October 2023 Archives
October 31
Chance discovery of handfish thought locally-extinct
A chance discovery by a runner on a beach near Hobart of a spotted handfish thought extinct in the area has scientists excited about the species potential survival.
The species, Brachionichthys hirsutus, has not been seen in the Primrose Sands area for nearly 20 years.
This is a cargo bike
Introducing the bike train (1 minute, youtube)
Help me, help me, help me
Lewis Black Halloween Supercut
Lewis Black | Halloween Supercut [13m] is Lewis Black's own YouTube channel being very very Lewis Black about issues related to Halloween. If you need someone to rant amusingly for a while so you can feel better about the rants you have in your own mind, here's what you need.
Videos about Welsh and Brythonic history
Cambrian Chronicles is a YouTube page with videos focusing on the history of Wales and Celtic Britain, such as one on the missing kingdom of Rheinwg, another on a kingdom that sank into the ocean, one about the unique Welsh letter Ỽ and perhaps my favorite, the king who existed only on Wikipedia, and there are 14 more videos.
0: total number of cases of fentanyl in Halloween candy in 2022
Why Halloween’s ‘Poison Candy’ Myth Endures. “If you think about it, Halloween sadism is the best thing in the world to worry about,” he says. “There is somebody in your neighborhood who is so crazy, they will poison little children at random. And yet, they’re so tightly wrapped, they’ll only do it one night of the year,” he says. “So on November 1, you wake up, look around the breakfast table and count noses. If everyone’s still there, you can say, ‘OK, we don’t have to worry about this for another 364 days.’” [more inside]
"Be Aware of Your "Giveaways"
Trick-Or-Treat The CIA Way: Tips For A Halloween Spent Undercover. Come explore 'Spooky Stories for Halloween.' Or, or, 'Explore the aftermath of the CIA’s infamous “Halloween Massacre”. In recent news, 'CIA publicly acknowledges 1953 coup it backed in Iran was undemocratic as it revisits ‘Argo' rescue'
CW: links to CIA site.
Blank Space (Johnny's Version)
Blank Space (Johnny's Version) [SLTikTok]
Company with 10% lifetime employee turnover shows their secret is trust
"Here are five critical ways we foster trust in our organization–principles that we believe can work at any level, for any team, in any corporation." Remote work has led to an increase in employee surveillance. Employees are finding out about corporate tracking of their work hours, emails, systems use, and more–all of it secret.
This corporate spying destroys trust. If employers are suspicious of their staff, then employees become wary of their employers too. Many workers become more occupied with gaming the tracking system than doing actual work. In fact, research shows that employee-monitoring software actually makes employees more likely to break rules, as the employees subconsciously begin to feel less in control of their own behavior.
FREE DREAD
Happy HOWLoween, dearest MeFRIGHTS. What EERIEsistable costumes have you CONJURED to celebrate? Any SPOOKtacular events planned? Perhaps some reverse trick or treating in the neighBOOrhood, or a creepy cartoon SCAREathon? Tell us about it in this week's free thread! SKELETONS.
British Broadcasting Crowporation.
BBC' Radio 4's Today programme celebrated Halloween this morning by devoting its Tweet of the Day slot to the carrion crow. It was quite a production. [more inside]
The Inky Depths #9: Halloween Edition
Happy Halloween, splashy friends! The tide is coming in with the best links I could find on the spookiest-named creatures in the deep! (and a fun fact about each one, for the time-crunched among you). Reach out a tentacle and press the [more inside]
Artist vs critic
Devon Rodriguez is one of the world's most famous artists. Never heard of him? Maybe "that guy that posts to TikTok about drawing people on the underground" rings a bell. Art critic Ben Davis visited his exhibition "Underground" at UTA Artist Space and wrote a review. [more inside]
Being there because cookies
Sara Lippincott (1938-2023), science editor, died this weekend in the fullness of her years. One of the last things she wrote was a memoir The Tea Table [1500 words = 5 mins] about her days as a secretary in the Harvard Bio Labs. As with so many editors her work was vital but largely invisible.
The Nightmare Before Halloween
October 30
4.5 billion year old space rock tells us new things about Solar System
The State of Gilead
Roe v. Wade Is Gone, but Abortions Are On the Rise [ungated] - "New abortion bans have done little to reduce frequency of the procedure, new data show." [more inside]
"claw-claw..."
"Protecting cats has been a Roman tradition since the days of the ancient Roman Republic. They were considered sacred to the goddess Diana and were kept not only as companions, but as a way to control the pest population as the city grew. Cats were granted legal protections under Roman law as early as the first century CE .
The Roman Cat. pt.1, pt. 2, pt. 3.
previously.
Cinematic Fig Leaf
"NO CGI" is really just "INVISIBLE CGI" [SLYT] This VFX artist rigorously examines the oft-repeated claim that a movie has no CGI or is all practical. As he puts it, why are their 400 VFX artists in the credits then? [more inside]
What Bit the Ancient Egyptians?
"How much can the written records of ancient civilisations tell us about the animals they lived alongside? Our latest research, based on the venomous snakes described in an ancient Egyptian papyrus, suggests more than you might think. A much more diverse range of snakes than we’d imagined lived in the land of the pharaohs – which also explains why these Egyptian authors were so preoccupied with treating snakebites!" [more inside]
We need fact crusaders
Fact-checking can be nuanced, and every misstatement is not an intentional lie. But many of the lies we see today are obvious. Journalists need to call them out prominently, not just in the 14th paragraph of a story. People read headlines. So journalists must put corrections in headlines. Instead of writing a story headlined “Trump says UAW talks don't matter because EV shift will kill jobs,” news outlets should write stories headlined “Trump lies about electric vehicles during speech to auto workers.” This type of headline would not be a cheap shot. Trump’s September speech to non-unionized auto workers was stuffed with lies. From the October 30, 2023 issue of Stop the Presses newsletter by Mark Jacob, former metro editor of the Chicago Tribune and former Sunday editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. [more inside]
"A similar purpose when they cook: to keep their heritage alive."
"There is no singular Palestinian cuisine. Palestinian food spans our entire geography, from the mountains of the Galilee to the valleys of the south, from the coast of Yaffa all the way to the West Bank." [more inside]
The little guys show up in medieval marginalia hunting mice & being cute
First of all, I would like to ask which “religious leaders” this cat account thinks condemned cats in the fourteenth century. You would see some kind of documentation, because a mass cull of cats would represent a huge 180 from standard medieval practice surrounding the animals, because medieval people fucking loved cats.
"America does not deserve me."
Why so many Black Americans are moving abroad. (slLATimes)
A challenge to the idea of writing such stories at all
Modern forms of true crime aren’t just cynical entertainments: they also suffer from a form of epistemological hubris, reassuring us that though the crimes they document are unspeakable, they are, in the final accounting, explicable. And if they are explicable, it follows that they are avoidable. from Accessory After the Fact, a review of Mark O'Connell's A Thread of Violence [The Baffler; ungated]
“I could just break into tears, the human he’s become.”
"The evolution of Steve Albini", a Grauniad long read about a punk rock personality who is growing past his edgelord youth. Many previouslies, including another post on being offensive, but also Christmas, punk rock ethics, food, the music industry, producing 'In Utero', being pompous, producing records, being offensive (yes, it's a theme), selling out, beautiful sunrises, answering questions, and an even older post with mostly broken links. [more inside]
A Little Moxie For Halloween
Penn Jillette's kid Moxie did some magic and tried to fool their dad on "Penn & Teller:Fool Us" (SLYT) [more inside]
October 29
20 Homeschool Conferences: The Things I've Witnessed At Them Shocked Me.
A mom enters our booth in the exhibitor hall in Missouri. In Ohio, a mom breezes into our booth. I am in Texas, my home state. I am sitting in my booth in South Carolina. “What do you mean, ‘woke’?” I ask. She opens her mouth. Half-words and phrases stumble and tumble around. A few talking points from news sources fall out. Finally, she sighs. “I don’t know. Just tell me again what you write.”
A quarter of a century later, the show continues
Dropped on the world as a kind of polished, keenly self-aware zine at the dawn of what would become the era of digital publishing, McSweeney’s was, in other words, a Statement, an anti-magazine created by rogue magazine professionals. Eggers had already cofounded Might, a short-lived San Francisco magazine with a cult following, but McSweeney’s was simultaneously more ambitious and stripped down. “This thing will be more about trying new, and almost certainly misguided, ideas,” he wrote in an email to would-be contributors in 1998. “It’ll be fun, and if we’re not careful, we might make publishing history!” Eggers expected it to run for four issues, eight at the most, but he was so wrong. from Dave Eggers’s Pirate Ship
"That's how totalitarian systems operate."
"It's definitely the most Canadian thing I've done."
Gordon lives again!!!
“A lone spaceship crash-lands on Mongo - - three humans on a mission of peace. An athlete, a traveler and a mad, desperate scientist. Alone against an empire.” - Flash Gordon returns in style with a new daily comic strip. Creator interview with Dan Schkade.
"He’s already too busy making everyone laugh up there.”
Matthew Perry, Emmy-nominated ‘Friends’ star, dead at 54 Apparently he drowned unexpectedly in the hot tub yesterday. LA Times article on it. [more inside]
Digital Public Spaces -- Governance and Stewardship
Let the community work it out: Throwback to early internet days could fix social media’s crisis of legitimacy. [more inside]
color coded areas by cat: yellow (Scribbles); red (Coriander)...
How do cats use space? Part 3: Looking at relationships (with Dr. Delgado's cats). Part 2: Multiple & separated key resources. Part 1: In the original study "the density of cats was much higher than that observed in studies of outdoor cats (113,000 cats/km2)." Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado has also shared research on can kittens do math and the Feline Grimace Scale, a tool that can quickly identify pain in most cats.
The internet is full of tubes
October 28
Ostriv: peaceful 18th-century farming simulator
"Ostriv is a city-building game that puts you in a role of a governor of an 18th century town to challenge your creative skills and management abilities." [more inside]
The Corpse Can’t Play
The Chordettes Discography
Single-bladed floating wind turbine promises half the cost, more power
On all sides is the sea
I keep expecting the killing to begin. Will it be when I get undressed and enter the water, as I am sucked into a whirlpool? Or now, as I swim around the bend, to see the spectacle of the mountain’s water barreling down? Or will it happen with the next nervous return swim, to see that waterfall just one more time, to be drawn into its power, the thrilling proximity? Because what keeps me swimming back and forth in this vathra to the dangerous waterfall is the exhilaration, like a flirtation. Yes—with each return—I feel foolhardy, but also brave, before the crush of the mountain pool. from The Island That Eats People
Good Times
If you haven't already seen the Nile Rodgers & CHIC: Tiny Desk Concert, it's well worth half an hour of your time! [SLYT]
Shadow Moving Slow: Halloween Mix 2023
Here's a mixtape to get you in the mood for next week's festivities, featuring The Shacks, Midnight Sister, The Budos Band, Skullcrusher and More. (Youtube Spotify Tidal) [more inside]
All Crimewaves Are Bullshit
Target and other chains have overblown the impact of shoplifting. The rash of store closures across the nation are, as might have been suspected, driven by other factors - in the case of Rite Aid bankruptcy to avoid opiate lawsuits.
"Gaza is Being Strangled"
Gaza Is Being Strangled”: U.N. Says Israel’s Siege Will Lead to More Palestinian Deaths The United Nations has warned that many more Palestinians will die due to catastrophic shortages of food, water and medicine, as Israel’s nonstop bombardment of the Gaza Strip entered its 21st day. [more inside]
"a scorpion disappeared, reappeared in the sky and fell on my head"
The Largest Peacetime Disaster in American Naval History
Calhoun knew that not everyone from his ship had made it. He wondered how many still flailed in the oil-coated water. And the engine- and fire-room crews deep inside the ship: had they been trapped down below, or were they pulled out by the undertow as the ship rolled? Those men—his men—had been 150 yards from shore with no way out of the ship. On shore, when Herzinger mentioned to Calhoun that the losses were great, as many as 20 or 30 sailors, the young captain’s response was grave: “My God, I know—but we will not discuss it now.” from Dead Reckoning
Rediscovering Tradition in Pu’er Country
The tea forests on Jingmai date back over 1,800 years. In addition to their archaic method of growing tea — referred to in scientific circles as “understory tea cultivation” for the way the tea trees are left to grow in the shade of larger trees — the residents of nearby villages also observe ancient religious practices involving a spirit known as Pa Ai Leng, the tea ancestor. designated the “tea spirit tree,” and it is forbidden for residents to cut them down or pick their leaves. Every year before the spring tea is picked, people make offerings of rice, wine, tea, and other items to these spirits. This September, the “Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er” was officially added to the UNESCO World Heritage List for its mix of ancient cultivation techniques, unique tea culture, and rarely seen village layouts, making it the world’s only tea-centric cultural heritage site. But the story of Jingmai isn’t purely about preservation: The techniques and rituals spotlighted by UNESCO’s citation have undergone a period of rediscovery and reinvention in recent years — a complex process driven by a mix of residents, local officials, and market incentives. [more inside]
October 27
Tiraz - thread by thread for Palestine
Palestinian embroidery project with adaptations to cross stitch, and a profile of Widad Kawar, the Palestinian art historian who founded it and documented a cultural treasure, more glimpses of the beauty here. Why do textiles matter to Palestinians? Rebellious robes and stitches from the civil war: the radical story of Palestinian embroidery .
