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An infamous racist demonstrator stabbed three men on a Portland light-rail train last Friday, killing two. As previously planned demonstrations by alt-right groups (and counterdemonstrations by Antifa and Black Bloc activists) on June 4th (a "Trump Free Speech Rally") and June 10th (an anti-Muslim rally) promised more violence, the Mayor called for their cancellation, raising free speech issues. The local Republican leader suggested that private militia (such as the extremist Oathkeepers and 3 percenters) might be in order to defend conservatives, raising far darker questions. The first demonstration is Sunday; the second was canceled voluntarily today (and rescheduled for Seattle.) Why so much racial conflict in liberal Portland? Well, there's a lot of history. [more inside]
posted by msalt at 11:13 PM PST - 256 comments

The Silicon Valley startup that wanted to disrupt grilled cheese sandwiches.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:31 PM PST - 73 comments

The Hypnotic Allure of Cinemagraphic Waves Armand Dijcks creates cinemagraphs (moving still images) from photos of cresting waves taken by photographer Ray Collins. He says cinemagraphs are 'a different way of blending stills and motion in interesting ways. Like the other techniques, a good cinemagraph usually makes you do a double take, and wonder what you’re actually looking at. It’s an effect that scientists call “cognitive dissonance.” Your brain gets two different inputs, a still image and an element of motion, and is trying to make sense of what’s going on.' [more inside]
posted by fedward at 8:01 PM PST - 10 comments

This Steadicam shot from the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 looks great but the making of it is even better. [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:48 PM PST - 19 comments

Daniel Denvir, a socialist journalist once described by Philadelphia Magazine as "a self-righteous pain-in-the-ass, an unabashed class warrior," hosts The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine "discussing the politics of American class warfare." Denvir's work has been published in Salon, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Nation, Vox, The New Republic, The Guardian, Al Jazeera America, Vice, and others.

Guests have included Liza Featherstone, Dean Baker, Corey Robin, Matt Bruenig, Diane Ravitch, Glenn Greenwald, and Charlene Carruthers. [more inside]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:43 PM PST - 16 comments

"Then, Waymo was accidentally CC’d on an email meant for Uber" [more inside]
posted by butterstick at 6:15 PM PST - 30 comments

Boxers (not the pugilists) are wonderfully expressive. This one overshoots a ball while chasing it and does a glorious flop worthy of a footballer. Here's one who loses his shit over a lime at the beach. Hannibal didn't appreciate being boarded while his owners travelled and let them know it when they returned. Here, just watch this compilation. (Boxers previously)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:38 PM PST - 12 comments

The race to build the world’s first sex robot.
Last year Vice asked What Would Sex Robots for Women Look Like and Motherboard was eagerly awaiting the coming of the sex robots, whilest earlier this year Engadget spent time with Harmony.
The Campaign against Sex Robots.
posted by adamvasco at 1:48 PM PST - 118 comments

Meredith Kurtzman gave New York its taste for gelato, but even now, on the verge of retirement, no one knows her name. Pastry chefs rarely receive the same amount of credit, attention, or success as their savory counterparts. But in the face of overwhelming critical acclaim, and a small but crucial role in building the B&B domain, Kurtzman’s anonymity seems more remarkable than most — and, with true retirement looming, all the more glaring. After a reluctant return to the professional kitchen last year, moonlighting at cherished Park Slope institution Al Di La, she is set to put down her spatula again later this summer — this time, perhaps, for good. (Previously)
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 1:30 PM PST - 7 comments

Author Amy Gary delved into Margaret Wise Brown's collected papers to write a new biography of the woman behind some much-loved children's books, including Goodnight Moon. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:22 PM PST - 9 comments

Neither. What you need is the Cromemco System 400 with ArtStar! (slyt)
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 1:01 PM PST - 35 comments

On the 25th anniversary of the episode's airing, the Nerdist sits down with screenwriter Morgan Gendel to discuss a pinnacle of Star Trek storytelling: "The Inner Light". Gizmodo also published a feature last year on the episode interviewing Gendel as well as some of the cast.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 11:39 AM PST - 51 comments

The Story of the Jane Collective, the Women Who Started an Illegal Abortion Service - a comic by Rachel Wilson and Ally Shwed
posted by Artw at 10:54 AM PST - 27 comments

