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The first scene from Werner Herzog's 2016 film about the internet’s history and future, “Lo and Behold“:
Prof. Leonard Kleinrock describes how the first message on ARPANET was sent from Boelter Hall 3420, on the UCLA campus, October 29, 1969 .
(Lo and Behold previously)
posted by growabrain at 5:21 PM PST - 21 comments

I decided to write down every question that required a decision that my two kids asked me during a single day.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:12 PM PST - 76 comments

New Zealand musician Aldous Harding has released a new song The Barrel, from the forthcoming album 'Designer', due on 26th April. The accompanying video (directed by Martin Sagadin & Aldous Harding) is typically off-kilter. Interview on NPR. [more inside]
posted by pipeski at 4:09 PM PST - 14 comments

In a noteworthy year for motion pictures, consider one movie that turns twenty today: 10 Things I Hate About You. [more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 3:46 PM PST - 28 comments

Raising children under suspicion and criminalization: "Black mothers said they must protect their teen children not only from crime and violence but also from being criminalized by police and other authorities... And at the same time that they worried about their children’s criminalization, mothers had to guard against being criminalized themselves." [more inside]
posted by DarlingBri at 3:11 PM PST - 2 comments

The title that came with the article explains it all.
posted by gryphonlover at 3:05 PM PST - 29 comments

UC Berkeley Library holds punny edible book festival. This is the third year Moffitt library has held the contest for faculty, staff, and students to make food that evokes a classic or favorite book. [more inside]
posted by Margalo Epps at 2:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Gilbert Garcin has been referred to as the “cousin of Tati” or the “spiritual relative of Magritte".
He began to engage in art and photography when he retired aged 65.
He frequently features, often as cut-out of himself in his black and white images. The surreal world of Mr G.
(previously and small. Some repititions).
posted by adamvasco at 10:57 AM PST - 4 comments

Criminal justice reformers around the country are admonishing the Empire State to change its system, arguing that having to pay money to get out of jail unfairly targets the poor. Yet a new report analyzing more than 5 million criminal cases in New York City since 1987 suggests the city has already done a better job of slashing its use of bail and jail than nearly any other urban area in the United States.
posted by queen anne's remorse at 10:55 AM PST - 1 comment

On YouTube, the video for Despacito (Luis Fonsi, featuring Daddy Yankee) has passed six billion views and approaches three million comments (population). This is roughly two billion views more than the next most watched video, Shape of You by Ed Sheeran, which was also uploaded in January 2017. Around 30 videos on YouTube now exceed two billion views each. With its 110 week Billboard chart run ending (also joint most weeks at Billboard Hot 100 #1), views of the record-breaking song (wikipedia arguments) may slow further. Previously, on the phenomenon, popularity, and an alternate version. Also, Keira Knightley's teeth. (FPP inspiration)
posted by Wordshore at 7:56 AM PST - 97 comments

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death was first released 50 years ago on March 31, 1969. Here are the 50 best covers from various translations around the world. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:30 AM PST - 24 comments

Menschen am Sonntag (1930) - Billy Wilder kompletter Film (also btw: Berlin in the Golden Twenties)
posted by kliuless at 6:09 AM PST - 3 comments

In a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, children on the autism spectrum who had difficulty interpreting the emotional content of facial expressions got an assist from Google Glass. CBC interviewed one of the researchers. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 4:39 AM PST - 6 comments

“Of course, what I found is every time I uncovered the corruption, I was just getting higher and higher. The reason why nothing was being done about any of these appalling actions was because the corruption went right to the top.” Zaron Burnett III writes 6400 (somewhat rambling) words for MEL Magazine, mostly about Jho Low. [more inside]
posted by cgc373 at 11:34 PM PST - 3 comments

Twitter user @TubeTimeUS has been creating beautiful cross sections of common electronic components using sandpaper and patience. There are also some really neat annotated versions, as well as several closeups and other cutaways not (yet) in the slide deck. In this case, the comments are worth reading.
posted by eotvos at 5:31 PM PST - 33 comments

Before I dive into Shortest Way Home’s account of the life and career of Peter Buttigieg, let me be up front about my bias. I don’t trust former McKinsey consultants. I don’t trust military intelligence officers. And I don’t trust the type of people likely to appear on “40 under 40” lists, the valedictorian-to-Harvard-to-Rhodes-Scholarship types who populate the American elite.

Is the charmingly multilingual mayor of South Bend all he's cracked up to be?
posted by MartinWisse at 4:35 PM PST - 285 comments

As one of the most diverse states in the Union, California contains an expansive lexicon of offensive, lewd, and inappropriate words and cultural references. (Californians speak at least 220 languages—that’s 220 different ways to say “poop.”) But armed with Google Translate, Wikipedia, and Urban Dictionary, the DMV’s sentries gamely manage to weed out [license plate] profanity in multiple languages, coded Nazi symbolism, and obscure internet acronyms.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:44 PM PST - 51 comments

In the age of social media, when the personal is being turned inside out and exploited on what feels like a regular basis, sometimes what is most needed is to be fully present with those we care about. This thoughtful piece explores what that means, using the context of when the author's mother passed away as an example.
posted by TruthfulCalling at 2:34 PM PST - 6 comments

“Rather than being merely useless, “middle class” and its ideological trappings represent a positive obstacle to political engagement. If you’ve experienced dire poverty, or have loved ones in it still, it’s natural to feel grateful to make anything above minimum wage — or even guilty at having evaded such a fate. That move to guilt stops political activity in its tracks. There may be no more demobilizing an emotion. If you feel guilty for what you have — be it health insurance, an office job, or a roof over your head — knowing as you do that it could be worse, you might hesitate to demand more.” Forget Your Middle Class Dreams, white collar and professional workers need to support and demand unions too. (Jacobin)
posted by The Whelk at 10:19 AM PST - 56 comments

There's never been a better time to be an enormous dork who loves puzzles. Late-2010s television has been dominated by the puzzle box, a narrative form that centers on unpacking a central mystery, exemplified in zeitgeist-capturing shows like Westworld, Russian Doll, and The Good Place.
posted by Etrigan at 7:52 AM PST - 69 comments

Comic artist LB Lee, who is multiple people sharing a single body, is profiled in Vulture. (warning: rape, child abuse, mental health)
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:01 AM PST - 27 comments

Still in, Grandad. 11pm on March the 29th 2019 passed by, and Conservative party machinations and war continue. Over 6 years since first announced by David Cameron, nearly 3 years since the referendum ("voting to remain ... is the best decision") and 2 years after article 50 was invoked, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland remains in the EU. In the week gone by, many peacefully walked through London, a much smaller crowd threatened, and an appeal was dropped. In the worst remake of Groundhog Day, after the latest rejection Theresa May of Downing Street (somehow still - NSFW - PM) looks to hold a fourth vote on her deal, or perhaps an election. What now? A second day of indicative votes on Monday, and the 12th of April is the new/next 29th of March. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 12:23 AM PST - 758 comments

In 2019, a young Buck Bokai made his debut in the Planetary Baseball League with the Crenshaw Monarchs. 23 years later, the last World Series was played between the New York Yankees and the London Kings. Meanwhile, also in 2019, Major League Baseball will adopt new rules with the intent of speeding up games. [more inside]
posted by Gray Duck at 9:45 PM PST - 74 comments

Fixing partisan gerrymandering requires some technical calculations. That’s why the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group filed a mathematicians’ brief to better define the problem—and the solution. [more inside]
posted by eirias at 3:12 PM PST - 27 comments

Agnès Varda, the mother of the French New Wave, has died at the age of 90. Varda's last interview: 'I fought for radical cinema all my life'. Her latest, Varda by Agnès, premiered in 2019.
posted by sapagan at 11:21 AM PST - 50 comments

“All that time with McConnell did give Homans one special insight: McConnell hasn’t just “broken” the Senate by smashing its norms, or by making it dysfunctional. He’s essentially worked to make it irrelevant. For the foreseeable future, America’s regulatory policy will be written by the judiciary. Its ability to prosecute white-collar crime and bribery, to levy taxes, and create social welfare programs—all of these powers will be stripped from the Senate and put in the hands of the men (it’s almost all men) McConnell has placed on the courts. But he’ll probably go to his grave chuckling that Harry Reid started it, and get his name on that damn building too. America doesn’t really remember why it hated its political villains for very long, especially when they win.” Nihilist In Chief: The Banal, Evil, All-Destructive Reign Of Mitch McConnell [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 10:06 AM PST - 60 comments

The Doubleclicks have a new music video I'm Winning about videogames, being yourself, and gender dysphoria/euphoria. Featuring animation by 16 trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer artists. [more inside]
posted by Is It Over Yet? at 9:18 AM PST - 5 comments

'Good Luck Charms' seem to work, according to science. Even for the most pragmatics of us, maybe we could use a little good luck in our lives from time to time. Just like how the 'Evil eye' was a big symbol of this year 'March for Our Lives', and how many celebrities and politics are attached to their Hamsa lucky charm.
posted by sophieJu at 9:16 AM PST - 27 comments

"This is the weird thing about my life: I am usually excited to meet someone in direct disproportion to how excited they are to meet me. I’m kind of a lefty, New York City, Manhattan, pointy-headed intellectual type. Those are the people who hate Disney and think it’s the worst thing on Earth, and that’s where I probably would be if I weren’t actually related to it." (Sarah McVeigh interviews Abigail Disney for The Cut)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:07 AM PST - 19 comments

This exploration of both the case for pessimism, and the case for optimism, in the face of climate change, walks us through both perspectives in a straight forward way. As momentum builds, this case study of ecosystem restoration also lends inspiration on how to approach this massive issue.
posted by TruthfulCalling at 8:49 AM PST - 9 comments

Jo Cameron gave birth to a child without needing pain killers , it "felt like a tickle". She has injured herself due to not being able to feel the damage happening, but recovers from the injuries with less scarring that average people. [more inside]
posted by King Sky Prawn at 8:44 AM PST - 33 comments

“...clutched in the bony fingers of Jimmy Hoffa, sitting on top of the Lost Ark.” SLNewYorkerMag
posted by ersatzkat at 8:39 AM PST - 38 comments

Yoshi's Crafted World: New Look, Same Yoshi [Game Informer] “Yoshi's Crafted World casts you as Mario's colorful dino friends in a cute adventure that sees the prehistoric crew running, jumping, and turning enemies into eggs. This time, the adventure brings the Yoshis across crafty renditions of themed worlds including beaches, deserts, haunted mansions, and even outer space.” [YouTube][Game Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:21 AM PST - 15 comments

High school boys at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland rated their female classmates by looks and shared the list. The girls found out, and pushed back, first asking the administration to address this example of toxic masculinity. After the administration didn't fully address the issue, the girls showed up in force, and started a bigger discussion and effort to address "boys will be boys" attitude. In the words of one student, “We should be able to learn in an environment without the constant presence of objectification and misogyny.” (Washington Post)
posted by filthy light thief at 8:08 AM PST - 56 comments

The Most Metal Thing I've Ever Done Tyler Berglund, owner of a Metal Bar & Taco Joint in Hamilton Ontario, along with his friends and family, have formed a Group of 5 and sponsored the Hamo family to start a new life in Canada.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:03 AM PST - 10 comments

Suzannah Lessard, Why Do We Hate The Suburbs?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:29 PM PST - 98 comments

Just as the quest for the perfect NCAA Basketball tournament bracket is about to end for this year, you can still try your hand at the perfect population bracket. Which city will win? More importantly, how well can you do so that you can humblebrag about it in the ensuing thread? One of a zillion data visualizations available via the US Census Burueau's Data Visualization blog. [Previously]
posted by not_on_display at 7:00 PM PST - 7 comments

Five new species of the tiniest (and cutest) frogs have been named with adorable pictures of 11-14mm frogs on fingertips. And yes, those are their actual scientific names of three in a new genus Mini. Congrats, scientists - somewhere, Gary Larson is smiling. The actual paper argues that evolution of miniturisation is driven by both contingency and determinism.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:41 PM PST - 15 comments

New Yorker, on the 'unexpected philosophical depths of the clicker game Universal Paperclips': “As a contrarian, one reason I wanted to make a clicker game,” Lantz told me, “is that they’re considered gutter culture. They’re easy to make, and they tap into a very virulent, addictive quality, like slot machines.” The Universal Paperclip FPP.
posted by Wordshore at 2:27 PM PST - 41 comments

Today is Respect Your Cat Day.* Here are 50 Fascinating Facts About Cats (Kirsten Fawcett, Mental Floss).


*like they need more obsequiousness from humans
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:58 PM PST - 63 comments

Equitable Cinematography: Director Lexi Alexander on the Politics of Focus Interview by Mary Jo Watts
posted by Think_Long at 1:57 PM PST - 19 comments

The NCAA system extracts wealth from collegiate athletes, many of whom are minorities, enriching a few while refusing to allow the players whose labor the system is built on to profit. We had a recent demonstration of this with Zion Williamson's injury due to a failed Nike sneaker (which he was required to wear due to a contract between Nike and his school), which many feared would derail his chances at going pro (and set off speculation that he would sit out the NCAA Tournament to protect himself.) Now, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) is presenting the case that it's time for this to end. (SLSports Illustrated) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:32 PM PST - 74 comments

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower. A poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. Also A Loving-Kindness Meditation by Sylvia Boorstein. and then Beannacht, a poem by John O'Donohue. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 10:21 AM PST - 22 comments

“The importance of the progressive beachhead on Financial Services may not be felt this year or even this session, but after the next financial crisis. Having progressives willing to carry forward structural responses to financial misconduct could make a huge difference. “In 2008 the public was alerted and alarmed and angry to do something, but there wasn’t the Washington leadership necessary,” says Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition formed to bridge that gap. “It’s unpredictable what would happen in another crash, but if there is one, we won’t miss the opportunity again.” The House Financial Services Committee—long a landing place for pro-bank Democrats—now includes AOC and a flock of leftists. And Maxine Waters is its new chair. (American Prospect) What Will It Take For The Progressive Congressional Caucus To Win? (Splinter)
posted by The Whelk at 9:59 AM PST - 18 comments

Since the 1980s, fragments of orange Garfield telephones have washed up on a beach in France. A lost shipping container had long been theorized, but the source of les téléphones Garfield has finally been found.
posted by Etrigan at 8:26 AM PST - 72 comments

are your links too short? not enough 'a's? the solution to your problem is here. [more inside]
posted by polyhedron at 7:00 AM PST - 35 comments

An Al Jazeera journalist posed as a gun rights activist travelled to Washington with the Chief of Staff of Australia's ultra-right one nation party. From the Al Jazeera article: Muller, Al Jazeera's undercover reporter who posed as a gun-rights campaigner, introduced One Nation's Chief of Staff, James Ashby, and the leader of its Queensland branch, Steve Dickson, to the NRA, and travelled with the pair to Washington, DC last year. [more inside]
posted by aussie_powerlifter at 1:17 AM PST - 58 comments

Reflections of a Chinese science fiction writer on his first Burning Man experience.
posted by thirdring at 10:10 PM PST - 18 comments

99% Invisible explores the vandalism - and conservation - of paintings by abstract expressionist Barnett Newman.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:28 PM PST - 12 comments

Stranger Things 3 [YouTube][Official Trailer] One summer can change everything. Premiering July 4.
posted by Fizz at 5:37 PM PST - 76 comments

Journey North is a citizen science project that tracks animal migration patterns, such as ruby-throated hummingbirds, rufous hummingbirds, gray whales, and monarch butterflies. [more inside]
posted by peeedro at 4:51 PM PST - 5 comments

Ranking Roger, of The (English) Beat and General Public, has died at age 56.
posted by pashdown at 2:24 PM PST - 76 comments

Fuckbois of Literature is a weekly podcast [iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud] about terrible men in literature, hosted by Emily Edwards. There have been three episodes so far, the first focusing on the "patron saint of the modern fuckboi", Lord Byron, featuring Alisha Grauso, Amanda Timpson and Jessica Ellis. In the second episode the host and Emmet Cameron defend Holden Caulfield. And in the latest episode "Doctor Manhattan, Put on Some Clothes", Edwards and Dave Child discuss Watchmen.
posted by Kattullus at 1:33 PM PST - 15 comments

Steve "FlightChops" Thorne is a private pilot, bringing some of the more unusual corners of general aviation to YouTube. In a series of videos, he highlights an area many pilots overlook: what to do after a crash. [more inside]
posted by backseatpilot at 1:06 PM PST - 7 comments

To commemorate the 25 anniversary of their Elder Scrolls series of RPG videogames, Bethesda Softworks is making the third chapter of the series, Morrowind, available for free download on PC for a limited time. If you're wondering what the big deal is behind the game, Alex Kane from Polygon interviewed the creative team behind it in Morrowind: An Oral History. [more inside]
posted by radwolf76 at 1:02 PM PST - 44 comments

Are children's ball pits really 'riddled with killer germs'? [NHS Behind the Headlines] The 2018 study by researchers from the Univeristy of North Georgia in the USA "was covered in The Sun and the Mail Online, which carried accurate and balanced reports of the study that were sadly let down by over-alarmist headlines." [more inside]
posted by readinghippo at 11:05 AM PST - 45 comments

The Future Of The Liberal Order Is Conservative, Jennifer Lind and William C. Wohlforth [Foreign Affairs, Majalla]

The liberal world order is in peril. Seventy-five years after the United States helped found it, this global system of alliances, institutions, and norms is under attack like never before. From within, the order is contending with growing populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism. Externally, it faces mounting pressure from a pugnacious Russia and a rising China. At stake is the survival of not just the order itself but also the unprecedented economic prosperity and peace it has nurtured. The order is clearly worth saving, but the question is how.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:39 AM PST - 40 comments

“But Collier, Posner and Weyl are all reformists, whatever the self-styled “radicalism” of their ideas. They want, above all, to repair capitalism, and repairing capitalism is, whether they want to admit it or not, a political project. However deeply we might nourish fantasies of post-partisanship, to implement policies today we still need to pick sides. The ideas presented in these books are crying out for a politics — for groups with real power to adopt and champion them. But neither Collier nor Posner and Weyl, in stubbornly insisting on their superiority to both left and right, seem to care much about any of this. Nor do they command, on their own, the support of a known political constituency.“ Maybe What We Need Is ....More Politics? (Longreads)
posted by The Whelk at 9:30 AM PST - 6 comments

National Puppy Day was March 23rd. Let's begin our belated celebration with this adorable comic. Follow it with a nice photo collection from The Atlantic. Finish with Popsugar's offering: 60+ puppies on a single page.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:54 AM PST - 8 comments

My thumb tacked from left to right as I swiped mindlessly through Tinder. Then I saw him: His white teeth shone. His eyes sparkled. He was tall. He was distinguished. He was former vice president Joe Biden. As far as I know, Joe Biden is not on Tinder himself. But in typical Biden fashion, he is somehow always there. (SLWP)
posted by numaner at 7:44 AM PST - 14 comments

The Sierra Club has a list of six bird webcams where you can watch the great adventures of spring. Among others, you can spy on cranes, whose vocalizations entertain even when the sky is black and there’s little to see; puffins, whose antics one viewer described as “perfection”; and a variety of species on the Mississippi River, although passers-by at that site can be less cooperative in spring. If these migration-cams aren’t exciting enough for you, perhaps you’d prefer to watch the nesting behavior of barred owls, bald eagles, or the evocatively-named Hellgate ospreys.
posted by eirias at 5:54 AM PST - 21 comments

Cassandra Khaw asked her Twitter followers a question:

I have a college of resurrectionists to write, and I need departments and schools of thought. We have golemancers, necromancers, osteomancers, clockwork engineers who think the soul is best housed in brass. What else should I have?

The replies are delightful.
posted by Lexica at 10:43 PM PST - 27 comments

Belief in aliens could be America’s next religion (The Outline). American Cosmic explores how the once-fringe phenomenon has taken root among the powerful, with "alien locations" as new holy sites, by Dr. Diana Pasulka, Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, who cites the New York Times cover article from 2017 (previously) as to bringing credibility to this general study, and Jacques Vallée (Wikipedia) as a credible ufologist with a lengthy history of research. Lengthy interview on Spaced Out Radio (YouTube).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:06 PM PST - 65 comments

Ketogentic diets are more effective for men than women Hormones, specifically estrogen, plays a role in weight loss.
posted by Yellow at 6:28 PM PST - 43 comments

"It is desirable to people and institutions that have lots of options, and it's attainable to people who don't."