P a s t a
A very long article in the Atlantic: An inquiry into a few fundamental questions: How did spaghetti and meatballs, a dish no Italian recognizes, become so popular here? What makes some brands of pasta much better than others? What’s so special about fresh pasta? What do Italians know about cooking pasta that Americans don’t? (archive)
Humpback whales on Australia's east coast go from 150 whales to 40,000
From 150 whales to 40,000 whales, humpbacks on Australia's east coast make miraculous recovery. Experts believe the humpback whale population has reached record heights, after commercial whaling from the late 1800s to the 1960s pushed the animals to the brink of extinction.
To me, Edward Wood was the Orson Welles of low budget pictures.
The Haunted World Of Edward D Wood Jr [1995, 1h52m] is a documentary about the indefatigable filmmaker of much regrettable redoubtable renown. Also features many of those who conspired in his cinematic crimes.
Apropos of nothing at all.
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Neither indigenous nor Canadian?
The CBC has revealed that Buffy Sainte-Marie, prominent 70s era American-Canadian singer-songwriter, and recipient of the Order of Canada, was actually born in the US, was never adopted, has European ancestry, and used legal intimidation to ensure her family stayed silent on her origins.
The revelations have divided the indigenous community has raised significant questions about the litmus test of indigeneity, the threshold for investigating such cases, and the value of authenticity when judging music.
We're gonna need a lot of butter
"Knowing what is missing is an important first step."
Zachary Turpin (Commonplace, 10/2023), "Have You Seen Me?: Missing Works of Nineteenth-Century American Literature": "To students new to the study of nineteenth-century American literature, it may seem that the field has been so thoroughly studied and catalogued that there can be very little left to discover about it. This could hardly be further from the truth." Partially inspired by Johanna Ortner (2015), "Lost No More: Recovering Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's Forest Leaves": "Having done my secondary source reading on her, I knew that Forest Leaves was deemed lost. Call it my naiveté as a young graduate student, but I figured I might as well type in the title in the society's catalogue."
it would appear our potholes are so bad that hell sprung a leak
nola_prepared is a satirical city emergency preparedness Instagram account for New Orleans Louisiana (although the official nolaready IG appreciates their different skill sets). Recommended posts: Hurricane season preparations include rescue gators; new hazard signs; a Hell vs NOLA comparison chart; flood warning; the dysfunction of Sewerage & Water Board; the toxic optimism of a happy New Orleanian as told by a marine iguana (do NOT click if you have a fear of snakes, like even a vague unease, unless you have some form of emotional support near you). No Instagram account? You should be able to see a few posts before they cut you off.
A point of Pride
First there was Pride Night. Then there was Pride Night controversy. Then there was cowardly surrender. Then there was a show of allyship. Now there is a partial Pride Night reversal.
On your custom Kawasaki with the stinger on the back
Today is release day for the Mountain Goats album “Jenny from Thebes.”* You know the band, or maybe you don’t, but anyway it’s the band that covered Ace of Base and Steely Dan and Trembling Blue Stars, the band that recorded that one song that will reduce you to rubble every time, the band that didn’t record that other song that will reduce you to rubble every time they play it live, the one with that great, great song on an episode of “Weeds” and the songs about Amy Winehouse, Chavo Guerrero, Frankie Lymon, and passing out on Liza Minelli's star. The band with the massive crowd favorite encore that happens to be a viral Tik Tok thing. [more inside]
You have 20 seconds to comply, old sport
Making Chat (ro)Bots: Boston Dynamics [previously] combines their robot dog Spot with ChatGPT, speech and image recognition, and some unsettlingly realistic vocal synthesis (plus googly eyes and a hat) to create the world's first fully autonomous, conversational robotic tour guide. [more inside]
In the Dark
Deeply Divided: What's Next for the BRPD? The final story of a five-part series about the Baton Rouge Police Department, published by the independent Verite News and Louisiana Illuminator and supported by the Pulitzer Center.
The Inky Depths #8: Southern Pygmy Leatherjacket
The Southern Pygmy Leatherjacket has a very compressed body, which is almost circular. The lower surface is made up of a large ventral flap (called a dewlap) which can be raised and lowered. The abdomen is also expandable by inflating. Like all the leatherjackets, the Southern Pygmy Leatherjacket lacks pelvic fins.
The colouration of the Southern Pygmy Leatherjacket is highly variable, ranging from a pale yellow-brown to dark green with small spots or ocelli. This variable colouration helps to camouflage the fish and often makes it very difficult to see. The colouration of this fish can change during courtship.
THEY CHANGE COLOR WHEN THEY FALL IN LOVE! [more inside]
SCHNAAAAABEL
"Bird Calls (1972, recorded in 1981) by Louise Lawler is a six-minute roll call in which the artist squawks, chirps, and warbles the names of twenty-eight of the leading artists of the time—not coincidentally, all men. Each name is subject to distortion and derision as it is transformed into an individual call. This powerful (and powerfully funny) piece, the artist’s only audio work, may seem anomalous in relation to the subtly acerbic photographs and ephemeral multiples for which she is now known... [more inside]
I could show you incredible things
This reading list collects pieces from the last decade that use Taylor Swift as a muse, a conduit, a springboard, or a punching bag in service of the authors’ own journeys. They demonstrate how, as Taylor’s Swiftdom grows, so too do the opportunities to use her as a lens through which we can project any number of issues—gender, race, identity, authenticity—and witness the prismatic results, a “kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats,” an easter egg waiting to be unwrapped. She’s a mirrorball, after all, reflecting every version of ourselves. from Imperial Eras: A Taylor Swift Studies Reading List
October 26
The History Behind London's Green Cabmen's Shelters
The History Behind London's Green Cabmen's Shelters. As you walk around London you may come across one of these green huts by the side of the road.
They are Cabmen’s shelters and they are amazing relics of Victorian London, but also a fantastic example of living history, as many of them are still in use today.
Goodbye Bobby Lee
Six years ago, white supremacists marched (ostensibly) to defend a statue of Robert E Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today, two Washington Post reporters documented the process of cutting that statue up and melting the pieces down into ingots. (gift link) [more inside]
Hasan Minhaj's New Yorker response: that was not who I am
Everyday Stories from the Ancient Past
Love in an Orchard, as Written by the Trees. Donating Kittens to the Goddess Bastet. Parental Grief. Same-Sex Love Spells. A Runaway Child Bride. A Bachelor Wishes to Marry. A Spell to Attract Women. His Mind is Shrouded in Darkness. I am Dying of a Broken Heart.These and more vignettes of ancient Middle Eastern life at the Papyrus Stories Group Blog (click on language tab or hover on topic tab for best navigation).
Fully Manual Austere Martian Communes
Space settlement advocates frequently argue that we will soon be able to settle humans in space. Surviving on Mars is clearly a pre-requisite to settlement, and much work has been done examining the engineering aspects of this endeavor. Much less work has been done, however, on questions related to how to arrange a society in space. Early settlements will be dangerous, isolated, and cramped, and picking a social arrangement that is likely to result in a vibrant and productive society will be critical. To Each According to Their Space-Need: Communes in Outer Space [more inside]
Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department.
Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department. (Sarah Mervosh, New York Times, Oct. 10, 2023; archive.org version)
Heck with it, we'll just go build our own electric truck.
Please enjoy Edison Motor's first demonstration of their electric semi running under load, silently hauling over 100,000 pounds of weird Sherman-Tank/Chevy thing, and 45 minutes explaining the design and engineering decisions around it.
You may touch the artifacts
Internet Artifacts: a thoroughly interactive multimedia timeline of the documents, technologies, and phenomena that defined the Internet in the pre-smartphone era. Come for the First Smiley (1983) and the First MP3 (1987), stay for the AOL Dial-Up handshake (1991) and the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (2006). [Via Neal.fun]
It has become so ordinary
Over the last two decades, US colleges and universities have emphasized policies to protect students. But some within academia are now calling on institutions to do more to defend professors and other staff, who are also commonly targeted. Today’s academics have become public figures online and in the media in a climate of rising political polarization, racism and misogyny, and attacks on intellectualism. from The Lurker: It didn’t matter if she knew you — if you were a professor and Asian American, you were a potential target. [CW: stalking, racism, academics]
October 25
Clutter Block #4: Fantasy Stuff For My Fantasy Life
7 emotional blocks making it harder to declutter.
#1 My Stuff Keeps Me in the Past. Looking at these items may reinforce that your best days are behind you.
#2 My Stuff Tells Me Who I Am. Ask what am I looking to these things to tell me about myself?
#3 Stuff I'm Avoiding. (It me! It me!)
CBC interview with decluttering maven Tracy McCubbin (onTikTok). [more inside]
#1 My Stuff Keeps Me in the Past. Looking at these items may reinforce that your best days are behind you.
#2 My Stuff Tells Me Who I Am. Ask what am I looking to these things to tell me about myself?
#3 Stuff I'm Avoiding. (It me! It me!)
CBC interview with decluttering maven Tracy McCubbin (onTikTok). [more inside]
10 of the world’s quirkiest forms of public transport
10 of the world’s quirkiest forms of public transport. As the Philippines phases out its distinctive jeepney, we look at the more unusual ways travellers can get from A to B.
Wægn lêod æfterweard wægn [Kirk] max.
Valice Lavidad!
Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee in unhinged, and it is loosely based on a spelling bee: each episode, four comedians participate in a series of rounds, where the goal is almost always to spell words or names in rounds that are "designed to be infuriating to take part in and entertaining to watch".
Guid Luck tae ye this Hallowe'en
The venerable Public Domain Review [PREVIOUSLY] is highlighting Hallowe'en Postcards, 1900-1920. Just don't stare too hard at "Mister Toad Turned Into A Pumpkin"!
Patagonia just designed its warmest coat ever, and it’s made from trash
The Silent Treatment
Characterised today by the noise of banging, buzzers, and the cries of inmates, solitary confinement was originally developed from Quaker ideas about the redemptive power of silence, envisioned as a humane alternative to the punitive violence of late-18th century jails.Solitary Confinement’s Unlikely Origins, by Jane Brox.
Only 90s kids will understand
The Party of No (Speaker)
Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC) remains acting Speaker of the House, an incredible three weeks after Kevin McCarthy was ousted by a group of far-right Republicans radicals. To recap the last fortnight and a half: McCarthy makes a surprise decision against running again; heir-apparent Steve "David Duke without the baggage" Scalise ekes out an internal vote against Fox News favorite Gym "Jim" Jordan only to be torpedoed by the Freedom Caucus; next Jordan seizes the nomination, but his ugly pressure campaign is repeatedly rejected by suddenly vertebrate GOP moderates; after three increasingly unsuccessful runs Jordan bows out to Tom Emmer, whose bid is summarily vaporized by Trump in a matter of hours. The latest rep in the barrel: Louisiana congressman Mike Johnson, who might actually have a shot at winning the gavel despite his extreme anti-choice (and anti-choice) stances. Can Johnson win the booby prize, or will the House GOP be forced to consider empowering McHenry (lol), implementing a power-sharing agreement with themselves (lmao), or *gasp* working with Democrats? The fate of the party and funding for Israel, Ukraine, and the federal government could hinge on today's noon vote. (liveblog)
"The monkey instinct strong in all human beings"
The jungle gym turns 100 (NPR, Chigago Tribune, Winnetka (IL) Historical Society, Tom Scott on YouTube, Smithsonian Magazine).
!!!!!!!!!
Things need to make sense, and the ! just doesn’t, subjective and subversive as it is, popping out from the uniform flow of words on the line. Since the triumphal conquering of smartphone technology and social media, the exclamation point finds fewer and fewer friends: We live in a digital village, chatting to one another from across the globe, and will use emotive social cues such as the exclamation point, and plenty of them. And because we just need to press down a thumbbbbbb to reproduce any character at nearly no cost, we’re more likely to flood the digital world with !!!!!!. No wonder we’re a little allergic to the poor !, stigmatizing its ubiquity as annoying and unnecessary. from How to Exclaim!
October 24
Critically endangered Kroombit tinker frogs bred in captivity
The Kroombit tinker frog is critically endangered with just 150 frogs left in the wild. After years of research, scientists have released the first captive-bred frogs.
The Kroombit tinker frog is largely nocturnal and difficult to breed because it is secretive and can be located only by its distinctive call that sounds like someone tapping a glass bottle.