True to the original vision of Georgi Stoilov, the renovated Buzludzha monument will memorialise all periods of Bulgarian history – from the ancient khans and founders of the First Bulgarian State, to the revolutionaries and reformers of the 19th and 20th centuries – but it will do so without judgement, and without political bias. (Buzludzha previously) [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 9:23 AM PST - 6 comments

Paste Magazine ranks the 50 Best TV Theme Songs Of All Time. All of you kids hanging out on my lawn probably don't even know what a "TV theme song" is, you damn snake people! But there was a time when commercials didn't take up 16 minutes of every broadcast hour and so the networks would actually let producers use a minute or two for a damn opening theme song! A lot of TV theme songs were used to recapitulate the premise of the show itself, especially in the wacky days of the 1960s and '70s, but some just featured an unforgettable riff, a mood-setting musical interlude, or an inspired re-purposing of an existing song. [more inside]
posted by briank at 8:48 AM PST - 263 comments

Of these men, only one makes no effort to smile: seated on a plane, with the Rechargeable Personal Air Purifier looped like a bolo tie around the collar of his beige Oxford shirt, he gazes quietly and pensively out the window, into the beyond.

posted by Etrigan at 8:39 AM PST - 23 comments

A Black Actor in ‘Virginia Woolf’? Not Happening, Albee Estate Says [The New York Times] “A decision by the estate of Edward Albee not to allow a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to cast a black actor as a blond character is reigniting decades-long debates in the theater world over race, casting and authorial control. A theater producer in Portland, Ore., said last week that Albee’s agent, representing his estate, refused to grant him the rights to present the play with a black actor, Damien Geter, playing the supporting role of Nick, a young biologist at a small New England college. The Albee office, through a spokesman, said the producer had mischaracterized the status of his application for rights to the production, but confirmed that it objected to a black actor in that role.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 6:27 AM PST - 112 comments

You know that Old Time Religion?You know the extra verses in Pete Seeger's version? Do you know all the extra verses? I mean really all the extra verses?
posted by Wolfdog at 5:54 AM PST - 19 comments

This is a Dallas that received 4,000 refugees last year — more than any other metro area. But this is nothing new. Texas’s robust economy and cheap housing make it an ideal location for refugee resettlement: for Vietnamese and Cambodians in the ’70s; for those fleeing the USSR in the ’80s; for Bosnians in the ’90s. Today, it’s become home for thousands of Iranians, Iraqis, Burmese, Congolese, Afghans, Bhutanese, Moroccans, and Syrians fleeing persecution for their religious beliefs, their past work with the American military, or their ethnic identity. [Buzzfeed - Anne Helen Petersen]
posted by ellieBOA at 3:59 AM PST - 16 comments

David Firth (of Salad Fingers fame) has finished CREAM.
posted by BiggerJ at 1:47 AM PST - 9 comments

A very special story about Todd and his Grandmother. This is a response to a writing prompt written by Peccolia on her tumblr eatbreathewrite, and then added to by others, as they started to break the plot for six seasons and a movie.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:04 PM PST - 14 comments

MAKIN’ MOVES, a short video by Visual Art Director Kouhei Nakama. His previous videos. (Via blort)
posted by growabrain at 10:55 PM PST - 3 comments

The Place Where Letters To Hillary Clinton Go
posted by Chrysostom at 10:27 PM PST - 19 comments

"A city that never existed. A radio transmitting only at night. An unexpected visitor. It's time." La Frecuencia Kirlian ("The Kirlian Frequency," English title: Ghost Radio) is a new Argentinian animated web series broadcasting midnight radio—with English subtitles—from the mysterious, monstrous, missing city of Kirlian. See the series trailer and watch the first episode, El País de Abril / "The Country of April." (via io9)
posted by nicebookrack at 9:49 PM PST - 6 comments

Millions of years ago, dinosaurs were common across the flatlands that now encompass this city [Holbrook, AZ]. But they disappeared. A couple decades ago, several small-scale dinosaurs appeared along Interstate 40 near this city. But they also vanished. Well, not all of them. You can still find about a dozen (Google street view) home-made "cemetosaurs" in front of Rainbow Rock Shop, but these aren't the only dinos in Holbrook. There's the lonely bronze dinosaur, a would-be shower, in an adjacent park, and some more ... active ... dinosaur figures (Google maps) up the road at Stewart's Petrified Wood (previously).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:00 PM PST - 2 comments

