August 15
Adam Neumann Gets a New Backer
WeWork’s founder is back with a billion-dollar venture. Neumann’s new company Flow wants to transform the residential rental real estate market. Notably, it has the financial support of Andreessen Horowitz, the prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm that was an early investor in everything from Facebook to Airbnb. The backing of Andreessen Horowitz, considered royalty among early-stage investors, is a powerful sign of support, and perhaps a rebuke to Neumann’s critics, who have described his leadership of WeWork as a cautionary tale of corporate hubris.
Mr "That's Not My Job" awarded himself FIVE extra jobs
Australia's former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, famous for saying "that's not my job" about everything that a Prime Minister was supposed to do, and running away to Hawaii for a holiday when Australia was on fire, has just been caught awarding himself FIVE additional portfolios while he was in office. The way in which he did so may have been illegal - portfolios are supposed to be public knowledge, and he kept it secret.
Elegy for a Criminal Lawyer
Saul Goodman started as a joke -- a sleazy, motormouthed "two-and-a-half-dimensional" take on TV lawyers, a bit of comic relief brought on for a four-episode stint to help guide Breaking Bad protagonists Walter White and Jesse Pinkman into the criminal underworld. Brought to life by Bob Odenkirk, Saul proved to be one of the show's most popular characters, and in the wake of the show's blockbuster ending AMC announced a prequel spinoff series: Better Call Saul. But what was conceived as a 30-minute case-of-the-week sitcom quickly developed into a compelling legal drama and deep character study of Goodman's past as "Slippin'" Jimmy McGill, his evolution, and bleak future at an Omaha Cinnabon -- "we don’t want to get to Saul Goodman … and that’s the tragedy." Supported by vice-tight writing, masterful cinematography, and impeccable performances by Michael McKean, Patrick Fabian, Jonathan Banks, Michael Mando, Tony Dalton, Giancarlo Esposito, and especially breakout star Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, the series has only grown more acclaimed as it progressed and, with its last batch of astonishing episodes, arguably surpassed its predecessor to become one of the greatest dramas in television history. Now, after seven years, six seasons, 62 episodes, one Peabody Award, multiple hiatuses, a COVID pause, and a brush with death, Better Call Saul is set to air its long-awaited series finale tonight at 9PM Eastern. It's showtime, folks. [more inside]
Arrivaderci Morgani
Accordionist extraordinaire and revered costumed street performer Frank Lima, AKA The Great Morgani, is hanging up the squeezebox and spandex after decades of busking. [more inside]
Strategy is Metaphor
In this light-hearted vein, let’s discard conventional games as the relics of the past that they are. If we really want to equip ourselves for competition with other great powers (an imperfect framework to understand twenty-first-century geopolitics but probably the least imperfect of all the contenders), then the type of game to play is “real-time strategy,” and the name of the game is StarCraft. from StarCraft as Statecraft
Vote for the Metafilter Steering Committee!
🗳Hey there!🗳
Voting has begun for the inaugural Steering Committee (SC) for Metafilter! Come on over to MeTaTalk for a list of candidates and explanation of the voting process and help determine the future of the site!
Why Haircuts Should Be Gender Neutral
The gender binary is holding us back from truly great hair. The gender binary too often limits what people imagine possible for themselves, or for their clients. Hairrari, which opened its first location in Williamsburg in 2011 and now operates three shops across New York City and one in L.A. (with another one on the way for Portland, Oregon), was among the first barber-salons to formally challenge the gender binary. “We’re not just looking at hair, we’re looking at the whole person when they come in,” says Granberger. A lot of it has to do with gauging feeling too, Ryczko adds. “When some people come in, they say, ‘what do you think, what do you think?’ And I always kind of ask them, ‘how do you feel? Do you feel you like it’s better longer? Or do you feel better with shorter here in the back or longer on your neck?’” Ryczko says. “I think that has a lot to do with it, how we feel. The better we feel, the stronger and more confident we are.”
the quirks of Boreal Owl parenting
The treasure trove of Birds Online videos and projects is available online at birdsonline.cz. Since developing the Smart Nest Box, which furtively films its tenants, ecologist Markéta Zárybnická has had a front seat to the
daily dramas of avian families...for example, a Eurasian Blue Tit removing a fecal pellet from a nestling’s bottom. One female Boreal Owl had a particular interior design aesthetic; she arranged dead mice and voles in neat rows, placing the heads in the corners of the nest box. In contrast, a European Starling spruced up a bed of grass with a buttercup.