Ben Uyeda stopped designing sustainable mansions to instead create designs for people to make at home. His products are beautiful, his videos are perfect, and he gives away all his designs for free.
posted by rebent at 6:13 PM PST - 13 comments

Forgotten New York is 20 years old today. In that time, its proprietor has toured many a corner of NYC. [more inside]
posted by ferret branca at 5:59 PM PST - 3 comments

Since the nineteen-thirties, Louisiana has shrunk by more than two thousand square miles. If Delaware or Rhode Island had lost that much territory, the U.S. would have only 49 states. [more inside]
posted by hydra77 at 5:09 PM PST - 10 comments

European Gull Screeching Championship has folks squawking 'the sound of the sea' (SL CBC).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:49 PM PST - 8 comments

Alessandro Strumia (previously) after being suspended and then fired from CERN due to his sexist comments, has doubled down on his comments in an article in the Sunday Times. Shannon Palus for Slate has annotated the article accordingly. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:55 PM PST - 10 comments

Copenhagen Wants to Show How Cities Can Fight Climate Change "Mr. Jensen said mayors, more than national politicians, felt the pressure to take action. “We are directly responsible for our cities and our citizens, and they expect us to act,” he said." NYT By Somini Sengupta Photographs by Charlotte de la Fuente
posted by bq at 12:26 PM PST - 1 comment

On building a completely silent PC with passive cooling and no moving parts. [more inside]
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 11:51 AM PST - 53 comments

Why some Asian accents swap Ls and Rs in English a video by Vox's Joss Fong explores the different ways people use their pink trombone
posted by gwint at 11:40 AM PST - 31 comments

The Dreams Of A Man Asleep For Three Weeks [Kotaku] “On March 22, 2018, I was rushed to the hospital for life-saving surgery. Due to complications with the procedure, I didn’t regain full, coherent consciousness until the second week in April. For three weeks I was stuck inside my own mind, subject to a seemingly unending series of dreams. Dreams covering on a variety of themes, some light and hopeful, others dark and dismal. I dreamed the end of my life over and over. I was a hero and a villain. Sometimes, but not often, I was Michael Fahey.”
posted by Fizz at 11:22 AM PST - 16 comments

Give the Nobel Prize in Literature to Dril
posted by JimBennett at 10:37 AM PST - 102 comments

“Excess profits would no longer benefit only the rich and powerful, and the benefits of holding capital would be shared across society. The funds would be controlled by workers within entire branches of industry, thereby ensuring that they would not provide an unequal benefit to workers in the most profitable companies and not contribute to increased differences in wages between workers — unlike other profit-sharing schemes bound to specific companies as have periodically been seen in the US and other countries in the past.” Revisiting the Meidner Plan, what we can learn from the 1970s Swedish effort to gradually socialize ownership.
posted by The Whelk at 9:26 AM PST - 3 comments

Is This Harvard Prototype the Greenest House in America? HouseZero, the headquarters for the Center For Green Building And Cities was extensively retrofitted by Snøhetta and Skanska Teknikk, even to the point of having no HVAC system. The Brain in The Basement controls temperature and ventilation.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:24 AM PST - 19 comments

Have you ever heard a song you liked so much you wished it would last forever?
posted by borkencode at 8:54 AM PST - 42 comments

Trigger warnings do not work. "Trigger warnings are, at best, trivially helpful," writes a research team led by psychologist Mevagh Sanson of the University of Waikato. The paper finds they "have no effect, or might even work slightly in the direction of causing harm."
posted by certs at 8:34 AM PST - 69 comments

A Visual Guide to the Big Lebowski. "The Big Lebowski's world is eclectic, diffuse, and supersaturated. Its plot, its soundtrack, its cast of characters, and their conversations: these elements are not centered and uniform but diverse and divergent. As Lebowski fans might put it, there is no rug that ties the room together. How, then, might viewers orient themselves within the film?" This visualization provides a means of exploring this question, for those who are devoted fans, casually acquainted with the film, or simply interested in visual representations of temporal forms. (From Steven Geofrey Braun, information designer.)
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:28 AM PST - 23 comments

How Everyday Carry Took Over Men's Media
posted by backseatpilot at 7:41 AM PST - 215 comments

Long debated, the EU Copyright Directive is a mammoth piece of legislation revamping copyright law across the EU. Of particular concern to many activists, in addition to the general trend of tightening copyright restrictions and increasing penalties, are Article 11 and Article 13.
posted by sotonohito at 7:32 AM PST - 25 comments

Peak bloom is arriving soon in Washington, DC. The National Park Service predicts the historical cherry blossom trees along the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC will burst into beautiful peak bloom next week. Casey Trees, established in 2002, is committed to restoring, enhancing and protecting the tree canopy of the nation’s capital. They have published an updated ArcGIS map that shows, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, where to find the different varieties of the famous cherry trees. Local resident tip: go far from the madding crowd. [more inside]
posted by wicked_sassy at 6:19 AM PST - 16 comments

A team in London, led by David Nutt, is developing a synthetic alcohol substitute for beverages. Named Alcarelle, the synthetic molecule will bind to the Gaba receptors in the brain, giving the effect of tipsiness caused by alcohol, whilst not metabolising into the byproducts that cause hangovers and increase risks of cancer, stroke or heart disease. The design of the molecule will also allow a peak effect to be built in, regulating the amount of inebriation possible, and opening the possibility of variants for different situations, from parties to business lunches. [more inside]
posted by acb at 3:59 AM PST - 68 comments

Guardian: “The French taco, which bears little resemblance to anything Mexican, is a cross between a grilled panini, wrap and kebab, with everything sealed inside a vast rectangular parcel - fries included.” More similar to a pressed burrito, panini, or perhaps a Glaswegian munchy box encased in pastry or a wrapped Teesside Parmesan, this savoury dish usually consists of “a flour tortilla grilled and folded around a filling of French fries, cheese, and meat, among other deli ingredients”. Also available in Morocco and Canada. Hungry? Try the Gigatacos in Brooklyn.
posted by Wordshore at 2:36 AM PST - 46 comments

Women created these 50 inventions
...
19. The First Monopoly Game
• Inventor: Elizabeth Magie
• Year / period: 1904
Originally designed to demonstrate the evils of unchecked capitalism, Magie's "The Landlord's Game," was patented in 1904, 30 years before a man patented a very similar game called Monopoly and sold it to Parker Brothers.
...
posted by kliuless at 12:34 AM PST - 15 comments

Carl Lipo, Terry Hunt and their colleagues continue to identify possible descriptions to the mysteries of Easter Island’s culture and statues (Ars Technica): Rapa Nui islanders survived by building strong communities around limited resources, contrary to Jared Diamond's proclamations (An annotated version of Jared Diamond’s 1995 article “Easter’s End” – Part I, Part II and Part III). Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo: The Statues That Walked | Nat Geo Live (32:28, YouTube) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:50 PM PST - 10 comments

The soundtrack and aesthetics of rhythm game series Rhythm Heaven lends itself to a lot of mashups, parodies, remixes, and reanimations (often called custom remixes, possibly to avoid confusion with the in-game Remix rounds). Some examples: Super Smash Bros (with a side-by-side comparison), switching out the minigames associated with a remix round, Touhou, STEINS:GATE, My Little Pony, Katamari Damacy, Splatoon, Pokemon, and a mashup of remixes. [more inside]
posted by divabat at 6:26 PM PST - 2 comments

Procrastination has nothing to do with self control. “Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa.
posted by storybored at 1:45 PM PST - 80 comments

Mr Rogers meets Thor: comic by Twistwood, story by Matthew Wisner, slTwitter.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:39 PM PST - 21 comments

As U.S. attorneys prosecute more gun crimes, they are catching domestic abusers in their net. A woman is shot to death by a current or former romantic partner every 16 hours, according to FBI and state crime data analyzed by the Associated Press. Domestic violence claims the lives of children, innocent bystanders, and police officers called to help; it sometimes escalates to mass shootings. Abused women are five times more likely to die if their abuser has access to a gun. Erin Nealy Cox a Texan US Attorney is leading the charge to punish abusers who illegally posses firearms, in an attempt to save women's lives.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:22 PM PST - 18 comments

“Well, honey, welcome to the Poverty Palace,” she said. “I can guaran-damn-tee that you will never step foot in a more contradictory place as long as you live.” SLNY
posted by TheShadowKnows at 11:14 AM PST - 34 comments

Drinking very hot tea linked with risk of 1 type of oesophageal cancer [NHS Behind the Headlines] "A study of more than 50,000 people in Iran showed that those who drank 700ml (about 2 to 3 mugs) of black tea a day at temperatures of 60C or above were almost twice as likely to go on to get oesophageal cancer during 10 years of follow-up in the study, compared with people who drank tea at lower temperatures." A prospective cohort study, "it cannot prove that one directly causes the other, as other factors may be involved."
posted by readinghippo at 9:58 AM PST - 54 comments

“When I studied in the US for a master’s program I got a cold and a sore throat and I didn’t get well for about more than two weeks. I went to the hospital, but at that time I had student insurance, so I only paid about $40—that was around 35 years ago. At the time I thought it was so expensive...”. 5 Women on What It's Actually Like to Have Universal Health Care (Elle)
posted by The Whelk at 9:21 AM PST - 69 comments

Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson. [more inside]
posted by rebent at 8:36 AM PST - 17 comments

A boyhood in rural America taught me economy and self-reliance. Joe Wilkins writing for LitHub.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:48 AM PST - 78 comments

Scott Walker, one of the most innovative and enduring songwriters of the 20th century, has died aged 76. The news was announced by his label, 4AD. “For half a century, the genius of the man born Noel Scott Engel has enriched the lives of thousands,” a statement read. The cause of death has not been announced.
posted by porn in the woods at 6:44 AM PST - 69 comments

The secrets of 'review-bombing': why do people write zero-star reviews? [The Guardian] “...a bane of developers, directors and record companies everywhere: the user reviews section. It’s a public forum where anyone who registers an account can jump into the discussion, leave their own score and heap praise on a release – or, perhaps more often, pour scorn on one. At the extreme, this latter practice is known as “review-bombing”: efforts, often co-ordinated, to tank the aggregate scores of a Call of Duty game, say, or an all-female Ghostbusters film by leaving furious, zero-star reviews. The latest target of this tactic was Captain Marvel, forcing Rotten Tomatoes to remove thousands of user reviews before the film had been released. It’s like a sedentary protest march, and the result can be a PR nightmare.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:27 AM PST - 44 comments

This video examines the Alt Right Pipeline and the Pyramid of Violence that leads from implicit bias to edgy humor to violence.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:03 AM PST - 31 comments

Alexandra and Zachary James are the high priests of Twin Temple, the Satanic doo-wop band hailing from the city of Angels. They have produced one album and two videos ("Sex Magick" is NSFW). [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:20 PM PST - 6 comments

In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt and wrote of unusual river boats on the Nile. Twenty-three lines of his Historia (Wikipedia), the ancient world’s first great narrative history, are devoted to the intricate description of the construction of a “baris” (English translation on Perseus, from Tufts). For centuries, scholars have argued over his account because there was no archaeological evidence that such ships ever existed. Now there is. A “fabulously preserved” wreck in the waters around the sunken port city of Thonis-Heracleion has revealed just how accurate the historian was. (The Guardian)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:00 PM PST - 20 comments

Steamed Hams but it’s Basket Case by Green Day (SLYT)
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Sometimes One Wrong Creates A Half Dozen Rights... This is a chronicle of a life changing kayak trip, taken by three old friends. In spirit, rather like John Muir's Stickeen, a story I read several times as a child. Sometimes the universe seems to conspire to undo, some random blunder. A well told tale of friendship and adversity, countered by absolute serendipity with a ton of effort, risk, and ability. Glacier Bay Alaska was their destination, traveling with a close friend who was a seasoned guide. An irresistible destination, but wild, part of the attraction and also the invigorating unease. A beauty of a place.
posted by Oyéah at 3:26 PM PST - 5 comments

Bill Langlois has a new best friend. She is a cat named Sox. She lives on a tablet, and she makes him so happy that when he talks about her arrival in his life, he begins to cry.
posted by Memo at 3:20 PM PST - 35 comments

The first trailer for the live-action Dora the Explorer movie is out. The movie is not produced by Michael Bay as previously expected and looks to follow in the footsteps of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
posted by bbrown at 9:24 AM PST - 54 comments

NPR's Kristen Hartke explores the world of zero-proof spirits - companies like Seedlip, Stryyk, and Ceder's that make non-alcoholic but still flavourful spirits.
posted by divabat at 1:56 AM PST - 51 comments

Read it about it here. It's wild.
posted by Transl3y at 8:16 PM PST - 41 comments

"The square looks something like a geological cross section. Its base is sedimentary: coconut and chopped walnuts bound together by a buttery silt of cocoa and crushed graham crackers. A middle layer of yellow buttercream teeters on the brink of liquefaction. And its top crust of chocolate, hard and brittle, thaws like the Arctic tundra the longer it lingers at room temperature." British Columbia's Nanaimo bar turns up at womb-to-tomb events across Canada. [SLNYT]
posted by theory at 6:09 PM PST - 46 comments

Sarasota Half in Dream is a feature-length Surrealist documentary about dead turtles, crab swarms, decaying resorts, and microscopic histories; explorations into the abandoned golf courses, factories, and resorts of Sarasota, Florida and interviews with local youths who are using them for new and strange purposes. What would the Surrealists and Situationists think of a suburban, subtropical tourist town? What goes on in a storage unit in the dead of night? What is the afterlife of a decommissioned train car? What ghosts haunt a ruined hotel? What is the life cycle of a city? When will waters wash it all away? Streaming online for free. [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:44 PM PST - 17 comments

Binging With Babish does something a little different this week [more inside]
posted by axiom at 12:55 PM PST - 18 comments

Short story "Fountane Of" on Curious Fictions Author-described "short, sharp, and not very sweet. Plus, time-traveling janitor!"
posted by readinghippo at 12:51 PM PST - 9 comments

"The three parents share incubation responsibilities for the eggs ... Like their relationship, their history is complicated." Livestream of the nest.
posted by hippybear at 12:44 PM PST - 19 comments

A Beginner's Guide to MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) - "MMT proposes that a country with its own currency, such as the U.S., doesn't have to worry about accumulating too much debt because it can always print more money to pay interest. So the only constraint on spending is inflation, which can break out if the public and private sectors spend too much at the same time. As long as there are enough workers and equipment to meet growing demand without igniting inflation, the government can spend what it needs to maintain employment and achieve goals such as halting climate change." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 2:56 AM PST - 54 comments

A Couple That Got Married After 2 Weeks On How It Went Down: "This is about to be a buncha laughs. Just so you know, we’re a very unique couple."
posted by carolr at 9:30 PM PST - 50 comments

The Truth About Wasabi

75-year-old Shigeo Iida, the eighth-generation owner of his family’s wasabi farm in Japan, takes pride in his tradition, which is profiled in Edwin Lee’s short documentary Wasabia Japonica.

posted by Lexica at 9:27 PM PST - 20 comments

Invisible Essence: The Little Prince is a gentle, loving consideration of the legacy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved book. [more inside]
posted by shoesfullofdust at 8:21 PM PST - 6 comments

Game tips: It's Winter! Stay inside your apartment and make yourself some scrambled eggs... This video game lets you wander about a dreary suburban Russian tower block. Nothing to do, no one to see, you cannot lose nor can you win.
posted by yossarian1 at 7:37 PM PST - 14 comments

Ella Briggs, an 11-year-old Connecticut resident, became her state’s first openly gay “kid governor”. The fifth-grader was elected to the post by 6,400 of her peers from 87 schools across the state. During her campaign, she made LGBTQ youth safety her primary focus, noting that she was inspired by her own experience. She’s already so invested in public service, she said she would love to become America’s “first lesbian president.”
posted by growabrain at 3:56 PM PST - 26 comments

The Floods Are Coming: Climate Refugees in Bangladesh (42½min video) “An estimated 2000 people arrive in Dhaka every day. During monsoon season, the number rises to 4000 a day.”
posted by XMLicious at 3:02 PM PST - 19 comments

Continuing his series on the Alt-Right Playbook, Ian Danskin of Innuendo Studios takes his newest video to discuss what conservatism actually believes in, and why that basis makes it at odds with liberalism...and succeptable to fascism. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:13 PM PST - 88 comments

There are going to be days when you cannot cook, days when your stove is out of commission, or days when you’re suddenly stuck at home because your road is blocked off, and you have few groceries. This is where industrial food comes in. Platitudes about real food are all nice and good until you have a real need for food that cannot wait.

Jonathan Katz has some thoughts on how to best stock your pantry.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:56 PM PST - 32 comments

A dev trained robots to generate “garbage” slot machine games—and made $50K. [more inside]
posted by murphy slaw at 12:46 PM PST - 29 comments

2019 marks 100 years since Theodore Roosevelt's death, and with it, remembrances for his achievements (History | Mystery Stream), including "his commitment to and advocacy of conservation of the environment." Beyond the conservation versus preservation debate that predates U.S. National Parks (USDA.gov), there's the complicated of the relationship between Teddy Roosevelt and the Indians (Native American Netroots), most damning being his statement that "The truth is, the Indians never had any real title to the soil." Nowhere is this more apparent than the creation of the Grand Canyon National Park, and the exclusion of the Havasupai who inhabited the area (N.A.N.). More on this ugly past: Environmentalism’s Racist History (New Yorker).
posted by filthy light thief at 12:45 PM PST - 5 comments

“It’s a very different, and more disquieting, achievement to create a high-rise district on a plinth so sealed-off and yachtlike that nobody need ever leave.” On March 15, after 12 years of planning and six of construction, the Related Companies (which is actually just one mammoth real-estate company) will open the gates to its new $25 billion enclave, Hudson Yards -an agglomeration of supertall office towers full of lawyers and hedge-funders, airborne eight-figure apartments, a 720,000-square-foot shopping zone, and a gaggle of star-chef restaurants. Live Blog of the first day of opening by The NYC Eater (start at the bottom) “It is always a little sad to see what the people rich enough to have everything actually want. ” Hudson Yards Is An Ultra-Capitalist Forbidden City “Unlike a real neighborhood, which implies some kind of social collaboration or collective expression of belonging, Hudson Yards is a contrived place that was never meant for us.” Hudson Yards Has $4.5 Billion In Taxpayer Money. Will We Ever See It Again?
posted by The Whelk at 10:16 AM PST - 84 comments

Inside the Battle to Close Rikers: Can New York City build its way out of mass incarceration? [The Marshall Project]
posted by readinghippo at 10:07 AM PST - 1 comment

Psychologists have defined a "light triad" of personality traits. The team led by Scott Barry Kaufman has investigated what exemplifies the best of humanity, as opposed to the worst of humanity that is captured by the "dark triad" (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism). The three traits that constitute the "light triad" are Kantianism (“treating people as ends unto themselves, not as mere means to an end”); Humanism (“valuing the dignity and worth of each individual”); and Faith in Humanity (“believing in the fundamental goodness of humans”).
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:36 AM PST - 60 comments

Rick Steves is absolutely American. He wears jeans every single day. He drinks frozen orange juice from a can. He likes his hash browns burned, his coffee extra hot... And yet: Rick Steves desperately wants you to leave America. Sam Anderson interviews Rick Steves ("one of the legendary PBS superdorks") for the New York Times Magazine. [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 8:10 AM PST - 69 comments

"Once the cycle starts and a group get a few such papers out, the auto-catalytic effect sets in: future work can justify itself by saying 'we use a standard model in the field'. All of this even though the 'standard model' never had a justification for it. Eventually the subfield can start generating and answering its own field-endogenous questions that are fundamentally unhinged from reality. ... Sometimes, new authors don’t even realize they’ve fallen into a trap. If they’ve been trained within the bubble, it might be impossible to find the appropriate distance for questioning. When reflection on my own work, I sometimes fear that parts of evolutionary game theory might end up like this. ... Motivatiogenesis can be especially easy to fall into with interdisiplinary work."
posted by clawsoon at 7:31 AM PST - 4 comments

A wide-ranging interview with the amazing Catherine O'Hara
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:56 AM PST - 15 comments

Today's Guardian has an excellent piece outlining the past excesses of Norway's black metal scene. If you love Spinal Tap and have a robustly dark sense of humour, I'm confident it'll be the most entertaining thing you read today. Meanwhile, here in East London, we're hosting the World Metal Congress. Here's a programme of events (Friday / Saturday) and the organisers' list of metal bands from around the world. This Syrian film they're showing on Saturday looks like it could be pretty amazing.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:16 AM PST - 28 comments

“Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life.” In a personal essay published in The New Yorker, Emilia Clarke recounts the two aneurysms she suffered while filming the Game of Thrones series.
posted by New Frontier at 10:43 PM PST - 27 comments

Pittsburgh's Roslyn Place is one of the country's very last wooden streets.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:25 PM PST - 21 comments

This is How Borrowing Things From Our Neighbors Strengthens Society
posted by aniola at 7:05 PM PST - 68 comments

Scientists rise up against statistical significance. In a comment piece published in the March 20 issue of the journal Nature, zoologist Valentin Amrhein, epidemiologist Sander Greenland, statistician Blake McShane, and over 800 co-signatories argue that the time has come to abandon the use of statistical significance in science. [more inside]
posted by biogeo at 6:38 PM PST - 63 comments

Deadspin's Barry Petchesky FOIA'd viewer complaints about the Super Bowl halftime show.