Googly eyes in Bulgaria.
posted by clawsoon at 8:08 PM PST - 15 comments

How the self esteem craze took over America : "Believe in yourself and anything is possible, and You have to love yourself first before you can love someone else. “Those phrases are taken for granted as advice we give teens and adults,” explained Twenge, “but they’re very modern. At least in written language, they were very uncommon before about 1980, and then became much more popular. They’re all very individualistic, they’re all very self-focused, they’re also all delusional." [more inside]
posted by Waiting for Pierce Inverarity at 2:29 PM PST - 122 comments

Hall of Fame Sportswriter and long-time NPR sports broadcaster, Frank DeFord, has died at 78. I have never been a sports fan but always eagerly tuned in to listen to his magnificent voice and witty remarks. He will be sorely missed.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 2:05 PM PST - 40 comments

It's a profession that dates back to medieval times and was established in its current form by the 1600s. It’s a trade that one can enter as a teenager, with no formal qualifications, only to end up earning astonishing amounts of money. Attempts at professional reform have been greeted with spittle and rat poison.

The curious world of the barrister's clerk.
posted by the latin mouse at 1:48 PM PST - 13 comments

US military admits failures to monitor over $1 billion worth of arms transfers.
It makes for especially sobering reading given the long history of leakage of US arms to multiple armed groups committing atrocities in Iraq, including the armed group calling itself the Islamic State. - Patrick Wilcken, ( Amnesty International’s Arms Control and Human Rights Researcher).
who has previously warned about arms transfers to Iraq carrying a real risk of ending up in the hands of militia groups with long histories of human rights violations. 2015 arms and equipment list (pdf).
posted by adamvasco at 12:58 PM PST - 11 comments

The Graphic History Collective has a new art activism project: Remember | Resist | Redraw: A Radical History Poster Project offers beautifully illustrated PDF posters with "histories of Indigenous peoples, women, workers, and the oppressed that are often overlooked or marginalized in mainstream historical accounts." Each poster comes with an introductory essay. Lianne Charlie's Our Land: 150 Years of Colonialism; Naomi Moyer's Chloe Cooley and Slavery in Canada; Kwentong Bayan Collective's Caregiving Work in Canada; Orion Keresztesi's The 1837–1838 Rebellion; Angela Sterritt & Erica Violet Lee's Dance of Decolonial Love. More posters will be published in the months to come. [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:12 AM PST - 3 comments

Running from 1993 to 1995 on Fox Kids, and then another year on Kids WB, the adventures of the Warner Brothers (and the Warner Syster), the mad science mice Pinky and the Brain, the Bernadette Peters voiced cat Rita and her dim dog sidekick Runt making their way through musical adventures, the hapless Buttons taking care of reckless toddler Mindy, and a host of others, the Animaniacs (a follow-up to Tiny Toon Adventures) was one of the top cartoons of its day. Winner of 8 Emmies, it recently appeared on Netflix, the entire run watchable in order. With crazy antics, great musical numbers, and a lot of silliness, it is well-loved by most who watched it. And now... Steven Spielberg is bringing back Animaniacs.
posted by mephron at 11:06 AM PST - 96 comments

Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery
posted by griphus at 8:39 AM PST - 10 comments

2017 marks the 30th anniversary of Hay Festival of Literature & Arts and the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. To celebrate, the Festival commissioned "30 international thinkers to write 30 new reformations of institutions and authorities, challenging assumptions and imagining the world." The BBC has posted video of Stephen Fry's reformation on technology and society: The Way Ahead. (Transcript) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:55 AM PST - 4 comments

Those Funny Little People is a one-of-a-kind entertainment company with life-sized puppets who dance, sing and make people laugh.
posted by josher71 at 7:40 AM PST - 10 comments

The Prepper Obession With Clothes
posted by The Whelk at 7:19 AM PST - 180 comments

But when the One Big Thing is gone, there is a double loss — the thing that defined your life is now in the past, and, at the very moment when your income and public profile both are likely to be heading south, you face the real crisis: You have done something extraordinary, but it is finished, and now you do not know what to do.--Kevin D. Williamson on Allen Iverson, Tiger Woods, and us
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:06 AM PST - 29 comments

The numbers behind gaming’s growth on the site are striking. In total, fans have pledged over $580 million (£465m) to in excess of 20,000 successful campaigns – more than 20% of all funds raised on the platform. Tabletop games have done particularly well; in 2016, a six-month study found that board, card and roleplaying games had attracted six times as much funding as their digital counterparts.

