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"Holy grail" moment as small population of long-footed potoroos found for first time in New South Wales. The critically endangered species has never been sighted before in NSW, despite traces of hair and scat being discovered in forests 30 years ago.
comment posted at 3:38 AM on Oct-12-23

Anil Prasad's online music magazine Innerviews "delivers in-depth, uncompromising interviews that enable artists to speak at length about topics that matter to them." He's interviewed several hundred musicians over the years, including Tori Amos, Laurie Anderson, Adrian Belew, Björk, Ron Carter, Stanley Clarke, Keith Emerson, Béla Fleck, Robert Fripp (sort of), Jean-Michel Jarre, Kronos Quartet, Bill Laswell, Massive Attack, Public Enemy, Marc Ribot, Terry Riley, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Talking Heads (previously), Tanya Tagaq, and McCoy Tyner.
comment posted at 8:23 AM on Oct-6-23

So, it's possible that one of my favorite albums of this year is by... Dr. Noah Drake? All I can do is ask that you check out the newest album from 74-year-old Rick Springfield, Automatic [YT Playlist ~1h total]. He talked to American Songwriter about this album, which blends dance hooks with punk rock. Here's the first single, title track Automatic. But please check out the full album.
comment posted at 5:42 AM on Sep-19-23

Here's a couple examples. The present: A young woman walks down a street in Tehran, her hair uncovered, her jeans ripped, a bit of midriff exposed to the hot Iranian sun. An unmarried couple walk hand in hand. A woman holds her head high when asked by Iran's once-feared morality police to put a hijab on, and tells them: "Screw you!"
comment posted at 10:54 PM on Sep-15-23

How Scientists Working in Antarctica Inadvertently Developed a New Accent. A 2019 study of scientists over-wintering in Antarctica revealed subtle but measurable changes in the participants’ speech.
comment posted at 4:40 AM on Sep-16-23

"This is a gentle and slightly absurdist documentary about the Ardoteli family in the mountains of Georgia who discovered that a Chechen helicopter carrying cheese had crashed by their house. Dropped into the life of this family, a helicopter is gradually enfolded into their daily rhythms, transformed into something utterly unexpected. In this land free of electric cables, cows find a shelter and children set up their private playground in it. Patient observations through the rusted “eyes” of this helicopter unfold a story of a remote place exposed to just one piece of civilization." (22 mins, 2006)
comment posted at 10:30 PM on Sep-6-23

Badgers, or Badgers Badgers Badgers, or The Badger Song, is 20 years old. Developed by Jonti Picking (Mr Weebl) the animation consists of 12 cartoon badgers doing calisthenics, a mushroom in front of a tree, and a snake in the desert. Related: the sentence "Badger badgers Badger badgers badger badger Badger badgers" is grammatically valid. And as we close in on Christmas...
comment posted at 11:11 AM on Sep-2-23

The Lunar Codex Will Archive the Work of 30,000 Artists—on the Moon. A series of time capsules will honor and preserve contemporary art from around the globe. Among the works selected for the Lunar Codex are Ayana Ross’ painting New American Gothic, Pauline Aubey’s Lego portrait Emerald Girl and The Polaris Trilogy: Poems for the Moon, a commissioned poetry anthology with works from every continent, including Antarctica, per the Times. It also features pieces by the Ukrainian printmaker Olesya Dzhurayeva, who had to flee Kyiv last year in the wake of the Russian invasion, and Connie Karleta Sales, an artist with the autoimmune disease neuromyelitis optica who creates paintings using eye-gaze technology.
comment posted at 3:54 AM on Aug-27-23

Creators of the 2005 web series Yacht Rock and the subsequent podcast Beyond Yacht Rock, JD Ryznar, Hunter Stair, “Hollywood” Steve Huey, and David B. Lyons are returning Labor Day Weekend with two new podcasts: The Yacht or Nyacht Podcast, in which they'll pick up where they left off in the Yacht or Nyacht “minisodes” of BYR in 2019, rating songs on the Yachtski Scale, where songs 50 and above are yacht rock* and those below 50 are nyacht rock; and Billion Dollar Record Club, where they'll “listen to an underloved album every week and cause its value to soar”.
comment posted at 12:05 AM on Aug-27-23
comment posted at 8:36 AM on Aug-27-23

The underwater Amazon off Australia's coast that could help tackle climate change. New research shows the climate benefits of protecting and restoring underwater kelp forests could be equivalent to planting a billion trees.
comment posted at 11:47 PM on Aug-23-23

Why solo diners are being judged A Michelin restaurant in London charges single diners double, which has led to opinions in The Guardian by Jay Rayner and Megan Nolan. But others have given thought to the pleasures of dining alone this year, and earlier.
comment posted at 3:55 AM on Aug-14-23

Scientists are decoding saltwater crocodile talk. And the reptiles have a lot to say. Despite their reputation for being stealthy, crocodiles are very vocal. Now a group of Australian researchers are using video and audio monitoring to try to decipher what their calls mean.
comment posted at 4:00 AM on Aug-14-23