The FCC received 94 complaints regarding last month’s CBS broadcast, and 58 of those took issue with Maroon 5's halftime show—specifically, lead singer Adam Levine’s bare chest. America still has a very complicated relationship with nipples.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:14 PM PST - 28 comments

The World's Religions - an infographic. With a commentary here.
posted by storybored at 4:19 PM PST - 23 comments

Catch Me Once, Catch Me 218 Times, The program GraffitiTracker presaged law enforcement’s ability to use technology to connect people to past crimes. The sheriff had been keeping tabs on him and every other tagger in the city. It was 2010, and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department had recently rolled out a database called GraffitiTracker—software also used by police departments in Denver and Los Angeles County—and over the previous year, they had accumulated a massive set of images that included a couple hundred photos with his moniker. Painting over all Kyle’s handiwork, prosecutors claimed, had cost the county almost $100,000, and that sort of damage came with life-changing consequences. Ultimately, he made a plea deal: one year of incarceration, five years of probation, and more than $87,000 in restitution. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:03 PM PST - 63 comments

When I crossed into this lawless territory, I worried that my scooter would shut off and the whole plan would sputter to a stop, leaving me at the mercy of the hordes and their perverse whims. But upon entering the forbidden zone, the scooter kept moving. I was safe... for now. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 1:31 PM PST - 71 comments

Deadwood Movie - Official teaser trailer. Release date set for May 31.
posted by dobbs at 1:01 PM PST - 70 comments

"Our common past is the Next Frontier." Time Machine Project builds a Large Scale Simulator mapping 2000 years of European History, transforming kilometres of archives and large collections from museums into a digital information system This sounds futuristic, but this work is an iteration of the Venice Time Machine, which has the goal of analysing 1,000 years of maps and manuscripts from the floating city's golden age (Nature article; short video on YouTube). As previously discussed, machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) can translate tomes of hand-written works, and because some works are fragile, X-ray tomography can "read" through the entire volume of a book, without ever having to open it (short info/demo video on YouTube). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:38 PM PST - 4 comments

We all know that guy (and it is usually a guy). He started out nominally liberal or apolitical and easygoing, became a libertarian, started believing in deep truths and conspiracy theories, and ended up contemplating a compound in the woods. Slate does a deep-dive into the Joe Rogan phenomenon and how it radicalizes wannabe "free thinkers." Sheeple need not apply.
posted by wibari at 12:17 PM PST - 149 comments

Jake Phelps, the caustic, funny and brash (Vice) longtime editor of skateboarding’s most revered magazine, Thrasher, a position that made him a tastemaker in a subculture known for resenting authority (Thrasher), was found dead on March 14 at his home in San Francisco. He was 56 (New York Times). [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 11:09 AM PST - 20 comments

“The game industry is making record profits, yet very little of that is flowing into the hands of the people who actually create the games. Together, we have the power to change this.” At the 2019 Game Developer’s Conference in San Franscico, Game Workers Unite released a special zine all about unionizing and co-op efforts. Union FAQs : Is Profit-Sharing What We Want? Craft Unions, Industrial Unions… What’s the Difference? Strategy Guide: How to Start Organizing your Workplace. Not in the Industry? Ways To Help.
posted by The Whelk at 9:32 AM PST - 15 comments

There Is No Reason To Cross The U.S. By Train, But I Did It Anyway, Caity Weaver for The New York Times Magazine [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:26 AM PST - 70 comments

Welcome to Noraville The small Maryland town rebuilt by Nora Roberts
posted by box at 8:35 AM PST - 11 comments

Wear Your Meds distributes buttons with images of commonly-prescribed mental illness medications, with the goal of normalizing the open discussion of those medications and the conditions they treat. All proceeds are donated to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The project was developed by copywriter Lauren Weiss, who upon finding the right medication thought “It blew my mind that people actually lived a mentally stable life all the time. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:22 AM PST - 27 comments

It must be that people don’t remember real parties well enough to re-create them with any accuracy. There’s too much missing information. Fictive parties evoke this sense of impaired time by impairing the narrative, with non sequitur, snippets of nonsense conversation, continuity errors. It’s often suddenly 2 AM.

On Classic Party Fiction
posted by griphus at 8:00 AM PST - 10 comments

Anti-vaxxers trolled a doctor’s office. Here’s what scientists learned from the attack. [WaPo] Same story, different slant with different information: 'They picked on the wrong group': Attacked on social media, local pediatricians take on vaccine doubters [Post-Gazette] Both articles are worthwhile; they don't overlap much and combined give a fuller picture.
posted by hippybear at 7:50 AM PST - 33 comments

Before the camera, we recorded the world in watercolors. These paintings are too fragile to exhibit, not prestigious enough to be remarked upon. Some were painted by famous artists -- most by military draftsmen, scientists on expeditions, women all over the world. They provide an astonishing visual link to our past. Watercolour World is digitizing the world's documentary watercolors. [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 7:30 AM PST - 9 comments

Alan Krueger, who ignited the debate on minimum wage and pushed economics to be a more empirical field of study, has died. He blew up the assumption of most economists at the time that labour markets were more or less competitive. He thrilled young economists with the idea that natural experiments and instrumental variables could show causation, not just correlation. He advised two American presidents, despite vowing to never return to government after the first one. Among his many publications were important studies of terrorism, the opioid epidemic, and racial inequality. His death, by suicide, has prompted discussion of mental health in academia.
posted by clawsoon at 7:25 AM PST - 12 comments

Satisfactory [YouTube][Game Trailer] “While Goat Simulator was about chaos, Satisfactory is about control. Available now in early access on the Epic store, Satisfactory is a base-building and resource management game in line with Oxygen Not Included. It plays a little bit like Minecraft for adults, given its first person perspective and checklist style gameplay. You play as a representative of Ficsit, a megacorp that wants to you rob an alien planet of its natural resources in order to build increasingly complicated machines. As you play, you gain the ability to craft more and more buildings that help keep your assembly lines efficient. [...] You’re here, on this lovely, calm, peaceful planet, to fill its vistas with machines belching black smoke.” [via: Kotaku]
posted by Fizz at 5:25 AM PST - 34 comments

Teaser trailer for Quentin Tarantino's 9th film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
posted by sapagan at 3:19 AM PST - 71 comments

JS Bach was born exactly 334 years ago, so now you can create Bach-ified harmonies on today's Google Doodle using AI. [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 10:57 PM PST - 27 comments

The myths and facts behind the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:57 PM PST - 5 comments

Spreadsheet Horror Stories "These stories illustrate common problems that occur with the uncontrolled use of spreadsheets. In many cases, we identify the area of risk involved and then say how we think the problem might have been avoided." [more inside]
posted by BungaDunga at 4:43 PM PST - 49 comments

Disney is adding Star Wars lands to its American parks. This TechCrunch article is an in-depth look at how they're doing it with quite a few pictures that have me really excited. The official word is that Disneyland's version will open on 5/31 and Disneyworld's debuts on 8/29. [more inside]
posted by bbrown at 2:04 PM PST - 87 comments

Formula Is Feminist. Her baby, her body, her breasts, her choice. It sounds obvious, but in the world of breastfeeding promotion, it has become anything but. The latest example is the British Medical Journal’s self-congratulatory announcement that the journal and its sister journals would ban formula advertising from their pages...It’s nice that they want to be part of the solution, but this action actually makes them part of a much bigger problem. Formula is a legitimate solution to what is often a serious health problem (and a feminist solution to an age-old gendered problem). The argument the BMJ has deployed to explain its decision to limit advertisements isn’t justified by the scientific evidence and instead shows its willingness to pressure women to use their bodies in culturally approved ways. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:04 PM PST - 105 comments

If you want to escape in a world of fantasies, to tromp through an imagined landscape populated by creatures and characters from ancient myths, Arthurian legends, folklore, and more contemporary nursery rhymes (Atlas Obscura), check out British author and illustrator Bernard Sleigh's 1.8 meter wide excursion into unreality, An Ancient Mappe of Fairyland, Newly Discovered and Set Forth (1925, via jjjjjjjijjjjjjj''s Big Map Blog, previously). There are also two other versions at the Library of Congress: one with slight variations and an associated booklet, and a smaller scale image, possibly an early draft, or possibly designed to be a tiled image on linen.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:42 AM PST - 5 comments

Animated Antiquity: Cartoon Representations of Greece, Rome and Beyond by Chiara Sulprizio. "I have been a big animation fan since I was a teenager, and I am also interested in the reception of Greco-Roman culture in the modern age. I figured I would merge these two interests and that is pretty much how this project was born. I want to trace and explore the many manifestations of ancient Greece and Rome in the realm of cartoons and animation, since the inception of the medium in the late 1800s to the present day."
posted by homunculus at 11:20 AM PST - 5 comments

Jane Kamensky, author of A Revolution in Color - The World of John Singleton Copley: A Boy With a Flying Squirrel (nytimes.com). Elizabeth Hand, author of Hard Light: the same phoenix in flames tattoo with the motto TOO TOUGH TO DIE as the protagonist in her book Generation Loss. Kevin Wilson, author of Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine: Buster and Annie from the cover of his book The Family Fang. Brian Keene, author of The Rising: the cover of his book 4x4 as a back piece. China Miéville, author of The Scar, Iron Council: "skulltopus". Rob Hart, author of Take-Out: tattoo inspired by the cover of his book New Yorked. Joe Clifford, author of The One That Got Away: sleeve commemorating getting two books published and major life changes. Kristen Proby, author of the Safe With Me series: one musical note for every book she has had published. Brian Panowich, author of Bull Mountain: Bull Mountain back piece (first session). Melissa F. Olson, author of the Old World urban fantasies: griffin back piece inspired by her book Boundary Crossed. (All links are SFW.) [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 11:01 AM PST - 6 comments

“ In his 1859 preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx implies that at earlier points in its development, capitalism is still “progressive” because it produces rapid increases in productivity. There aren’t enough material goods to support everyone at this stage, so socialism would only amount to the redistribution of scarcity. But at some point, Marx argues, production increases to such a scale that it becomes possible and necessary to socialize the existing mechanisms of production and redistribute the social product fairly. This would, for some, be enough to constitute socialism: a democratically run, centrally planned economy that ensures every person’s material needs are met. A Walmart for the people, with the same low prices and efficient logistics but without the poverty wages—and no billionaires at the top raking in the profits.” The People’s Republic Of Walmart? Could large megabusinesses be a starting point for a democratically planned economy?
posted by The Whelk at 9:20 AM PST - 35 comments

The Kirk Center's Ben Sixsmith reviews K-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (1968-2017). [more inside]
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:15 AM PST - 8 comments

SOAS London is hosting an exhibition of Ghanaian film posters from the 1980s. These dramatic and highly charged images, usually some six or seven feet high, were conspicuously displayed by the roadside or in prominent public positions to alert filmgoers to the release of new films. Many of these films were made locally in Ghana or imported from Nollywood, Bollywood, and Hollywood. Their iconography emphasised the melodramatic, combining a blend of elements that drew on the local beliefs that intersected with the range of popular imported films, such as the imagery of America's Hollywood and India's Bollywood that were also shown in Ghana.
posted by ChuraChura at 8:59 AM PST - 8 comments

Google has announced Stadia, its platform for streaming video games. It's designed to instantly run demanding games on (and seamlessly between) ordinary PCs and mobile devices. As always, Digital Foundry gives you the performance details.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:30 AM PST - 72 comments

Nona Willis Aronowitz on the short-lived Men's Liberation movement of the 1970s: This is the story of the few years when men tried to spark a parallel, pro-feminist movement linking the personal to the political, with varying levels of success—only for it to go very, very wrong.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:14 AM PST - 19 comments

Comedian Miel Bredouw reenacts 35 hiking interactions in 38 seconds (SLYT)
posted by duffell at 7:05 AM PST - 36 comments

Mass Incarceration: the Whole Pie 2019. The United States incarcerates 2.3 million people, more than any other country. Where and how does mass incarceration actually happen?
posted by likeatoaster at 5:42 AM PST - 22 comments

Hey, wow! It entirely slipped under MY radar (and probably yours) that Vangelis released an album earlier this year. (!) Nocturne: The Piano Album is an album of, well, Vangelis playing mostly just (electric) piano. The maestro of (in his words) "playing everything at once" is focussing mainly on the simple keyboard sound, although he certainly can't resist throwing in a few other synths for texture. The program [YT playlist] is largely original compositions with some remade classic Vangelis music mixed in for good measure. Side A: Nocturnal Promenade; To The Unknown Man; Movement 9, Mythodea (piano guest - Irina Valentinova); Moonlight Reflections [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 5:22 AM PST - 10 comments

Karen Uhlenbeck has won the 2019 Abel Prize (Quanta article). Uhlenbeck is the first woman to win the prize since its creation in 2003. Awarded annually by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Abel prize is one of the most prestigious prizes in mathematics. [more inside]
posted by louigi at 9:03 PM PST - 7 comments

[Jon] Harchick (previously) is the godfather of “the Drinkers”—a niche community of YouTubers who just… drink water. […] The Drinkers’ channels are simple and the videos short—typically clocking in at under a minute. Most channel’s just feature video after video after video of the YouTuber looking at the camera, pouring a glass of water or taking the top off a bottle, and slamming that H2O— that’s it. At times the number of these videos per channel can climb well into the thousands.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:15 PM PST - 36 comments

The village of Gotham, just west of Bunny and close to Thrumpton, is known for its clever fools (more) of some 700 years ago. Residents, known as Gothamites, allegedly built the fence to house the cuckoo on top of a 3,000 year old Neolithic burial mound on a hill to the south. The village also contains a square, several pubs, a 12th century church, a well-equipped hall and a chippy. More etymology. Stop stealing the sign, superhero fans and locals alike.
posted by Wordshore at 5:24 PM PST - 16 comments

Just a couple of short animations by Dušan Vukotić (1927-1998), a Yugoslav cartoonist, author and director of animated films of Montenegrin descent, the best known member of the Zagreb school of animated films: Cowboy Jimmy (1957); The Avenger (1958); Piccolo (1959); Cow on the Moon (1959); Surogat (1961); Igra (1962)
posted by sapagan at 3:36 PM PST - 4 comments

In retrospect, finding her first half siblings was too easy. She signed up for an online forum for adoptees and donor-conceived children, and quickly met another woman whose mother had also been treated by Cline. She looked the woman up on Facebook and saw her photos. “I was like, Oh my goodness, I think that is my sister, ” Ballard says.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:53 PM PST - 43 comments

Rascal Flatts restaurants failed nationwide. Did a Mafia soldier pull the strings? Frank Capri received witness protection and used his new identity to wreak havoc on developers of Toby Keith restaurants. Then, he did it again. The most ridiculous and representative USA story you'll read today.
posted by bongo_x at 1:58 PM PST - 31 comments

Sir Thomas Beecham notoriously likened the sound of the harpsichord to "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm" - as if that were a bad thing. If, however, such sounds are music to your ears, you have come to the right FPP. For starters, here’s Jean Rondeau playing Le Vertigo by Pancrace Royer; and, by the same composer, Yago Mahúgo performing La Marche des Scythes... [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 12:54 PM PST - 18 comments

Game Maker's Toolkit is a YouTube channel about how video games are made. In each video, creator Mark Brown intersperses interviews and quotes from developers with his own canny analysis to describe how Nintendo prioritizes "play", how games handle regenerating health, how game designers protect players from themselves, down to in-depth looks at, for instance, the design of single level in Hitman. His series "Boss Keys" explores world/level design of individual games, most recently Metroid Prime.
posted by Zephyrial at 12:45 PM PST - 13 comments

There is a curious history behind it, dating back to the Second World War. And, it's starting up now.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:34 PM PST - 16 comments

The Uru or Uros people (Wikipedia) live in what is now Bolivia and Peru. Of the three groups of the Uru, the Uru-Iruito still inhabit the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and the Desaguadero River, crafting floating islands (Google maps panorama) out of totora, a thick reed that grows abundantly in the high-altitude fresh water. Up to the 1980s, the Uru or Uros kept their islands further from the shore, about 9 miles out in the lake, far enough from shore that few visitors bothered to motor out to them. But in 1986, a huge storm devastated the islands and forced many Uros to rebuild closer to shore, near the comparative security of Puno (Google maps), the largest city on Lake Titicaca, which meant more tourists could also visit (Slate). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:25 AM PST - 7 comments

Baba Is You: The Rules Are the Game [Polygon] “Each stage is a small 2D space containing a variety of objects and characters, along with corresponding words that describe the rules of the puzzle. To solve each puzzle, I must change the preset rules of the stage by rearranging the words to create new rules altogether. In the first stage, we see a white rabbit — the baba — and a yellow flag. They are separated by three rocks and sandwiched between two stone walls. Also on the stage are its rules: Baba Is You, Flag Is Win, Wall Is Stop, Rock Is Push. Since “Baba Is You,” I can control the bunny. Since Rock Is Push, the bunny can push aside the rocks. And since the Flag Is Win, I can touch the flag to complete the stage. Or I can modify the rules written on the stage to complete the puzzle another way entirely.” [YouTube][Game Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:21 AM PST - 53 comments

“I grew up with Betty Crocker as my model and who I thought I’d be,” she said. “And then there was Betty Friedan with The Feminine Mystique, which opened up this universe! After college, I literally gained a lot of weight on one of Betty’s triple-fudge layer cakes while trying to digest the other Betty’s liberation manifesto. I graduated [college] in 1972 with subscriptions from my mother to both Brides magazine and Ms. magazine. That’s why I was unhappy.”
Writing for The Cut, Rachel Syme profiles Cathy Guisewite, creator of the loved and hated, mainstream working woman comics page staple and merchandising phenomenon that was Cathy: "AACK!"
posted by Going To Maine at 9:12 AM PST - 41 comments

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an optimist now. Previously by Coates: The Case for Reparations; and also: a history of how his thinking on reparations has evolved. And out in the wider world, the conversation that he revived has grown: The Atlantic considers how black middle class children grow up to become black lower class adults; Vox summarized the Democratic debate on reparations, and showed how research tells us the problem of the racial wealth gap cannot be solved by universal policy. Bloomberg thinks reparations are not pie but bread for the hungry masses - in the sky.
posted by MiraK at 6:58 AM PST - 71 comments

Design100 gives a bunch of tabletop-game designers a simple prompt and asks them for no more than 100 words on the topic. The blog started with "What is the one thing that tabletop games do better than any other form of entertainment?" and posts every week or so. Hidden Gems is a particularly good catalog of games to check out.
posted by Etrigan at 6:37 AM PST - 5 comments

With 10 days until Brexit (perhaps), Britain's sovereign Parliament has taken back control. Speaker John Bercow has frustrated the government's plans to bring back the Withdrawal Agreement for a third meaningful vote, which can now only take place in this session on Parliament's terms. Although a majority of MPs voted last week against leaving with no deal and in favour of requesting an extension to Article 50, leaving the EU on 29 March remains the law of the land and the default position of Article 50, unless the latter is revoked or extended. Everything now depends on the European Council, the actions of Theresa May, and the unpredictable voting blocs of Parliament. [more inside]
posted by rory at 3:50 AM PST - 922 comments

Why You Shouldn't Bury Your Pet in the Back Yard - Companion animals are part of our families, but inevitably the time comes for us to say goodbye to them due to old age or disease. [more inside]
posted by jjderooy at 3:06 AM PST - 48 comments

Learn about different museums and their collections through colouring! 113 institutions have made available colouring sheets based on the artefacts in their collection. http://colorourcollections.org, write up at My Modern Met.
posted by freethefeet at 2:49 AM PST - 4 comments

It was only the third biggest bolide to enter Earth’s atmosphere on record, so astronomers can be forgiven for missing it at the time. Now, after sifting through data obtained from monitors meant to detect illicit nuclear detonations, a Canadian scientist has determined that a meteor approximately 10-14 meters (33-46 feet) in diameter streaking over Kamchatka, Siberia on the 18th of December 2018 at about 11:48 AM local time exploded over the Bering Sea with the energy of about 173 kilotons of TNT. And it turns out we also have pictures. [more inside]
posted by theory at 1:27 AM PST - 23 comments

It's 1906, and the librarians are bored, bored, bored by the American Library Association's Narragansett Pier (R.I.) Conference. So a few of them they sneak off and decide to found a small, subversive club of their own: The Bibliosmiles, "'Librarians Who Are Nevertheless Human' dedicated to 'keeping the dust off our top shelves,'" through comic song and speech, in the belief that "libraries could be a vital and innovative part of progressive change." Though short-lived, the group nonetheless had a long-lasting influence on library humor. Say the magic password—"Cheer Up, ALA"—and win a tour through semi-imaginary institutions, the umbrella problem, and an archive devoted to humor by and for librarians. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:25 PM PST - 6 comments

Andre Williams, R&B singer, songwriter, and producer, has died at the age of 82 on March 17. Originally known for a string of often raunchy hits on various Detroit labels in the 1950's and 60's, his career was derailed in the 70's and 80's thanks to addiction. By the 90's he had cleaned up and gotten a second wind with the assistance of a variety of younger "garage rock" bands, leading to a series of albums and tours with artists as varied as The Sadies, The Dirtbombs, and Green Hornet. Blog review of a live show in Cleveland, 2010. [more inside]
posted by soundguy99 at 7:21 PM PST - 8 comments

the simplest explanation, the one that best obeys the principle of Occam’s razor, is that both Shakespeare and the Fair Youth were gay or bi, against the backdrop of a fluidly sexual society where such distinctions made less difference than they do today.
posted by latkes at 5:04 PM PST - 5 comments

Two weekends ago, people waited in line to stand over a hole cut in the ice of Michigan's Little Traverse Bay to view a submerged 1,800-pound marble crucifix. It was placed there in 1962, at a depth of 22 feet, to serve as a memorial to deceased divers and others who have lost their lives in maritime accidents. Poor weather has precluded viewings in recent years. The weather cooperated this year, and people couldn't help but notice that Jesus' arm was missing. Come spring thaw, a search for the wayward appendage is planned. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:08 PM PST - 25 comments

(Twitter thread by @netmanchris) “This is crazy. Study shows three people in a conference room over 2 hours can result in a Co2 level that can impair cognitive functioning ... If you’re making decisions at the end of the meeting, you’re mentally less qualified to do so.” The 2015 Harvard study (PDF) and 2016 discussion. @SamRNolen: “Love to advance my career by bringing an oxygen tank to meetings and taking a ear-shattering hit from it as soon as anyone starts talking.” @rogerlipscombe: “I always assumed it was the fumes from the whiteboard markers, to be honest.”
posted by Wordshore at 3:02 PM PST - 52 comments

Ryan Creamer (real name) is a rising star on Pornhub with nearly 4 million views--but his videos are fully clothed and safe for work, even if the banner ads around them aren't. After noticing the website's "Work for Us" option, the writer and comedian began posting short videos with names like "POV FOREHEAD KISS COMPILATION" and "I Hug You and Say I Had a Really Good Time Tonight and Then I Go." In an interview with Buzzfeed News (article SFW, links within article very NSFW) Creamer says: "It can come across like I’m making fun of sex workers, but everyone who is in this industry has been so, so nice. That’s made me feel really good." [more inside]
posted by duffell at 2:37 PM PST - 26 comments

Why are Pyrex dishes exploding in the oven?
posted by Chrysostom at 1:58 PM PST - 106 comments

The Open Notebook is hosting a science-themed Peeps diorama contest. Tableaus include Peepola Tesla, the Peepiodic Table of the Elements, and Grace Hopper, Compeeper Scientist. Voting is open through March 26, and the gallery of entries is here. Not to be confused with the now-discontinued Washington Post Peeps diorama contest, previously on MetaFilter.
posted by terooot at 1:13 PM PST - 8 comments

Ahead of the documentary film Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story, the BBC are getting inside the head of the man who was Frank Sidebottom. Also if you are near Manchester there's an exhibition about Frank Sidebottom/Chris Sievey at the Central Library on now. Thank you.
posted by Webbster at 12:21 PM PST - 11 comments

The Maps Descriptive of London Poverty are perhaps the most distinctive product of Charles Booth's Inquiry into Life and Labour in London (1886-1903). An early example of social cartography, each street is coloured to indicate the income and social class of its inhabitants.