How board games conquered Kickstarter: Five years on from the tabletop crowdfunding revolution
posted by Etrigan at 6:37 AM PST - 33 comments

Helloooo followers of U.S. politics! Join us inside to commiserate about the latest in the horror show we call reality: Kushner is under the gun! Civil rights efforts in government agencies will be intentionally dismantled! Trump is set to roll back Cuba policies! His foreign trip was a disaster for our relationship with allies! Also, surprise surprise, Trump is a truly horrible boss.
posted by Anonymous at 4:05 AM PST - 2924 comments

What Does Wonder Woman Actually Represent? - a The Nib comic strip essay by Lucy Bellwood and Sarah Mirk.
posted by Artw at 11:12 PM PST - 59 comments

Tien Chiu is a textile artist, a writer, a person of colour, someone with bipolar disorder, a semi-pro chocolatier, and the creator of her own museum-quality wedding dress. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 10:54 PM PST - 16 comments

Lion Whisperer Kevin Richardson hopes his hands-on stunts with lions will highlight the plight of the African predator, whose numbers have dwindled. The number of lions in the wild in Africa has dropped by more than 40 percent to about 20,000 in the past two decades, according to some estimates. Made for viral viewing on social media, the spectacle of Richardson lounging and cavorting with lions as though they were house pets might resemble a circus act in the African bush. But he uses the attention to condemn the South African industry in which customers kill captive-bred lions in relatively confined areas.
posted by grobertson at 10:23 PM PST - 1 comment

Here are 10 of the most exciting groups in modern shoegaze.
posted by philip-random at 9:57 PM PST - 18 comments

Mr Biggles (aka Lord Bigglesworth) is an utter bastard of a cat. Nevertheless, Cat People Of Melbourne (FB) would like you to adopt him, and offers this interview to pique your interest. [h/t Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:33 PM PST - 23 comments

How I Rewrote a Greek Tragedy by Colm Tóibín [The Guardian] “In my book, I thought I needed to find a tone of pure certainty for Clytemnestra, a tone of voice that took no prisoners and spared no one, a tone filled with relentlessness and ferocity. I sought to find a voice for someone who had suffered loss and humiliation, and who was ready, in retaliation, to do her worst and take pleasure in the consequences. When I began to study closely a late play by Euripides called Iphigenia in Aulis, however, I began to see Clytemnestra as more complex, her wounded voice as more needy and uncertain.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:53 PM PST - 10 comments

With 10 days until the UK election, things are hotting up. This evening's TV debate (post title) featured Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, no nukes, weed) and Theresa May (Conservative, fox hunting, fraking) taking questions from Paxo and Brits like an employer "struggling" with private school fees, on Brexit and NHS funding. Elsewhere, Boris is Boris, more bollocks (Fallon edition), Abbott remains quote worthy, Leanne's favorite single is a punk anti-royalist song, people are figuring out who they agree with, and who that Tim bloke is. Meanwhile, fresh from losing a by-election and repeatedly mistaking Leanne for a Hollywood actress, this season's UKIP leader wants internment and executions. The Tories stay favorites, though odds and polls have narrowed lately.
posted by Wordshore at 2:54 PM PST - 250 comments

In 1858, the painter Augustus Egg (1816-63) exhibited what turned out to be a much-debated triptych on the aftermath of a wife's affair. Now titled Past and Present 1, 2, and 3, the triptych originally appeared with this lengthy caption: "'August the 4th - Have just heard that B - has been dead more than a fortnight, so his poor children have now lost both parents. I hear she was seen on Friday last near the Strand, evidently without a place to lay her head. What a fall hers has been!'" [more inside]
posted by thomas j wise at 2:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Birds are awesome.
posted by ellieBOA at 11:34 AM PST - 21 comments

A super cut of movies counting down.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:39 AM PST - 26 comments

It has been multiply reported that open world building and exploration game Minecraft (Product Page | Wikipedia) is disproportionately popular among autistics (CDC | Wikipedia). Said to be the best-selling game of all time behind only Tetris, Minecraft’s appeal is obviously broad, but is there something special about it that scratches a highly specific itch for people on the spectrum? [more inside]
posted by Construction Concern at 5:07 AM PST - 51 comments

