January 17
"wet and full of life"
Two short speculative stories in which pairs of women figure out some things about their relationships. "Twenty Thousand Last Meals on an Exploding Station" by Ann LeBlanc, published 2021 in Mermaids Monthly: "Riles Yalten has approximately thirty minutes before she dies, and that’s just enough time to try the new gravlax place on level sixteen." "The Freedom to Decide" by W. L. Bolm, published Nov. 2024 in Small Wonders: "Thus begins an audit of all the little kindnesses each had attributed to the other." (Disclaimer: Bolm is a friend.)
Medieval fashion panic
A deliciously "naughty" (but SFW) examination of long, pointy-toed shoes and the moral panic they provoked. "Aside from the sinful association of fleshly pleasures, clerics were concerned that the long toe-pieces prevented people from kneeling in the approved obeisant manner." [more inside]
"Wild" William Bunge
The God of Arepo
A short comic about a farmer and a god of small things, based on a tumblr writing prompt and several collaborative replies.
High Quality Industrial Food Grade Glycine
Before being Rednoted (recently), but after sabotaging attendance at Donald Trump's 2020 campaign rally, TikTok users discovered Donghua Jinlong is the only choice when you're looking for High Quality Industrial Food Grade and New Pharmaceutical Glycine (and then going full dada). What does this meme say about TikTok, the future of free speech and the internet?
Depending where you are, you may now or soon need a VPN to see this content. [more inside]
Depending where you are, you may now or soon need a VPN to see this content. [more inside]
The benefits of first languages in health
Indigenous doctors from across the globe point to the benefits of first languages in health.
Hundreds of Indigenous doctors have converged from across the globe to share their tips for good health.
“The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power”
I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous — and that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences all across America. And we’ve seen it before. from US President Joe Biden's final speech. [more inside]
January 16
There are dogs that will watch movies, but they’re actually the outliers
You’ve always wondered, here’s the answer: do dogs actually watch TV? Guardian article by Sian Cain.
Soup You Can Suck On
I'd Rather Be Sick Than Eat Progresso Soup Drops Ever Again you may ask. is this real?
but what is reality anyway
80s Teen Sex Comedies
The 80s were long ago and, in terms of socially acceptable comedy, far away. (CW: Brett Kavanaugh and screen piggishness) [more inside]
It’s more of a movement than a game
Industry leaks have exposed how the budgets of major video games are spiralling upwards: $100m, or $200m, even more. One of the bestselling franchises, Call of Duty, saw costs balloon to $700m (£573m), a number only revealed recently when a reporter dug into court filings. There is, however, one game with a budget that is anything but secret. The sprawling multiplayer space simulator Star Citizen publishes its funds on its website and they are updated in real-time. Currently, they stand at $777,145,107 (a figure that will be out of date as soon as this article is published). from Billion-dollar video game: is this the most expensive piece of entertainment ever made? [Grauniad; ungated] [more inside]
Life has got all those twists and turns; hold on tight and off you go
San Boldo Pass road located in the Italian Alps has 18 hairpin turns and 5 tunnels. Starting at 716m (2,349 ft) it descends 470m (1,541 ft) in 6.6km (4.1 miles) - an average grade of over 7% and a maximum of 12%. Some people have gravity races with human powered drift trikes down the pass. Rallye format (compete individually against a clock instead of in a pack) [more inside]
Not dead, just transcended.
Mr. Baseball Dead at 90
Bob Uecker, Milwaukee Brewer radio announcer has died. The nickname "Mr. Baseball" was coined by Johnny Carson during one of his over 100 appearances on the Tonight Show. Uecker had a major league career as a catcher where his lifetime average was .200. [more inside]
Nintendo Switch 2 finally revealed
After unbearable levels of speculation and leaks, Japanese gaming giant Nintendo finally announced the Switch 2 today, surprising nobody. Most of the leaked features were verified by the trailer, but in traditional Nintendo fashion the mysterious 'C' button was rendered blank. What could this little anonymous square be for?
"it does matter how they got there, actually."
Kitty Unpretty (previously) shares her "understanding of some of the various subgenres commonly encountered in light novels/web novels/licensed webtoons": isekai, portal fantasy, progression fantasy, litrpg, dungeon break/monster hunter, transmigration, regression, loop, villain isekai, romfan (romance fantasy) (no, not romantasy, that is something different), otome isekai, villainess isekai, divorce revenge, and childcare fantasy. Post also includes 15 recommendations for comics in these genres; apologies for non-described images excerpting those comics.
Christchurch mum runs 100 metre sprint on Lego barefoot
Gabrielle Wall managed to traverse her way across the jagged blocks in 24.75 seconds – setting an impressive time in the world record attempt, alongside a few cuts on the soles of her feet. Wall told 1News she got the idea after a health scare a couple of years ago and “re-evaluated my bucket list as a result”.
Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ"
I believe Scorsese’s question in The Last Temptation of Christ is this: Could Jesus have doubted the very purpose of his death? If so, I must ask myself: Can I allow Jesus the same shroud of uncertainty that I have? Can I allow my Messiah the messiness of being human? If I miss the aspect of God’s shared humanity, I commit myself to never understanding my own. [more inside]
Landing the Nostromo
To show where the Nostromo landed on LV-426, Ridley Scott needed onscreen visuals for the ship's computers. 20th Century Fox contacted Alan Sutcliffe at System Simulations in London, who hacked together some code that generated the vector landscape and computer interface using the Frolic graphics library running on a Prime 300 at SRC and rendered the animated sequence to film using a FR80 from III. Luckily for us digital archaeologists, Sutcliffe also wrote an article for Creative Computing a few years later describing his fourteen pages of FORTRAN that created the iconic view of the landing site terrain on an distant planet.
An answer that no one wanted to hear
The central idea of The Fable of the Bees was that private indulgence in traditional vices — such as drunkenness and gluttony, the squandering of energy in leisure activities, the conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, and materialism in general — is a crucial part of any dynamic large-scale economy. Were one to eliminate these elements from an economy, that economy would stagnate, to the detriment of everyone. There was a “paradox” at the center of modern life, one that had to be acknowledged and tolerated. from How a Book About Bees Scandalized Europe [Chronicle of Higher Education; ungated]
January 15
Four Roman Pasta Dishes United by Cheese and Pepper
There are four traditional Roman pasta dishes, all made with Pecorino Romano - a strong sheep's milk cheese aged until it's firm enough to be grated. The most basic of the Roman pasta recipes is cacio e pepe (text recipe, video) using only cheese (cacio) and (e) black pepper (pepe). Add cured pork and you get pasta alla Gricia (text recipe, video). Add egg to alla Gricia to make Carbonara (text recipe, video); adding tomatoes and white wine (and in some recipes chili pepper or red pepper flakes) to alla Gricia instead of egg gives you pasta all'Amatriciana (text recipe, video). Recipes posted up front, but many more details below! [more inside]
Hundreds more genes linked to depression
Groundbreaking global study finds hundreds more genes linked to depression.
An international team of researchers has found hundreds of new genetic variants linked to depression, which has the potential to lay the groundwork for new treatments.
"Where did those ten years go?"
"But nobody gets it. Most mental-health professionals, in my experience, don’t really understand compassion fatigue or caregiver burnout or chronic stress disorders. They just see that on the surface you look like you’re fine because that’s how you get accustomed to functioning. And you don’t get any validation when you’re having a really bad day. "
Eleven people share about their experiences caring for family members. (Archive link)
Yet another thing that can run DOOM
Would you believe: a PDF?
Habit-forming for good with Finch
Is there something you can do on your phone that's the opposite of doom-scrolling? It would probably need to be cute and encouraging and maybe it somehow allows friends to support each other... That's basically what Finch is trying to do. Sadly, their own website provides very little information about what using the app is like, so I've selected some reviews to give you an idea. [more inside]
peace
Israel and Hamas have agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal following 15 months of war, mediators Qatar and the US say. The ceasefire deal will take effect on 19 January, but a long-term truce is still being negotiated. BBC live coverage. Al Jazeera live coverage.
Perpetual Blue
Andreas Wannerstedt is a Stockholm based artist and art director who crafts unique 3D sculptures and mesmerizing looping animations. The imagery of Andreas is both sophisticated and whimsical, featuring simple and playful geometric shapes in balanced compositions, together with organic textures and harmonizing color palettes.
This Middle-Man, This Monster
Until 2020 Diamond Comic Distributors had a decades-long near-monopoly as supplier of comics & merchandise to the North American direct market. This changed following the arrival of COVID-19 when many of the biggest publishers signed deals with new distributors.
Yesterday Diamond announced that it had filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. [more inside]
"I kept a running list of aspects around blindness that could be included"
"[Joe] Strechay has a unique role in the entertainment business: making sure people with visual impairments are portrayed realistically -- well, at least as realistically as they can be in a sci-fi show about a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is sightless."
Surviving War and HIV
Spenser Starke's "Alice is Missing"
Alice is Missing is a stunningly beautiful storytelling game that delivers an utterly unique and unforgettable experience. ... A high school student named Alice has gone missing, and the players will take on the roles of her friends as they try to figure out what happened while dealing with the emotional trauma of her disappearance. The central conceit of the game is this: You don’t talk. Instead, all of your interactions — all of your roleplaying — takes place via text messaging. ... Alice is Missing is one of the best storytelling games ever made. [more inside]
"LMNOP - Midtown."
"Sections of the Alphabet, a guide" is a short Tumblr post that describes the 26 letters as belonging to 5 distinct neighborhoods. "The heavy lifters in this area draw a sharp disparity with Q, which is unique for its specialist role."