QPWS has also deployed bio-acoustic recorders through most of the Kroombit tinker frog's range to monitor populations of the species.
Mr Vella said the frogs' survival in the wild was being measured by the number of calls recorded.
"FREE THREAD!"
Are you a music lover? Are you a live music lover? Tell us about your experiences! What was your first concert? Have you ever played (or helped a band play) live? How many shows have you been to over the years? And which ones stick most in your mind, whether recorded or seen in person?
Turns out the value of self-help books is in the eye of the beholder
Can Happiness Be Taught? This is a review of a book by Harvard Business School professor Arthur C. Brooks, promoting his perspective and approach to increasing one's happiness. With a few pithy contributions from Oprah, the book probably is/will be a best-seller. Some of the points Brooks makes seem sound and valid. But how evidenced-based are the recommended techniques? Anthony Lane has opinions about that and is not afraid to share them. If the length of the review is daunting, perhaps knowing it contains a fair bit of humor and snark will tempt you into reading.
New Hire Frogs, Breaking News Gods, and the Wall of Same
In another set of Stories From The Readership at Ask A Manager, site owner Alison Green asked for tales of odd office traditions, resulting in tales of office blankets, epic snack battles, and the monthly Office Space printer scene re-enactment. (SLAsk A Manager)
A purpose and a finish date
We believe the time has come for scholars across fields to reorient their work around the question of ‘ends’. This need not mean acquiescence to the logics of either economic utilitarianism or partisan fealty that have already proved so damaging to 21st-century institutions. But avoiding the question will not solve the problem. If we want the university to remain a viable space for knowledge production, then scholars across disciplines must be able to identify the goal of their work – in part to advance the Enlightenment project of ‘useful knowledge’ and in part to defend themselves from public and political mischaracterisation. from The ends of knowledge
🔔MetaFilter Transitional Board Volunteers Wanted!🔔
📣📣🫱🏿👋🏽🖐🏼✋Hi everyone,✋🖐🏼👋🏽🫱🏿📣📣
MetaFilter is beginning the transition to becoming a non-profit (seee this thread ) and to begin that process, a temporary transitional board is needed. This board of volunteers would establish a basic framework for the future site, along with defining what to look for in an Executive Director
We have several volunteers already, but most are based in the United States and have similar backgrounds, so we’re casting our net wider to encourage a more globally diverse board.
Interested? Let us know in the October 18, 2023 MetaTalk thread about changing the site to nonprofit.
MetaFilter is beginning the transition to becoming a non-profit (seee this thread ) and to begin that process, a temporary transitional board is needed. This board of volunteers would establish a basic framework for the future site, along with defining what to look for in an Executive Director
We have several volunteers already, but most are based in the United States and have similar backgrounds, so we’re casting our net wider to encourage a more globally diverse board.
Interested? Let us know in the October 18, 2023 MetaTalk thread about changing the site to nonprofit.
The fight to save Sheffield's street trees
It all started with a perfectly reasonable proposition. Sheffield’s roads were in a bad state, and its pavements were wonky. In order to fix this, with no money available due to Tory government cuts, Sheffield City Council (Labour run through the duration of this saga) decided the solution was to cut down the trees whose roots appeared to be pushing up the asphalt and causing this damage. They seemed not to take into account that residents loved their tree lined streets. Years of protest and conflict ensued as the council didn't back down. [more inside]
“You call this equality?”
Today Icelandic women and non-binary people will strike against gender inequality highlighting the gender pay gap [NYT, archive], gendered violence, and the status of immigrant women. This is the seventh women’s strike in Icelandic history, and the first whole-day action since the first one in 1975 [NYT, archive link]. The Guardian’s Miranda Bryant writes about the history of women’s strikes in Iceland.
October 23
The Pharmacy in the Cupboard
It's cold and flu season - buckle up and watch yourself on trains and subways, because if you get what I've had, it's a doozy!.
Let's bone up on how to make yourself (or your loved ones) feel better when you/they feel terrible. And by all means, share your favorite remedies! [more inside]
Kevin the baby echidna reunited with Kevin his rescuer
Kevin the baby echidna, who was saved from floodwaters, reunited with Kevin his rescuer. Last year "Kevin" the baby echidna was pulled from floodwaters along the Darling River, shivering and alone. After 11 months of rehabilitation he was released back into the wild — but not before he was reunited with his rescuer.
Take me right back to the track, Jack.
Please enjoy Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five performing two songs about trains: 1. Choo Choo Ch'Boogie - 1946 (recorded live); 2. Texas and Pacific - 1947 (recorded live)
"Ike's Train Car of Terror"
"At one time this Pullman railroad car was the apex of luxury -- at least according to Stagecoach Stop USA, which in 1978 parked the car on the attraction's front lawn and opened it as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Railroad Car Museum. Supposedly used by President Eisenhower in the 1950s-..."
or was it?
Australia's loooong train journeys
While not even approaching the world's longest train journey of 18,755km, Australia offers a number of journeys by train that ask us to consider the opposite of how we mostly travel - the journey is the thing, not the destination. [more inside]
Hobo Shoestring rides the rails
Best ride to Ohio! I've been riding freight trains since 1989 and have since ridden over 2,700,000 [miles] of steel rails in 49 USA states, eight provinces of Canada and 14 states in Mexico. The Mighty Train Wrecks musical tribute. Youtube playlist of his journeys.
“What the hell?” Mark moans, above. “Carbondale,” I say.
I pull out the last bottle of red and, after fetching two coffee cups from the galley, pour us a drink. Writers need time, and Amtrak, it would appear, has all the time in the world. But maybe they ended the residency program for the same reasons Mark and I have written nothing on this train: There’s just too much else to do and see. America changing shape before your eyes. from Fast Times on America’s Slowest Train
How was it possible for a group of trained people to put on such a flop
The evening of JFK's inauguration also marked the first (and last) episode of a new CBS panel game show, "You're In The Picture," hosted by the inimitable Jackie Gleason, with panelists Jan Sterling, Arthur Treacher, Patricia Carroll and Pat Harrington, Jr. The following week Jackie appeared in that time slot again, but without sets or a panel. He spent the entire time before a studio audience giving a improvised monologue about how resoundingly the show had flopped, as well as a story from his early career, while drinking booze-laden coffee. Both episodes are up at the Internet Archive. Thanks to StarkRoads for finding these! CW: guest misgendering for humor, cultural insensitivity typical of 1961 pop culture, and commercials.
Mount Quaint & Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore? (y/n)
In 1995, short-lived video game publisher Inscape released The Dark Eye, a point-and-click first-person adventure game based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. [more inside]
The *other* Boris Karlov
Seek out what magnifies your spirit.
On each anniversay of the Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings), Maria Popova writes about the most important lesson she's learned that year. Today, on the 17th anniversary, we have one new lesson and the sixteen previous lessons. Learn how to question your universe from a poem about pi. Learn how to outgrow yourself. And don't forget to embrace joy.
Hats are cakes, and handbags are toasters
"A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it’s scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways. The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission." (Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review) [more inside]
Sometimes it's easier to click a checkbox in Excel than rewrite genetics
This was immensely frustrating and dehumanizing
Air Canada has a bad history with wheelchairs. They break them, lose them, refuse them. This week, the one they left behind belonged to Canada's Chief Accessibility Officer, Stephanie Cadieux.
*gutteral groaning noise*
Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster [1h40m] is a 2021 documentary biography about the British actor who embodied so many monsters across his prolific career on screen and stage.
Froderick
Froderick gets a home. (SLYT)
All Dogs Go To Heaven
"Operation Attack"
NPR and the Climate Information Center report on how, in the '60s, gas utilities and the American Gas Association started using public relations firm Hill and Knowlton and industry-funded scientists to sway public opinion. [more inside]
October 22
this is (not) a drill
EAS Scenarios, or Mock EAS, is a type of analog horror that uses emergency alert systems (generally televised) to tell a story about a fictional horrific event. Some examples include: SCP Realised (mock EASes based on the SCP Foundation); The Final Minutes' Zombie Plague, 2050 (futuristic international EASes), and The Tiangong Incident; V-DAY, the radio-based Absolute Zero, and a 1990s UK Black Hole broadcast. Also: don't look at the moon.
Meaning It
cooperation and resilience vital to survive climate collapse conditions
The new research, published in a peer-reviewed biological sciences journal from The Royal Society last month, suggests that resilience is an ability that societies can gain and lose over time. Researchers found that a stable society can withstand even a dramatic climate shock, whereas a small shock can lead to chaos in a vulnerable one.
The Big Reveal
An older New Yorker review of 'Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation' (Viking) [waybackmachine] [more inside]
This is a memory, or perhaps many memories braided into one
In these years, you are never able to sleep, developing an addiction to Ambien that you’ll still be fighting twenty years later. Your thoughts circle around and around and around and around, taunting you with your deepest anxieties, turning your own mind against itself. In your early twenties, you’ll be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. But now, at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, you take the thoughts at their word, experience them only as evidence that something is irrevocably broken within you. from The Protagonist Is Never in Control [CW: abusive relationships, dysfunctional families, gaslighting]
Metal Horror Trash
So Much Spooky Nostalgia, It's Scary!
YouTuber Zachary Jackson creates imaginary evenings of syndicated television, specifically in the format of Nick@Nite. Here are several spooky evenings of television watching assembled for your viewing pleasure. Nick@Nite 90’s Halloween 🎃 Special 2021 👻 [2h30m] has episodes of Bewitched, I Dream Of Jeanie, The Facts Of Life, Kate & Allie, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. [more inside]
!!3202 YAD KCOL SPAC
OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!
I like mine with...
Let me show you, baby, I'm a talented boy
NASA shares never-before-seen images of Jupiter's lava-covered moon, Io
NASA shares never-before-seen images of Jupiter's lava-covered moon, Io. NASA's Juno spacecraft captured data on a flyby of Jupiter's moon Io, one of 92 moons that orbit the gas giant.
October 21
the pickers demanded $1.40 an hour, 25 cents per box of grapes
The story of labor organizer Larry Itliong and Stockton's Little Manila (Youtube link). Filipino farmworkers were the first to walk out off vineyards in 1965, prompting the Delano Grape Strike and, ultimately, the formation of the United Farm Workers. [more inside]
On the fevered trail of the caterpillar fungus
Not all hope is lost for caterpillar fungus cultivation. The interdependent life of the fungus points to a new means to farm it. Breeding centers can’t be industrial sow-and-reap operations. They must consider ecological and evolutionary factors. Breeding must be situated where the fungus naturally grows—on undisturbed, high-elevation, microbe-laden soil. Yield will boil down to the land’s carrying capacity, to how many caterpillars nature can support, without breaking the equilibrium among plants, insects, and fungi. Breeding centers would look more like conservation land than industrial farms or scientific laboratories. The future of the caterpillar-fungus harvest—a feature of Tibetan culture for five centuries—should look much more like the past. from The Last of the Fungus
You Think You Know a Site
I’ve known since I was 11 who these people, this Eyebrows McGee and this languagehat, are. After graduating from college, I still thought of Metafilter as a rarified club of experts that I’d somehow snuck into. I also thought of Metafilter as a perfect window onto the world. I was sure I could better understand different life experiences because I read strangers’ thoughts, freed by anonymity to be honest. I knew I lived in a tiny bubble, and Metafilter seemed my best defense against that insularity. [more inside]
“Are you talking to me?”
Martin Scorsese interviewed by Edgar Wright at the BFI London Film Festival - (single link YouTube, 1h35m)
ផែនដី ខ្យល់ និងភ្លើង។
Avoiding the News - ethical?
Five years ago we learned of one man's struggle to avoid the news, in a NY Times article, The Man Who Knew Too Little. (Archive link, and previously.) He called it The Blockade, or a DIY version of moving to Canada. Inside Hook has an update, an even more radical approach: Could "News Sobriety" Save Your Mental Health? [more inside]
A Great "The Great Wave"
Yes, Yes, Yes, Sixty-Five Times Yes!
The winds of fate have led us back to the little mountain village of Yesterday's Promise for The Creatures of Yes Variety Hour, also known to students of Yessian lore as Gay Pride Part 20. It's the latest video in the 1970's-style puppet series that uses period equipment, now with more returning characters than the previous season. (Pre-vi-yes-ly.)
Diprotodon: the three-tonne (6613lb) relative of wombats
Skeletons belonging to a gigantic, three-tonne [6613 pounds] relative of Australia's modern-day wombats have been unearthed by scientists in Western Australia's north, shedding light on the state's rich natural history. Related to the modern-day wombat and koala, the diprotodon is the largest known marsupial to have ever lived, growing up to four metres (13 feet) in length and 1.7 metres (5.5 feet) tall, and reaching weights of almost three tonnes.