[more inside]
posted by goblin-bee at 12:06 PM PST - 5 comments

Dom Krapski writes about (krap.ski) his encounter with the disintegrating corpse (image) of Rosie, a large great white shark (image) currently sitting in a murky vat (image) of formaldehyde in an abandoned wildlife park in Australia. Photos by Garry Moore.
posted by not_the_water at 11:38 AM PST - 19 comments

Sarah Smith, née Stone, was an English natural history illustrator and painter (Wikipedia; Design and Art Australia Online), who started turning dead specimens into "living" illustrations when she was not yet 20, was largely self-taught in her draughtsmanship technique. At only twenty-one, she was invited to exhibit four of her paintings at the Royal Academy, closed to women at the time. Australians would recognise her art from her illustrations in John White's Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales (Archive.org), published in 1790. This journal is one of the 5 first fleet accounts of the new colony. And in the first half of the 1790s, her drawings were featured with other artists and published in the monograph Museum Leverianum (Archive.org). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:57 AM PST - 2 comments

Musicards is a collection of music theory flash cards for the beginner and intermediate music student. Learn note names, chords, key signatures at your own pace.
posted by storybored at 10:12 AM PST - 4 comments

Gregor Sailer is an Austrian photographer. His projects include Closed Cities, effectively invisible, artificially created urban agglomerations that are hermetically sealed off from the eyes of the world either by walls or by their hostile surroundings; The Potemkin Village, haunting images of fake towns; and The Box, an exploration of small scale secret Soviet facilities such as design bureaux for weapons, aircraft, space and military electronics.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:54 AM PST - 8 comments

H.Bomberguy (of Mermaids charity fame) discusses brand twitter, advertising, ‘realmericals’, and harnessing performative political outrage for profit in WOKE BRANDS (26:43)
posted by The Whelk at 9:53 AM PST - 12 comments

Each Friday, for more than two years, The Root has responded to emails and comments from our readers (and some people who obviously don’t read The Root). Not today. Today, there will be just one email and one response.

[more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:19 AM PST - 74 comments

The issue was first noticed about a year ago. MySpace have confirmed that all the music is lost and cannot be recovered. "Due to a server migration files have been corrupted and unable to be transferred to our updated site." [more inside]
posted by daisyk at 4:04 AM PST - 43 comments

Large desert blooms, labeled "superblooms" (previously) have been happening with greater than average frequency in the last few years, a consequence of wet-dry weather swings and fire activity. Social media has caught on, and capturing one's self sprawled in a field of wildflowers is now an essential selfie ritual. [more inside]
posted by q*ben at 9:35 PM PST - 24 comments

Dick Dale, godfather of surf guitar, dies aged 81. (Guardian) Richard Anthony Monsour, better known by his stage name Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist, known as The King of the Surf Guitar. He pioneered and created what many call the surf music style, drawing on Middle-Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverberation. He worked closely with Fender to produce custom made amplifiers, including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. [more inside]
posted by valkane at 7:44 PM PST - 83 comments

Photographers often talk about making pictures rather than taking them: constructing something from the scene in front of the camera that is related to it but not subordinate to it. A photo of a tree or a soldier has a life independent of its subject. Bruce Polin began making these images in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park around the time of the last presidential campaign. He had been shooting mostly in his home studio, but when the divisive rhetoric of the election heated up, he felt the need to get out among strangers, from all cultures he could find. The park was ideal. The camera was big. [more inside]
posted by octothorpe at 6:24 PM PST - 8 comments

The Government Is Using the Most Vulnerable People to Test Facial Recognition Software Research shows that any one of us might end up helping the facial recognition industry, perhaps during moments of extraordinary vulnerability. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 6:16 PM PST - 18 comments

Blair Braverman (previously) just finished the Iditarod. Her fans were doing their part, too. [SLtwitter, very short story, but man it got dusty in here]
posted by hippybear at 2:45 PM PST - 31 comments

Good Society, the RPG is a collaborative roleplaying game "that seeks to capture the heart, and the countenance, of Jane Austen’s work. It is a game of balls, estates, sly glances, and turns about the garden. At least on the surface. Underneath this, just as in Austen’s own novels, it is a game of social ambition, family obligation and breathtaking, heart-stopping longing." Notable for blowing past their original Kickstarter goal of $4000 Australian in the first two days and winding up at $154,774 Australian, enabling better printing, more supplemental books, and donations to public libraries. [more inside]
posted by Mogur at 1:41 PM PST - 15 comments

Maybe a future grandmaster? "Tani is a reminder that refugees enrich this nation — and that talent is universal, even if opportunity is not." (SLNYT)
posted by blue shadows at 1:40 PM PST - 2 comments

The marginalia of Jeanne de Montbaston in The Romance of the Rose. This is an illuminating piece of scholarship by historian Sara Öberg Strådal on the overlooked imagery in 14th century marginalia, in this case in the medieval French poem Le Roman de la Rose (written circa 1230 and 1275, BnF fr. 25526) by artist Jeanne de Montbaston (possibly nsfw, via.) [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 12:55 PM PST - 4 comments

The cheeky gnomes taking over Wrocław -- Cute as they may be, each statue is a nod to the Orange Alternative, an anti-Soviet resistance movement that helped bring down Poland’s oppressive communist regime in the 1980s (BBC Travel). By opposing conformism and consumerism with intelligent humour, the Orange Alternative (Pomaranczowa Alternatywa) movement achieved a considerable artistic victory over the Communist regime. Their continuing influence upon Polish political protest is noticeable to this day. (Culture.pl) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:48 AM PST - 7 comments

Micah Cash's Waffle House Vistas Project collects images that document Southern communities as seen through the windows of Waffle Houses. In each instance, the point of view is the customer’s. Each photograph looks out from booths and chairs, making the viewer a witness to intertwined narratives of poverty, transience, and politics. [more inside]
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:27 AM PST - 27 comments

Spoiler, it's Italy; and Nigel Farage and Steve Bannon make an appearance. SLWired This is real-time reporting on using the internet to manufacture consent toward a goal that the participants initially would have rejected by using a beloved Italian comedian and his innocent blog. [more inside]
posted by djinn dandy at 8:40 AM PST - 25 comments

A bookstore tweets about a mysterious object left behind. Poetry follows. (Link is to first tweet)
posted by PussKillian at 8:28 AM PST - 13 comments

The Janzen–Connell hypothesis is an attractive but difficult-to-prove explanation for rainforest diversity: It's dangerous for rainforest trees to grow up near their parents, because that makes them vulnerable to the herbivores who are already crunching and munching on their parents. A team from the University of Utah has added some detail [paywalled] with a study in Panama. "“People may think of a jungle like it’s a giant salad bowl. It should be paradise for pests because they’re surrounded by leaves. But plants have an infinite number of defense combinations—half the weight of a young leaf is poison”.... Over five years, the researchers collected leaf samples in the field..... Using high performance liquid chromatography, they separated all of the distinct compounds inside the leaves.... [O]nly 4 percent of the Inga compounds were known to science."
posted by clawsoon at 7:10 AM PST - 20 comments

Vladimir Ivkovic and Lena Willikens play amazing music separately, but together they challenge each other. “We share a curiosity. It makes it vivid, like a good conversation,” she says. [more inside]
posted by asok at 7:48 PM PST - 2 comments

Roz Chast and Patricia Marx collaborate on a book and a Uke band. (SLNYT)
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:22 PM PST - 5 comments

CWU geology professor Nick Zentner hosts the debut of 'Nick On The Rocks - Season 3'. (SLYT) All six new episodes (5 minutes each) are featured. Q & A with the crowd is featured. Taped on January 24, 2019 in CWU's Student Union Theater. Nick On The Rocks - a geology video series - airs on PBS television stations throughout the Pacific Northwest.
posted by Long Way To Go at 3:52 PM PST - 9 comments

Saliva is our core focus. It’s who we are. DNA Friend.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:29 PM PST - 18 comments

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe [YT full album link] is an hour of ridiculous, top of the line prog rock that maybe you've never heard of, or maybe you haven't listened to in decades. It's part of the complicated history of the band Yes, but I'm not going to describe that here. Just listen -- it's a lot of fun!
posted by hippybear at 2:39 PM PST - 23 comments

UK to require ID upload to limit access to online porn by young people. The UK will soon block all porn sites and require strict age verification for anyone seeking access to online porn (Guardian link, totally SFW). Persons wishing to view any porn sites will need to upload a passport or driver’s license onto a gatekeeping site, or purchase a porn pass for £4.99 from designated dealers.
posted by stillmoving at 2:11 PM PST - 76 comments

John Paul Brammer, writer and widely beloved creature of obscure Mexican folklore, is currently documenting a furry home invasion. (Here's the Threadreader unroll, but as this is a developing situation, you may need to refresh it.)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:14 PM PST - 15 comments

Nighty Night by Mafumafu -- A nostalgic (and sad/cathartic) illustrated Japanese music video, sung as a lullaby from a tiny dog to their beloved person. Please turn on CC's for an English translation.
posted by anthy at 12:40 PM PST - 2 comments

In the sea of DJ mixes and mixtapes, BBC's Essential Mixes are still stellar examples of DJs at the top of their game. Here are a pick of four from this year alone that may well be worth your time: Lee Burridge's uplifting house and dance music (and via Core News); Shlohmo's end of the world mix (Core News); Jayda G's diverse mix to make you dance (Core News); and Josey Rebelle, "always eclectic, always compelling behind the turntables" (not currently available on iPlayer; available via Core News). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:53 AM PST - 14 comments

Breaking Heart Syndrome Linked with Brain’s Control of Emotions (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News). Scientists in Switzerland have for the first time identified a tangible link between how different areas of the brain communicate with each other, and Takotsubo syndrome. TTS is a rare, potentially fatal cardiac disorder brought on by a sudden temporary weakening of the heart muscle -- typically triggered by episodes of severe emotional distress, including grief, anger, or fear, or by reactions to joyful events -- leading to heart attack and death. It's more common in women but how the disease occurs has not yet been explained (ScienceDaily). (European Society of Cardiology press release, study full text) [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:15 AM PST - 6 comments

Khushbu Shah writes for the Washington Post: Peek into homes and restaurants in China, Poland, the Philippines, France and Australia, and you’ll probably find Maggi products — most often a seasoning sauce, bouillon cube, noodle or soup mix — on one of the shelves. The seasoning sauce Maggi Würze, which is reminiscent of the flavor of lovage, has become so popular and beloved in Germany that Germans often colloquially referent to lovage as “maggikraut.” Like salt, fat, acid and heat, Maggi is one of the few great unifiers of the world’s kitchens and may be Switzerland’s largest and most influential culinary contribution.
posted by ChuraChura at 9:01 AM PST - 59 comments

The Otay Mesa Detention Center Detainee Letter Collection documents the hidden stories of hundreds of refugees from human rights hot spots around the world--including Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Brazil, Cameroon, Eritrea and China. Each of them has sought asylum in the United States and has been held at the San Diego, California Otay Mesa Detention Center operated by a private corrections company, CoreCivic. These letters provide insight into the lives of asylum seekers and migrants both before and during detention. Identifying information has been redacted to protect the privacy and safety of the writers. Letters date from July 2018 to present.
posted by juliplease at 9:00 AM PST - 2 comments

This article recently released by the Guardian explores the fine line that divides life when you feel you can't afford what you want, and life when you are struggling to afford food. It begs the question - what constitutes a full and rich life of 'enough' anyhow, and how much of that do we have in our control, regardless of income? [more inside]
posted by TruthfulCalling at 6:18 AM PST - 15 comments

Masonic Temple reborn at 100: inside the mysterious, historic landmark. A photo essay from cleveland.com on the history and restoration of Cleveland's Masonic Temple and Performing Arts Center, as it approaches its 100th anniversary.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Two-time poet laureat and two-time Pulitzer prizewinning poet W.S. Merwin has died at age 91. In a publication career that spanned 66 years, from 1952's A Mask for Janus to 2016's Garden Time, with highlights that include Pulitzer Prizes 38 years apart (1971's The Carrier of Ladders and 2009's The Shadow of Sirius), Merwin was one of the best-known and awarded poets of his generation, whose work wove together politics, spirituality, observation of nature and the human condition. [more inside]
posted by drlith at 7:39 PM PST - 38 comments

Eastory is a YouTube channel for short, clearly animated recountings of war history and history in general, made by an anonymous Estonian guy. The narration is simply stated with plenty of detail and an incredible sense of scale, with appropriately ominous music throughout. The videos about the Eastern Front of WWII are superb.
posted by rhizome at 6:39 PM PST - 12 comments

Measuring Ourselves Against an Idealized Home-Cooking Past Is a Recipe for Frustration The idea that everything would be better if we just cooked three meals a day from scratch like we did in the mythical past ignores both current realities, and the realities of our not so distant past. A new book, Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It is out, and challenges some of the preconceptions around the idea that if we just cook all our meals, all our problems will evaporate. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 6:08 PM PST - 276 comments

When I first read Virginia Woolf’s dictum that “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” I was homeless.
At Electric Lit, Sandra Newman writes about the tension between the common perception of writing as bourgeois and the often very broke reality: "What If You Can't Afford 'A Room Of One's Own'?"
At kottke.org, Tim Carmody comments on his own situation in relation to the essay, lauds it, and disagrees on one point: "The Problem Of Writing And Money"
posted by Going To Maine at 5:32 PM PST - 13 comments

Do you feel that the world is full of hate and anger today?
Then watch 10 min. of animals hugging hoomans [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 5:26 PM PST - 5 comments

@Mayapolarbear [Twitter][Instagram], a Samoyed pupper has a YouTube channel devoted to ASMR dog-eating/sounds. • Reviewing Different Types of Food #1 • Reviewing Different Types of Food #2 • Reviewing Different Types of Food #3 • Eating Crispy Chips • Eating Crunchy Apple Slices • Eating Watermelon • Eating Yellow Watermelon • Eating Homemade Popcorn • Eating Roasted Chicken • Eating Carrot FAIL • Eating Crunchy Honeydew Melon • Eating Yellow Apple • Having Breakfast [All reviewed food are safe for dogs and were checked on the American Kennel Club website before.]
posted by Fizz at 4:29 PM PST - 12 comments

Kratu the rescue dog just doesn't care. Rescue dogs are truly a breed of their own. This one just has to be the best in show, and the perfect antidote to another awful week.
posted by lhauser at 2:03 PM PST - 19 comments

Pawnbarian is a...roguelike chesslike deckbuilder? Yes! Sure. You draw a hand of chess moves and try, with two moves per turn, to kill off the baddies in each level without taking a fatal amount of damage in return. [Via the ever-charming Rock Paper Shotgun, re: the ever-delightful 7 Day Roguelike Challenge]
posted by cortex at 1:42 PM PST - 26 comments

Learn about rare plants and the fate of Tony's Italian Beef Stand (YouTube) - Joe Blowe makes nature documentaries, mostly about botany and streams of consciousness. [more inside]
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 1:41 PM PST - 7 comments

“Gouthro says that if Tripp was ignored, it was partly because his problems barely rated in Nevada. The Gigafactory, one of the world’s largest buildings by floor area, had been filled with workers so quickly that it was almost impossible to control. Not long after Gouthro started in January 2018, he discovered that many employees, some of whom were living out of their car in the corners of the industrial park, were using cocaine and meth in the bathrooms. Others were having sex in parts of the factory that were still under construction. Gouthro says the scanners guards used to check badges were unreliable, so they’d wave in anyone with a piece of paper that looked legitimate. Local scrap yards called him to report thieves were trying to sell obscure electric vehicle parts.” When Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower (Bloomberg Businessweek)
posted by The Whelk at 12:12 PM PST - 16 comments

James Gunn reinstated to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3. [more inside]
posted by hanov3r at 11:54 AM PST - 77 comments

Deeyah Khan, a Muslim woman, spent months interviewing neo-Nazis and jihadists — and came away more hopeful than ever. [more inside]
posted by kristi at 11:41 AM PST - 13 comments

Q&A: Lindy West on Why Her New Hulu Series, ‘Shrill,’ Is Not a ‘Weight-Loss Narrative’. Shrill, the Hulu series based on Lindy West's book of the same name, starring SNL's Aidy Bryant, comes out today on Hulu. While it's groundbreaking simply for promising "under no circumstances will the lead character in the show, ever in the series, step on a scale and look down and sigh", it's also the first show on television that shows an on-screen abortion in the very first episode. Reviews have been mostly positive. [more inside]
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 11:08 AM PST - 25 comments

The art of scientific glassblowing, by Gayle Price at the University of Leicester [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:29 AM PST - 5 comments

Beto O’Rourke’s secret membership in America’s oldest hacking group. O'Rourke officially announced his candidacy, yesterday. Today, in an excerpt from an upcoming book, author Joseph Menn has revealed that O'Rourke, as a teenager, was part of the Cult of the Dead Cow. More background from the author on Twitter. "His CDC writing from nearly three decades ago, under the handle 'Psychedelic Warlord,' remains online."
posted by Sequence at 9:58 AM PST - 136 comments

In a hearing with many choice quotes, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson nearly doubled the prison sentence of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to seven and a half years, denouncing him as a man who “spent a significant portion of his career gaming the system.” Minutes later, Manafort was indicted in New York state, on charges that fall outside Trump’s pardon power. “No one is beyond the law in New York,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement announcing the indictment. [more inside]
posted by Little Dawn at 8:57 AM PST - 1849 comments

When cryptocurrency prices are quoted, the prices are mostly based on trading in USDT. Not USD - the US dollar - but the cryptocurrency Tether, which claimed in the past to be backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars. Its importance in cryptocurrency trading has made it a systemic risk in that space. Tether is no longer making the claim that they have one dollar in the bank for ever USDT in circulation; now, they admit, some of their reserves consist of loans to affiliated parties.
posted by clawsoon at 8:00 AM PST - 34 comments

Lizzo Isn’t Just Part of a Movement. She’s a Movement All Her Own. Cover Star at Allure, and embarking on a North American and European tour. Lizzo previously on Metafilter.
posted by ellieBOA at 5:38 AM PST - 24 comments