Human Genome Recovered From 5700-Year-Old Chewing Gum [Smithsonian Magazine]. The piece of Birch tar, found in Denmark, also contained the mouth microbes of its ancient chewer, as well as remnants of food to reveal what she ate.
comment posted at 3:19 AM on Aug-10-23

Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor has died at the age of 56. The acclaimed Dublin performer released 10 studio albums, while her song Nothing Compares 2 U was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards. Ms O’Connor was presented with the inaugural award for Classic Irish Album at the RTÉ Choice Music Awards earlier this year. The singer received a standing ovation as she dedicated the award, for I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, to “each and every member of Ireland’s refugee community”.
comment posted at 5:09 AM on Jul-28-23
comment posted at 6:12 AM on Aug-9-23

Pademelons are hopping marsupials that are a bit smaller than most wallabies.
comment posted at 1:57 AM on Jul-10-23

The Second City alum won an Oscar late in the game for “Little Miss Sunshine” and was memorable in “The Russians Are Coming,” “The In-Laws” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.”
comment posted at 1:26 AM on Jul-1-23

...I did not lie to the House."
comment posted at 1:48 AM on Jun-20-23

Crabby bodies are so evolutionarily favorable, they've evolved at least five different times. So why does this process, known as carcinization, keep happening? (carcinis/zation previously)
comment posted at 10:14 AM on May-30-23

The Ukraine war is heading into the summer, most commentators are waiting for the Ukrainian counteroffensive to kick off in earnest. In recent days Russia has been striking Ukraine with drones and missiles harder than in a very long while, and today Moscow was struck by Ukrainian long-range drones. Recent pledges of F-16 training (but no firm deliveries of airframes yet) and actual deliveries of Storm Shadow cruise missiles have somewhat overshadowed the work Ukraine has put in in building brigades with Western equipment.
comment posted at 10:32 AM on Jun-7-23
comment posted at 12:15 AM on Jun-21-23

"Here Comes the Sun" is now the first song by the Fab Four to hit a billion streams on Spotify. It has been the most popular song by the band since their streaming debut on their platform since 2015.
comment posted at 12:52 AM on May-10-23
comment posted at 12:57 AM on May-10-23

Thoughts from the ghostwriter of Prince Harry's memoir "Spare."
comment posted at 9:32 AM on May-9-23

Meanwhile, on Normal Island, Charles the third is getting crowned this Sunday. The coronation for the billionaire King-to-be is funded by commoners. As popularity for the monarchy falls and protests are planned, various petitions have been rejected, and the mass swearing of an oath of allegiance has been raised. The Proclaimers have been dropped from the official soundtrack, though many more Scots have their own jovial song. And another Scot, Frankie Boyle, has [very NSFW] examined the monarchy over the ages. Americans don't care and their presidents are traditionally no-shows. [post title]
comment posted at 5:49 AM on May-6-23
comment posted at 3:05 AM on May-7-23
comment posted at 8:38 AM on May-11-23

Hello, here is your free thread for the week!
comment posted at 4:21 AM on Apr-24-23

My guy on the tooth picks: "I was skiing a zone with a partner when I passed by a snowboarder upsidedown and buried in a tree well. I only caught a glimpse of his board but it was enough to get my attention."
comment posted at 9:26 AM on Apr-3-23

Zelda Producer Plays Tears Of The Kingdom For 10 Mins, And The New Stuff Looks Wild [YouTube][Spoilers ] Zelda fans have been starving for anything they can get, any crumb they can catch, and it seems like Nintendo is finally taking pity, rewarding them with a 10-minute gameplay trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. During the gameplay snippet, Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma says through a translator that Tears has changed the world “in many ways,” including pieces of Hyrule that float high in the sky, or “sky islands.” [...] Today’s trailer, which continues to show Link and his verdant world at its best and adds even more gameplay mechanics to the ones previous trailers revealed, is hopefully only the start to Nintendo preparing to open up the flood gates of cold, hard Zelda information. It doesn’t have much time, anyway—the game releases for Switch on May 12. [via: Kotaku]
comment posted at 11:27 AM on Apr-13-23

"The unspoken criterion for this list is that any album that came out when I was in high school will be ranked at least 25 spots higher than it probably deserves." A 100 album-strong list that's really less of a list and more of a long meditation on debuts, albums, and the author's life with music. (But number one is hard to argue with) (not that I don't expect you to try).
comment posted at 10:45 AM on Mar-26-23

50 Genuinely Horrible Albums by Brilliant Artists [Rolling Stone; ungated]
comment posted at 7:10 AM on Mar-18-23
comment posted at 5:18 AM on Mar-19-23

Safety on the railway in Latvia is no laughing matter. (It's all great, but the best is at the very end.) This stop-motion animation produced by Animācijas Brigāde features their long-running characters the Rescue Team. Fancy a trip to London or Greece? Or a spot of Latvian history?
comment posted at 3:42 AM on Mar-16-23