October 20
The Kids Are Alright
Just a few Youtube links from around the globe. Youngsters to bring a smile for the weekend.
How Deep Us Your Love
Vírgenes del Sol
Don't Do Me Like That
ACG, FPD, BTC, FBI, WTF
Across Discord servers and Telegram group chats, potentially thousands of people participate in what is loosely known as Comm, a nebulous network of hackers, gamers, and young girls who are sometimes targeted by other participants. ACG became the hot new group among the constant ream of chats inside Comm. Others wanted to join the outfit so much that some even pretended to be members to boast to their Telegram contacts. People wondered who this group ACG was, and where they came from. from From High Life Hackers to National Menace: The Rise and Fall of Digital Bandits 'ACG' [CW: abuse, misogyny, harm, crypto]
The Black Gold Tapestry
Sandra Sawatzky uses embroidery to tell stories of oil in human history amidst changes that are leading to an uncertain future (via NYTimes)
The Thirstening
“Hey Chloe,” you say, “I would like both Four Weddings and the Funeral and my relationship with Doctor Who completely sullied while still nourishing my relationship with my vinyl fetish. You got anything for me?” - Ten flicks that'll make you thirsty... for blood!
Getting a little more LOST
Over a year ago, YouTuber Billiam posted the second of his examinations of the television series LOST, and we discussed it here. Well, we now have the third [and not final] installment LOST Was Insane During The Writers' Strike which at a tight 3h30m summarizes the eight episodes that were aired around the 2007 WGA strike. Billiam promises the final installment will come shortly.
Feel Free To Insert A Predestination Pun Here
You might remember Robert Sapolsky from his book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, about how external stress affects health, or maybe from his truly massive Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst (archive link). Now, in a move sure to infuriate you uncontrollably, he has written Determined: A Science of Life with No Free Will. "I’m really, really, really trying not to sound like a combative jerk in the book,” he says in this LA Times review. Scientists differ on what led him to say that.
Apple takes a bite out of speech
Jon Stewart's Apple TV show ends over editorial dispute regarding coverage of AI and China. Apple previously garnered public attention by removing an app in order to support the crackdown on Hong Kong protests in 2019. They bolstered this position with a curtailing a file sharing tool used to evade Chinese censorship in 2022.
Bankruptcy Won't Save You Now, Alex
In the bankruptcy hearing for Infowars owner and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez hasruled that the $1.1B in rulings against Jones are non-dischargable, putting him personally on the hook for the full amount. (SLReuters) [more inside]
Rufous Bettongs start a new life chapter — free of feral predators
Rufous Bettongs start a new life chapter — free of feral predators. Twenty little rufous bettongs, bred in captivity, are released into a feral-predator-free zone but they will still have to fend for themselves. (Article with photographs and a video of rufous bettongs.)
October 19
My god, it’s full of chairs
Ex Astris Scientis has identified over 160 different commercially-available chairs that have appeared in Star Trek productions.
So many classic modern chairs.
(via)
It's about to become easier to die
Small Worlds Photomicrography 2023
It's another year of microscopic photographs! Please gaze upon these photos of the teeny and tiny. Enjoy your coffee with crystals of caffeine and sugar . Be amazed at this striking close-up of a match being struck. Wonder how slime molds can be so whimsical. [more inside]
"She knew who the leaders were."
How Jane McAlevey Transformed the Labor Movement Jane McAlevey has spent her career helping workers win big. Her books have been an inspiration to a new generation of workers seeking to organize, like the Amazon Workers Union, and existing unions like United Teachers Los Angeles. Now, "the renowned organizer and theorist has a terminal-cancer diagnosis. But she has long been fighting the clock." (archive link) [more inside]
These final years of the hunt are different. Quieter. Weirder.
A row of mounted portraits showed his predecessors, including the last but one, a man named Kurt Schrimm, who in the early 2000s oversaw a change of direction at this bureau, reversing a decades-long trend of passivity (letting sleeping Nazis lie) and instead challenging his fellow investigators to think about the complicity and culpability of soldiers and employees at every level of that death-dealing regime. Will was hired under Schrimm in 2003 and has kept up his former boss’s belief in catching and collaring whomever they can while they can. “The next generation will not have a chance to work judicially on this,” he said to me. “It ends in these years, now, in the 2020s. We have the last generation of perpetrators. We are prosecuting the last of the crimes.” from The Race to Catch the Last Nazis [GQ; ungated]
"Two years ago, I thought RICO was a relative of his."
Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty in Georgia Trump Case (NYT gift, WaPo gift, The Atlantic gift, AP, Reuters) [more inside]
You're not crazy, your menstrual cycle changes your brain
For The First Time, Scientists Show Structural, Brain-Wide Changes During Menstruation To address the menstruation gap in our understanding of women's health, the team took MRI scans of their subjects during three menstrual phases: menses, ovulation, and mid-luteal. At the time of each of these scans, the researchers also measured the participants' hormone levels. The results showed that, as hormones fluctuate, gray and white matter volumes change too, as does the volume of cerebrospinal fluid.
They made cigarettes addictive; why not food?
A new study suggests that tobacco companies, who were skilled at marketing cigarettes, used similar strategies to hook people on processed foods. (WaPo Gift Link)
[more inside]
No, not that kind of Python and Pandas
The Facebook algorithm thought programming instructor Reuven Lerner was advertising live animals instead of courses on Python coding and the Pandas data science library. "I didn’t quite know what to do, but there was a button marked, “Click here to appeal.” So I clicked it, assuming that someone at Meta would reach out to me, saying, “Whoops!” Nope: About 30 minutes later, I got e-mail from Meta saying that they had reviewed my case, I had definitely violated their policy, and now I was banned for life from ever advertising on a Meta platform." [more inside]
Deuteronomy 22:11 a problem no more
On the YouTube channel for the American Chemical Society, George Zaidan shows a recently published method for robustly separating out polyester from polycotton fabrics using a common solvent and on simple chemical (used in baking since the middle ages) and a toaster oven. [more inside]
About 30 miles north of New York City by horseback.
Ed Begley Jr., Beverly D'Angelo, Charles Durning and more bring us The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow [50m, 1985]. Introduced by Shelley Duvall as an episode of her Tall Tales & Legends anthology series. Washington Irving's original short story, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
American Fiction
Once upon a time Watchmen and Station Eleven writer Cord Jefferson picked up a book by Percival Everett called Erasure. Like most people who read Everett, he was deeply gripped by this bitterly funny satire. Unlike most readers, he decided to make it into a movie: Here's the trailer for the upcoming American Fiction starring Jeffrey Wright and Issa Rae.
Music video with extensive choreography about taking artistic risks
A music video, with extensive choreography, by
Tim Minchin and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, about taking artistic risks, and about the history of the Sydney Opera House. [more inside]
October 18
Star Wars 1923
Star Wars 1923 [SLYT]
Laughing Squid:
Laughing Squid:
Creative director Douggy Pledger and musician Osymyso hilariously reimagined the original Star Wars movie as silent film from 1923 using Midjourney. The combination of awkward poses, monochrome footage, stuttering camera, and old timey soundtrack truly gave the the iconic opening credit of “long ago, in a galaxy far away” new meaning.
There’s a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists
On the one hand, a universal nostalgic dream of America (even for Americans with no such memories to be nostalgic for; even for people who have never been to America, have seen it only in pictures); on the other, a bloody nightmare then without precedent, the predatory logic of war breaking out in the absence of war, devoid of politics, without warning, utterly irrational and random. DeLillo recognized in these transmissions, these sense impulses, the poles of an emergent reality. from Shocks to the System
Call Mr Fix IT
How to Fix The Internet "We’re in a very strange moment for the internet. We all know it’s broken. That’s not news. But there’s something in the air—a vibe shift, a sense that things are about to change. For the first time in years, it feels as though something truly new and different might be happening with the way we communicate online. The stranglehold that the big social platforms have had on us for the last decade is weakening. The question is: What do we want to come next?" [more inside]
Don’t go into the outhouse
Biking the Goods - Adoption of E-Cargo Bikes in North America
Biking the Goods - A recent & approachable white paper out of the University of Washington's Urban Freight Lab, looking at the potential for cargo e-bikes to improve urban logistics systems & recommended policies to encourage their use. It looks at five case studies & six types of cargo e-bike to make the case for making them a part of city infrastructure in North America.
98.6 is old news
Personalized Temperature Ranges. A simple tool designed to help you know whether your current body temperature is normal based on your age, height, weight, sex (M/F only, sorry) and time of day. Brought to you by Stanford University's Department of Medicine.
Danglin'
“Oh, have we decided it’s 1993 again? I guess I didn’t get the memo.”
If unchecked markets worked as well as Andreessen insists, we wouldn't be in this mess. The most powerful people in the world are technological optimists. They asked for our trust in the 90s, the 00s, and the 10s. They insisted that all we needed to do was clap louder. We clapped. They failed. We grew less trustful. - On Marc Andreessen's "techno-optimist manifesto"
Hands
The girl who gets gifts from birds
The girl who gets gifts from birds. Lots of people love the birds in their garden, but it's rare for that affection to be reciprocated. One young girl in Seattle is luckier than most. She feeds the crows in her garden - and they bring her gifts in return.
October 17
"What you do only matters to the decision makers when Things Go Wrong."
Trust & Safety Tycoon is a free browser-based game exploring the difficult choices and tradeoffs involved in managing a trust and safety team. From the folks who brought you Moderator Mayhem (previously). More about the creation of this game.
Geese. Geese everywhere.
A couple of weeks ago, Cyriak went HONK. More recently, Mr Weebl answered with HONK. Does this maybe hint at the collaboration I've been waiting for?
I think every kid is a natural monster buff.
1981.. CBS News... Charles Osgood... Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Monsters... But Were Afraid! [50m] A strange news-ish coverage of monsters of all sorts. Includes some really interesting mask and physical prop work from the age of physical effects.
Hard-packed soil paths are okay until it rains
Birdability Week is October 16 - 22. Advertising a bird outing just as “accessible” does not provide nearly the amount of detail that most people with disabilities need to decide if it’s an event they could attend. Surfaces? Gravel-sized’ stone usually sits up on top of trail surfaces and can be too large and movable for wheeled mobility devices to safely and comfortably travel over. Benches should be connected to the trail by a paved surface. For people with mobility challenges, having a bench 2 meters away from the trail, over grassy or muddy ground, may make it inaccessible to them… even though they’d really like to have a rest! Birdability previously and previouslier. [more inside]
A trans woman joined a sorority. Then her sisters sued...
“Some days it feels like this place isn’t safe and is actively aggressive towards me,” Ewalt said. “Other times, like Artemis often argues … we grew up here. We have every right to be here. SLWAPO [CW: Transphobia, Homophobia, Suicide] [more inside]
I speak the solos while I play
Researchers say that bird species are remarkably segregated.
more of a say in whether the birth family should be reunified
When Foster Parents Don’t Want to Give Back the Baby: In many states, adoption lawyers are pushing a new legal strategy that forces biological parents to compete for custody of their children. [ProPublica]
October is Gay Recruitment Month!
TheRighting is a media company that aggregates articles from various right-wing media outlets and also publishes original reporting on the world of conservative media. They also post excellent analysis, such as the ranking of right-wing websites by unique visitors. [more inside]
Weed the North
Today marks 5 years of legal cannabis in Canada Abi Roach, one of the original OGs of cannabis consumption pre-legal weed, is worried that the policy constraints and industry response will throttle the legal market and its growth. [more inside]
“You have to trust someone, right?”
The couple thought they’d executed the perfect crime: victimless and profitable. But, as hard as Konashewych had worked to keep his girlfriends apart, his two worlds were about to collide. from The Inside Job
The bulletproof plant undergoing high-velocity growth
The bulletproof plant undergoing high-velocity growth. Hemp is one of the toughest plants on the planet and its potential uses range from bulletproof vests in the US to waterproof flooring for housing and other robust building products in Australia.
October 16
His Shows Get Bleaker by the Second
Jamie’s 5 Ingredient Meals has the air of an educational state broadcast made to raise morale after a national catastrophe – inevitably, perhaps, because that’s more or less what it is. (SL Guardian)
"curiosity"
The Way We Love Now: What Does a Romance Novel Look Like?
"So what’s featured on [romance novel] covers today? We looked at over 1,400 covers featured in Publishers Weekly from 2011 to 2023 to find out.....The specificity of stories offered by a glance of today’s covers broadens the world of who and what we consider to be part of romance." What Does A Happily Ever After Look Like? By Alice Liang. [more inside]
Spooky atmospheres for every mood
Haunted Forest is the most creepy of what is offered here, with an hour of creaking forest limbs and unexplained noises in a misty forest. Haunted Cemetery Ambience is two hours of a light drizzle, lingering background thunder, some rustling and murmurings and other transient "what's that" noises. Spooky Halloween Fireplace with Rain on Windows Sound is, at eight hours, the least scary and most cozy, with comforting candlelit pumpkins and fireplace crackling backed with rain upon windowpanes.