Rock the Ship, Baby
"The famous king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar II was lately enthroned when a group of Phoenician sailors watched their boat sink in shallow water off the coast of Spain ... The sailors would have been beside themselves watching the boat go down in just 7 feet of water, but before they could recover it and bring it to the shore around 65 yards away, a storm suddenly descended on La Playa de la Isla in the town of Mazarron, southeastern Spain": Divers Recover Ancient Shipwreck Amazingly Preserved for 2,600 Years Beneath Spanish Waters. [more inside]
Vietnam fines reckless drivers half the average annual salary
Vietnam fines reckless drivers half the average annual salary. Vietnam, where 11,500 people die in traffic accidents every year, has introduced severe new penalties for those who break road rules as well as bounties for those who dob them in.
Lynkedin Lyrics
Cunning Linguists
The fusion of several trends that have been coalescing for some time
Now the outlines of a popular political movement are becoming clearer, and this movement has no relation at all to the right or the left as we know them. The philosophers of the Enlightenment, whose belief in the possibility of law-based democratic states gave us both the American and French Revolutions, railed against what they called obscurantism: darkness, obfuscation, irrationality. But the prophets of what we might now call the New Obscurantism offer exactly those things: magical solutions, an aura of spirituality, superstition, and the cultivation of fear. from The New Rasputins by Anne Applebaum [The Atlantic; ungated]
January 14
Of Autocrats and the Media
For many, Hungary’s Victor Orban is the contemporary patron saint of autocratic rule. Certainly, he leaves “little doubt over what his model calls for,” A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times noted in a Washington Post op-ed this fall citing, “loud applause from attendees of a Republican political conference held in Budapest in 2022,” when Orban said, “Dear friends: We must have our own media.” [more inside]
AlmazanKitchen
The YouTube channel of AlmazanKitchen is technically a series of advertisements for its fancy-pants chef's knife. It is also the most intense, voice-free, music-free, 4K food porn you will ever see. Suggested starting points: Pork Belly with Crispy Skin. Carbonara with Handmade Pasta and Dry-Aged Bacon. Cheese and Egg Toast. Carolina Reaper Triple Chili Chicken Wings. Szechuan Pork Noodles.
Click here for a very good cry. (many good boys)
The Good Dogs (and People) of the LA Wildfires [YouTube Short approx 2:56] With quiet apologies to the good people now discussing the properties of good posting in Metatalk, I offer this single link because someone may appreciate a good cry right now. [more inside]
Cynicism is the cheap seats.
We Don't Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.
"Here’s a more charitable reading of cynicism: it’s not an intellectual position. It’s an emotional defense mechanism. If you expect the worst, you’ll never be disappointed. If you assume everything is corrupt, you can’t be betrayed. But this protection comes at a terrible price. The cynic builds emotional armor that also functions as a prison, keeping out not just pain but also possibility, connection, and growth."
Giant neon-pink slugs back with a vengeance after bushfires
Giant neon-pink slugs back with a vengeance after bushfires.
Citizen slug sleuths are helping scientists keep track of unique creatures that have made a remarkable comeback at Mount Kaputar in New South Wales (Australia).
"I have been lucky — living two lives in one lifetime"
Finally, an actually useful function for home security cameras.
Day One
"Day One" is a short scifi story by K. Duncan, published December 2024 in Trollbreath Magazine. The author notes "It's more or less a manifesto. It's about what could happen, and what has to." and "A 2023 that might have happened, in braver, more just world". He was still a shill for corporations and developers, for charter schools, still worthless on prison and poverty, but it was like an electric shock and a game-end Gatorade soak to hear him say “I am ordering the immediate disarmament of the Philadelphia Police Department.”
WEST-OF-HOUSE “West of House”
The Visible Zorker – Play Zork in one pane and follow the original ZIL source code and state of the virtual machine in adjacent panes as you play. (Or just read Andrew Plotkin's article about making this visualization.)
Where to go? Not at Starbucks, unless you buy something
CNN Business: Starbucks ends its 'open-door' policies. A new Coffeehouse Code of Conduct was announced and allegedly posted on their doors yesterday, reversing the 2018 decision to let anybody hang out there. [more inside]
"Slow blur/roses in the snow"
Black Tape For A Blue Girl: Live at the Middle East, Boston, July 21 1998 (SLYT, except here's a Bandcamp link)
What is RedNote?
American users are turning to RedNote, the Chinese equivalent of Instagram/Pinterest, ahead of a looming TikTok ban, which legislators are now urging Biden to extend the Jan 19 deadline for. TikTok has called rumors that it is considering a sale to Elon Musk, "pure fiction", and its parent company ByteDance has said that it would shut down rather than sell to an American buyer. [more inside]
Stern's RUSH Pinball
You like Canadian prog-rock? You like pinball? Have I got something for you.
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