Moooove over: How single-celled yeasts are doing the work of 1,500-pound cows "Dozens of companies have sprouted up in recent months to develop milk proteins made by yeasts or fungi. ... The companies’ products are already on store shelves in the form of yogurt, cheese and ice cream, often labeled 'animal-free.' The burgeoning industry, which calls itself 'precision fermentation,' has its own trade organization, and big-name food manufacturers such as Nestlé, Starbucks and General Mills have already signed on as customers."
comment posted at 10:34 AM on Mar-14-23

Flaco, the escaped Central Park Zoo owl, proving he can survive outside enclosure. When he first escaped from his vandalized enclosure at New York City's Central Park Zoo, handlers of Flaco, a Eurasian eagle owl, doubted he could survive on his own.
comment posted at 11:50 AM on Feb-22-23

The Complete Master List of Palindrome Baby Names. From Namerology, the replacement for Baby Name Wizard. (Namerology previously and previouslier on the Blue.)
comment posted at 2:51 AM on Feb-8-23

The biggest bank in the country did something extraordinary: It said it had been conned. JPMorgan Chase is suing Frank Financial Aid (YouTube), a higher education financial aid company it bought for $175 million in 2021. The finance company now alleges that Frank massively misrepresented its work and assets, and paid a data science professor to create millions of fake accounts.
comment posted at 9:57 AM on Jan-26-23

NYT reporter Joe Bernstein and his wife were headed home early. It was cold out, and the club around the corner had music, so they stepped inside to wait for their cab. The band was playing primitive garage rock: fast, loud, hard. The place was packed. There were women in skintight red dresses, long-haired men sucking down bottles of beer and couples flirting in the alcove outside the bathrooms. In fact, just one thing distinguished the crowd from nearly any other rock n' roll show: almost everyone was over 65. Twitter thread. NYT article. Archive.
comment posted at 10:41 PM on Jan-13-23

Spending too much money on food and drink is an act known as abligurition, according to one 18th-century dictionary – the result of which might be a feeling of barleyhood (a Tudor-period word for a hangover), or crapulence (defined by Samuel Johnson as “sickness by intemperance”). And after all that overindulgence you may well need to swadge (to relax after a large meal), and be in dire need of a yulehole – a term defined by the superb Scottish National Dictionary as “The hole in the waist-belt to which the buckle is adjusted to allow for repletion after the feasting at Christmas.” (Should you need it, the excellent Scots word pang, according to the same source, can be used to mean “to force an unwanted article on someone”. Ergo, it is the perfect word for Boxing Day, or for all the Bounty bars left in the bottom of your tub of Celebrations.) Author Paul Anthony Jones reveals the roots of his love of obscure words in The Guardian.
comment posted at 6:06 AM on Dec-6-22
comment posted at 6:16 AM on Dec-6-22

For more than a decade, a prankster spun a web of deception about the inventor of the electric toaster. His lies fooled newspapers, teachers and officials. Then a teenager flagged up something that everyone else had missed.
comment posted at 4:01 AM on Nov-20-22
comment posted at 5:47 AM on Nov-21-22
comment posted at 10:00 AM on Nov-21-22

Kherson celebrates liberation after 8 months of Russian occupation (Kyiv Independent photos). Buildings mostly stand, but infrastructure is largely severed. Zelenskyy says Russia has committed war crimes there, as in other occupied regions. 179 settlements on the west bank of the Dnipro River have been liberated. Russians continue defensive operations on the east bank.
comment posted at 1:05 AM on Nov-14-22

Fern Brady comedy special (SLYT, 56:01m, subtitles/captioning).
comment posted at 11:30 AM on Oct-31-22

Making the radical case for Sinéad O'Connor: She was right all along [ungated] - "Using extensive archival video — including footage from a wedding at which a teenage O'Connor sang 'Evergreen' — brief, stylized re-creations and interviews with O'Connor's friends, collaborators and contemporaries, 'Nothing Compares' traces O'Connor's meteoric rise from troubled teenager to Rolling Stone cover girl, and her even more precipitous fall from grace... Ferguson said that many of the screenings get rowdy and emotional. Young people come up to her 'with their eyes flashing, just incensed and inspired' by O'Connor's ordeal." Interview with Kathryn Ferguson on Nothing Compares (trailer; Rememberings previously).
comment posted at 9:55 AM on Oct-15-22

Whisper, from OpenAI, is an open source tool you can run on your own computer that "approaches human level robustness and accuracy on English speech recognition"; "Moreover, it enables transcription in multiple languages, as well as translation from those languages into English." Instructions on how to download, install, and run it. (I have successfully used Whisper and the results were very good. However, it is not fast enough to run during recording of an interview and give you live captions/transcripts; it runs after the fact, on already-recorded audio.)
comment posted at 11:07 PM on Oct-13-22
comment posted at 2:25 AM on Oct-14-22