"There's a lot going on in here."
Ever wondered how an old pinball machine works ? Technology Connections has you covered: Old pinball machines are amazingly complex.
Gravity-free (thread)
Fred Richard's Floor Exercise @ 2023 World Gymnastics Championships. Unfettered by earthly bonds (especially starting at :30). You might not be able to flip like Fred, but you can participate in this week's free thread! [more inside]
Scholastic's "bigot button"
'[T]his year, facing pressure from right-wing ideologues, Scholastic is facilitating the exclusion of books that feature people of color and/or LGBTQ characters. Scholastic has grouped many of these titles in a collection called "Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice." School officials are then given the option to exclude the entire set of books from the book fair. Scholastic has, in the words of one librarian, given schools a "bigot button" to exclude these books and mollify intolerant pressure groups.'
I'm gonna trick ya!
Once again (previously, previouslier) the Spanish band Broken Peach has released a Halloween Video in their classic style.
“You know how many times of the day I answer questions about poop?”
Though hot dog eating isn’t immune to any of the friction that greater American culture is—in some cases, it might even magnify it—none of this is enough to keep its passionate community out of the game. Despite their wildly different day-to-day lives, pro eaters remain close throughout the year, with the Nathan’s Contest as a cherished annual summit. from Everything You Never Knew About Competitive Eating
David Attenborough, Alive and Narrating Planet Earth 3
Film Sir David on location. Do not let him climb stairs without a defibrillator. Do not place Sir David too close to seabirds. [more inside]
Surely a shoe-in for an Ig Nobel
48 people flipped 46 different kinds of coins a total of 350,757 times [PDF] to demonstrate that a flipped coin has a 50.8% chance of landing on the same side it started. This confirms a theoretical result from 2007 [PDF] which took into account precession, which is the fact that "the direction of the axis of rotation changes as the coin goes through its trajectory". [more inside]
October 15
Diamonds and Rust
Insect's stinger inspiring micro medical devices
How this little insect's stinger is inspiring the next generation of micro medical devices. New research from UNSW Canberra reveals the amazing natural design of a honey bee's stinger, and the potential advancements it could inspire in the next generation of micro medical tools.
The Great Japanese Bake-Off (for Pokémon)
In Japan (or at least for two different mini-series for the Japanese Pokémon Youtube Channel), a man bakes various treats for the Pokémon with whom he hangs out.
Sweet Winter With Pokémon: “Pokémon Dessert Special” 🎂 “Gorgeous! Assorted Tarts” 🎂 “Sweet Candy is the Taste of Winter”
Camping Trip With Pokémon: “Refreshing! Muscat cake bursting with fragrance” 🥧 “Fluffy! Three-Colored Tiramisu at Mestin”
(Presumably more episodes of the second series will soon appear.)
Sweet Winter With Pokémon: “Pokémon Dessert Special” 🎂 “Gorgeous! Assorted Tarts” 🎂 “Sweet Candy is the Taste of Winter”
Camping Trip With Pokémon: “Refreshing! Muscat cake bursting with fragrance” 🥧 “Fluffy! Three-Colored Tiramisu at Mestin”
(Presumably more episodes of the second series will soon appear.)
Old people are VIPs
My Year of Adornment is an essay by Afua Hirsch about embracing aging instead of fighting it. [more inside]
Monster Madness
A four part documentary about horror film up through the Eighties: Monster Madness Part One: The Golden Age Of Horror Film [1h17m] Part Two: Mutants, Space Invaders, and Drive-Ins [1h32m] Part Three: The Gothic Revival Of Horror [1h22m] Part Four: The Counterculture To Blockbusters [1h2m] I'm hard-pressed to think of a more comprehensive look at these early eras of this genre of cinema.
“Class C” felony endangerment
An Alabama woman was imprisoned for ‘endangering’ her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower. (SLGuardian) During nearly 12 hours of labor, staff gave her only Tylenol for her pain, the suit says, allegedly telling her to “stop screaming”, to “deal with the pain” and that she was “not in full labor”. Caswell lost amniotic fluid and blood and was alone and standing up in a jail shower when she ultimately delivered her child, according to the complaint and her medical records. She nearly bled to death, her lawyers say.
what calculates the slope of stairs, alone or in pairs
Would you like to look at a truly boggling number of linear and circular slide rules, and related paraphernalia, on a website with a comfortingly 20th century aesthetic?
Of course you would, which is why you should spend some time at The Oughtred Society's Archive of Collections.
Even the rise of online shopping can’t seem to kill the Halloween store
Do you remember the days before pop-up Halloween stores? Pictures of them are all over the web, of course, but people sure do like to talk about Spirit Halloween, given it's the ghost of U.S. retail past. Heck, some people liked the store so much, they made a movie about it!
A Kind of Slob’s Nirvana
Whatever the formula is that says for top dollar you can look like you had an outhouse flipped on you, these two had it. And yet despite the filth and indifference, as soon as they sat down, my adrenaline spiked. Their level of iPhone absorption and entitled dysmorphia felt like a suspended missile over the whole table. If they caught me compulsively glancing at them, I thought, things might actually flower into some kind of fracas. from Depravity’s Rainbow [The Baffler; ungated]
Papercuts
A cut too far: at BBC Future, Chris Baraniuk writes about "the people who can't give up paper". Among those trying but failing to give it up: the UK's NHS. Lindsay Clark at The Register bemoans their 'abysmal efforts to go paperless'. In the U.S., meanwhile, the IRS has every intention of going paperless, aiming "to achieve paperless processing for all tax returns by filing season 2025". Paper & print industry body Two Sides ask "Is Going Paperless Really Better for the Environment?" While at UNCTAD, Yann Duval et al, attempting to quantify "the environmental benefits from paperless trade facilitation" answer that it often is.
Poet Louise Glück, in memoriam
Poet Louise Glück has died (NYT, gift link). Among many other accolades, she was the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature, for her "unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Previously. [more inside]
October 14
"His face is full of grimace"
Steve Martin, Olympic Diving Finals. (SLYT 4mins) A golden oldie comic masterpiece from the late 1970s.
Curious Curios
“I am still Matt, this is still Web Curios, and you could probably do with some interesting links and internet ephemera to take the edge off so, well, here you are.” [more inside]
The olive-sided flycatcher migrates from Alaska to Brazil
World Migratory Bird Day is October 14. Because birds use magnetic fields to navigate at night during long-distance migrations, severe space weather can throw them off course. Cheyenne Bottoms (KS) is the most popular rest stop for North American migratory shorebirds. Thousands of Vaux's swifts will roost together in a single chimney. Lili Taylor's PSA for the Lights Out for Birds campaign. [more inside]
provoking, funny and more than a little bit freaky
"A literary journal? Well I guess so..." Going Down Swinging is one of Australia’s longest-running and most respected literary journals: publishing digital as well as print and audio anthologies since 1979. For all of their past editions in one place and freely accessible to readers, visit their digital archives. [more inside]
First you'll need to get a gourd
Here's a leisurely, atmospheric crafting video about decorating a pumpkin: The Jack O'Lantern From the Mind of Christine McConnell [21m]. There are "key moments" listed in the "Show More" underneath the video, along with a "Show Transcript" button. I appreciate how this begins with simple ideas and moves into more and more decorative, so by the end it's very complicated but you could adapt the process to your own interest and skill level.
Deliberate Ignorance
Traditionally, the search for knowledge has involved paying close attention to information—finding it and considering it from multiple angles. Reading a text from beginning to end to critically evaluate it is a sensible approach to vetted school texts approved by competent overseers. On the unvetted Internet, however, this approach often ends up being a colossal waste of time and energy. In an era in which attention is the new currency, the admonition to “pay careful attention” is precisely what attention merchants and malicious agents exploit. It is time to revisit and expand the concept of critical thinking, often seen as the bedrock of an informed citizenry. As long as students are led to believe that critical thinking requires above all the effortful processing of text, they will continue to fall prey to informational traps and manipulated signals of epistemic quality. At the same time that students learn critical thinking, they should learn the core competence of thoughtfully and strategically allocating their attentional resources online. from Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens
“When I think of colleges, the word courage doesn’t come to mind”
Why Won’t Elite Colleges Deploy the One Race-Neutral Way to Achieve Diversity? Giving a leg up to poor students of all races would diversify elite schools. Officials would rather do anything else.
but mine goes up to 11
rolling stone's list of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time - we all know that we will find total agreement on this, right?
"female music caught on dusty records and tapes, in the hidden archives"
Ladies on Records is the project of record collector, DJ and cultural anthropologist Kornelia Binicewicz. Her SoundCloud page is full of her mixes, for example, two volumes she made in support of feminist activists in her native Poland. Her main focus, though, is on female singers of the 60s and 70s, for example in the mixes Polish Ladies on Records, Ladies of the Arab World and Turkish Ladies. She used Turkish music to explore the lives of Turkish immigrant women in Germany in the essay Intimacy of Longing.
How recipes knit our past with our present
Bev Moon | Fortune (a knitted yum cha for my mother’s 90th birthday), 2021-2022, Mixed media, on a table with central rotating Lazy Susan - interview with Moon, a second/third-generation Chinese New Zealander on art and craft, diaspora belonging and where family stories become national history.
Design for Living
Rhael Cape, known as Lionheart, has been inserting himself into Architecture firms e.g. as Poet-in-Residence. Posing such questions as "‘You’ve got 10 minutes, can you design a section of a building that would mitigate someone’s mental health issues?" [more inside]
October 13
The Right to Read
“What they’re trying to do offends me at the root of who I am and what I’m about.” - LeVar Burton Wants You to Read Banned Books
Solar-powered penguin audio porn to help re-establish a penguin colony
Australian-first "love machine" helps re-colonise little penguin population locally-extinct for 30 years. When two little penguins recently came ashore on NSW's far south coast and mated they were, without knowing it, pioneers in re-establishing a colony that had been locally extinct for decades. [more inside]
Income would have to jump 55% to make buying real estate ‘affordable'
The Whole Earth, in its entirety
Gray Area and The Internet Archive have made the Whole Earth Catalog and its descendants newly available online through the archive of Whole Earth publications... Blog post announcing the archive from the Long Now Foundation. [CW: reported racist imagery / representation in at least one of these issues] [more inside]
Wheelwright respect
The surprisingly complex development of the stone-age wooden wheel, from the POV of a woodworker. [YT, 22min] The framing device of the exploration is addressing the question, "Why didn't they use wheels to move stones when building the pyramids?" but the video is not really about pyramid theories/stuff.
“It’s not really folk, but it’s sort of like… that.”
Elliott Smith playing "Clementine" for a mostly human crowd. Or as Stereogum put it, Watch An Unearthed Elliott Smith Appearance On A Goofy 1995 Morning Show Co-Hosted By A Puppet.
You Got to Hold On
Since their earliest days playing record store gigs, the Alabama Shakes have been an absolutely holy-shit powerhouse of rock'n'roll soul.
But for all their collective skill, the true genius of the band was always frontwoman Brittany Howard -- a former cashier and postal worker-turned-generational talent whose electrifying voice, lyrical verve, eclectic tastes, and directorial eye drove the band's rapid musical evolution, from the anthemic southern roots rock of 2012's Boys & Girls to the cinematic groove, kaleidoscopic funk and eerie psychedelia (bordering on spiritual experience) that was 2015's Sound & Color.
And beyond: after a hiatus, Howard went solo to work on her debut effort Jaime (2019), a heartbreaking and deeply personal record inspired by her late sister and her own experience growing up as a queer, mixed-race woman in the Deep South.
Now, after brief forays into multiple side projects, jamming with Prince [audio] and Paul McCartney, an immaculate piano duet with Herbie Hancock at the Kennedy Center, and a delightful music video (starring pal Terry Crews, her dad, and a whole swath of her hometown), Howard has surprised fans with a second solo album, starting with the lead single: "What Now." Haven't heard enough about these fantastic albums? Well, bless your heart, there's [more inside]
Exceptional. Creative. Inspiring.
The MacArthur Foundation recently announced the 2023 MacArthur Fellows. Even the short video introductions (2023 Fellows in 90 seconds, 2023 Fellows in 3 minutes) fill me with joy. Working in varied endeavors - statistics, jazz, law, fiction, anthropology, hula, poetry, biology, painting - these individuals give us new ways to see and understand our shared world. The MacArthur Fellows Program at Wikipedia. [more inside]
It’s just someone holding a piece of steel against a big, spinning rock.
TW Lim writes about knife-sharpening as a process less about making a knife objectively, maximally sharp than about making a knife be what what it needs to be to do its particular job, in Forming an Edge. Don't miss the electron microsopy.
