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Rats are less pestilent and more lovable than we think. Can we learn to live with them? (SL Hakai Magazine)
comment posted at 11:05 AM on Oct-11-23
comment posted at 4:41 PM on Oct-11-23

Underlying the sellers’ complaints is a kind of dismay, the feeling that what had previously been a safe haven for nerds to buy and sell $2 records is being threatened — that one more corner of the internet that wasn’t yet a glossy behemoth designed to subsume and capitalize on your personal information was about to collapse.

Natalie Weiner writes about the fears that record catalog site Discogs is starting to enshittify itself.
comment posted at 1:32 PM on Oct-7-23

On the morning of October 7, 2023, the Palestinian fundamentalist organization Hamas orchestrated an unanticipated assault on Israeli soil, marking it as one of the most significant attacks in recent years​​. The operation was multifaceted, involving rocket barrages and ground infiltrations, as well as taking military and civilian hostages.
comment posted at 12:05 PM on Oct-7-23

Rick Beetham on Mastodon asked a local food bank for the best items to donate to them, and came up with a list of 20 tips. The comments also has useful info, including that it's better to donate directly to the food bank instead of through the grocery store (and that way you might even get a receipt for writing it off on your taxes), and that giving money is usually best, because food banks often can get discounts that are unavailable to donators.
comment posted at 7:37 AM on Oct-7-23

You may have seen this 84 Duster ad that, in 90 second form, premiered during the first MTV music awards but did you ever wonder how a brand associated at the time with stodgy old white people came to have such an ad on MTV? The Autopian tracked down early 80s Chrysler-Plymouth Car Advertising Manager Glenn Northrupp to get the story behind the ad.
comment posted at 10:10 AM on Oct-4-23
comment posted at 10:35 AM on Oct-4-23
comment posted at 10:41 AM on Oct-4-23
comment posted at 1:34 PM on Oct-4-23
comment posted at 1:35 PM on Oct-4-23

Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has become acting Speaker of the House after Kevin McCarthy, rocked by a series of failed budget votes (and a last-minute agreement with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown), was ousted by Matt Gaetz and other far-right members of the House Freedom Caucus in an unprecedented vote. McCarthy, while likely to run for the speakership again, is no shoo-in given the 15 ballots it took him to secure the gavel just nine months ago (previously).
comment posted at 7:02 PM on Oct-24-23

British Seaside Simulator by Mefi's own malevolent, "so we can endlessly relive the summer that's coming to an end." (info) Best enjoyed with a cup of builder's in a stainless steel travel mug. [via mefi projects]
comment posted at 1:27 PM on Oct-2-23
comment posted at 1:46 PM on Oct-2-23

“We went from two women senators when I ran for office in 1992 to 24 today – and I know that number will keep climbing.” Dianne Feinstein, whose three decades in the Senate made her the longest-serving female US senator in history, has died. [CNN]
comment posted at 10:08 AM on Sep-29-23

16-year-old boy arrested after famous tree ‘deliberately felled’ A famous tree that has stood sentinel on Britain’s Roman-built Hadrian’s Wall for more than 200 years has been “deliberately felled” in what authorities have called an “act of vandalism.” The sycamore tree, located in the Northumberland National Park in northern England, was made famous to millions around the world when it appeared in Kevin Costner’s 1991 blockbuster film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.”
comment posted at 4:38 AM on Sep-29-23

Inside the secret meeting of Vine stars that ushered in the app’s demise (WaPo gift link)
comment posted at 6:10 PM on Sep-28-23

A guide to modern phone etiquette. (WaPo gift link.) Evidently Apple is bringing old school answering machine "screening" back, although if you're not supposed to use voice mail I don't get the point. Anyway here's a handy guide to the bewilderment that is modern phone use. For those who have a cell phone, anyway.
comment posted at 8:37 AM on Sep-26-23

...it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. The Stories Behind The Making Of The Blues Brothers [55m] is a 1998 documentary about the 1980 film that defined an era and the likes of which will likely never be made again.
comment posted at 10:49 AM on Sep-22-23

New study suggests NFTs have died.
comment posted at 6:30 PM on Sep-21-23
comment posted at 11:36 AM on Sep-22-23
comment posted at 1:25 PM on Sep-22-23