Not, to the best of my knowledge, woven underwater
"When I began making baskets in the 1980s, I made very useful baskets. Now I make very useless baskets." Lois Russell is a basketweaver, but this is definitely not basket weaving 101. [more inside]
“We played with no rules or conventions”
Strike! How 80s post-punk band Lining Time crystallised a moment in feminist protest history by Tayyab Amin is a profile of the early 80s all-woman band from Totnes in Devon, whose only album, Strike!, has been reissued on Bandcamp and is available in full on streaming services, including YouTube Music. The reissue of the album was at the behest of Les Amis de Cathy Josefowitz, an organization devoted to safeguarding the artistic legacy of one of Lining Time's founding members, the others being Claire Bushe, Cathy Frost, Lisa Halse and Mara de Wit.
If you think this thread is bad now, wait 'til I get through with it
Attention, please! There will be absolutely no smoking, dirty joking, or whistling in this thread. And furthermore, if you should choose to chew, you'll be pursued. [more inside]
The Other Big One
A megaflood that threatens California and the West Coast, could be the most expensive natural disaster in history. It has happened before, The Great Flood of 1862, caused by an atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean, first loading the coastal mountains with snow that was then melted by heavy warm rains. [more inside]
August 14
M A R V E D Y N E
Opplopolis (Twitter, previously) has begun updating again. It is a comic about a weird anachronistic city in which the fates of multiple people - and a completely different science-fiction setting - become entwined with something called Marvedyne. [more inside]
I was seeing the way through, and there was nothing to be frightened of.
R.I.P. Ann Shulgin: Radiant Nexus of Psychedelic Community
... matriarch of psychedelic-assisted therapy, widow of and co-conspirator with legendary chemist Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, and anchor of an extended community of therapists, scientists, scholars, and explorers of the worlds opened by psychedelic substances, died at home in the company of people who loved her on July 9, 2022. She was 91.
"We wolves are happy to provide operational support in the sheep pen."
What takes years and costs $20K? A San Francisco trash can
Pretend there's a point to wandering around a rock orbiting a dying star
Is There a Way Out of Hawaii's Housing Crisis? - "The Aloha State is drowning in a flood of the same factors creating a housing crisis all over America. It will either become a model for solutions or a cautionary tale." [more inside]
Kate McKinnon Wanted to Literally Kiss SNL Good-bye
“Earth, I love ya! Thanks for letting me stay a while.” This was Kate McKinnon’s way of saying good-bye to SNL during her final episode in May 2022, dressed up as her recurring character and alien abductee Colleen Rafferty. With an 11-season stint that makes her one of the five longest-tenured SNL cast members and nine straight Emmy nominations for her work on the show (including two wins), it’s hard to argue that McKinnon didn’t have one of the most tremendous runs in SNL history. Vulture interview / Archive - Good One podcast on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / anywhere. [more inside]
The ongoing battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf
PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf: Why the ‘nuclear’ strike option for players might be a bad idea. PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf: Why the ‘nuclear’ strike option for players might be a bad idea. (Archive)
August 13
Not your typical plate of beans [SLYT]
A conversation with a hoarding consultant.
Taking Out Trash That Was Someone Else’s Treasure [SLNYT]
“The majority of hoarders have lived in the same place for decades, in some cases their whole lives. For the most part they’re very smart, successful, well traveled, with degrees from elite universities. No one knows what they’re like at home, and in some cases alcohol plays a major role.” [more inside]
How many apples?
and the best dressed vegetable is.....Georgina the zucchini in a bikini!
University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Extension educator and fair judge John Porter gives tips on entering horticultural competitions, including why correct preparation matters with links to pdf guides on how to harvest and prepare vegetables/fruits and flowers, e.g. "leave a ¼ inch piece of stem on cucumbers." Porter also plugs UNL's television show Backyard Farmer which first aired in 1952 in black and white (Youtube channel, Apple Podcast).
Adieu, Petit Nicolas
Flicker ghost-like through space, and collect the news of other worlds
Rebecca Giggs (Emergence Magazine, 06/27/2022), "Noiseless Messengers": "THE MOTHS, when they came, were said to appear first like sea fog massing above the ocean." ABC News - Australia (12/11/2022), "Why bogong moths are now being classified as an endangered species." ABC Indigenous (07/04/2019), "This Place: The Journey of the Bogong Moths." Birgitta Stephenson, et al., (2020), "2000 Year-old Bogong moth (Agrotis infusa) Aboriginal food remains, Australia." Eric Warrant, et al., (2016), "The Australian Bogong Moth Agrotis infusa: A Long-Distance Nocturnal Navigator." David Dreyer, et al. (2018), "The Earth's Magnetic Field and Visual Landmarks Steer Migratory Flight Behavior in the Nocturnal Australian Bogong Moth." Ken Green, et al. (2021), "Australian Bogong moths Agrotis infusa (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), 1951–2020: decline and crash" [PDF].