From the high desert and the great American Southwest
"Ghost stories, real ones from all of you, all night long." Art Bell "Ghost To Ghost" 30 Oct 1996 [3h14m] [more inside]
Seemingly [Blue] Ranch
The journey of 'seemingly ranch,' from meme to top of the Empire State Building [NPR] [CW: Taylor Swift, Advertising, X, Ranch Dressing] [more inside]
the difference between a story and a painting or photograph
From 1986, Susan Sontag's short story "The Way We Live Now." (SL New Yorker) (I only just came across this story yesterday and loved it and thought I would share it with you.)
October 12
Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible
Why do we get 'greenwashing' instead of better products?
The host of YouTube channel driving 4 answers spends most of his time explaining the technical details of internal combustion engines in great detail and documenting the seemingly endless build and rebuild of his Toyota MR2 in a garage in Sarajevo. The channel also branches out into his adventures with motorcycles and bicycles, but mostly stays in the technical realm.
The latest video from the channel, though, while starting by talking about Formula 1, diverts to talking about how the automotive industry pretends to be 'going green' but isn't, the right to repair debate, the problem with capitalism and suggests a rational approach to it all. [SLYT 23 minutes]
Bwah ha ha ha ha
Keith Giffen, legendary comics writer/artist (Ambush Bug, Justice League International, Legion of Super-Heroes, Trencher, the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, and much, much more) has passed away at 70, and left a final Facebook post for the ages.
He will be fondly remembered and sorely missed.
First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll
The first word has been discovered from the Herculaneum papyri! The Vesuvius Challenge is a machine learning and computer vision competition to read the Herculaneum Papyri, which are a library of papyrus scrolls, preserved by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. While the scrolls have been preserved, they're too delicate to unfurl without destroying them. However, the scrolls can be virtually unwrapped using 3D scanning and ink detection. [more inside]
That's how I got my call sign
"Women, she figures, caught her vibe. "Every woman who read that was like: Mmm-hmm, you go," Cummings says. But men — friends in Silicon Valley — did not. They thought she had been too mean to Vogt. "He was just trying to help you," they told her."
Missy Cummings flew F-18s, has a PhD in systems engineering, and is a professor at Duke. Among other things, she researches self-driving cars.
The Missouri French Creole Folk Tale of Chasse Galerite
Chasse Galerite, a story told by one of the last fluent speakers of Missouri French Creole, Pierre Aloysius Boyer, was recorded almost half a century ago. It has now been paired with the graceful animation and art of Brian Hawkings, bringing new life and vitality to the story of a great French hunter in the late 1600s in North America.
Softball. Hard feet.
The decision to play in embroidered dresses stemmed from a desire to pay homage to their Maya culture as well as to demonstrate that women can be both feminine and strong. Las Amazonas reinforce their bravery by playing shoeless...
You can't spell Spooky Season without DIY
Still time to get crafty during Spooky Season! Here is a listicle that links to instructions for DIY crafts decoration projects, nearly 50 of them on the main page and links to other collections of links at the end. And here's another list that is more creative ways to use bought decorations. Lots of photos and the projects run from simple to fairly complex.
A Unique Power to Scandalize Each Generation Anew
We may not understand Madonna in the moment, but rarely is she wrong about what’s coming. from What Madonna Knows, Sophie Gilbert's review of Mary Gabriel's new biography Madonna: A Rebel Life [The Atlantic; ungated] [more inside]
Those skeletons should unionize
Underlevel (itch.io, free but Windows only for now) is a game made in 48 hours. It's got silly and charming graphics, and it's a lot of Halloween-themed fun! You're the skeleton lord in charge of a five-level dungeon, but a knight has invaded your domain and means to destroy you! Rally your lollygagging skeleton minions, to both lead them to the safety of the downstairs and destroy as many of the gem-laden pots on each level as you can, before the knight gets to them first and smashes them to raise its experience level! If you can't play it (that Windows thing, argh), here's a playthrough on Youtube. (9 minutes) [more inside]
"Holy grail" moment as small population of long-footed potoroos found
"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.
October 11
Nato vows to respond if Finland-Estonia pipeline damage is deliberate
Asking Chatbots what they're for
Making money for the businesses that developed and own them? Maybe not.
Some Google Insiders also appear not to know:
“The biggest challenge I’m still thinking of: what are LLMs truly useful for, in terms of helpfulness?” said Googler Cathy Pearl, a user experience lead for Bard, in August. “Like really making a difference. TBD!”
"Amazingly talented and amazingly kind"
Comedy legend Cal Wilson has died, surrounded by family and friends, after a short illness. She had just turned 53 and was, as Rebel Wilson described her, "amazingly talented and amazingly kind". [more inside]
It's all about atoms
The Valley of Stability (SLYT). CEA is a French government-funded technological research organisation. This 15 minute video is the clearest bestest and most interesting lesson I have ever had on what atoms are, where they come from, how they are structured, how radioactive decay works... It is just all around a super excellent and info-dense little talk!
AI isn't the only threat to TV and movies.
The Hollywood reporter has a story about why the various Marvel TV series on Disney+ have been all over the place and how the company plans to fix the problems.
A "Frasier" episode animated in every style imaginable
A collaborative animation project headed by Jacob Reed, "Our Frasier Remake" has enlisted over 130 animators to remake one Frasier episode, with each contributor imaginatively animating 6-12 seconds of the show's Season One finale, "My Coffee with Niles." Absolutely amazing...
Elvira in a sitcom? Almost!
Way back in 1993, Cassandra Peterson got together with a couple of friends and created a television sitcom pilot. Co-starring Katherine Helmond, it's the tale of two witches living in Manhattan... Kansas. It was never picked up for broadcast. Here is the unaired The Elvira Show single episode. [26m]
Just In Case Anybody Else Needs This Today
15 minutes of Yo-Yo Ma sitting by a river in the Great Smokey Mountains, playing Bach. That's it. That's the post. [more inside]
The Transgender Family Handbook
There is plenty of rhetoric out there that might encourage a parent to question their child in this moment that’s designed to scare them into inaction or, worse, outright rejection. There is less guidance for those who choose to believe their children. This is a handbook for the trans-affirming family; it presumes you love your child and want what’s best for them. And while it’s their journey alone, you have the opportunity, and obligation, to help them to become who they are.
And Now, An Actual Interview With Bill Watterson
As part of the runup to the release of his first publicly published work in 28 years, cartoonist and artist Bill Watterson discusses The Mysteries and his experience collaborating with artist John Kascht. (SLYT) [more inside]
If we don’t, this kind of summer will become every summer.
"I evacuated from Yellowknife this summer. Coming home was the hardest part." (slMacLean's) [more inside]
Meet Elysia azorica, the Azores sap-sucking sea slug
Plunging into the crystalline blue waters off a Portuguese island, scuba divers searched the seafloor. A see-through, orange creature lurking below caught their attention. It turned out to be a new species ... The Azores sap-sucking sea slug is about a quarter-inch in size, researchers said. It has “bladelike teeth” and a “bright and translucent orange” body. Its digestive system is visible from the outside and looks like “a dark green pigment.” from See-through creature with ‘bladelike teeth’ found lurking in sea. It’s a new species [more inside]
October 10
go fly a kite
Feng Tsan-Huang, an artist based in Taiwan, has dedicated over three decades to crafting kites, and one of his creations takes the form of a bicycle. [more inside]
Monster Liberty
There's been a great deal of media coverage over the past couple of years about the meteoric rise of Moms for Liberty, a well-funded and somewhat secretive Republican-aligned group aimed at expunging supposed "woke" or "progressive" influences from American education. But Pennridge High School that night illustrated a story that's gotten much less attention: The response of fed-up parents and educators who, without anything close to the resources of their conservative opponents, are organizing a grassroots effort to restore American schools to their intended purpose, that of educating children to be citizens of a democracy and full participants in an open society.
There will be creation after destruction, you'll see!
As a fan of crunchy rawk, weird sci-fi and hideously cool haircuts, After Destruction, the newish music video by the Mexican band Descates a Kant, basically plunged a big hypodermic needle of joy directly into my black, shriveled heart. If there was an ass-kicking rock number in The Fifth Element, it would be this. The band's even newer follow-up, Raindrops of Poison, is only slightly less fantastic. Goodbye, User!
He stumbles on like a rumour of war..."
'The War Horse', by Eavan Boland.
"When studying Boland’s poetry, the students rightfully began to discuss their own struggles—and, remembering Yeats’s “I, being poor, have only my dreams”—were better able to resist the oppressive forces in their lives, to understand the strength needed to overcome provincial societal norms, to rally against antiquated ideas and histories that demand women conduct themselves in ways antithetical to a free-thinking person." from, “Shadows in the Story”: An Interview with Eavan Boland. [more inside]
The beginning of the long dash indicates the end of an era
After broadcasting it for over 80 years, the CBC has ended its broadcast of NRC Official Time Signal. Canadians have been brought together by the NRC official time signal for generations and now the longest running segment on CBC radio is no more and people are making their tributes. [more inside]
We broke all the walls. There wasn’t a wall that we left unbroken.
After 34 years, Moonlighting has (finally) come to streaming. Held up because of issues with music rights - with more than 300 songs in only 66 shows - the series featured cameo roles from stars including Whoopi Goldberg within a week of winning an Oscar for The Color Purple, and Orson Welles just days before his death. Interview with show creator Glenn Gordon Caron and some of the cast about the show, and the importance of Bruce Willis to its success.
It's Teto Day!
Hear the Song of the Eared Robot (English subs), an updated cover of her signature original recorded with the new SynthV version of Kasane Teto, who began life 15 years ago as an April Fool’s joke and went on to become one of the most enduringly popular virtual idols. [more inside]
In Defense of the Rat
Rats are less pestilent and more lovable than we think. Can we learn to live with them? (SL Hakai Magazine)
For Your Paleo Diet
"Were the people living in Gough’s Cave a gruesome outlier, or where they actually part of a wider cannibalistic culture of northern Europe? A new paper now suggests that they were not alone. Human remains dating to the same time period from across northern and western Europe and attributed to the same culture, known as the Magdalenian, also show evidence that they were cannibalised. This suggests that the eating of the dead was a shared behaviour during the late Upper Palaeolithic." Oldest evidence of human cannibalism as a funerary practice.
"In a world of marks and cons, we were … complete fucking idiots."
“Ride Like the Wind”
What happened to Palm on that day in 1981 doesn’t make sense in the way that stories about life-changing events often don’t. She hadn’t planned on stopping at Kmart—it was an on-the-whim errand and not even her usual Kmart. She has a hard time explaining how she overcame gunpoint terror to attempt an in-car exorcism on a serial killer. And she still struggles to reconcile the fact that she escaped a man who brutally raped and murdered many women before her—women who deserved to live just as much as she did. From True Crime, True Faith: The Serial Killer and the Texas Mom Who Stopped Him [Vanity Fair; ungated] [CW: serial killer, rapist]
No pockets in a shroud
Philanthropist Chuck Feeney died, in the fullness of his 91 years, on 9th October 2023. He made his fortune in the early days of Duty Free: selling cheap booze and pricey handbags. He established Atlantic Philanthropies in 1982 as a vehicle for dissipating his wealth and made his donations anonymously until outed in 1997. Anonymous donation allowed his contribution to be leveraged in matching funds from donors who wanted their name on the building. €138million funding of the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) in 2015 was the biggest philanthropic donation in Irish history. Secret Billionaire: The Chuck Feeney Story [57m RTE documentary]. Meta2021Prev when I flagged his support for the dispossessed. and Meta2020Prev.
In Baltic Sea, citizen divers restore seagrass to fight climate change
October 9
But when I stare at the girls as if I'm free
It's IRC, but you get to be a cat!
Unlike every other IRC client, where communication is done purely in text form, Comic Chat allows you to assume an avatar and use it to chat in the form of an ongoing comic strip. Every line you say can be punctuated with specific emotions/poses. It still works perfectly to this very day. Comic Chat is arguably one of the greatest communication methods out there for autistic people (if not the greatest). It provides all of the advantanges of being able to hear your conversational partner's words and see their facial expressions and body language, without being overwhelming and while still allowing one plenty of time to process everything.
Is you doing git commits on a criminal fucking conspiracy?
Samuel Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX (previouslies), is on trial for fraud. His former colleagues are walking the jury through the crimes they committed in the code they committed. [more inside]
Airlines Are Just Banks Now
Invasion of America
Invasion of America "Between 1776 and 1887, the United States seized over 1.5 billion acres from America's indigenous people by treaty and executive order. Explore how in this interactive map of every Native American land cession during that period." [more inside]
The 2023 Nobel Science Prizes
WARNING
count your blessings, ah ah ah
"All I’m doing is trying to protect myself and my work"
When these endeavors, some of which resulted in unauthorized adaptations of both his books and his own persona, came to light, occasionally exploding into unprecedented legal battles, the ever-resisting Salinger was regarded sort of as a cantankerous ghost of an author—a once welcome houseguest rattling dusty chains at the unassuming newcomers he thought were messing around with things he left behind .... Yet his belief that total ownership is not relinquished with public publication, as well as his radical enforcement of copyright law and reliance on the right to privacy, revolutionized the role of the “author” in modern culture, and consequently helped preserve both his identity and his works as masterful and mythic American originals. from Phonies: J.D. Salinger and Wielding Copyright as Self-Protection
“She was a great influence on the women’s spirituality movement.”
