly, is never going to let us go. We’re clearly always going to be tethered to a sitcom desk. And not just because we can’t stop watching old reruns. The franchise that started in the UK before making waves across the Atlantic is still going strong. An upcoming spinoff will return the show to U.S. airwaves (likely) in 2025. But before it does, we’ll have another way to get our fix of workplace comedy with a very different kind of boss. Well, not that different. Because while the new trailer from Prime Video’s Australia remake of The Office features the franchise’s first-ever woman boss, she reminds us a whole lot of David Brent and Michael Scott. from Australian Remake’s Trailer Gets Back to Work with Franchise’s First Female Boss [Nerdist] [more inside]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Tina Smith (D-MN): Our Solution to the Housing Crisis (NYT gift, archive.is)

Because people don't want to feel bad after watching a movie, here's some other alternate endings for you (slPolygon) [more inside]

A new Zelda game is reminding everyone to finish the last one [Polygon] There is so much any given player can do in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. You can become the architect of the world’s largest bridge, engineer crimes against Koroks, or, if you want, you can just turn the sloping hills of Hyrule into Link’s personal skate park. It’s a giant game with plenty to do, so I’d forgive any player who, I don’t know, just so happened to not have completed the game yet. But now, with the impending release of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, anyone still playing Nintendo’s last Zelda title might be rushing to beat the game before the next mainline Zelda game comes out. Bonus link: Zelda is going full horse girl in her next game.

Moral outrage at the big lie, but also plenty about why many Haitians are there, the transition costs, and their good effects on Springfield. I thought there was a government program to move Haitians to Springfield. No. There was a government program to move businesses to Springfield, followed by figuring out that there was a shortage of people of working age, and Haitians moved into the vacuum to everyone's advantage. [more inside]

Recognizing that "academic subjects are not eternal categories" and that words and concepts at once carry specialized meaning and more expansive valence, Williams explains that his Keywords is intended neither as dictionary nor glossary, but rather as "the record of an inquiry into a vocabulary: a shared body of words and meanings in our most general discussions, in English, of the practices and institutions which we group as culture and society." Reading such keywords not only helps us trace changing usages across time, it also challenges the very idea of a stable or "sacral" meaning, inviting improper, promiscuous, and audacious resonances and connections. from Keywords for Postcolonial Thought [P45] [more inside]

Trailer for Bong Joon Ho's upcoming Mickey 17 - What's it feel like to die? [more inside]

Every time JD Vance tells a story, a sinkhole swallows 30 people (WashPo op ed, archive), a lesson on the reasons it's not good to tell false stories to rile people up.

Archaeology Student Discovers Trove of Silver Viking Age Armbands in Denmark. The bangles, which date to around 800 C.E., are now on display at the Moesgaard Museum.

Israel is suspected in a massive coordinated attack of exploding pagers that left at least 9 dead and 2800 casualties in Lebanon.

Ed Zitron: "I hypothesize a kind of subprime AI crisis is brewing, where almost the entire tech industry has bought in on a technology sold at a vastly-discounted rate, heavily-centralized and subsidized by big tech. At some point, the incredible, toxic burn-rate of generative AI is going to catch up with them, which in turn will lead to price increases, or companies releasing new products and features with wildly onerous rates ... that will make even stalwart enterprise customers with budget to burn unable to justify the expense. What happens when the entire tech industry relies on the success of a kind of software that only loses money, and doesn’t create much value to begin with?"

Behold, the Great Ball Contraption, from Japan BrickFest 2024.

10 Traditional Mid-Autumn Festival Foods. Mooncakes: to make at home, to protest oppression, to promote mental health care. 11 Recipes to Celebrate Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving).

But who makes all the food? Why do divorces go up after Chuseok? For many, Chuseok is the season of rage.

Is Trump’s power over the Republican Party waning, is Trumpism disintegrating? Let’s slow down a little bit. It’s important to note that almost all of these public defections are coming from relatively low-level and / or *former* Republican officials. Trumpism is still firmly in charge of the power centers of conservatism and dominates GOP politics. And yet, there was no comparable level of open dissent prior to the 2020 election; and in 2016, the opposite happened, as there was considerable hostility towards Trump among Republicans and leadings conservatives initially, right after Trump had come down the golden escalator to announce he was running for president – yet by the time of the election, almost all of them had united behind Trump as the undisputed leader of the Right. from Liz Cheney and the Problem of the Anti-Trump Republican [Democracy Americana]