Why don’t Americans put butter on their sandwiches? When American in Paris Amanda Rollins posted a TikTok about a jambon beurre sandwich, there was a lot of mutual incomprehension on both sides of the Atlantic as to whether it's normal to assume there will be butter in a sandwich — for the Europeans, absolutely de rigeur; for the North Americans, odd and greasy. When The Guardian's Arma Mahdawi realised her American wife was on Team Mayo she wrote the linked op-ed (and took a regrettable swipe at American butter, sadly).
comment posted at 4:50 PM on Sep-20-23
comment posted at 5:01 PM on Sep-20-23

Here's a bee. It's a freebie, like this free thread. That is all.
comment posted at 4:36 AM on Sep-12-23

Massive rainstorms in Nevada have deluged the dry lakebed that has served as the site of Black Rock City, the pop up home for the Burning Man festival.
comment posted at 11:10 AM on Sep-5-23
comment posted at 12:49 PM on Sep-5-23
comment posted at 1:02 PM on Sep-5-23
comment posted at 7:14 PM on Sep-8-23
comment posted at 7:26 PM on Sep-8-23
comment posted at 2:59 AM on Sep-17-23
comment posted at 5:17 PM on Sep-20-23

Millions of shoppers agree: It’s OK to eat supermarket sushi. At U.S. retailers, sales are up over 70% in the past year. (archive,today link)
comment posted at 8:53 AM on Sep-1-23
comment posted at 9:55 AM on Sep-1-23
comment posted at 7:16 PM on Sep-2-23
comment posted at 7:49 PM on Sep-8-23

It seems like nearly every week I am having arguments about how bike infrastructure is ableist. It’s not.
comment posted at 6:40 PM on Aug-31-23
comment posted at 11:47 AM on Sep-1-23

The University of Michigan, a community of over 120,000 people, has gone offline in response to a security incident.
comment posted at 10:47 AM on Aug-29-23
comment posted at 6:06 PM on Aug-29-23
comment posted at 8:16 PM on Aug-29-23
comment posted at 8:36 PM on Aug-29-23

BBC: Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin presumed dead after Russia plane crash
comment posted at 1:18 PM on Aug-23-23

With Oppenheimer quickly becoming one of the biggest [heh] movies of all time, there has been a lot of discussion about film format floating around lately. Here with a complete explainer about film formats is Analogue Resurgence with 70mm: From Oklahoma to Oppenheimer (Or, How Very Big Film Was Used to Make Very Big Movies) [46m]. It's a romp across cinema through the lens of, well, the lenses. And the film stock.
comment posted at 10:41 AM on Aug-23-23

The failure of Luna 25 cements Putin’s role as a disastrous space leader. [Ars Technica] The destruction of the lunar probe--which would have been Russia's first lunar mission since a Soviet uncrewed probe in 1976--is the latest in a long line of failures and downgradings of the program that once accomplished the first successful satellite launch, the first man and woman in space, and the first spacewalk.
comment posted at 11:06 AM on Aug-22-23
comment posted at 11:23 AM on Aug-22-23
comment posted at 8:19 PM on Aug-22-23

'My Generation' Anthem for a Forgotten Cohort
comment posted at 10:36 PM on Aug-19-23
comment posted at 1:15 PM on Aug-20-23

You know the scene in Ghostbusters where the power's been shut down, the ghosts have broken containment, and they start to run amok in New York? The distinctive, eerie song- "Magic" by Mick Smiley- that accompanies it exists only in the film and on the soundtrack; it was never released as a single and Smiley never released it himself. But who even is Mick Smiley? In 2016, Josie Riesman tracked him down and got his story.
comment posted at 12:39 PM on Aug-18-23

The history of television is a vast wasteland of terrible decisions. For every groundbreaking show like Breaking Bad, Star Trek, and All in the Family that got on the air, there are 50 duds like Capitol Critters, Homeboys in Outer Space, and Joanie Loves Chachi. For every brilliant network idea, like NBC allowing Jerry Seinfeld to make a “show about nothing,” there are 100 insane ones, like ABC allowing Jim Belushi to create 182 episodes of According to Jim across eight seasons. (archive,today link)
comment posted at 10:54 AM on Aug-19-23