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"According to these sources, Trader Joe’s commonly solicits product samples and even asks for potential recipe adjustments—a revealing and time-consuming exercise for bootstrapped founders—before inexplicably abandoning the negotiations and releasing its own private-label versions of similar products at lower prices." How Trader Joe's engages in shady tactics to copy products from independent, minority-owned brands.
posted by swift at 8:34 AM - 93 comments

They pooled their money to buy an ugly hill. Twenty years later, they're calling it paradise. A group of friends, dismayed about climate change, bought the most degraded piece of farmland they could find. Not to live on, or to make money from, but to transform into the bushland it once was. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:03 AM - 14 comments

I used to want to be a part of the media party circuit so bad. As a young person aspiring to be a writer, I would zoom into certain Instagram Stories of interest, wondering how everyone there got to go. Now, as a person attending them, I am pissed off! I was lied to. Bamboozled. Swindled. Hoodwinked
posted by sammyo at 3:52 AM - 49 comments

“This was a catch-and-kill,” I told Alpert. “What’s a catch-and-kill?” he asked. I went on to explain the tabloid practice of buying stories to bury them. Alpert already had the outline of the story, I learned, and I filled him in on more: how Howard had flown out to Los Angeles that summer to buy McDougal’s story for $150,000, with the direction from Pecker to kill it to protect Trump. I stressed to him the importance of the term “catch and kill” and told him that if The Journal included it, it would give me some breathing room. I went back to my office and closed the door. My heart was racing, and I was sweating. from What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise by Lachlan Cartwright [NY Times; ungated] [CW: Trumpland]
posted by chavenet at 2:05 AM - 14 comments

So this is unexpectedly delightful! Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, Lindsey Mendez, Katie Rose Clark, Krystal Joy Brown, and Reg Rogers sit down with Seth Rudetsky to discuss the release of the Broadway Cast Album for Merrily We Roll Along [YT Playlist] in SiriusXM Cast Album Town Hall | Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway [52m]. Campy, joyous and full of laughter and some delightful theater stories! Merrily We Roll Along previously.
posted by hippybear at 7:34 PM - 8 comments

[CW: transphobia, suicide] Bubba Copeland was the heart and soul of his community—mayor, businessman. When a website exposed his deepest secrets, his life wasn’t the only thing that was destroyed. [Esquire]
posted by riruro at 7:23 PM - 32 comments

In this picturesque Tasmanian bay, marine scientists are bringing a once-lost habitat back to life. Tucked away in a picturesque bay on the Tasman Peninsula is a precious underwater field of giant kelp that's thriving thanks to a team of determined scientists.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:58 PM - 2 comments

Kinky Friedman song with real heart covered well by Lee Roy Parnell [more inside]
posted by dancestoblue at 12:46 PM - 3 comments

What’s the Cloud Forecast for Eclipse Day? (New York Times gift link) "If you have an eclipse viewing destination in mind, enter it in the box below to see the latest cloud cover forecast. We expect the forecast to become more accurate closer to the day of the eclipse, and The Times will update this map as fresh forecasts become available."
posted by JonathanB at 12:31 PM - 82 comments

The MLB season is just a week old and there's already major team news in Oakland [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:36 AM - 47 comments

Kyra Dempsey (Admiral Cloudberg) looks at plane crashes, recent and historical, and presents their analysis on their blog in a format that contains enough to be interesting while still being accessible to the layperson. Recent posts include The ditching of ALM Antillean Airlines flight 980 one of the few commercial airlines to ditch into the sea, the absolutely insane series of events that lead to The crash of Pakistan International Airlines flight 8303, and the series of oversights, missed warning and that lead to The 2019 Alaska mid-air collision. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 9:56 AM - 17 comments

A high ranking Iowa hospital systems administrator has plead guilty to identity theft after stealing his former coworker's identity - for thirty years. (SLArs Technica) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:50 AM - 36 comments