The new video by Carly Rae Jepsen - Now That I Found You - features Shrampton the cat.
posted by Wordshore at 5:04 AM PST - 35 comments

Multiple mosques in Christchurch, NZ have been attacked; at least one suspect in custody; New Zealand's Darkest Day (Guardian). At least 27 dead, with 50 injured, while the shooter livestreamed the atrocity.. Yet another day where I have no words for the evil that has unfurled.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 10:00 PM PST - 356 comments

Whether caffeine is or isn’t actually good for you isn’t actually the point. The point is that if the wild success of the largely pseudoscientific lifestyle brand Goop tells us anything, the rule goes that because caffeine sometimes has negative effects and isn’t tolerated by some people, by now, there should be a full-blown attack against Big Caffeine. There isn’t.
posted by Grandysaur at 6:51 PM PST - 87 comments

Meet BookBot: Mountain View library’s newest robot helper (siliconvalley.com) - Only in Silicon Valley does a robot return your library books (Youtube). It's not autonomous. A human handler is following behind the BookBot for the first six months; after that a human will control it remotely.
posted by not_the_water at 6:23 PM PST - 20 comments

In July 1986, Life magazine honored the Statue of Liberty’s 100th birthday and highlighted American superlatives: On one page, the “Cutest” (a toddler actor) appears alongside the “Loneliest Road” (YouTube) below a photo of a seemingly endless highway that reaches across the desert toward the mountains, a lone cowboy on horseback crossing from one side of nothingness to the other. An anonymous AAA counselor is quoted in the article: “We warn all motorists not to drive there, unless they're confident of their survival skills.” The road was U.S. Highway 50 through Nevada (Google Maps), and rather than keep motorists away, however, the moniker piqued curiosity (National Geographic)—thanks in part to the Nevada Commission on Tourism (Pony Express Nevada). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:41 PM PST - 30 comments

Portuguese developer Sérgio Vieira explains how he built his own gaming console.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:24 PM PST - 9 comments

"Skrulls have been many things in the Marvel Comics over the past 60 years: superhero impersonators, religious extremists disguised as humans, canon fodder in any number of Avengers brawls. In Captain Marvel, they finally get the storyline they deserve." [Linked essay & post below contain major spoilers for movie Captain Marvel.] [more inside]
posted by nicebookrack at 2:16 PM PST - 29 comments

Thank you for the first-year PhD student | Who gave me advice on how to prepare for my viva | Within the first three minutes of our conversation | (Yes, I timed you)
posted by DarlingBri at 1:27 PM PST - 21 comments

Dwarf Fortress Coming to Steam [YouTube][Announcement Trailer] “Dwarf Fortress, the famously complex and often inscrutable colony simulation, is coming to Steam and itch.io. The new version will be published by Kitfox Games, a Montreal-based independent studio, and will include graphics, music, sounds, and Steam Workshop integration. An ASCII-based mode will still be available in this new version, and development of the original game will continue unabated.” [via: Polygon] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 1:20 PM PST - 49 comments

In the months before my son was born last year, I worried having two kids would reduce my time for creativity even more than one had. To combat what I felt was a loss of creativity, I decided to write a haiku every night. In my mind, it was Minimum Viable Creativity. Before we went from a family of three to a family of four, the haiku were about TV or food or the like, but when my son was born, he was the subject the first night, and the second, and before I knew it, the nightly haiku was now a nightly parenting haiku – or a haidad. It turns out the nightly parenting haiku is not only Minimum Viable Creativity, but also an opportunity to journal milestones every night without having to figure out what to say. Journaling is easier when it’s 17 syllables a day. By Aaron Cohen.
posted by growabrain at 11:43 AM PST - 4 comments

ThisAbles offers 3D-printable add-ons that make existing IKEA furniture more accessible for people with disabilities. Looking for a 3D printer to use? Try this map of 3D printers in libraries worldwide. (Via Curbed).
posted by asperity at 10:28 AM PST - 14 comments

What happens when you drop a dead alligator in the darkest depths of the Gulf of Mexico? It’s not a question that has plagued many scientists, but it has plagued at least one – Craig McClain, a marine biologist and executive director of the Louisiana University Marine Consortium. McClain wanted to see what unfolded if he introduced a rare calorie-rich reptile to the abyssal seafloor, a dark and nearly lifeless place with little food for the few critters dwelling there. So last month, McClain and a team of LUMCON researchers plopped three adult alligator carcasses, each seven to eight feet long, into the Gulf, where they sunk to depths of more than a mile. They then deployed a live-feed video camera to cover the action. (via bibliogrrl) [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 9:48 AM PST - 34 comments

You may have noticed that Egyptian statuary often has missing noses. And you've probably always thought that it was the ravages of time, vandalism, or accident-prone archaeologists bumping protruding stone snouts. But how do you explain de-nosed flat reliefs? A curator has a plausible theory.
posted by bbrown at 9:43 AM PST - 29 comments

“A directly democratic organizing model not only transforms the way that the workplace functions from a top-down autocracy to a collectivized movement of all workers, but also shows a clear example of how direct democracy can function. This example presents a model that can expand outward from the workplace into the rest of society. As a result, basic confrontation with the bosses, as a form of social struggle, can lead into the functioning of a new social order.” Ready to Fight: Developing a 21st Century Community Syndicalism “Unless we actually run candidates in city council elections, we are not dealing with power. And to live in fear that power might “corrupt” not only ignores the many cases where it did not corrupt; it ignores the need to gain power. Theater, street events, and other photogenic escapades merely play at politics rather than engage in it.” Thoughts on Libertarian Municipalism By Murray Bookchin “...it is important to recognize that no adequate theory of the capitalist state can focus on the national level alone. “The” state must be analyzed in terms of rivalry among *many* states. Precisely because it is organized “as nationality,” the capitalist nation-state expresses an antagonistic logic toward other states.” Should Socialists Want To Keep The State?
posted by The Whelk at 8:43 AM PST - 19 comments

Former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh dead at 91. In his three terms in office, the Indiana Democrat crafted the 25th Amendment to the Constitution (updating the rules for presidential succession) and the 26th Amendment (lowering the national voting age from 21 to 18). He also was the lead sponsor for Title IX of the Higher Education Act, which prohibited gender discrimination in colleges and universities, and co-authored the (never ratified) Equal Rights Amendment. [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead at 7:45 AM PST - 25 comments

The Epic Hunt for a Lost World War II Aircraft Carrier. Earlier this year the late Paul Allen's wreck-hunting ship the Petrel went searching for the aircraft carrier USS Wasp, sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1942. More pictures from the search here and here.
posted by TedW at 7:42 AM PST - 4 comments

The Good, Bad, and Ugly Public Transit Seat Covers of the World. It can’t be easy creating a good textile for public transit. Bus, train, and subway seats must do far more than look attractive. They have to stay fresh-looking as thousands of people sit on them daily, all the while trying to deter or mask the attentions of vandals. With all these boxes to tick, it’s no wonder that so many of the fabrics used on public transit are, quite frankly, pretty damned weird.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:43 AM PST - 51 comments

Another Avengers: Endgame trailer has dropped, featuring MoHawkeye, but probably not Kate Bishop, although everyone has snazzy new suits, along with a new poster, where no one can you look in the eye about all the feels that are going to happen!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:30 AM PST - 160 comments

When anthropologist Jean Briggs lived with an Inuit family in 1963, she witnessed a remarkable thing: the adults had an extraordinary ability to control their anger, and they passed this on to their children. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:50 PM PST - 53 comments

Opportunity's Parting Shot Was a Beautiful Panorama Over 29 days last spring, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity documented this 360-degree panorama from multiple images taken at what would become its final resting spot in Perseverance Valley. [Ed. note: top image is a small part of the interactive, zoomable full 360 panorama just slightly further down the article.]
posted by hippybear at 9:11 PM PST - 4 comments

[T]he sick hornies are a well-documented but little understood phenomenon in which people describe feeling extra horny when they get sick. Don’t believe me? Check out this reddit thread with dozens of people agreeing that this is for sure A Thing. Or this one. Or this one. Or this one. (It seems to be a big concern.)
Sophia Benoit ponders in GQ Why people went to do it when they are ailing: "So, You’ve Got a Case of the Sick Hornies"
posted by Going To Maine at 5:26 PM PST - 62 comments

The science reporting hype promises a bit too much ("Scientists have discovered a shape that blocks all sound–even your co-workers," per Fast Company article title), but the demonstration video of the Acoustic Metamaterial Noise Cancellation Device is pretty impressive, demonstrating "acoustic metamaterial and noise cancellation device capable of blocking up to 94% percent of the transmitted sound energy while preserving air flow." From Dr. Xin Zhang's Laboratory for Microsystems Technology at Boston University. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 4:14 PM PST - 27 comments

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it. They use these six entangled photons to create two alternate realities—one representing Wigner and one representing Wigner’s friend. Wigner’s friend measures the polarization of a photon and stores the result. Wigner then performs an interference measurement to determine if the measurement and the photon are in a superposition. The experiment produces an unambiguous result. It turns out that both realities can coexist even though they produce irreconcilable outcomes, just as Wigner predicted. That raises some fascinating questions that are forcing physicists to reconsider the nature of reality.
posted by GoblinHoney at 4:03 PM PST - 63 comments

This is a real world field comparison of (almost) all of the light machine guns of the First World War. It's a collaboration by Ian McCollum, previously, and Mae and Othais, of C&Rsenal, who contributed so much to the The Great War history channel. These guns are all over 100 years old and it won't be possible to shoot them much longer. To get started, Episode 01: Introduction [more inside]
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:44 PM PST - 6 comments

A new, very clever study seems to have finally solved the mystery of Zebra stripes.
posted by BadgerDoctor at 3:14 PM PST - 19 comments

Socrates in love: how the ideas of Aspasia of Miletus are at the root of Western philosophy. Armand D'Angour (@ArmandDAngour): "Where did Socrates, the foundational figure of Western philosophy, get the inspiration for his original ideas about truth, love, justice, courage and knowledge? New research I’ve conducted reveals that as a young man in 5th-century BC Athens, he came into contact with a fiercely intelligent woman, Aspasia of Miletus. I argue that her ideas about love and transcendence inspired him to formulate key aspects of his thought (as transmitted by Plato)." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 1:48 PM PST - 18 comments

On September 24th, 1980, a man wearing cowboy boots and carrying two brown suitcases entered Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. One suitcase held $777,000 in cash; the other was empty. After converting the money into chips, the man approached a craps table on the casino floor and put everything on the backline.

[cw: suicide]
posted by Etrigan at 1:24 PM PST - 27 comments

In keeping with today's NYT posting theme: On Ulysses - “The average intelligent reader will glean little or nothing from it … save bewilderment and a sense of disgust.”
posted by caddis at 1:23 PM PST - 26 comments

Critique of Pure Niceness: The trouble with the civility fetish [The Baffler] “In a world marked by profound, multifaceted, and still-worsening crisis, there is—or so the story goes—one big thing wrong with people, on both the left and the right alike. They are becoming increasingly hardened in their views, increasingly hostile to those who disagree. Amid all the urgency of our political situation, people are becoming unpleasantly, perhaps unsalvageably, uncivil. [...] And so, increasingly, the demand for civility is becoming a moral prescription—civility is seen as something good to aim at in itself—which means, in turn, that your capacity to practice it is a self-evident sign that you are a good person (even—or perhaps especially—if it’s toward a racist teenager on a pro-life march).”
posted by Fizz at 12:53 PM PST - 52 comments

How Elizabeth Hargrave turned a passion for ornithology and spreadsheets into a popular game about birds. By Siobhan Roberts at NY Times.
posted by bq at 12:50 PM PST - 11 comments

Fearing for His Life: Ramsey Orta filmed the killing of Eric Garner. The video traveled far, but it wouldn't get justice for his dead friend. Instead, the NYPD would exact their revenge through targeted harassment and eventually imprisonment — Orta's punishment for daring to show the world police brutality.
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:33 PM PST - 11 comments

Researchers announced last month that 2,000-year-old prickly pear cactus spines recently rediscovered in museum storage are the oldest known tattoo-making tool from western North America (LiveScience)(study full text). The ink-stained, pen-size tool (image), which was made by the Ancestral Pueblo people in what is now southeastern Utah, pushes back evidence of tattooing in western North America by more than 1,000 years. And now this month a new study reports that four tiny bone combs (image) found on the island of Tongatapu, Tonga are 2,700 year old, making them the world's oldest-known tattoo kits (Vice) (study full text). The combs (Youtube), which appear functionally similar (image) to contemporary flat (image) tattoo needles, are made of bird and human bone. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 12:32 PM PST - 2 comments

Between the Sheets: Christopher Perkins (YT, 124 min): Long-time designer for Dungeons and Dragons, Chris Perkins, sits down with Critical Role's Brian Foster, for an extended mutual interview/conversation on Chris's life from Cape Breton to Seattle, with detours into teaching and political speech writing, their respective creative processes, the importance of good writing, and how D&D and the TTRPG hobby has evolved in the last two decades.
posted by bonehead at 12:17 PM PST - 1 comment

Where in the Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (Link is to an article which links to the game. Game is Playable in Chrome, iOS and Android.)
posted by jacquilynne at 10:26 AM PST - 14 comments

Arrow of Time and its Reversal on IBM Quantum Computer "Uncovering the origin of the arrow of time remains a fundamental scientific challenge. Within the framework of statistical physics, this problem was inextricably associated with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which declares that entropy growth proceeds from the system’s entanglement with the environment ... Our findings break ground for investigations of the time reversal and the backward time flow in real quantum systems"
posted by Pericles at 9:31 AM PST - 13 comments

Conlanger David Peterson talks about how he created languages for HBO’s Game of Thrones on the Allusionist podcast (full transcript).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:16 AM PST - 26 comments

An engrossing memoir of a daughter for her complicated, distant father.
posted by bbrown at 8:50 AM PST - 2 comments

The other drama distracting Brits yesterday was in Pamela Stephenson Connolly's relationship column in The Guardian: “Five years ago, I went through a bi phase and used to sleep around with pretty much everyone that came along, including other men. This changed when I fell in love with my new partner, who is everything to me. I recently met her parents and halfway through lunch realised that I had slept with her father. I was going to propose, but when my partner and her mother were away, he told me to end it with his daughter. I’m obviously in love - shall I just ignore him, or tell my partner?” [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 8:13 AM PST - 81 comments

isitabombcyclone.com is here to answer one question about today's weather in Colorado. [more inside]
posted by asperity at 7:27 AM PST - 42 comments

Drew Magary was moved to the injured reserve list after falling and being hospitalized for a head injury this holiday season. Never one to disappoint though, Drew has come through (3 months late) with his annual Hater's Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog. [more inside]
posted by Sophie1 at 7:11 AM PST - 27 comments

Andrew Yang is running for the Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential candidate on the platform of Universal Basic Income, Medicare For All, and Human-Centered Capitalism. The Asian-American entrepreneur and founder of the nonprofit Venture for America, reached 65,000 unique donors on Monday, qualifying him for the first round of the Democratic primary debates. His signature UBI proposal, the Freedom Dividend, aims to give each American between the ages 18 to 64 a check of $1,000 a month to help with the oncoming economic disruption caused by automation, which he views as an imminent threat to society. Over the past month, with appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience and The Breakfast Club, Yang's exposure has increased dramatically, leading to a sudden intense online following, including on 4chan, Reddit, and other centers of meme-creation. Some of these meme creators, erstwhile supporters of Donald Trump and alt-right trolls, have become converts to the $1000-a-month pledge, and have joined the "Yang Gang", the campaign's grassroots following. A subset of the memes created reflected their far right views and have since been condemned strongly by the candidate himself, and efforts within the Yang Gang have been made towards. Despite this deplorable association, pundits ask: why is interest in Andrew Yang surging? [more inside]
posted by Apocryphon at 2:47 AM PST - 156 comments

In an interview with Vulture's Megh Wright, the comedian "also opened up about his decision to part ways with manager Dave Becky in late 2017 after the New York Times reported on Louis C.K.’s sexual misconduct, in which Becky, C.K.’s former manager, was accused of working to keep the women’s stories under wraps." [more inside]
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:48 PM PST - 9 comments

6 year old Avett Ray is a near-blind musician and singer. Here he covers Bohemian Rhapsody
posted by growabrain at 9:08 PM PST - 10 comments

Before current film piracy on BitTorrent or even the era of camcorder bootlegs, the FBI hunted for 35mm film pirates. Matt Novak of Gizmodo’s Paleofuture talks to a former movie pirate.
posted by larrybob at 8:28 PM PST - 9 comments

Hal Blaine, the studio drummer who lent his signature sounds and structure to scores of Grammy-winning and chart-topping songs — from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to the Byrds and the Beach Boys — died Monday at the age of 90. Blaine's family announced his death in a statement published to Facebook. Even if you think you don't know him, you know him. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:42 PM PST - 49 comments

Introducing the Whirly Dirly Corollary. Correcting the record about which planet is closest to Earth. (SLYT, science!)
posted by loquacious at 2:18 PM PST - 13 comments

Going beyond the Golden Ratio. You may have heard that the golden ratio is "the most irrational number" (and if you haven't, it's OK; the article explains all). But what's the second most irrational number? Well... in true clickbait fahion, I have to tell you that the third most irrational number will really surprise you.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:02 PM PST - 34 comments

The Ugly History of Beautiful Things, an ongoing series by Katy Kelleher: Pearls: Born from irritation and intrusion, luminous and complex, surprisingly durable: pearls are rich with symbolism and saturated with pain; Perfume: Sometimes it takes a touch of darkness to create something alluring; Angora: Angora rabbit fur is fluffy, and silky, and was especially popular with two influential 20th-century groups: Hollywood starlets and Nazi officers. (all links to Longreads) [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 11:17 AM PST - 3 comments

If you believe that Ceiba trees (Wikipedia) to be trees of life that connect the upper, middle and underworlds (Mayans and Tikal), or are just big, beautiful members of the ecological communities, seeing one so damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria as the one (Amherst Bulletin) on Vieques, Puerto Rico (Wiki) can be depressing. Good news! This island's most famous tree is once again growing new leaves, offering hope in its resilience (HuffPo via Atlas Obscura). Bonus link: Maya-Archaeology.org's overview of Sacred ceiba tree of life, the world tree of Maya religion and cosmology.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:56 AM PST - 5 comments

How did classical music in movies and television become synonymous with villainy? If you’re a character in a current police procedural or prime-time thriller, there are few more frightening, heart-stopping words than when a polite, clean-shaven man asks in a vaguely European accent, “Do you like Bach?”
posted by gusottertrout at 10:04 AM PST - 50 comments

Racketeering, wire fraud, and more "Federal authorities in Boston on Tuesday announced the indictments of dozens of people on charges related to an alleged scheme to get people into elite colleges and universities through purported, but not necessarily real, athletic talent....Two prominent actresses -- Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin -- are among those charged."
posted by Caxton1476 at 9:48 AM PST - 259 comments

Even Lil Pump Can’t Have It All, a profile of a successful young musician. "He pours more cough syrup into his fluorescent Fanta and then onto his steak while someone records him." [more inside]
posted by Nelson at 9:31 AM PST - 105 comments

It was around 11:30 p.m. Da’mon’s 21-year-old son, Da’mon Jr., whom Shantay had helped raise, would ordinarily have been home by then, after his bus ride across town from his evening shift working as a supply coordinator at Johns Hopkins Hospital. But he was nowhere to be seen. Da’mon Sr. rushed to the door and asked what was going on. “Dame’s been shot,” his brother said. (SLNYT)
posted by josher71 at 8:38 AM PST - 7 comments

Ye Olde World Wide Webbe (not the Internet which has different birthdays), said to have “emerged from a largely benevolent academic atmosphere”, reaches the grand age of thirty, during which time countless website have risen to dominance and fallen into obscurity. To celebrate, Tim is zipping between CERN, London and Nigeria. While browsers have developed, website designs have changed and unevenly more people get online, the underlying issues and uncertain futures perhaps remain. Take the quiz! (20th celebrations in 2009) finish with link to cats here
posted by Wordshore at 6:44 AM PST - 36 comments

Wikiwho: The game is, name the celebrity based on their Wikipedia table of contents. I got 24 out of 45, FWIW.
posted by Cash4Lead at 6:30 AM PST - 38 comments

Columbo is one of the most highly regarded and successful detective shows in the history of television, but somehow didn't turn a net profit until 2016, some 45 years after Peter Falk first donned the raincoat. In a rare courtroom result against the "Hollywood accounting" system, a jury has held that at least $160 million has been improperly deducted from Universal City Studios' admitted profits. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:16 AM PST - 31 comments

In 2014, frustrated by the lack of trans-inclusive kids' books, Shauna Gordon-McKeon wrote Super Princess Saves the Night, a book about a tiny trans/gender nonconforming superhero. After receiving "a bunch of nice form rejection letters" from publishers, Gordon-McKeon teamed up with illustrator Elena Popova and self-published, with all profits going to the Trans Women of Color Collective. Gordon-McKeon and TWOCC Executive Director Lourdes Ashley Hunter share more in an interview with Humanist Edge.
posted by duffell at 4:49 AM PST - 5 comments