RIP John Noakes, British children's television presenter - mainly on the long-running BBC show Blue Peter with his dog Shep - back in the days when health and safety concerns were a little more lax. He was also famous for being upstaged by a baby elephant. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:06 AM PST - 34 comments

May 30, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a work its author, Gabriel García Márquez, described as a “very long and very complex novel in which I have placed my best illusions.” García Márquez finished the novel in August 1966; his publisher, Editorial Sudamericana, printed its first run on May 30, 1967. The book went on to sell 50 million copies worldwide, becoming the most translated literary work in Spanish outside of Don Quixote....This digital collection, drawn from the Gabriel García Márquez papers at the Harry Ransom Center, documents the genesis of the novel from draft to literary classic [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:25 AM PST - 24 comments

Please join me in wishing a happy 10th birthday to box enthusiast and internet sensation, Maru the Scottish Fold cat. (Maru, previously: 1, 2) [SLYT]
posted by Room 641-A at 7:58 PM PST - 53 comments

Denis Johnson, Who Wrote of the Failed and the Desperate, Dies at 67 [The New York Times] “Denis Johnson, a National Book Award winner whose novels and short stories about the fallen — junkies, down-and-out travelers, drifters and violent men in the United States and abroad — emerged in ecstatic, hallucinatory and sometimes minimalist prose, died on Wednesday at his home in Gualala, Calif. He was 67. The cause was liver cancer, his literary agent Nicole Aragi said.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 6:46 PM PST - 26 comments

The gentleman waiting gave him a start, though all he was doing was sitting still by the cold fireplace. Perhaps it was his dæmon, a beautiful silvery spotted leopard, or perhaps it was his dark, saturnine expression; in any event, Malcolm felt daunted, and very young and small. His dæmon, Asta, became a moth.
posted by Bee'sWing at 6:22 PM PST - 17 comments

A small dog chewed the corner of conradcourtney's 1950 Saruk rug, so s/he set to fixin' it. (Slimgur) Here's a YouTube channel of a rug repair shop from British Columbia. Wikipedia's Oriental rugs article is great .
posted by growabrain at 5:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Steven Soderbergh's back from 'retirement' with Lucky Logan (slyt)
posted by octothorpe at 4:07 PM PST - 24 comments

Baltimore, 15 years after The Wire [more inside]
posted by arcticseal at 8:52 AM PST - 31 comments

"Of 513 school districts in Oklahoma, 96 have lopped Fridays or Mondays off their schedules — nearly triple the number in 2015 and four times as many as in 2013. An additional 44 are considering cutting instructional days by moving to a four-day week in the fall or by shortening the school year." The 2018 state budget, which was sent to Governor Fallin this week, cuts $34 million from education. Here is Oklahoma's study: Analysis of Expenditures of Districts on a Four-Day School Week (PDF)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:53 AM PST - 83 comments

Fresh translations of samurai accounts of the arrival of a “barbarian” ship near the Japanese town of Mugi have confirmed the legend of an Australian convict pirate ship visiting Japan in 1830. [more inside]
posted by acb at 5:36 AM PST - 20 comments

Need something to read on a Sunday? The story of Codes and Codebreakers in World War I is an interesting little chapter which is still less-known than the famous codebreaking effort of WWII. Maybe you're intrigued and want to read the whole online book, Codes, Ciphers and Codebreaking, or, if codes aren't your thing, maybe A History of the Telescope or Missions to the Planets or Elementary Chemistry or any of the other on Greg Goebel's Vectors site - dedicated to educational writings on science, technology, and history.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:38 AM PST - 7 comments

Lessons from AlphaGo: Storytelling, bias and program management "Over the past few days, AlphaGo has taken the world by storm once again. Over a week in Wuzhen, it beat the worlds’ best player Ke Jie three times, a team of players from China, and finally lost a game (unavoidable, since it played against itself in a human pair-go match) ... In fact, the most interesting reveal happened only after the match, and that is when DeepMind released the first set of self-play games where AlphaGo played itself (similar to how it is trained in order to improved the AI). Those games were surprisingly non-human, so much so that it is not clear at a glance if the average human go player can learn anything from them. "
posted by dhruva at 4:37 AM PST - 29 comments

This application generates a random medieval city layout of a requested size. The generation method is rather arbitrary, the goal is to produce a nice looking map, not an accurate model of a city.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:13 AM PST - 24 comments