Fake experts, Logical fallacies, Impossible expectations, Cherry picking, and Conspiracy theories (FLICC) and a Denial101 video trilogy (Part 1, 2, 3). From climate science communication researcher John Cook of Skeptical Science (with old school website layout!). See also the Cranky Uncle game based on the theory of inoculation: There may be no way to cure existing zombies, but we can reduce the number of people who are infectable by zombies. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:44 AM - 7 comments

The Bees of Wrath by James D. Walsh is the story of Rorie Woods, who released a hive of bees onto sheriff’s deputies who had arrived to evict a 79-year-old friend of hers. When informed that several deputies might be allergic, she allegedly replied: “Oh you’re allergic, good”.
posted by Kattullus at 9:10 AM - 49 comments

The fine art of human prompt engineering: How to talk to a person like ChatGPT. "To maximize the value of interactions with human language models, much like optimizing prompts for AI (prompt engineering), consciously crafting prompts to fit a particular HLM can be crucial. Here are several prompting strategies that we have found useful when interacting with humans." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:38 AM - 13 comments

A recently added setting on iPhones and iPads makes the devices less complicated. When activated, it switches to a bare-bones home screen that shows one or more apps as larger-than-usual icons. It makes smartphones and tablets easier to navigate by minimizing the number of options and adding more visual-based controls. WaPost gift link to article
posted by hydra77 at 8:24 AM - 16 comments

Last night at Madison Square Green: The Rangers and Devils started an all-out line brawl the second the puck dropped, resulting in 8 ejections. The fight has roots in violent encounters last month when Rangers’ Rempe concussed Devils player Siegenthaler. Trigger warning for self-harm and sexual assault. [more inside]
posted by bq at 7:45 AM - 94 comments

Differing opinions over whether a world-first cassowary bridge in Far North Queensland may be too steep for the endangered birds to use. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:44 AM - 7 comments

The beds are covered with a mass of pure white, like bubbling foam: thousands of white button mushrooms. These are the mushrooms — along with other strains of this same species, the brown and portobello mushrooms — that account for the vast majority of all mushrooms that Americans eat.
posted by signsofrain at 6:42 AM - 16 comments

"The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal."
posted by brundlefly at 6:37 AM - 64 comments

On April 3 and 4, 1974, thunderstorms spawned more than 100 tornadoes, killing more than 300 and injuring another 6000. Most fatalities occurred in small towns from Guin and Tanner, Alabama to Monticello, Indiana and the small city of Xenia, Ohio. The Super Outbreak became the impetus for improved weather forecasting, improved emergency notification, and comprehensive federal response. [more inside]
posted by backwoods at 5:21 AM - 16 comments

"What does a queer family look like? How do you define one without capitulating to heteronormative ideas of the 'nuclear family'? And how do those dynamics play out with families in the horror genre?" Laura Riordan on queer family in recent horror films.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:39 AM - 4 comments

The High Highs and Low Lows of Alan Ritchson [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 4:39 AM - 6 comments

Cat bonds investors are gambling on nature. If a disaster they’ve bet on occurs, their money is used to settle insurance claims. If it doesn’t, they get handsome returns. For decades, the instruments were a last resort reserved for super-rare events, such as a cataclysmic storm on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. But multibillion-dollar calamities have become alarmingly frequent on a warmer planet. “The insurance market is on edge,” says Seo. “It’s freaked out about risk and wants as little as possible.” from How a Physics Whiz Made a Killing Betting on Nature’s Catastrophes [Bloomberg; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 1:26 AM - 12 comments

Happy World Rat Day! 🐀 Australia’s native rodent species are incredibly diverse - from the Rakali, an otter-like rodent with webbed feet, to tiny desert-dwelling Hopping Mice that weigh no more than a golf ball. Discovering Australia's remarkable rodents [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:30 PM - 5 comments

Christopher Durang, TONY award-winning playwright, has died at the age of 75. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:30 PM - 20 comments