A List Of All Kosher Pokémon [Tumblr post]
posted by readinghippo at 10:42 PM PST - 20 comments

Tonight, an appeal panel at Vanderbilt University found "no irregularities". in the reversal of #MeTooSTEM founder BethAnn McLaughlin's tenure recommendations. [more inside]
posted by Conspire at 7:00 PM PST - 55 comments

The beauty of the book in all its forms.
posted by cashman at 5:07 PM PST - 14 comments

One album changed pop music forever. Its confessional nature combined with brilliant songwriting [with composing partners Stephen Bray and Madonna's best ever partner Patrick Leonard] and a strong sense of the personal being universal, Madonna's album Like A Prayer [YT vinyl video, 53m, listen again like it's the first time!] burst apart all expectations about both her as an artist and pop music in general. March 2, 1989 saw the debut of Madonna's Pepsi commercial. March 3 saw the premiere of the music video for Like A Prayer, and the subsequent media storm helped drive the sales of the album, released on March 21, 1989 a few weeks later, through the roof. But nobody who bought the album the first week (sometimes nicknamed The Divorce Album) knew what to expect -- an introspective masterpiece (most of the vocals are first-take and unedited) full of pop hooks that would redefine pop music forever. The pachouli-scented vinyls and CDs also had an insert about AIDS prevention, something nearly unheard of in 1989. Side A: Like A Prayer [Blonde Ambition Tour performance, Live 8 (2005) performance, ridiculously extensive Wikipedia article about the song], Express Yourself [video (Ed note - there is a LOT going on in that video!), Live At The MTV Video Music Awards 1989, Blonde Ambition Tour performance, another ridiculous Wikipedia article], Love Song, Till Death Do Us Part, Promise To Try [video] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:54 PM PST - 46 comments

Confessions of an idle gamer [A.V. Club] “I have a confession, friends: I have clicked the cookie. [...] I have ground the realms, I have gleamed the cube of adventurous capitalism. I opened the candy box, I unleashed the hypnodrones, I idled my way through factories, painting galleries, and dungeons galore. Like some sort of bleary-eyed, carpal-tunneled foster father, I have raised trimps, kittens, penguins, alien bugs, and dozens of other adorable stand-ins for the hard reality of filling bars and steadily rising sums. In my darkest moments, I’ve even spent hours of my ostensibly precious life on games that don’t even bother to cloak their mechanisms behind some kind of cutesy conceit, serving as little more than a series of bars that steadily, inexorably go up. Very little of it has been fun in any traditional sense, and much of it has arrived with a grim sense of confinement and compulsion. But I’ve done it.”
posted by Fizz at 4:43 PM PST - 30 comments

How the Far Right Perverts Ancient History—And Why It Matters. Author and historian Myke Cole (@MykeCole) writes in the Daily Beast (formerly behind a paywall) on the political right-wing appropriation of classical antiquity: "It may seem silly to argue about the interpretation of events that unfolded thousands of years ago. But those ideas are having life-and-death consequences in America today." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 2:40 PM PST - 41 comments

Alternative Math, a short film: A well meaning math teacher finds herself trumped by a post-fact America
posted by growabrain at 12:39 PM PST - 41 comments

Last month J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham, Ph.D. (or "Dr. J.") shared her "10 Commandments" on Twitter, or as one put it: "nailed her core values to the Twitter wall." Now read her essay "I am STILL not the Diversity Police". Dr. J. is a college professor, scholar, writer, and equity and inclusion strategist currently serving as the first-ever Diversity Ambassador for the Brewers Association. [more inside]
posted by exogenous at 12:08 PM PST - 8 comments

CrackerMilk is a group of comedians from Australia. They make sub 30-second "Tiny Videos For Tiny Minds," about topics such as musical chairs, pillow fighting, feminine beauty, and a special musical how to drive a car. (Some videos contain profanity.)
posted by CrunchyFrog at 12:01 PM PST - 4 comments

The elasticity (aka stretchiness) of knitted fabrics is an emergent property: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. How those components (strands of yarn) are arranged at an intermediate scale (the structure) determines the macro scale properties of the resulting fabric.
posted by clew at 11:17 AM PST - 7 comments

The Oldest American Picture Book Still In Print Is Obviously About Cats: Happy birthday to Wanda Gág, a free-thinking, sex-positive leftist, artist and lithographer who designed her own clothes, translated fairy tales, and wrote and illustrated Millions of Cats. More on her amazing life previously.
posted by not_the_water at 11:01 AM PST - 14 comments

There are a number of ways to react to learning that a musician or artist has done bad things. On one hand, SNL’s’ Pete Davidson, speaking on listening to Michael Jackson and R. Kelly: ‘You Just Have to Admit They’re Bad People’ and donate money to a good, related cause (Variety). On the other, you have a significant movement to #MuteRKelly and stop playing his songs on the radio (Complex), and six things you should do instead of listening to R. Kelly's (new) song (Dazed Digital)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:44 AM PST - 86 comments

“The core question: is a politics of rejecting industrialism realistic given material conditions? Is it scientific in Engels’s sense? I will argue that this anti-industrial vision of ecosocialism is “unscientific”: its vision of the future is based in a romantic rejection of the material conditions that confront us.“ Ecosocialism: Dystopian and Scientific - On March 15, the Climate Kids Are Coming: A massive, international, youth-led mobilization will demand action on the climate crisis. (The Nation) “Remarkably, the US’ historically high percentage of federal spending during World War II would put it at the low end of present-day spending in Europe.” The Green New Deal Needs WWII-Scale Ambition - “So American workers are getting smacked in the head by a vicious federal administration, and the conservation groups are over in La La Land, trying to figure out 10 years later why they can’t implement the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Neither of those laws have ever been fully implemented, ever.” Meeting the Standard : Jane McAlevey On the strained relation between unions and environmentalists, the limits of narrative change, and a winning strategy for a Green New Deal.
posted by The Whelk at 10:28 AM PST - 40 comments

Life at work in Bell Labs in 1969

I spent a couple of years as Operations Manager at a Bell Labs data center in Oakland, CA developing what was the a state of the art database search system. One day I brought a camera to work and this was the result.

(via Kottke.org)
posted by octothorpe at 10:20 AM PST - 34 comments

Mind-motions: "thoughts that are hardly even thoughts at all, that don’t rise to the level of sharing with another human being. That millisecond when — again and again — a rusty pipe looks like an owl, or a newscaster’s voice reminds you of a long-gone uncle, or a daily routine sets off a small chain of involuntary associations. These things are almost nothing, and yet they are who we are." [SLNYT]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:26 AM PST - 12 comments

What happens when you need an actual person to give bad news? Telemedicine has given rural areas access to medical care while giving doctors the opportunity to provide care without a long commute. People need to see and speak to actual people sometimes.
posted by Yellow at 3:38 AM PST - 38 comments

The Top Secret Feminist History of Tearooms: As a young girl, I read books like the Nancy Drew mysteries—the characters were always popping into tea rooms for lunch. To a modern reader, tea rooms conjured visions of crumpets and china, but when the books were published (the first in 1930), mentioning a tea room was meant to communicate to the reader that Nancy and her friends were independent women who could eat out without a man to escort them. While most women think nothing of dining out without a man now, tea rooms played a major role in bringing about this phenomenon. (SL JSTOR Daily)
posted by frumiousb at 12:14 AM PST - 28 comments

How Much Of The Unobservable Universe Will We Someday Be Able To See? - "Light that was once too far away from us to be seen can now catch up to us. This fact carries with it a huge implication for the Universe: over time, galaxies that were once too distant to be revealed to us will spontaneously come into view." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 10:10 PM PST - 25 comments

The Politics of the McElroy Brothers is an in-depth analysis of The McElroys, by Sarah Zedig. [more inside]
posted by meese at 6:22 PM PST - 68 comments

Mustafa Yasar makes (among other things) homemade pinball machines. They don't have blinking lights, sound effects, scoring over two digits or powered playfield gimmicks. But they do have multiball. (Found from ausretrogamer's Twitter.)
posted by JHarris at 1:25 PM PST - 13 comments

What Made Super Mario Bros. Level 8-3 So Good [Kotaku] “In World 8-3 — the penultimate level of Super Mario Bros. for the NES — Mario makes his final push towards Bowser’s castle. This level is a mini-masterpiece in a classic game and tells a small but important story through its gameplay. There are eight worlds in Super Mario Bros., each composed of four levels. For Worlds 1 through 7, the first three levels of each world have checkpoints midway through. But World 8 does away with that. You must complete 8-1, 8-2, and 8-3, each in a single, straight shot to advance. [...] In 8-3, running from your most feared enemies will make you ill-prepared for greater challenges ahead. The shortest way is not the best way. You have to stand up and defeat enemies that would be easier to avoid. You struggle at the beginning of the level to save yourself a whole lot of trouble at the end. Your courage pays off.” [YouTube][World 8-3]
posted by Fizz at 1:00 PM PST - 17 comments

The Daily Beast: Trump Diehards Create Their Own Yelp for MAGA-Friendly Restaurants. If you find yourself constantly afraid of being shouted at while trying to have a nice dinner out with your fellow Conservatives while drinking Liberal Tears, then there's an app for that. [more inside]
posted by snortasprocket at 12:56 PM PST - 86 comments

It's that time of year again: time for the Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team. Let's hit it, kids. [more inside]
posted by Gray Duck at 9:16 AM PST - 27 comments

Sabine Rouas is over the moon about the talent and fame of what was once a little bonus bull calf she named Aston. [more inside]
posted by drlith at 8:59 AM PST - 9 comments

This obscure 1969 documentary on the making of Japanese swords, narrated by George Takei, is a fascinating look at the exhaustive process of forging samurai swords. It also focuses on the importance of swords in Japanese culture, from the legend of Grasscutter to the philosophy that the samurai's sword is a reflection of his soul. (via the Internet Archive) [more inside]
posted by Gelatin at 7:24 AM PST - 15 comments

Home Grown Veg is a youtube channel by an unnamed gardener and his border collie Molly. Our gardener hero is an intrepid experimentalist and an avid upcycler. But Molly is a keen consumer of fresh vegetables. Watch her pay rapt attention to the "unboxing" of a carrot harvest, sample various other crops (after a watering-can bath!), try out a brussels sprout, and do some harvesting on her own. [more inside]
posted by janell at 9:56 PM PST - 15 comments

Give It Up - a song by Mal Webb [more inside]
posted by moonmilk at 7:16 PM PST - 10 comments

A Gaudi muaß sein (ORF, 1982) [more inside]
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 6:23 PM PST - 18 comments

The Quality Without A Name at the Betsy Ross Museum, Sarah Perry, Ribbonfarm:

Here I will present some of the components of Alexander’s Quality Without a Name (sometimes called by other woo-sounding synonyms like “wholeness”), with reference to new and old art forms. Alexander was obsessed with Turkish carpets (those same carpets that W. Somerset Maugham hints hold the secret of life in Of Human Bondage) and often uses examples from his collection to illustrate the Quality Without a Name. I have much more experience with lace knitting, twitter, and haiku than with rugs, and will use examples from those domains. Finally, I will try to show how Alexander’s theory of beauty and wholeness fit with information theory and the nature of intelligence.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:58 PM PST - 15 comments

Can You Pet the Dog? (@CanYouPetTheDog) [Twitter] “Whether out on the sidewalk, at a party in somebody’s house, or fleeing from a pack of wild dogs, what’s your first instinct—as a rational, sound-minded human being—upon meeting a dog? That’s right: you want to pet it. Video games are meant to let us fulfill our wildest fantasies, and yet, many of them won’t grant us that simple wish. One hero has taken to chronicling every game that lets you pet dogs—and those that don’t. Each entry gets straight to the point, saying whether or not you can pet a dog in a particular game and providing visual evidence.” [via: Kotaku]
posted by Fizz at 12:32 PM PST - 63 comments

According to Bierling, there have been a few cases of dogs at Everest Base Camp (17,600 feet) and some who’ve followed teams through the Khumbu Icefall up to Camp II (21,300 feet), but this is perhaps the highest-recorded elevation ever reached by a dog anywhere in the world. [more inside]
posted by irrelephant at 11:43 AM PST - 20 comments

Engineer Foone Turing looks at how pushing limits leads to failure.

The Challenger disaster wasn’t a single mistake or flaw or random chance that resulted in the death of 7 people and the loss of a 2 billion dollar spaceship. It was a whole series of mistakes and flaws and coincidences over a long time and at each step they figured they could get away with it because they figured the risks were minimal and they had plenty of engineering overhead. And they were right, most of the time…

[more inside]
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:55 AM PST - 40 comments

A spontaneous dance party and sing along broke out on the subway last night after the Robyn concert at Madison Square Garden.(last link youtube, NSFW) Of course there is previous Robyn coverage.
posted by vespabelle at 10:53 AM PST - 11 comments

In 2017, an uncovered toy theft ruptured the Star Wars collecting community. Two years later, the collectors—and the convicted—are still looking for a way forward.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:30 AM PST - 29 comments

The rise of Aldi and Lidl in the UK, though sometimes confusing or delighting, brought with it continental treats and the now-famous middle aisle. Otherwise known as the 'aisle of wonder' or the 'aisle of shite', this is where random items are stocked high and sold cheap. Go in for cheese, come out with an inflatable kayak (which was very popular). You can find the German Bob the builder, a toilet paper gun called "Skid Shot", triathlon clothing, fragranced pillows, something what is this is it edible, inflatable kangaroos, portable toilets, LED shower heads, wheelbarrow wheels, and discount underwear. But it's not just in the UK; randomness can be found as far as Australia...
posted by Wordshore at 8:07 AM PST - 94 comments

Argosy University (a collection of schools including American School of Professional Psychology, the Medical Institute of Minnesota, and the University of Sarasota) managed by Dream Center Education Holidings shuttered its doors (NYT) on 3/9/2019. (WP) [more inside]
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:51 AM PST - 21 comments

Yo La Tengo are once again playing requests for pledges beginning at 3pm US EDT TODAY (Sat March 9) on WFMU. Every year, Yo La Tengo perform requests live on-air in exchange for pledges, to help keep freeform noncommercial radio station WFMU (91.1 FM in Jersey City, NJ) on the air. This year is no exception. They will begin playing at 3pm US EDT today, and will be playing listener requests for several more hours.
posted by trashflow at 7:30 AM PST - 24 comments

"On the morning of August 15, 1980, he sat in his security truck staring at several bags of money that contained over $7 million. He asked himself the same question again: 'Do I feel lucky?' [some photos NSFW] [more inside]
posted by litlnemo at 2:22 AM PST - 25 comments

The Chemical Brothers - We've Got To Try (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by subocoyne at 11:08 PM PST - 11 comments

Unlike most domesticated species, cats are actually increasing in size, Danish scientists warn. (Full-text article).
posted by Vesihiisi at 9:28 PM PST - 48 comments

I want to tell Jeffrey that there’s something happening here, something of significance beyond what, to an untrained eye, would look like the exact Sodom-and-Gomorrah vision my old football coach in Texas has in mind four beers in at the bar, when he rails against those coastal elites in San Francisco doing their queer hedonistic liberal shenanigans and sticking doodads up their butts. But what, exactly? (Ahmed Kabil, Medium) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:32 PM PST - 18 comments

The Banality of Empathy "The slippage between emotional empathy and the good in our public discourse also presumes that when we do feel the suffering of others, we are prompted to relieve it. But this is not always true. Sometimes, we just want it to go away."

An essay that begins with the watching of Netflix's Bandersnatch leads into a discussion about the idea of empathy in morality, Arendt's interpretations of Kantian aesthetics, and the virtue of diversity in art.
posted by General Malaise at 6:01 PM PST - 17 comments

YouTube channel that has interesting discussions of defense topics: Why Does the US Not Have Supersonic Anti-Ship Missiles? Electronic Warfare - The Unseen Battlefield. Are Aircraft Carriers Becoming Useless? They seem well researched and they avoid politics.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:50 PM PST - 15 comments

"The day before their Oct. 26 arrest, the brothers bought a blue 1967 Buick Skylark. Although they didn't have legal documents for the car, the brothers planned to drive it to Mexico without having to stop at any U.S. gas stations."
posted by eviemath at 3:48 PM PST - 56 comments

Lindsay Ellis: How YouTube Made a Star Out of This Super-Smart Film Critic.
posted by Pendragon at 3:43 PM PST - 16 comments

From the dawn of motoring through the 1920s, cars were painted in a full spectrum of colours, often in vivid combinations. The world’s first motor vehicle, the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen was green, with its fully-exposed engine finished in bright red. At the Villa d’Este or Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance one sees a veritable riot of colour that would likely be a bit shocking to today’s consumers: black with orange, yellow with orange, dark and light blue, dark and light green, red with blue, maroon with red; the palette was limitless.
posted by Lanark at 2:24 PM PST - 33 comments

All this week, The Ringer will break down its findings from the massive database of reports spanning 1991 to 2003 given to us by a former member of the Cincinnati Reds front office. Ben Lindbergh: Name a pro player from 1991-2003 or an amateur player from 98-03. I'll tell you what a scout said.
posted by Think_Long at 1:22 PM PST - 6 comments

US Olympian Adam Rippon's sultry figure skating routine is showcased in this recently released cover of '80s hit "The Promise." A New Wave hit in 1988, When in Rome's original song receives new life with this cover, a collaboration between Rippon and musical duo Superfruit (Pentatonix's Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying).
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:16 PM PST - 28 comments

‘Yelling, Screaming, Almost Fisticuffs’ ...Over House Paint? [The New York Times] “His choices have been uncontroversial — his paintings have sold for more than $1 million each — until last summer, when he went a shade too far on one of his own homes. Mr. Scully, 73, specified Gold Zinger paint (from Valspar) for his turreted house built in the 1980s in Snedens Landing, an enclave in the hamlet of Palisades, N.Y., on the Hudson River’s western shore about 20 miles north of Manhattan. In an oversight, his team did not file for paint color approval permits required by the local government’s Historical Areas Board of Review. At the board’s December meeting, some emotions ran high as the public debated whether Gold Zinger should be allowed to remain on the house.”
posted by Fizz at 11:55 AM PST - 109 comments

On the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro during its world famous Carnival, far from the beach and the touristic clichés, there is an explosive contest between neighbourhoods. This old form of carnival features teams of futuristic gladiators that are a surreal mixture of play and menace. A tradition that has its roots in ancient European carnival traditions and in African rituals, they look like visitors from another planet. [...] A love letter to Brazil, in all of its beauty and all of its pain, this film is a joyous celebration and battle cry from the heart of Rio's forgotten neighbourhoods. This is the Rio Carnival that you have never seen before. This is Bate Bola. (YouTube, 16 minutes; Beija Films Bate Bola webpage) [via Atlas Obscura] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:23 AM PST - 1 comment

An homage to grandmothers around the world. Photographer Gabriele Galimberti took photos of grandmothers in their kitchens, alongside their prized recipes. [more inside]
posted by Rora at 10:54 AM PST - 15 comments

A 6-year-old boy who didn't receive childhood vaccinations nearly died after contracting tetanus in what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is Oregon's first pediatric case But, even after contracting a life-threatening infection that might have been prevented by a vaccine, his family stood firm on their anti-vax stance. "Despite extensive review of the risks and benefits of tetanus vaccination by physicians, the family declined the second dose of DTaP and any other recommended immunizations," the case report states. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 10:51 AM PST - 74 comments

A man threatened to sue a technology magazine for using his image in a story (previously on the blue) about why all hipsters look the same, only to find out the picture was of a completely different guy. SLCBC
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:21 AM PST - 44 comments

Here’s A Simple Trick For Anyone Who Finds Eye Contact Too Intense. tl;dr: Look at the person's mouth region. The perception of eye contact is driven by the other person looking in the general direction of your face, not into your eyes specifically. Study PDF, press release. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 10:14 AM PST - 30 comments

Thousands of New Millionaires Are About to Eat San Francisco Alive. SF is already known for having some of the highest rents in the US (although some would disagree, it's still solidly in ridiculous territory). It's long been well known that you can make six figures and still be low income, and that it's cheaper to rent than buy here. Studies confirm that thanks to the expected IPO spate this year, it's about to get worse for those not benefiting from an influx of cash.
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:51 AM PST - 15 comments

Warren: It’s time to break up Amazon, Google and Facebook.
posted by Artw at 8:35 AM PST - 143 comments

Many of the automobile’s social costs originate in the individual preferences of consumers, but an overlooked amount is encouraged—indeed enforced—by law. Yes, the U.S. is car-dependent by choice. But it is also car-dependent by law. Long article by Greg Shill on hidden subsidies for driving across every area of law, summarized by Angie Schmitt (Streetsblog USA).
posted by asperity at 7:57 AM PST - 22 comments