Rachel Pollack saw miracles in the world, and she was someone who taught other people to see them. (slXtra Magazine) [more inside]
Artificial intelligence technology to analyse status of wildlife
Artificial intelligence technology to analyse status of cryptic bird, bilby and kowari on outback station. The search for the plains-wanderer will involve AI and bio-acoustic recorders to detect it and other highly vulnerable species.
October 8
The plastic eating bacteria that could change the world
Cognitive Bias, Situations Matter, Pick a Noun, and other dead ends
Gino's work has been cited over 33,000 times, and Ariely's work has been cited over 66,000 times. They both got tenured professorships at elite universities. They wrote books, some of which became bestsellers. They gave big TED talks and lots of people watched them. By every conventional metric of success, these folks were killing it. Now let's imagine every allegation of fraud is true, and everything Ariely and Gino ever did gets removed from the scientific record, It's a Wonderful Life-style. What would change? Not much.I’m So Sorry for Psychology’s Loss, Whatever It Is: an essay by psychologist Adam Mastroianni on academic fraud, the replication crisis, and the questionable paradigms underlying a still-adolescent field [more inside]
Scrap the ‘fiesta’ fonts.
LA Times arts columnist Carolina Miranda suggests hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete for the cliched Hispanic Heritage aesthetics. Naturally, there is even a font called “Taco Fiesta” — because I guess Latinos are one big taco party? For culturally rooted but not cliche fonts, typographer Juan Villanueva recommends Beatriz Lozano's font Aguas (shifts in width and curvature inspired by hand painted signs in Mexican food markets) and Miguel Angel Contreras Cruz's Cemita fonts: Cemita Milanesa (breaded steak) is a sans fat face with convex forms; Cemita Quesillo is a script inspired by quesillo (cheese from Oaxaca). [more inside]
The Scrap Heap of History
Making an 1830s Patchwork Dressing Gown (Vincent Briggs) - "The Victorian man carefully managed his appearance to reflect a dignified, businesslike demeanor. However, decorative waistcoats and gowns offered the chance for personal expression." This particular project took 4 years, 371 hours, and 7018 tiny triangles. For a slightly more achievable (but no less gorgeous) patchwork robe, try Shannon Makes’ One Robe To Rule Them All: Making Bilbo's Housecoat. [more inside]
It's totally reasonable to be able to say, ‘Hey, don't use my stuff'
While Presser sees Books3 as a contribution to science, others view his data set in a far less flattering light, and see him as sincere but deeply misguided. For critics, Books3 isn’t a boon to society—instead, it’s emblematic of everything wrong with generative AI, a glaring example of how both the rights and preferences of artists are disregarded and disrespected by the AI industry’s main players, and something that straight-up shouldn’t exist. from The Battle Over Books3 Could Change AI Forever [more inside]
Busting myths about daddy-long-legs spiders
Busting myths about daddy-long-legs spiders. You probably have a daddy-long-legs in your house right now, but there's so much about them that is commonly misunderstood.
October 7
75 years on four wheels and an umbrella
7 October, 1948: French automaker Citroën unveils a strange little car intended for rural farmers. Built to be cheap to buy, reliable, rugged, and easily maintained, its design spec was that it could carry up to four people wearing clogs and hats and 50kg of farm goods at speeds of at least 50kph, and be able to carry a basket of eggs across a plowed field without breaking any. 75 years later, the Citroën 2CV remains an enduring emblem of French culture and engineering. [more inside]
"Because he treated people with disdain, there will be no service."
Sudbury, ON woman goes viral for scathing obit about her dead father. Original TikTok here. [more inside]
"Discogs’ vibrant vinyl community is shattering"
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.
KOSA: A Nationwide Anti-Trans/LGBTQ+ Bill in All but Name - Julia Serano
Hamas Strikes Israel in Unexpected Assault
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. [more inside]
The horror! The horror!
Flesh And Blood: The Hammer Heritage Of Horror [2h30m] is a full retrospective of Hammer Studios, whose name came to be synonymous with horror cinema across the 20th Century.
He saw a whole new genre to populate
Lester del Rey was a strange Minnesota farm kid with a wild imagination and a knack for business. He intuited that what millions wanted from a publishing industry urgently optimizing to keep up with capitalism was to escape the modern age into a world where capitalism and industry had never happened. There is magic in that. from The Man Who Invented Fantasy
"Who's that? The slow comedy man."
Slow & Steady is a new hour-long stand-up comedy special where the star of Joe Pera Talks to You, Joe Pera, talks to you. He ends by attempting to put the audience to sleep, with a live edition of his sleep podcast, Drifting Off with Joe Pera. [Joe Pera previously]
October 6
Giving to food banks effectively
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.
The Polarization Dogma
The fact that it obscures the actual political conflict is the feature, not the bug of the “polarization” narrative. (Thomas Zimmer on Substack)
Scientists rush to save Australia's loneliest tree from extinction
Scientists rush to save Australia's loneliest tree from extinction. The Mongarlowe mallee – which had its heyday in the last ice age – now has just six known survivors, but ecologists say it could be rescued in a plan reminiscent of the Wollemi pine.
“Subject: Cool pics!” is a perfect Dimension Apple subject line
The denizens of Dimension Apple love the following things: Punctuation, trips, sharing photographs, using emoji, taking photographs, surprise parties. You might be inclined to say that they hate roasts, bits, gossip, cynicism, text abbreviations like “LOL,” and other standard features of texting in our dimension--but it is not at all clear to me that any of these things even exist in Dimension Apple to be hated. Like Android users, irony simply does not occur in Dimension Apple. A literary history of fake texts in Apple's marketing materials [more inside]
You could also call them “now” emissions vs “later” emissions.
This is why I will be using the term “upfront carbon” (instead of embodied carbon) because it is emitted upfront before a building is occupied, e.g. energy consumed in construction, including the entire life cycle of the materials (see concrete) used, from the extraction of raw materials to the manufacture, transportation, and installation of products at the building site. [more inside]
But I don't have a thing to wear!
Do costumes during Spooky Season stress you out? Fear not! Here are three really gigantic lists of costume ideas, many of which start with things you may already have around the house. 77 LAST-MINUTE HALLOWEEN COSTUME IDEAS THAT YOU CAN DIY IN A SNAP from Best Products is full of springboards, often with shopping links that you could ignore. 76 Easy Last-Minute Halloween Costumes to DIY or Buy from Country Living also is full of creative ideas and several options to just buy a thing. Finally, 120 Best Last-Minute Halloween Costumes That Are Super Easy to DIY from The Pioneer Woman is yet another list of ideas. Many of these costumes regardless of model gender are entirely genderless. There are instruction links for many of these over 250 costume ideas, so scroll, click, and play dress up! [more inside]
Innerviews
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.
Genuine role players will not care whether others are watching
Although the history of LARP as a legal defense is narrow, the authors share the concern that it may soon become commonplace. Early attempts at such a strategy have been made by a defendant acting alone6 or in loose cooperation with members of a fantasy group who knew each other only in the virtual world,7 claiming “artistic expression” to excuse threatening language. from LARPing and Violent Extremism [FBI's Law Enforcement Bulletin]
Top science journal faced attacks from Covid conspiracy theory group
"One of the world’s most prestigious general science journals, Nature, was the target of a two-year-long sustained and virulent secret attack by a conspiratorial group of extreme Brexit lobbyists with high-level political, commercial and intelligence connections, according to documents and correspondence examined by Computer Weekly and Byline Times."
Embroidered tales and craftivism
“They embroider what they would not or cannot put into words,” says French artist and activist Pascal Goldenberg of the Afghan women using craft to tell their story. Women such as Feroza, whose latest embroideries show a member of the Taliban beating a woman because her tshadri (face veil) is too short, and a mother selling her daughter so that she can afford to feed her other children. While Bechta’s calligraphic embroidery begins with ‘Afghanistan is a very dangerous land for women.’ From Service95, Embroidered Tales: The Women Voicing Resistance Through Craftivism by Simon Coates. [more inside]
October 5
Content Warning: Graphic self-driving car accident
This post contains the graphic description of a person recently struck by a self-driving car in San Francisco. Link [more inside]
Wheels coming off the (NGP) VAN?
"Democrats have relied on one company’s tools to power its campaigns. They’re now facing a possible collapse." Following the 2021 purchase its parent company by a British private equity firm, the Democratic-aligned platform NGP-VAN has seen rounds of layoffs and cost-cutting that have left some activists alarmed about the future viability of the critical organizing tool. Alternatives exist, but none have NGP VAN's market share or deep integration with Democratic campaign infrastructure. Doing the Work of Democracy Despite Lousy Tech and Data:
"Door-knocking is the best way to earn votes, but for all their vaunted tech savvy, Democrats’ core tools and voter data are a mess."
They used to have Spooky songs in the past
It's hard to find new music for Spooky Season. But it turns out, there's a century of tunes to turn to! 13 Halloween Songs from the 1920's & 1930's [40m] and Vintage Halloween Music [50s and 60s, 40m] are both probably full of songs you didn't know exist. For something a bit more modern, perhaps Spooky Swing - Electro Swing Halloween Mix 2020 🎃 😈 🌕 💀 [1h40m] will get you up and hopping. [more inside]
Snakes in the Grass, or On the Vertical Within the Horizontal
As with any disruptive phenomenon, there are both enthusiasts, whose close-meshed nets catch some dubious fish, and deniers, who insist that even the big ones should be thrown back. For many years, insanity was a common metaphor employed for those who believe acrostics in ancient poetry are intentional. The most influential one-paragraph Classics article ever written, Don Fowler’s playful intervention about the acrostic MARS spanning Vergil’s description of the Gates of War, ends with the memorable sentence: ‘I await the men in white coats.’ What Fowler did not anticipate was that, four decades later, acrostics would begin to be recognised as not just an occasional jeu d’esprit in ancient poetry, but a widespread phenomenon and a major source of meaning. from Vergil’s secret message
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Jon Fosse
Norwegian author Jon Fosse is the 2023 Nobel laureate in literature. He first gained prominence as a playwright, but has also written poetry and novels. He was interviewed last year by Merve Emre in the New Yorker. For reviews of his books, and more reaction across the day, check out M. A. Orthofer's post on the Complete Review's Literary Saloon.
October 4
How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet
How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet.
"Google likely alters queries billions of times a day in trillions of different variations. Here’s how it works. Say you search for “children’s clothing.” Google converts it, without your knowledge, to a search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear,” making a behind-the-scenes substitution of your actual query with a different query that just happens to generate more money for the company, and will generate results you weren’t searching for at all. It’s not possible for you to opt out of the substitution. If you don’t get the results you want, and you try to refine your query, you are wasting your time. This is a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."
All Forza Drivers, Start your Engines
Forza Motorsport accessibility is shaping up to be some of the most comprehensive of any game this year, and is available for early access now.
Particularly intriguing is a variety of assistance for blind drivers, which is a first in its genre. [more inside]
Weird podcasts are the best.
Sleep With Me has put me to sleep for 10 years and 1200 episodes, entertaining me and helping me feel better about the brain bots that keep my mind busy at night. Northwoods Baseball announces games for a made-up league in northern Michigan. Everything Is Alive is back for another season, this time exclusively interviewing animals. And EIA's sister-show In The Scenes Behind Plain Sight rewatches a fictional show about a nudist colony, as an homage to rewatch podcasts (and it drives my husband up the walls).
France offers subsidies for clothing repairs
Broken Zipper? France Will Pay to Get It Fixed Starting this month, anyone in France who has shoes resoled or clothing repaired will receive a subsidy. The repair bonus of between six and 25 euros is intended to encourage consumers to visit cobblers and tailors instead of throwing away old shoes and clothes. Some 154 million euros are available for the program until 2028, according to Klaus Sieg writing in Reasons to be Cheerful. ...In this way, the French government is responding to an ecological problem that is only gradually coming to the public’s attention. Ever shorter life cycles for clothing are consuming resources and growing mountains of waste. Hardly any other flow of goods has grown so dramatically in recent years, and with so little regulation, as the ballooning textile industry. [more inside]
Try Hard --- they sure did!
Alex, an art student, dreams of joining Eve, the "Elite’s Visual School". Together with her best friend Kimmy, they train hard to pass the notoriously impossible entrance exam. Alex’s training turns into an obsession, compromising her friendship with Kimmy.Try Hard is the first of the graduation animations (teaser) made by the class of 2023 at Gobelins, a French school of "visual creation", with each new animation released weekly on Wednesday. English subtitles are available via Youtube's closed captions functionality.