Former Rep. Jim McDermott is the rare lawmaker who has been able to live out all the policies he worked for during his decades in Washington. He just had to move to another country to do it. From a quaint French village about 90 minutes outside of Bordeaux, the longtime liberal lawmaker enjoys free health care and a safe community where he doesn’t need to lock his doors at night. He loves that kids in the neighborhood don’t worry about gun violence and that women have access to reproductive care, specifically abortion. He reads the news every day but says he doesn’t miss America all that much. (archive) [more inside]
posted by ShooBoo at 4:53 PM - 64 comments

April 4th at 2:30 Eastern time is the start of the FIDE Candidates (Open) and Women's Candidates Tournaments in Toronto Canada. You can follow the games live on Chess.com and Lichess (open, women's). The month long events will determine which players will get to challenge current World Champion Ding Liren, and Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun. Last year players around the world competed in a series of events to qualify for an invitation to a Candidates tournament. The winners will get a chance to play in a World Championship match (open or women's). There are two events. The Women's Candidates and the Open. Chess holds women only events as a means to encourage more women to participate in the game. Chess does not hold men's only events; although in many cases only male players have qualified in recent years. [more inside]
posted by interogative mood at 2:30 PM - 26 comments

The 2024 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Malmö, Sweden this year after Loreen secured a second victory with her song Tattoo, last year in Liverpool. Sweden has won the Contest seven times, tied with Ireland for the most victories ever by a single country. Thirty-seven countries are competing in this 68th edition of Eurovision. This year, it consists of two semifinals on May 7th and 9th, with the Grand Final on May 11th. Get ready for an introduction of all the submissions from the Class of 2024! [more inside]
posted by PearlRose at 12:48 PM - 34 comments

What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain? by Sam Knight in The New Yorker [more inside]
posted by rhymedirective at 12:33 PM - 61 comments

The children's counting book, Hippos Go Berserk!, over 45 years after its original publication, now has a sequel, Hippos Remain Calm. In an interview with Slate, author Sandra Boynton reveals hitherto unknown details of hippo psychology and muses on the literary merits of board books.
posted by jackbishop at 11:42 AM - 33 comments

The tale behind a new museum of children’s literature is equal parts imagination, chutzpah and “The Little Engine That Could.” (by Elizabeth Egan for the NYT)
posted by bq at 11:36 AM - 5 comments

The Hat Historian provides short histories of various hats in English (et en français,) from the Top Hat (le Haut-de-Forme) to the Bowler (le chapeau melon,) from the Tricorn (le Tricorne) to the Picklehaube (le Casque à pointe,) from the Custodian Helmet (le Casque de Bobby) to the Hard Hat (le Casque de Chantier,) and, of course, the Beret (le béret.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:41 AM - 15 comments

Falcon that crashed Taylor Swift concert set-up released back at Stadium Australia. A peregrine falcon that came to ground during the set-up for Taylor Swift's concert has recovered in the care of wildlife professionals and has been released back into his habitat at Stadium Australia.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:21 AM - 10 comments

Invisible - Workers from Eastern Europe Eastern Europeans migrating west in the hope of better salaries are often exploited and underpaid. Czech journalist Sasa Uhlová goes undercover to find out what conditions are like for these invisible workers in Germany, France and Great Britain. (Documentary, available with English subtitles until 17th of April)
posted by kmt at 5:33 AM - 3 comments

John Barth, author of books like Sot-Weed Factor, Lost in the Funhouse, Letters and Tidewater Tales, has died in a Florida hospice facility. He was 93. [more inside]
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 5:12 AM - 20 comments

Last year, a massive blaze consumed several illegal Airbnb units in Montreal and killed seven people. The tragedy shone a harsh light on the Wild West of Airbnb in Canadian cities—and the battle to regulate it has just begun. (slMacLean's) [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 4:50 AM - 66 comments

"Epicurus, who taught philosophy in Athens in a large backyard garden purchased around 306 BC, like other philosophers at the end of the Classical era and the beginning of Hellenistic times, gave priority to ethical thought in his teaching, treating physics and logic as auxiliary disciplines to facilitate understanding of the human behaviour, attitudes and aspirations he postulated.According to him, the aim of all human actions was to strive for ataraxia (ἀταραξία), that is, a state of inner peace, indifferent to pain and suffering, and to strive for freedom from fear, especially the fear of death and wrath of the gods." Krystyna Bartol on Epicurus. [more inside]
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:25 AM - 8 comments