I am now 38. I live in a rented house in Pittsboro, N.C., with my wife, my two daughters and my dog. I try to be kind. I try not to hurt people. And though I have just told you all the things I know with certainty about that day in September in Tal Afar, Iraq, when I was 24, I’m still not sure what it means. I don’t know if my being there in that place and at that time makes me a bad person, but on most days I think it means I do not get to claim to be a good one. Kevin Powers writes for the New York Times on the moral clarity of Slaughterhouse-five fifty years after its publication.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:05 AM PST - 9 comments

Two decades ago, the US intelligence community worked closely with Silicon Valley in an effort to track citizens in cyberspace. And Google is at the heart of that origin story.
posted by infini at 6:21 AM PST - 9 comments

In search of the Brocken spectre - a photo essay about visiting Burley Moor in Yorkshire to get a glimpse of an unusual optical illusion in the fog.
posted by Stark at 4:02 AM PST - 11 comments

Gary Gygax died on March 4, 2008. That's when things really started getting complicated.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:34 PM PST - 51 comments

Chimpanzees Are Going Through a Tragic Loss: By fragmenting forests and killing off individuals, humans are stopping the flow of ideas among our closest relatives. "Imagine that an alien species landed on Earth and, through their mere presence, those aliens caused our art to vanish, our music to homogenize, and our technological know-how to disappear. That is effectively what humans have been doing to our closest relatives—chimpanzees." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 8:36 PM PST - 9 comments

In case you missed the news in the latest journal of the British Tarantula Society, a rather lovely new spider with iridescent, electric-blue legs has been discovered. The burrow-dwelling spider [Birupes simoroxigorum] has reportedly been “feted by experts as one of the most beautiful spiders ever documented”, prompting the question: what are the other most beautiful spiders ever documented?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:08 PM PST - 14 comments

As Mildenberger points out, this isn't a case where a terrible person had some great ideas that outlived them: Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons was a piece of intellectual fraud committed in service to his racist, eugenicist ideology. 600 words from Cory Doctorow indicating serious problems with Garret Hardin's work and reputation. [more inside]
posted by cgc373 at 8:00 PM PST - 45 comments

The Guardian: The controversial artist talks about his latest exhibition, how his feelings on Trump have changed and why he has stopped drawing women. Don’t miss his anti-Trump strip from 1989.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:32 PM PST - 58 comments

A group of trackers on the flanks of Aconcagua in Argentina experienced a spectacular debris flow. It starts slowly, but hang in there!
posted by growabrain at 4:14 PM PST - 20 comments

The State Department has published its annual (for 2017) list of declared gifts to federal employees from foreign governments. [more inside]
posted by ApathyGirl at 4:02 PM PST - 18 comments

How My Southeast L.A. Culture Got to Japan, alt youtube link: Inside Japan’s Chicano Subculture. [more inside]
posted by peeedro at 2:33 PM PST - 3 comments

A little dog in Japan chased the Google Streetview car and ended up thoroughly documented on the map. Street View dogs previously on metafilter
posted by moonmilk at 2:02 PM PST - 17 comments

Why Self-Checkout Is and Has Always Been the Worst For every automated appliance or system that actually makes performing a task easier—dishwashers, ATMs, robotic factory arms, say—there seems to be another one—self-checkout kiosks, automated phone menus, mass email marketing—that actively makes our lives worse. I’ve taken to calling this second category, simply, shitty automation. [more inside]
posted by box at 1:56 PM PST - 157 comments

In which 92 year old Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor uses an Ipad to post a picture to the fam Instagram account. The picture is of a letter written in 1843 to her great-great-grandfather. Her family use HTML, and are also active on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube; other European royals also use social media. One requests you interact with the House of Windsor in this manner, while Her Majesty has previously knighted a web designer. Meanwhile, the gang of four (the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex)(okay; William, Kate, Harry and Meghan) have their own twitter account, while Beatrice tweets and Eugenie Instagrams, and the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall also indulge. This is (possibly) not Her Majesty's twitter account.
posted by Wordshore at 1:02 PM PST - 15 comments

"One day last June, two researchers were towing a special sonar system up and down the Hudson River near Hyde Park, New York, the site of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home, when they saw something pleasantly shocking." They had spotted a 14-foot sturgeon via side-scan sonar imaging. Sturgeon were once so plentiful in the Hudson they were referred to as "Albany beef." The discovery of a 14-foot specimen in the river is an encouraging sign in what is otherwise a dire outlook for certain sturgeon populations.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:57 PM PST - 17 comments

Simon Willison heard you like copies of dogs, so he commissioned a replica oil painting of a photo of Barbra Streisand's dogs looking at the grave of the dog from which they were both cloned.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 11:17 AM PST - 21 comments

• “Bulls on Parade” • “Wake Up” • “Killing in the Name” • “Maggie's Farm” • “Testify” • “Guerilla Radio” • “Bullet in the Head” • “Know Your Enemy” • “Sleep Now in the Fire” • “Freedom” • “Bombtrack”
posted by Fizz at 11:16 AM PST - 14 comments

Luke Hagerty, standing 6-foot-7 and throwing left-handed, was unique, and he could throw a 94 mph fastball. The Chicago Cubs chose him with the 32nd pick in the first round of the 2002 draft and gave him more than $1 million to sign, in his junior year of college. Then he got the yips, and faded from baseball. Later, he trained other young pitchers, then he trained himself, and started working with Dr. Debbie Crews, who studied the brains of golfers (Golf Science Lab article + podcast), another sport where players might get the yips. It's all part of 37-year-old pitcher Luke Hagerty's improbable comeback story (Jeff Passan, ESPN).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:15 AM PST - 13 comments

"29. We need you to understand that we don't intend to upset you with what seem like failures to you. We don't mean to let you down. When you have ADHD it's like seeing what you want in a glass case you don't have access to. We want to accomplish so much, we just need the keys." Yashar Ali talks about what it's like to live with ADHD as an adult in a twitter thread (link to twitter moment).
posted by lunasol at 10:24 AM PST - 51 comments

Painter, performance artist, filmmaker, feminist, major figure of the avant-garde. [more inside]
posted by brookeb at 9:17 AM PST - 18 comments

“One person last February invited members to help build a national College Republicans Discord server, which would be run by Identity Evropa members, who were told not to use “overtly alt right usernames of profile pics.” Some members said they were either current lawyers or plan to attend law schools in an effort to provide legal support to the group, while at least a dozen people said they are currently or formerly in the military. One member asked, “What are our long range goals? Other than taking over the GOP and spreading white identity? What is the end goal for IE?” Unicorn Riot is releasing more than 770,000 messages from chat servers associated with Identity Evropa. This is the first report in a series about this large US-based neo-Nazi organization. (CW: antisemitism Neo-Nazism, hate speech and images) Leaked Discord Chats Show Plan By Alt-Right To Infiltrate Local GOP (Splinter) Chats Outline Plot To Keep Steve King Elected (Washington Post)
posted by The Whelk at 9:10 AM PST - 42 comments

From the realm of fanvid creations (previously: [1], [2], [3]), a meditation on men offering their help to women. I think of this vid as being about male privilege, and celebrating the moments in film/tv when we see cis men leveraging their privilege on behalf of women. I love all of these relationships because they seem largely bereft of toxic masculinity in a wonderful way.
posted by sciatrix at 8:42 AM PST - 18 comments

A New Americanism: Why a Nation Needs a National Story - "The origin of the language we speak carries us to India; our religion is from Palestine; of the hymns sung in our churches, some were first heard in Italy, some in the deserts of Arabia, some on the banks of the Euphrates; our arts come from Greece; our jurisprudence from Rome." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:48 AM PST - 8 comments

With 22 days to go, Britain is unprepared for any kind of Brexit and unable to decide which way to turn, with May's government operating under a cloak of secrecy and considering prolonging the indecision if parliament's second vote on her Withdrawal Agreement fails next week. The endless Brexit lies have left us in an Orwellian nightmare, with some MPs receiving death threats every single day. Now new lies are doing the rounds of social media, as questionable money buys who knows what amount of under-the-radar campaigning in advance of a possible second referendum. Bookmakers, though, consider the odds of a second referendum to be worse than those of No Deal (5/1 versus 4/1 respectively), with the odds of the latter shortening. [more inside]
posted by rory at 5:00 AM PST - 558 comments

'From the 16th century , a whole host of brilliant women practiced their music within the confines of [secluded convents in Lombardy]. Strong-willed abbess Chiara Margarita Cozzolani believed so much in her nuns' right to compose and make music that she defended them before the archbishop, while Isabella Leonarda wrote everything from motets and psalm settings to sacred concertos.' {radio program, 1hr. 7 pieces by 6 women composing classical music in Lombardy from 16th C to now} [more inside]
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 4:52 AM PST - 7 comments

Professors Seamus Perry and Mark Ford have an occasional series in the London Review of Books podcast where they go through the life and work of a single poet. So far they’ve discussed W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith, and Wallace Stevens. In the latest episode they are joined by Joanna Biggs for a discussion of Sylvia Plath.
posted by Kattullus at 4:17 AM PST - 8 comments

Police logs of Port Townsend. (SLYT, very safe for work.)
posted by loquacious at 10:51 PM PST - 19 comments

James Lunch was a working class Chicago diner in the 1950s & 60s. One of its patrons, a man named Paulson, was something of a cartoonist & frequently gave the owner a cartoon in lieu of payment for his tab. The owner passed these on to his son who now shares them with us on Twitter. They're a snapshot of a time & a place; witty, irreverent, all evocative of a hardscrabble life in the big city.
posted by scalefree at 10:33 PM PST - 8 comments

Spritestack.io lets you draw and share pixel art brought into the third dimension by stacking image slices.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:51 PM PST - 3 comments

Tingeling is a cat in Oslo. Sometimes he wonders—as do we all—what is the purpose of existence. Find more of him and his buddy Tussetroll on Instagram. [h/t Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:43 PM PST - 12 comments

Fast-Acting Depression Drug, Newly Approved, Could Help Millions
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:39 PM PST - 73 comments

"When a train starts running from one station to the next station, conceptually, these two stations will temporarily be closer to each other. And that is exactly what this visualization shows: whenever a train moves to the next station — and only for as long as a train is moving — the origin station moves towards the destination station. The faster the train, the closer it moves to its destination. " - Jan Willem creates a shifting, flowing, almost-alive rail map of The Netherlands. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:27 PM PST - 25 comments

In a video to his fans and show watchers, longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek announces publicly that he is undergoing treatment for stage 4 pancreatic cancer. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:06 PM PST - 47 comments

"An extremely steep step felled nearly every member of a Nova Scotia minor hockey team, with each wee leap to the ice ending in a boy-sized pile."
posted by ChuraChura at 2:36 PM PST - 17 comments

Why people need to stop throwing cheese slices at babies' faces [more inside]
posted by peeedro at 1:31 PM PST - 80 comments

Why does feedback rarely do what it's meant to? The Harvard Business Review's cover article tackles the current state of feedback, and suggests a better way. [more inside]
posted by rebent at 12:54 PM PST - 33 comments

The game Anthem, a loot shooter developed by Bioware for EA, promised to be a game-changer, as it were, for a company known better for the role-playing aspects of game series such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Bioware had high hopes for the game, which was code-named "Dylan" while in production because they hoped that it would be as revolutionary in the game world as Bob Zimmerman was in music. The game debuted last month, to mixed reviews(PS4, XBox One), with a range of complaints (list on Kotaku); the latest one is that the game would seem to not only crash, but actually brick the PS4 console in some cases. (Although there is apparently a fix.) [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:10 AM PST - 62 comments

Time to give rise to the rugged woman [Eurogamer] “How is it that it's perfectly okay and completely acceptable for a man to age and remain cool and for a woman it's seen as a lot more unattractive and uncool? Older men are continuously embraced for their rugged, rough-around-the-edges gruff looks and tough-as-nails demeanor and always seem to be leading man material for video games. I can't help but notice an absence of older female protagonists in video games and the invisibility of an entire generation. It's been deeply indoctrinated into our culture and society that as a woman, when you get older and mature you run out of fuel and you have less importance and less relevance.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:56 AM PST - 19 comments

Pocket [NSFW] is an 18min fictional short film meant to be watched on a phone. Here's Vimeo's write up on it after choosing it as a pick of the week.
posted by dobbs at 10:24 AM PST - 10 comments

From this twitter thread (“...what has been YOUR happiest gaming memory?”). @Jorden1506 recalls “Getting called out of bed (age of 6) because my mother couldn't get the golden banana in Donkey Kong 64” while @deana_isabel remembers “Being able to kick ass with the fam playing guitar hero band. I'd play guitar, my mom would sing and my sister would play drums!” and @andybrammall replies “Halo ODST - Driving around in a Warthog with my daughter Kathryn on the chaingun on the back”. Also @Paul_ASwift: “Saving the Gobbos on Croc”, @scottnicklin93: “Playing Super Mario 64 while my grandad helped me gain all 120 stars”, and @sennydreadful: “One of my earliest memories is of staying up late watching my mum play Pitfall on what must have been my brother's Atari...”
posted by Wordshore at 10:10 AM PST - 53 comments

The first trailer for Amazon's adaptation of "Good Omens" has arrived.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:19 AM PST - 39 comments

Freddie Prinze Jr. Deserves Better Than ONE “Fresh” Movie on Rotten Tomatoes
posted by Etrigan at 9:19 AM PST - 36 comments

China Will Likely Corner the 5G Market—and the US Has No Plan -- in which Susan Crawford, an Ideas contributor for WIRED, a professor at Harvard Law School, and author of Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution—and Why America Might Miss It (Yale Books), outlines how the U.S. can respond to impacts from China's Belt and Road Initiative (Wikipedia), which will include a fiber-optic silk road (The Diplomat) that "will allow China to do this across huge territories that 65 percent of the global population calls home" and allow Huawei, Now World’s Largest Telecom Equipment-Maker (Caixin), to set new global standards. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:57 AM PST - 30 comments

“We have been living in Robert Moses’ New York for almost a century, and it is time to move on." Following years of MTA corruption, delays, stagnation, mismanagement, accidents, and scandals, NYC Speaker Corey Johnson delivers a bold solution: Give NYC Control Of The Subways, Five Questions raised By Speaker Johnson’s proposal, this is about “breaking car culture”, the entire 104 page PDF. Maybe a proposed Wall Street tax could help?
posted by The Whelk at 8:48 AM PST - 9 comments

2,650' rappel off El Capitan (SLYT)
posted by bondcliff at 8:33 AM PST - 35 comments

You may have your mom's smile, but do you also have your older brother's DNA? Tim Flannery reviews Carl Zimmer's She Has Her Mother's Laugh, with fascinating insights into heredity, chimerism, and mosaicism. In January, the NYR also interviewed Jennifer Doudna, who discovered CRISPR and grapples with its implications.
posted by Hypatia at 8:07 AM PST - 9 comments

"Modern Elder Academy is aimed at workers in the digital economy — those who feel like software is speeding up while they are slowing down, no matter how old they really are." - Nellie Bowles, New York Times.
posted by Katemonkey at 7:48 AM PST - 21 comments

Three levels of controversy over MMT - "Economics debates are often passionate, and frequently become too personal. But MMT debates are stuck on infinite recursion, and they take place in a thunderdrome entirely their own." (also btw: MMT streetfighting, MMT stabilization policy — some comments & critiques, The MMT solvency constraint, Translating "net financial assets", A note on model risk, policy design, and political alliances and Because the stakes are so small?)*
posted by kliuless at 7:42 PM PST - 51 comments

Neven Mrgan collects blue-collar logos: a Twitter thread
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:00 PM PST - 54 comments

Animal with an anus that comes and goes could reveal how ours evolved. The Warty Comb Jelly only has an anus when it needs to poop. The rest of the time, it disappears.
posted by moonmilk at 5:35 PM PST - 73 comments

Paul Calder Le Roux, the "digital El Chapo," possible creator of popular encryption program TrueCrypt, and international criminal mastermind, has been testifying for the prosecution and working on behalf of the USA since his arrest and extradition in 2012. A Drug Kingpin Ran His Empire from a Laptop, Then Snitched on His Own Assassins [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:00 PM PST - 21 comments

Buddy Guy Is Keeping the Blues Alive [more inside]
posted by peeedro at 1:23 PM PST - 11 comments

More than three quarters of Lake Superior is covered in ice right now, making this an above average winter for ice on the lake. Superior is vast, containing about 10 per cent of the world's fresh surface water, and it rarely comes close to a complete freeze-over. But years where more complete freezing takes place, like 2014, allow for increased access to the spectacular ice caves that form along the Apostle Islands and other shoreline locations. It can be a tight squeeze, and caution is warranted. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:07 PM PST - 9 comments

In the 1970s and 80s, Mogadishu's airwaves were filled with Somali funk, disco, soul and reggae, but after the brutal civil war began, musicians fled to all corners of the world, and the scene came to an end. This short Guardian video tells the story of some of the original musicians keeping Somali music alive today.
posted by carter at 12:34 PM PST - 2 comments

The trailer for the final season of Game of Thrones has arrived.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:02 PM PST - 79 comments

"Are the eggplants $1.39 or $1.59? Are those zucchini or cucumbers? Is the guy in the background, with the blue helmet, a friend or neighbour? I couldn't say." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 10:18 AM PST - 48 comments

The estate of Prince Rogers Nelson, aka Prince, aka The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, aka [hollow circle above downward arrow crossed with a curlicued horn-shaped symbol and then a short bar] has collaborated with GIPHY to produce an official archive of GIFs drawn from (nearly) all his music videos. [more inside]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:29 AM PST - 27 comments

In doughnut (US: donut) news, today is Fat Day or Shrove Tuesday, apparently a pagan festival but more recently “a time of great gluttony, surfeiting and drunkenness”. Sounds great, so let's toss some pancakes, or consume some küchle or some fastnachts, or perhaps some semla in Sweden or split pea soup in Estonia but green pea soup and Laskiaispulla across the water in Finland. And there's more; Louisiana celebrates Mardi Gras with King Cake while Iceland's people are already bun-filled, Lithuanians have spurgos (curd cheese winning), while Portugal, Guyana and other countries enjoy the malasadas. And, of course, paczki, paczki, paczki. Alternatives? A beetroot pancake, perhaps. What are you eating?
posted by Wordshore at 9:14 AM PST - 50 comments

The Erasure and Resurrection of Julia Chinn, U.S. Vice President Richard M. Johnson’s Black Wife. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 8:56 AM PST - 16 comments

The 26,000-Year Astronomical Monument Hidden in Plain Sight
posted by Chrysostom at 8:53 AM PST - 44 comments

The Guy Who Hid Tacos in His Desk Drawer - why do people go so nuts over free food at work? In which Alison Green of Ask A Manager asks the question, but does not provide an answer.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:43 AM PST - 127 comments

How Dragon Quest's Creator Invented JRPGs: An Hour With Yuji Horii [IGN] “It’s been pointed out before that we tend to overstate the presence of genius in the world of entertainment, but what Horii has done can’t be adequately labeled anything else. Much as Warren Robinett did in the United States with Adventure, Horii took a type of game designed to be played on powerful computers using multi-input keyboards and converted the essential mechanics into forms viable on vastly-less-powerful hardware and functional with a controller interface. But his innovations only began there. Horii also took the western-born world of RPGs and instilled it with a manga-inspired aesthetic that made it something remarkably relevant to Japanese culture. He infused the cartoonish artwork and bright palettes of Akira Toriyama and the sweeping symphonies of Koichi Sugiyama into the RPG aesthetic.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:09 AM PST - 20 comments

How do I raise a good son in a world that lets men be so bad?
posted by griphus at 7:04 AM PST - 72 comments

Are some celebrity mediums fooling their audience members by reading social media pages in advance? A group of online vigilantes is out to prove it. [NYT] Related recent Last Week Tonight segment on psychics.
posted by ellieBOA at 6:47 AM PST - 12 comments

Alliance - Na Zare (At Dawn) Let this video bewitch you. (slyt)
posted by snofoam at 4:28 AM PST - 16 comments

Google won't run Canadian election ads. The decision comes in response to the Liberals’ signature election measure, Bill C-76, which passed in December. Among other things, it requires online platforms to keep a registry of all political and partisan ads they directly or indirectly publish. ... Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould said the decision was “very disappointing” in an e-mailed statement. ... “We know that Google is enormously capable both technically and financially," Ms. Gould said. "It should apply these resources to producing a registry in Canada that complies with Canada’s laws.” ... Because of how Google’s advertising systems work, the company argued, it doesn’t know which ads get displayed, making a registry impossible. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 4:19 AM PST - 53 comments

Scientists give mice heat vision by covering their retinas with nanoantennae. "A single injection of nanoantennae in the mice’s eyes bestowed infrared vision for up to 10 weeks with minimal side effects, allowing them to see near-infrared light even during the day and with enough specificity to distinguish between different shapes." Full text of paper published in Cell.
posted by hat_eater at 3:56 AM PST - 20 comments

Monster Amazonian spider carries off its prey - a dead opossum.
posted by scalefree at 2:39 AM PST - 37 comments

Luke Perry, ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ and ‘Riverdale’ Star, Dead at 52 He died one day after having a massive stroke. [more inside]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:55 PM PST - 84 comments