Thandiwe Muriu: You Thought You Could Throw Me Away
Many of the works shown here are part of Muriu’s Camo series, which envelops the artist in Ankara wax fabrics common in Central and West Africa. [more inside]
more gruel for the capitalists, more labor for the kids
The Gay Gene(s)
Born This Way? (Radiolab) - "Today, the story of an idea. An idea that some people need, others reject, and one that will, ultimately, be hard to let go of." [more inside]
Some kind of clever title about masks
Clever homemade spooky masks can run the gamut of difficulty. This simple mask use uses hot glue [and a UV light] for its effects. Here's a clever chalkboard mask that could be made with a simple base or custom per the instructions. A little more skill might be required to make this duct tape Batman mask. Real skills would be required for this Spawn Of Cthulhu creation. Nearly 60 mask projects with instructions await your perusal at Instructables. [more inside]
"You were talking to dead people, basically."
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.
Grandma Even Had a 100-Year-Old Pickle She Kept Under Lock and Key
“No one makes aged pickles any more. Around 35 years ago, they were common, but now, the lack of time, space and several other factors have led to a decline in their making. Customers who buy my black lemon pickle speak of their childhood memories of it and how its taste transports them back in time,” Rummy said. from India’s pickle people: Decades-old culinary heirlooms, nostalgia [more inside]
What exactly makes someone a dog person?
The interesting, or maybe confronting thing about considering the dog person personality is that, truthfully, I still think of it as just being human. I accept that cat people exist, but not in the way I accept, say, that introverts exist: I find introversion fascinating and mysterious. Objectively, there’s something admirable and maybe profound in having something better to do than show off and chat all the time. Whereas cat people, I think are kidding themselves. They’ve met dogs, right? [more inside]
A First Nations first
Manitoba has elected Canada's first ever Indigenous provincial premier, Wab Kinew. Kinew's father was not allowed to vote as a young man under Canadian law at the time. [more inside]
The Tube map but make it aeroplanes
In the mid-1930s, Harry Beck, of London Underground 'Tube' Map fame (previously), created a similar map showing air routes from London, England, to destinations across the globe. [more inside]
October 3
Echidnas recorded communicating for the first time
Echidnas recorded communicating for the first time. Some of the most elusive sounds in nature — echidnas talking to each other — have been recorded for the first time.
Researchers believe it is likely that they are the sounds of echidnas flirting, as the spiky creatures only seem to vocalise during breeding season.
In what is believed to be a scientific first, researchers from Curtin University have obtained recordings of short-beaked echidnas producing a range of sounds including cooing, grunting, and wheezing.
Stakes, the magic circle, fun, ethics, law, consent, and game design
Game designer James Ernest plays and makes games of many kinds, including tabletop games and casino/gambling games. In "Black Box Mechanics And the Ethics of Gambling in Games", published on January 12th, 2021, he writes, 'Are gambling games ethical at all? That's the root question here and of course the answer is complicated. In theory? Yes. In practice? Not always.....I often see folks in computer games decrying the use of “gambling mechanics” in games, but I think we need to be a little more specific.' I learned from his comparisons of laws, practices, and intuitions surrounding swimming pools and casinos, and "Context Part 2" on what's particularly pernicious about "black box mechanics [being] dicey outside of the casino," as well as his definition of an ethical payout. [more inside]
Arguably the funniest McCarthyist purge in US political history
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).
Oh, the Schadenfreude!
Oh, the schadenfreude! -- On Amanpour, David Cay Johnson talks to Hari Sreenivasan about the coming just desserts of TFG. Warning: Viewing and/or just listening to this is relentlessly entertaining and uplifting. To and for you! Or so I hope.
See also John Kelly, a Former White House Chief of Staff, Confirms Trump's Disparaging of Veterans and consider the source. The ice dams are collapsing -- watch out for flash floods!
See also John Kelly, a Former White House Chief of Staff, Confirms Trump's Disparaging of Veterans and consider the source. The ice dams are collapsing -- watch out for flash floods!
More Than Meets The Eye
“The excitement I feel looking at the 1960s architecture of Kenzo Tange is rooted in the excitement I felt as a six-year-old boy looking at the animated Autobot City.” Owen Hatherley looks at the Transformers franchise through a New Socialist lens.
The "Small Landlord": ~Myth or Reality~
Pity the Landlord: How "Oppressed" landlords have taken up the language of social justice in their fight against rent regulations: "But Eccles takes it a step further. Oppression of landlords, he argues, is a racial justice issue...Eccles’s widespread media presence is no accident. In 2019, he became one of the public faces of Responsible Rent Reform—a faux-grassroots group backed by the Rent Stabilization Association (RSA), the largest landlord organization in the state—which has set about weaponizing the stories of a dozen 'mom-and-pop' landlords to undermine rent regulations" [more inside]
Vaccines Fuck Yeah
In major news in the fight against malaria, the World Health Organization has approved the R21 vaccine - which can be produced cheaply at scale. [more inside]
Notes on a Criminal Conspiracy: Google's Enshittification Memos
Cory Doctorow writes:
"Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers. Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing." [more inside]
"It makes me feel some type of way"
In previous years, Moore might have sent out a text to family and friends seeking donations for the uniform. She might have asked the school if she could pay in installments. But this year, for the first time, she can cover it all herself. That’s because she has an extra $500 a month coming in — not from a third job or a side hustle but from the City of Chicago, which gives her the money to spend or save as she chooses. It’s part of an audacious new philosophy of government aid, an experiment of sorts that seeks to find out whether infusions of no-strings-attached cash can begin to break the cycle of poverty. from What $500 Means to Zinida Moore
Monster Chiller Horror Theater!
Get spooky with your television viewing with these classic horror classics: The House Of Cats! [6m], Whispers Of The Wolf! [8m], and most terrifying of all: the preternaturally early [by my calendar] Have Yourself A Scary Little Christmas! [4m]
2010s Pop Feminism: A Painful Look Back
"We've changed the culture by any measure conceivable. And yet things are the worst they've been in my entire life. And they don't seem to be getting better." Lily Alexandre reflects on the feminism of her high school years and what it did - and didn't - change. [SLYT] [Sources]
October 2
It's Monday!
Waste coffee grounds make concrete 30% stronger
Waste coffee grounds make concrete 30% stronger. Researchers have found that concrete can be made 30% stronger by replacing a percentage of sand with spent coffee grounds, an organic waste product produced in huge amounts that usually ends up in landfill. The method also reduces the use of natural resources like sand, further contributing to a greener circular economy approach to construction.
I can't tell you what researching this piece did to my browsing history
The Inaugural "Please Don't Let Any of These People Become President" Merchandise Awards. Garrett Bucks, writer and founder of The Barnraisers Project, finally throws his hands up in the air and evaluates the current crop of Republican "Presidential candidates" (besides you-know-who) on the only criteria that really matters - the quality of their campaign merchandise. (Main link is for his SubStack, for those who object to SubStack.) [more inside]
We are the ghosts of Halloween Past, Present, and Future
A Halloween Carol (SLXKCD)
A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds
"This site is a faithful reproduction and restoration of John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds, a magnificent work of ornithological art and science that was published in six volumes between 1848 and 1887."
Scans of the original books were restored by Nicholas Rougeux, who also created the website; the artwork is downloadable and is in the public domain. [more inside]
How do people hold the bassoon again?
Guessing what instrument someone plays... based on photos of their hands. From the comments: If they’re looking at calluses, maybe I should have sent pics to REALLY confuse them 😅. I play flute and piano and just started violin. But my calluses are from climbing and tennis 😂😂😂 But seriously, this is an exception to the rule that you should never read Youtube comments. Read these! Another comment: "That is such a waste of big hands" -TwoSet. But also as a pianist I agree [more inside]
The 24-Year-Old Who Outsold Oprah This Week
The Shadow Work Journal has exploded on TikTok as an inexpensive mental-health tool, even as experts question its approach—and the author’s credentials. The rise of The Shadow Work Journal is another reminder of TikTok’s power—to generate conversation, to sell a ton of books, to keep people in an algorithmic loop indefinitely. Though it was first published in the fall of 2021, the journal reached hit status this year, after being listed in TikTok Shop. It has sold 290,000 copies on TikTok alone since April—45 percent of its overall sales, Shaheen says, meaning more than half a million sold in total.
He Did the Monster Mash(ed Avocado)
Seasonally appropriate frivolous spending! Looking for seasonally appropriate ways to fritter away your savings? Be a avocado toast monster! [more inside]
It started out with a kiss
Happy 20th anniversary to the unofficial British National Anthem (now over 380 weeks on the charts!)
How The Killers made Mr Brightside, one of the most enduring rock songs of all time - The Independent (more links below the cut) [more inside]
Private security guards -- a Band Aid solution for growing problems
The size of the bet up against the size of the market seems irrational
The pool of podcast listeners is growing, but the flood of shows on various streaming platforms makes it tough to break new hits. Facing competition across genres and formats, Spotify found that exclusive podcasts generally don’t draw subscribers away from its rivals. Podcast costs at the company rose €29 million in the first half of this year. from Spotify’s $1 Billion Podcast Bet Turns Into a Serial Drama [WSJ; ungated] [more inside]
Build Your Own Ghost House
Feeling the need for a bit of spooky decor, and feeling a bit crafty? Here's a paper craft Ghost House you can print out, cut apart, and glue together. House pages and instructions are in two separate PDF files. The same maker also has a fairly simple human skull, along with a whole catalog of interesting paper craft patterns. [more inside]
British Seaside Simulator
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]
October 1
Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow
Concerts, trips and designer handbags are taking priority over saving for a home or rainy day
(ghostarchive.org)
the narrative unfolds with all the messy complexities of real life
Kentucky Route Zero: It took seven years for the three-person team at Cardboard Computer to finish their masterpiece about a sad, regretful man making one last delivery for his employer's failing antique shop. [more inside]
Patients treated by female surgeons are less likely to die
Patients treated by female surgeons are less likely to die. Patients treated by female surgeons have better chances of effective recovery and are "less likely to experience death," according to a new study that raises further questions on the underlying causes. The study of over one million people, published recently in the journal JAMA Surgery, found patients treated by female surgeons have a lower likelihood of adverse outcomes at 90 days and a year following their surgical procedures.
Launches, landings, elements, and the fiery golden apples of the sun
NASA started work on this day in 1958. So let's mark the occasion by checking on the past month of humanity's exploration of space. [more inside]
The Museum of Youth Culture (UK)
The Museum of Youth Culture - 100 years of growing up in Britain. Features include
growing up behind a Chinese takeaway counter, rural teen life,
rave flyers, Beatlemania, pirate radio, classroom culture, festivals, Coventry, Glasgow, the Ace Cafe on the North Circular, the Gay Liberation Front, a love letter to MySpace, May Day, and Carnival.
Bonus : 100 years of teenage kicks.
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - re:View
Red Letter Media Re:Views Pee-Wee's Big Adventure , the first feature film directed by Tim Burton, with their old friend, Macaulay Culkin (pictured here with the former President of the United States)
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4K Rivers
4K Rivers "An ongoing series of vibrant river and delta images from North America and other parts of the world. The images are constructed using high-resolution elevation data." [via]
Build a castle from scratch...
Deep in a forest of France's Burgundy region, a group of enthusiasts is building a medieval castle the old-fashioned way — that is, with tools and methods from the late 13th century
They're not anti-Wall Street, they're tsundere for Wall Street
Dan Olson's This is Financial Advice, a two and a half hour deep dive into the Gamestop meme stock phenomenon and the resulting cult that sprang up in its wake.
I tell you what, when you try and tell this story you either sum it up in ten minutes with the broadest strokes or you settle in for a rabbit hole made entirely out of onions and ogres. Conspiracy theorists flock together and constantly try and rope each other into the orbit of their personal hobby horse conspiracy, so once you break the surface suddenly you're digging through endless side stories, each with their own cast of characters, trying to figure out if some tertiary claim is true, was maybe true in the past but is no longer true, or was never true, and discover that the only sources on the matter are the same three people quoting each other in an endless circle of false legitimacy.[more inside]
But That Myrrh Lasts You Only So Long
What if my dad was, like, Bill Of Nazareth, just, like, a guy with a truck and a snake? From Nepo Baby by Megan Amram [The New Yorker; ungated]
Spooky Season Is Upon Us!
#SpookySeason We're entering that time of hauntings and horrors, and maybe you need some inspiration? Well, the 2013 documentary Halloween Home Haunts [1h25m] is a leisurely stroll through terrifying yards, gristly walk-through, and even some who graduated to professional level. Gain some insight, glean some techniques, and linger in the atmosphere that could lure you to creating your own home haunt! [more inside]