It's easy, just call and leave a message after the beep. Do not wait. CALL NOW!!! (Please note that messages may take a short while to appear. Thank you for your patience!)
posted by Klipspringer at 4:25 AM - 10 comments

The long and short of it is that Swisher is not a good journalist—or, framed more generously, that she thrived in an industry with remarkably low standards for which we are still paying the price. from The Miseducation of Kara Swisher, a review of Burn Book by Edward Ongweso Jr. [The Baffler; ungated] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 12:06 AM - 29 comments

American-born Canadian comedy legend Joe Flaherty has died after a short illness. He was 82 years old. American audiences might know him best as Happy Gilmore’s heckler, or Big Bird’s co-kidnapper, or as Mr. Weir from “Freaks and Geeks.” Canadian viewers and comedy nerds will more likely recognize him from SCTV, or as Jennifer Tilly’s long-suffering dad in the cult classic The Wrong Guy. [more inside]
posted by armeowda at 10:35 PM - 51 comments

How NOT to behave around a crocodile. In areas where it's possible that there are crocodiles, authorities say that you should stay at least 5 metres (16 feet) from the water’s edge. This man is standing IN the water and fishing with a fishing rod, with his back to a crocodile that is on a sandbank right behind him. Incidents like this frustrate wildlife management authorities, who would prefer humans not get injured or killed, but would also prefer not to have to kill crocodiles that could have been left alone if humans had behaved safely around them. There has been some talk of making deliberately dangerous behaviour around crocodiles a fine-able offence.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:36 PM - 22 comments

Smiting! Odin's Skull Mead! And...uuhhh...kids (not that kind) Let's let Tasting History with Max Miller teach us what bellying up at a medieval tavern was really like. Unfortunately, it probably wasn't like this, which makes me sad.
posted by NoMich at 7:05 PM - 8 comments

Most of us know how to make a proper cup of tea. But perhaps you'd like to test yourself with this wonderful tea making simulation game. Exquisite! (other delicious and refreshing games made on the same platform here).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:21 PM - 36 comments

Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement. “Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” book he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company.

Suicide Mission: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane [The American Prospect] [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 3:15 PM - 76 comments

According to a recent study, reusable water bottles contain twice as many germs as the kitchen sink. “You should be cleaning these every day, or after every use,” says Natasha Blythe, a food hygiene expert at online training provider High Speed Training. “For a daily clean, wash in hot, soapy water. If you use a dishwasher, handwash the smaller parts,” says Blythe. “Take extra care with built-in straws; these are the perfect place for bacteria to grow.” Blythe recommends a bristle brush to clean the straw, or leave it to soak in hot water with a tablespoon of vinegar added. Daisy Schofield consults with experts on household cleaning for The Guardian. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 2:39 PM - 70 comments

✨There he is, ✨he's a magical cat, ✨everybody loves him ✨he's a ＭＡＧＩＣＡＬ  ＣＡＴ!✨✨✨🧚🦄🧜‍♀️🧝🐈
(5 1/2 minute video, claymation animation compilation, silly, meow)
posted by JHarris at 1:41 PM - 16 comments

I've been struggling with making this post for a long time, but I think the video The GREATEST Band I EVER Joined | The STORY of TOY MATINEE [~30m] is the best inroad I can find. It's a guitarist who talks to many who were also involved in the band, and everyone who was involved completely adores the project. Here's the Toy Matinee album in question. [YT playlist] It's prog pop, unlike anything I've really heard much before or since. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 8:05 AM - 23 comments

Metro Vancouver-founded T&T Supermarket to open 1st U.S. store in 2024 [more inside]
posted by elkevelvet at 7:50 AM - 50 comments

Iowa faced off against LSU again to decide which team would make it to the Final Four this year and it was everything that people were hoping for!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:35 AM - 27 comments