Last week, YouTube did something unprecedented. Awash in criticism over the discovery of a network of child predators using the platform’s comment sections to share timestamps and screenshots of underage users from implicitly sexual angles, the company disabled comments on almost all videos featuring minors. Only a small number of channels featuring minors would be able to stay monetized — as long as they “actively moderate their comments.” The decision, made by a company that has long stressed the importance of algorithms, seems a tacit acknowledgement that human moderation is currently the best solution for policing harmful content. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 9:53 PM PST - 28 comments

There’s a new war raging in health care, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake and thousands of lives in the balance. The battle, pitting drug companies against doctors and patient advocates, is being fought over the unlikeliest of substances: human excrement. (SLNYT) Fecal transplants previously.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:00 PM PST - 34 comments

This amazing blue tarantula is a new spider species—but did researchers break the law when they studied it? Dr Law Yao Hua, insect behavioural ecologist, writes for Science magazine on bio-piracy through the lens of a recently 'discovered' Sarawakian blue tarantula from Malaysia and the burgeoning illegal tarantula trade. He was also on BFM to talk further on the story [podcast] [more inside]
posted by cendawanita at 6:18 PM PST - 9 comments

Helen Rosner interviews Japanese-American chef Niki Nakayama for the New Yorker: Kaiseki has a predetermined flow, its interrelated courses incorporating dozens—if not hundreds—of ingredients and techniques to form a single narrative arc. A kaiseki meal takes hours to unfold. Junko Sakai has likened a sushi chef’s approach to that of an essayist, and a kaiseki chef’s to that of a novelist. And yet kaiseki does not broadcast its own cleverness. There is no futuristic culinary chemistry or flamboyant tableside showmanship. Its practitioners talk about it almost as a form of service, a subordination of the self. When I met Nakayama, she told me that, in kaiseki, “the ingredients are more important than you, the cooking is more important than you. Everything about the food is more important than you, and you have to respect that.” She added, “There’s a part of it that’s really prideful and ambitious, and yet it tries to hold itself back.” [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 2:11 PM PST - 15 comments

This is the untold story of collateral damage in WWF’s secret global war.
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:16 PM PST - 21 comments

Nicole Cliffe (formerly of The Toast, currently writing for Slate and Vulture) asks a question about kindness, and the replies pour in. [more inside]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:16 PM PST - 25 comments

The Heavily Armed Millennials of Instagram

Beyond the bunnies and the operators, the tactical world breaks down into a handful of smaller niche categories: competition shooters, “Don’t Tread on Me” 2A defenders, ’Merica-loving irony bros, young bearded dads, legitimate preppers, YouTube stunt shooters, self-defense feminists, conceal-carry exhibitionists (gun in waistband, bellybutton exposed), religious operators (meet @pewpewpreacher), fashionista tactigals.

posted by peeedro at 11:38 AM PST - 60 comments

New international report sets out how Scottish wildcats can be saved from extinction [Scottish Natural Heritage] Wildcat in Scotland - Review of conservation status and activities [on Nature.scot] - citation of the report and link to PDF [more inside]
posted by readinghippo at 11:09 AM PST - 4 comments

Infinite Essence is my response to pervasive media images of black people dead and dying. Being gunned down by police officers, drowning and washing up on the shores of the Mediterranean, starving and suffering in award-winning photography. The trope of the black body as a site of death is everywhere. [...] With this series, I’ve set about on a quest to recast the black body as the cosmos and eternal. I hand paint the models' bodies with fluorescent paints, and [...] for a fraction of a second, their bodies illuminate as the universe. We view the beauty of the soul and our deeper cosmic connections communicated through them. [via NPR]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:06 AM PST - 8 comments

From this twitter thread (“Mine used to say if you ate too much popcorn your poo would float”) comes a memory by @gailsey: “My dad told me I was allergic to strawberries as a child. I’m now 47 and have spent most of my life avoiding them, checking labels and giving hospitals allergy alerts - he’s just told me it was a lie as he ‘wanted to eat them’”, while @EggmanLes remembers “Pretending to talk to the police on the phone about me not tidying my room: ‘They will be here soon’”, @sophiefwv recalls “The ice cream man only played the chimes when he had run out of ice cream.” and @DisorderlyHouse admits “I must have been 4 or 5 when my dad told me men had nipples to detect ghosts. I didn't think to question it till I was an adult.”
posted by Wordshore at 8:56 AM PST - 146 comments

The rise and fall of the man cave.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:06 AM PST - 178 comments

California - Sapporo slated to be brewed at Anchor’s flagging Potrero facility. But will the workers get a union — and a raise? (Previously) , Oakland teachers strike ends with union members ratifying deal, It Takes The Town To Shut It Down (Commune) - New York - Passionate Young Protesters Are Leading A Growing Climate Change Strike Movement In NYC, New York Nurses Prepare to Strike over Patient Ratios - New England - Why Workers at the Biggest Grocery Chain in New England Just Authorized a Strike (Union Representing Stop & Shop Workers Says No Strike For At Least Another Week) - Pennsylvania - Close To 2,000 Manufacturing Workers Just Went On Strike In Pennsylvania After a merger with GE Transportation, the new employer “wants to turn this into an Amazon warehouse,” the union says. Al Jazeera English (YouTube) UE Local 506 president spoke at Bernie Sanders first presidential campaign rally - Steward’s Corner: Where Do Good Organizers Come From?
posted by The Whelk at 6:43 AM PST - 13 comments

An upcoming game that looks like Totoro Need I say more?
posted by domdib at 4:51 AM PST - 16 comments

Masks by damselfrau (Magnhild Kennedy) via.
posted by chavenet at 1:25 AM PST - 2 comments

Nathan Pyle (previously) is drawing a series called ✨Strange Planet✨ Twitter | Threadreader | Instagram

He has keen insight into dogs and cats.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:32 PM PST - 30 comments

Rambalac walks all over Japan and films it! He walk to Tokyo Tower! He walks in Akihabara. He even walks to the island with all the rabbits!
posted by zabuni at 5:58 PM PST - 11 comments

@iseebitarou (Twitter, Insta) is a “funny miscellaneous goods collector” (according to Google Translate). More usefully, he’s a YouTuber who makes quirky unboxing videos of Japanese products and then does something with them, never showing us more than his hands at work and never speaking a word. Usually, the products are food related and the task is cooking several meals.
Some choice examples: Using a Peyoung Yakisoba Maker to cook Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki 🥢 Tamago Kake Gohan Machine. Japanese food ”Raw Egg On Rice” 🥢 Yakitori Machine 🥢 ドラキュラのニンニクみじん切り器でニンニク料理が簡単になる！？
posted by Going To Maine at 5:23 PM PST - 17 comments

With the Tamil song Rowdy Baby reaching 270 million Youtube views in two months, it seems time it gets some notice in the West. The video features the popular actor Dhanush, who also wrote and sings the song, partnered with the burgeoning superstar Sai Pallavi, who's found an eager fanbase for her, thus far, limited roles. [more inside]
posted by gusottertrout at 5:08 PM PST - 13 comments

Pac-Man: The Untold Story of How We Really Played The Game by Cat DeSpira [Retro Bitch] “Human beings leave physical impressions upon the things they love and use just as much as their do upon the lives of people and the planet they live upon. For every action, there’s a reaction. For every pressure, there’s an affect on mass and volume. And in the impressions left by that combination, particularly if you’re lucky enough to see the sides of a rare, unrestored vintage Pac-Man cabinet, lies the never before told story of how we really played the game. Until now, I don’t believe anyone has ever written about it.”
posted by Fizz at 3:12 PM PST - 17 comments

BBC Radio 3 takes “a journey into the strange and unsettling world of the English Eerie", "discovers a growing movement of artists, writers and musicians exploring impressions of the ‘Eerie’ in the landscape” and explores “how the tradition of the Eerie is being revived in response to contemporary fears and crises. (the English Eerie previously on Mefi, prompted by Robert Macfarlane’s treasure trove of an article.) [more inside]
posted by reynir at 1:58 PM PST - 6 comments

How many comments on a story about Africanized bees it would take before they started taking a racist turn?
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:18 AM PST - 41 comments

The affable owner of an antiques shop in Edmonton travels to a rural town on the Saskatchewan-Alberta border to seek items in a 100-year-old hoarder's house, once the home of a talented Canadian potter-artist ... and decides to purchase the entire property, initiating an epic indoor excavation-exploration and tracking his laborious progress in arctic conditions on Youtube as he painstakingly makes his way through literal tons of accumulated trash and the occasional treasure. [more inside]
posted by taz at 10:13 AM PST - 37 comments

"Underwear dates well." Fashion historian--and now crime-solver--Amber Butchart, interviewed for the Guardian.
posted by Hypatia at 7:42 AM PST - 20 comments

"Yannis Behrakis , one of Reuters' most decorated and best-loved photographers, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 58". A Pulitzer prize winner with the Reuters photography team, Behrakis was a veteran war reporter in Sierra Leone where he almost got killed (youtube). He won the Pulitzer for his work covering the 2015 European migrant crisis. In the past decade he also bore witness to his native Greece's deep crisis, covering the surge of homelessness, its rapid deindustrialization, the social upheaval, and many aspects of the migrant crisis. In this interview he described how he tried to be "The voice of [the refugees] and the eyes of those on the other side"
posted by talos at 2:59 AM PST - 7 comments

How to make hay bales (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 8:19 PM PST - 39 comments

For some men, taking an act that's traditionally solitary and potentially shameful, and instead turning it into a communal bonding experience, can be powerfully freeing: Why Straight Men Are Joining Masturbation Clubs. (EJ Dickson*, GQ) *really
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:26 PM PST - 122 comments

"Incunabuli is an RPG gameworld told through prose. Use this site as you would a sort of weird campaign setting book. Treat it as a source of ideas or as a reference for a campaign in the Incunabuli setting: The fairytale land of the Coast."* "Incunabuli content is written by Benton, 'Chief Producer of Typos at Incunabuli.com,' a narrative design student from the US." [Content warning for dark, potentially disturbing fairytale imagery, violence, and generally amoral fictional subjects, including in excerpts under the fold.] Reading guide under the fold. [more inside]
posted by Caduceus at 7:07 PM PST - 14 comments

In the late 1980s, the pew cushions at Westminster Presbyterian Church were worn out and needed to be replaced. The parishioners decided to replace the boring brown cushions with needlepoint ones inspired by bible stories, wildlife, as well as local landmarks and history. This year, the volunteer stitchers expect to complete the project. (last link includes lovely video)
posted by vespabelle at 6:11 PM PST - 14 comments

A few hours ago, the 2019 Iditarod kicked off in Anchorage, Alaska. Fifty-two mushers will be making their way to Nome, approximately 938 miles away. Photographer Jeff Shultz is taking pictures and recording interviews with those that are involved in the race. From dog handlers to vet techs to those doing gruntwork and everything in between, including the mushers and the dogs themselves. [more inside]
posted by dinty_moore at 3:19 PM PST - 83 comments

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove [YouTube] “The original ToeJam & Earl turns 28 this year. Released for the Sega Genesis in 1991, the roguelike adventure game features two wacky aliens with big personalities and a passion for bass-heavy funk. The game didn’t sell remarkably well when it first came out, but its unique aesthetic and Saturday morning cartoon-style humor set it apart and helped to give it long-lasting cult appeal. Unfortunately, any momentum it might have had was torpedoed by a series of lackluster sequels. Now, thanks to a $500,000 Kickstarter campaign, non-traditional investors, and years of additional development time, gaming’s favorite aliens have returned. ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove is outstanding.” [via: Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 2:53 PM PST - 18 comments

"The rush to record inscriptions made in a Cumbrian quarry in AD 207 has cast a spotlight on the rich legacy of graffiti in Britain by the Romans. Masons sourcing stone blocks for the nearby fortifications of Hadrian’s Wall carved a date, a phallus and the caricature of an officer." [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:51 PM PST - 8 comments

It's milk and coke together, as a drink and allegedly popular in Birmingham. Other Brits try it, to differing reactions, but is not unknown to distant (eponysterical) MeFites. Irish News: “The best mixture is one third milk to two thirds coke. You have to pour the milk in first otherwise it’ll curdle. You’ve got about 10 minutes to drink it once you’ve made it, before it separates” - something like this (chemical equation). Variations allegedly include Ribena and milk, limeade and sterilised milk, and Mountain Dew and milk (America). Here is a complicated video recipe containing coke and ice cream. But this is unquestionably Birmingham cuisine.
posted by Wordshore at 11:44 AM PST - 53 comments

There’s no doubt that planet Earth is awe-inspiring. That’s even more true for the handful of humans who’ve seen it from space with their own eyes. “We tend to think of ourselves as a weird, tiny little human being on a very large, powerful planet, and therefore clearly irrelevant to anything that might affect the planet at a planetary scale,” says former NASA astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, who in 1984 became the first U.S. woman to walk in space. “In some ways that’s true. But if you step back and look at the planet in total, you see how richly interconnected and intertwined all the actual systems are.” Strange facts about Earth from National Geographic and One Strange Rock, with Will Smith [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:37 AM PST - 6 comments

Denver International Airport has a talking gargoyle Do I need to say more? There's a freaking video of a chatty snarky gargoyle!
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:19 AM PST - 20 comments

André Previn (April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019), pianist, composer and conductor, most famously with the London Symphony Orchestra passed away last Thursday. Notwithstanding his long and succesful career in classical and jazz music, in Britain he'll be mostly be remembered for one very special guest appearance on a certain comedy show.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:57 AM PST - 24 comments

Katherine Helmond, who played Jessica Tate on Soap, Mona on Who's the Boss? passed away at the age of 89 due to complications of Alzheimer’s disease at her home in Los Angeles on February 23rd. [more inside]
posted by jzb at 7:05 PM PST - 60 comments

Bleeding is fucking weird. And the various contraptions that the feminine hygiene industry has come up with to “handle” it are also pretty fucking odd. I mean, at the end of the day, from pads and tampons to cups, sponges and rags, to each her own. But bleeding is still weird AF. And the culture that has arisen around it is also weird. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:04 PM PST - 54 comments

I can't stop drinking about you [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 6:59 PM PST - 10 comments

A History of Singapore in Ten Dishes: “Today, tourists from India come to our restaurant and some of them are shocked to see that fish-head curry is on the menu, as the dish does not exist in India,” says Nagajyothi Mahendran, the third-generation owner of Samy’s Curry. Mahendran says her grandfather, M Veerasamy, started cooking the dish in a shophouse—a mixed-use building—in the 1960s. (SL Roads & Kingdoms) [more inside]
posted by frumiousb at 6:02 PM PST - 22 comments

In the annals of art crime, it's hard to find someone who has stolen from ten different places. By the time the calendar flips to 2000, by Breitwieser's calculations, he's nearing 200 separate thefts and 300 stolen objects. For six years, he's averaged one theft every two weeks. One year, he is responsible for half of all paintings stolen from French museums. The Secrets of the World's Greatest Art Thief [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:27 PM PST - 21 comments

Negotiations failed and the UC system ended its $10 million annual subscriptions. [more inside]
posted by clew at 1:27 PM PST - 116 comments

A delightful gem of ephemera from the archives of the Minnesota Historical Society: Bobcat A Go-Go
posted by overeducated_alligator at 1:20 PM PST - 32 comments

New parents face up to six years of sleep deprivation, study says [The Guardian] [more inside]
posted by readinghippo at 1:19 PM PST - 39 comments

Demi Adejuyigbe's YouTube Channel is a place where music and film are joined in clever and humorous ways. • Morrissey's End Credits Song from "Green Book" • Future's End Credits Rap from Avengers: Infinity War • Will Smith's "I Think I Can Beat The Black Panther" Should've Won Best Original Song • Fake Childish Gambino Rap I Made About Lando Calrissian for L-A-N-D-O: A Star Wars Story • Rejected Theme Song from READY PLAYER ONE • In Which Will Smith Raps the Credits for Moonlight
posted by Fizz at 12:16 PM PST - 27 comments

Photographer Tony Northrup explains the real story behind the iconic cover photograph for National Geographic taken by Steve McCurry (previously). For many; including Tony, the photo was inspirational when it came out in 1984. But there was a darker side to the story (SLYT).
posted by jabo at 12:09 PM PST - 8 comments

Apis mellifera (honey bees) and its subspecies worker bees are incredibly hygienic both in terms of their removal of disease in the colony and their keeping up with general housekeeping. [more inside]
posted by Sophie1 at 11:31 AM PST - 14 comments

If you look up Dr. Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler online, you might think he has a MD and a PhD from Harvard Medical School. He presents himself as the chief of sexology at a non-profit health research foundation based in New York. His website states he’s one of the youngest elected members of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, and that Barack Obama gave him a President’s Gold Service Award for his contributions in medicine and mental health. Based on the information available online, Sendler could be one of the most accomplished 28-year-olds in medicine. But he’s not. Those are all lies. [more inside]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:05 AM PST - 30 comments

Eric Clapton, by 1976, was an alcoholic former heroin addict who had recently succeeded in stealing the wife of his close friend, George Harrison. On the night of August 5, Clapton, who had already developed a reputation for erratic on-stage behavior, unloaded on the audience of the Birmingham Odeon: "Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands..."

The Fairest Soul Brother in England—An unsolicited critique of Eric Clapton’s Unplugged [Andrew Marzoni, The Baffler]
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:51 AM PST - 103 comments

Based on questionable maths, Vulture list where you are most likely to be murdered in rural TV Britain. "We went with the bare basics of math for this: The smaller the village or county, the higher the chance is of being murdered. Read along, and maybe don’t plan on moving to Cambridgeshire anytime soon." But how realistic is this? The BBC investigates (previously), though looking internationally, don't buy a house in Cabot Cove (or Abbot Cove, whatever). (Post title: Charlie Hungerford did it)
posted by Wordshore at 9:37 AM PST - 21 comments

Don Miller, a retired missionary in rural Indiana, kept a museum in his home. In 2014, a year before Miller died at 91, the FBI Art Crime team raided his home and discovered more than 40,000 items from North and South America, Asia, the Caribbean, Papua New Guinea, and China, including many human remains. The FBI, along with the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikatsa Nations, have spent years working to identify and return the artifacts. The CBC's article also provides audio from CBC Radio.
posted by catlet at 9:17 AM PST - 22 comments

Clock-time no longer measures our temporal relationship to nature, but instead regulates our daily activities in relationship to capitalism. Clocks tell us when we need to go to work, when it’s time for lunch, when we need to wake up, when we really should go to sleep. We don’t do those things when we want to, we do them when others have determined they should be done. Those others aren’t the sun, stars, planets and moon of the pagan and animist worlds, but the bosses, the owners, the managers, and the bankers for whom we work.
posted by Gordafarin at 9:02 AM PST - 105 comments

T-Pain's back with more of the autotuned vocals he's known for, with his new album 1Up (DatPiff via YouTube, DatPiff directly), which came out on the same day The (autotuned) Monster won The Masked Singer (yeah, you can guess the connection). But let's take a moment to appreciate T-Pain's natural voice, as heard a couple times on NPR: first, on NPR's most popular Tiny Desk Concert of all time (also on YouTube; 13:27, 2014), and then a year later in an expanded performance for NPRandB Front Row (YouTube, 27:09), which lead to his acoustic mini-tour in Fall 2017.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:56 AM PST - 8 comments

"Gradients are the confluence of three different trends: Light and Space art, vaporwave, and bisexual lighting." (Vox) [more inside]
posted by redsparkler at 8:37 AM PST - 14 comments

Today, mechanical wrist watches are often considered expensive, superfluous jewelry, but they're also magnificent miniature mechanical machines, and many of today's watches have important provenance in Aviation, Auto Racing, Diving and Space Exploration. Perhaps the most important mechanical watch in the history of Space Exploration is the Omega Speedmaster professional. [more inside]
posted by codewheeney at 8:35 AM PST - 8 comments

The Cagots were a minority in the west of France and north of Spain. They were shunned, hated and persecuted, required to live in segregated areas on the outskirts of villages, restricted to the trades of butcher, carpenter and rope maker, prohibited from working with livestock, touching food in the market, entering churches through the main entrance or intermarrying with non-Cagots. They were not an ethnic or religious minority, speaking the same language and keeping the same religion as their neighbours; their persecution was based on their families being identified as Cagots, a status which was hereditary. [more inside]
posted by acb at 8:19 AM PST - 24 comments

“The details of Twist’s plan for supplementary gruel have never been made entirely clear ...Asking for more is really out of touch with basic economics.” An Unprecedented Twist, A plan for supplementary gruel must be rejected (Harper’s Blog)
posted by The Whelk at 8:17 AM PST - 7 comments

And they make many ferocious noises. (YouTube). Three orphaned mountain lion cubs get a checkup at their new home, the Oklahoma City Zoo.
posted by Hypatia at 7:15 AM PST - 17 comments

'Julie Andrews' takes on Ariana Grande taking on Julie Andrews (SLYT)
posted by divabat at 3:42 AM PST - 29 comments