The Classy Cosmopolitan Part of the Mississippi Delta
Everything (I do) is Awesome
"Wow, a cat! Or, maybe a dog?"
At last! After a weird series of issues finding a streaming home that resulted in it almost being a VRV exclusive before they backed out (they're still listed as its home on the show's website), Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space will be airing as a Netflix series on September 6, 2022. Here's the trailer. it seems to also include remakes of the original episodes with updated animation! Previously: 2013, 2014, 2018, Fanfare
And yet... bots
Twitter has been on a recruitment drive of late, hiring a host of former feds and spies.
Many former FBI officials hold influential roles within Twitter. For instance, in 2020, Matthew W. left a 15-year career as an intelligence program manager at the FBI to take up the post of senior director of product trust at Twitter. [more inside]
August 12
Shark attacks ‘the new normal for New Yorkers’
Hank Green Explains the Climate Bill
"This is a big problem, that no one person understands all of. But in this video you're going to go from understanding more than like, 80 or 90% of people, to understanding this more than 99% of people. And it's only going to take you like 15 minutes". (SLYT 22:23) [more inside]
Unfortunately, this post is being delayed by air traffic control
Have you ever wondered what's happening when the pilot comes on the intercom and says they're being held by the tower? The US FAA's National Airspace System status dashboard provides a behind-the-scenes peek at the factors* and policies that drive flight delays, cancellations, and other traveler annoyances as controllers manage the nation's vast and complex airspace. [more inside]
The Next Blockbuster Drugs are for Weight Loss
A New Weight-Loss Drug Really Works - Raising Huge Questions. "Wegovy, made by Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, is the first in what is shaping up to be a new generation of obesity treatments, which use a hormone to regulate appetite....The average patient in the study in which Robillard participated lost 15 per cent of their body weight, about three times more than on previous drugs. Nearly a third of them lost almost as much as they would after weight-loss surgery. Robillard lost 57 pounds. The US Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy for general use in June 2021." This is big and it's coming fast. Other pharma companies have taken notice and a stream of incretin drugs will soon hit the market. [more inside]
What else are you going to do with your weekend?
There are people out there who have never watched LOST, who have LOST once, and who have LOST way too many times. YouTube's Billiam falls into the third camp, and he's bringing us recap episodes of the series. These aren't normal recaps, these get into the entire web of interconnections and intrigue and even the details of the production of the show, and give you the most complete picture of the series you might ever find. Season one is covered in LOST Was Weird: A Show No One Wanted To Make [3h], and seasons two and three in LOST: TV'S GREATEST MESS [6h20m]. I assume the remaining three seasons will be covered over the next year or two. 9 hours of YouTube recap is way shorter than three seasons! [more inside]
These old photographs, like ghost ships, seldom bring us what we want.
A photograph of schoolchildren, taken at sea, their pinched faces registering the roll and pitch of the Harmony as she makes her way between the mission stations. Settler children. Inuit children. Dual-heritage children with fathers from Scotland or Norway or Nova Scotia. Hybrid lifeways. Seal children sewn into the sleek dappled skins of harbour seal and harp seal, the fur running down the body, gut sewn, shedding all the waters of the world. The seal’s gift to the hunter. The mother’s gift to the child.Photographs from the Moravian Church Mission Ship to Labrador "Harmony" in the early 1900s and the global epidemic of 1918-1919, a visual essay by Jonathan Westaway. First in a series Visual Cultures of the Circumpolar North from the Network in Canadian History and Environment's (NiCHE) diverse blog.
The Clockwork Man
A wonderfully surreal dune sea shanty. If you don’t know the backstory, just accept that the universe is a strange and wonderful place.
If you do, this just ups it a notch. [more inside]
No Such Thing as Perfect Security, Only Varying Levels of Insecurity
Daisy Boo Biscuit Potter (cat obituary by Ned Potter)
(Thread posted by Ned - @ned_potter - on Twitter) OBIT 🧵 “Daisy Boo Biscuit Potter today departed for the great litter tray in the sky, aged 18. Daisy was voted ‘objectively worst cat in the world’ 3 years running, and her hobbies included vomiting and ignoring us...” [more inside]
All I really wanna do is kiss you one more time
This is a story about my wife
My sweet wife, her name is Grace
I met her in 1953,
she had freckles on her face
a poodle skirt: it was navy blue
saddle shoes: they were black and white
My sweet wife, her name is Grace
I met her in 1953,
she had freckles on her face
a poodle skirt: it was navy blue
saddle shoes: they were black and white
Let's talk about that unauthorized Hamilton church production
Ancient Animals
August 11
The Falconers
The Falconer
‘You care for birds, and they heal you’: film profiles world of a Black falconer
Rodney Stotts Used to Hustle Drugs in Southeast DC. Now He’s One of the Few Black Master Falconers in America.8
Hunting with Falcons: How One City Man Found His Calling in the Wild
Game Hawker: A Wild Journey to Falconry
Facebook: Shawn Hayes Falconry [more inside]
‘You care for birds, and they heal you’: film profiles world of a Black falconer
Rodney Stotts Used to Hustle Drugs in Southeast DC. Now He’s One of the Few Black Master Falconers in America.8
Hunting with Falcons: How One City Man Found His Calling in the Wild
Game Hawker: A Wild Journey to Falconry
Facebook: Shawn Hayes Falconry [more inside]
America’s New Monkeypox Strategy Rests on a Single Study
Will splitting monkeypox vaccines in five work out? And yet the FDA has charged ahead “completely based on” that 2015 study, says Alexandra Yonts, a pediatric infectious-disease physician at Children’s National Hospital. In a statement, the agency explained that it had “determined that the known and potential benefits of Jynneos outweigh the known and potential risks” for green-lighting the intradermal route.
Delivering vaccines into skin leaves little room for error. The tuberculosis skin test is also administered intradermally; Marrazzo has seen “dozens of those messed up.” People have bled or been bruised. Needles have gone too deep—a mistake that can slash effectiveness—or too shallow, letting liquid ooze back out. Intradermal injections are an uncommon and difficult procedure, requiring additional training and specialized needles. “There is going to be some degree of error,” says Kenneth Cruz, a community-health worker in New York. “People are going to wonder if they’re protected, and it’s going to be difficult to check.”
We Need To Talk About Ezra
How do you solve a problem like an Ezra? As The Flash star Ezra Miller continues on their multi-state crime spree (which includes assault, burglary, weapons, grooming of teenagers and a cult), what on earth is it going to take for DC to realize they need to do something about The Flash movie? Will a recent arrest for burglary finally be the last straw, or does worse have to happen? Hollywood Reporter reports three possible plans for how to handle the star of their movie likely being in jail long before the movie comes out in (supposedly) June 2023. [more inside]
ayo frog got a band
"Shy little frog singing along to this fun tune." The full song by @sushisingz and a reaction video for shy little frog TikTok additive video as new musicians join the original frog. #FrogTikTok hashtag has 1 billion views including over 6 million views for this frog getting a shower. TikTok also has terrible frog-related ideas too.
Sona Movsesian Leans on The Rock, Cher and Mister Rogers
The co-host of “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” talks about the best Girl Scout cookies and adulting at Disneyland. I started off like a lot of people do in television where I was like, “I’m going to take over the TV world,” you know, become an executive with a suit with shoulder pads, and walk around the hall wearing heels. Then, sometime in my time working for Conan, someone was like, “What are you going to do after you’re done with Conan?”, and I was like, “You know what? I just really like it here.” It sounds weird, but it was really liberating for me to get to that point. If we’re going to talk about the downfall of my ambition, I think it really was rooted to a point where I was like, “Hey, I like where I am right now. I don’t need to go anywhere else,” and that’s pretty much it. [more inside]
And so it begins
After a summer of ER closures across Ontario and the rest of Canada with no end in sight, the Ford government's Health Minister Sylvia Jones has not ruled out the possibility of privatizing some services, saying "all options are on the table." (Except for paying healthcare staff--especially nurses--what they're worth.) [more inside]
splice/never let me go: I can't wait to see you lace your shoes*
1st synthetic mouse embryos — complete with beating hearts and brains — created with no sperm, eggs or womb - "For the first time, scientists have created mouse embryos in the lab without using any eggs or sperm and watched them grow outside the womb. To achieve this feat, the researchers used only stem cells and a spinning device filled with shiny glass vials." [more inside]
Cars: killing people since 1869
August 10
Qualitative Research: how did this get published
The 2022 American Sociology Association Conference has had some drama, between podium tipping, security calls for gang affiliation, and most notably, a presentation about The Paper. What is The Paper? Which to be precise was a 'Research Note'.
Content note: masturbation, depictions of CSA in fiction, CSA and CSEM [more inside]