Doormouse is a recent graduate of Kitten School, and the star of a series on how to tame a scared or feral kitten. [more inside]
posted by Deoridhe at 10:57 PM PST - 17 comments

Dovahkin Damacy. Nick and Griffin explore Skyrim mods. The last ten minutes are genuinely, surprisingly, transcendant.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:42 PM PST - 15 comments

Earlier tonight, the Conservative Party of Canada brought its long leadership race (previously) to a close with the election of Andrew Scheer. Scheer is a social conservative who got his biggest boost of the night from supporters of anti-abortion candidates Brad Trost and Pierre Lemieux, though Scheer, like Harper, appears to be uninterested in re-opening that debate. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 7:53 PM PST - 104 comments

22 Hilarious and Wonderful Animal Memes
Dogs Bending Human Rules
Dogs Who Are Afraid of the Most Ridiculous Things
Dogs Dogs Dogs
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:51 PM PST - 27 comments

Dronestagram is like Instagram for -- you guessed it -- international drone photography and videos.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:35 PM PST - 3 comments

We're Poly Now , a music video by Chris Fleming.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 5:53 PM PST - 43 comments

Sophie Ploeg is an artist and historian know for her richly detailed paintings of fabrics. She draws inspiration from historical works and has listed what she views as the best works capturing the intricacies of lace or the texture and sheen of velvet. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 4:34 PM PST - 2 comments

Vimto , a drink born and commemorated in Manchester sees sales spike during Ramadan as it has become a popular way to break the fast. [more inside]
posted by threetwentytwo at 1:37 PM PST - 30 comments

Gregg Allman, Soulful Trailblazer of Southern Rock, Dies at 69 Gregg Allman, the soulful singer-songwriter and rock n' blues pioneer who founded The Allman Brothers Band with his late brother, Duane, and composed such classics as "Midnight Rider," "Melissa" and the epic concert jam "Whipping Post," has died at age 69, Billboard has learned. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1999 and underwent a liver transplant in 2010. ~ From BILLBOARD [more inside]
posted by pjsky at 12:57 PM PST - 101 comments

In 2014 The Guardian published artist Laura Dodsworth's photos of 100 women's breasts and their thoughts about them. Now there's a follow-up: Me and My Penis. (nsfw)
posted by jessamyn at 12:23 PM PST - 24 comments

Global and urban history has been converging in recent decades. My own interest is captured by the liminal space between culture and history and geography. Some favourites include Lagos: Mapping a Pre-Colonial West African City and the extremely well done the racism behind Kampala.
posted by infini at 12:16 PM PST - 4 comments

Harvard Student Group Performs A Cappella Tribute to John Williams During Commencement Ceremony
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:08 PM PST - 12 comments

"I thought [living in an RV] would be a perfect Instagram scenario -- I'd be naked, wrapped in an American flag with my hair blowing in the wind, with people taking my photo" "Justin, who lives in a tiny house in Portland, OR (of course), talks frankly about what he has to do without. "I really miss having a washer/dryer. That kills me," he says. And since he and his girlfriend cook all the time, not having a dishwasher or a ton of counter space is a real problem. "I see tiny houses with mini-fridges and a two-burner stove top with no oven. And I think, 'what the hell do you cook?'" [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 11:00 AM PST - 117 comments

In California, millions of dollars' worth of almonds, walnuts, and pistachios are disappearing. Farmers are perplexed, the cops are confused, and the crooks are getting richer. How? The product is easy to move, and the evidence is consumed. Nut theft previously.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:56 AM PST - 8 comments

When she was a scrawny 11-year-old, Sherry Johnson found out one day that she was about to be married to a 20-year-old member of her church who had raped her. [more inside]
posted by galaxy rise at 10:39 AM PST - 26 comments

With one stage left, Nairo Quintana wears the Maglia Rosa in the 2017 Giro d'Italia. Things have never looked this bad for him. [more inside]
posted by lmfsilva at 9:54 AM PST - 12 comments

Cutting-edge structures in a small Chinese village illustrate the beauty and strength of bamboo, just as China is moving away from this sustainable material.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:53 AM PST - 10 comments

Photographer Joshua Paul shoots F1 auto races using a 1913 Graflex 4x5 film camera and the results are quite spectacular.
posted by octothorpe at 7:38 AM PST - 30 comments

“an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component”
A mercenary and security firm known as TigerSwan targeted the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline with military-style counterterrorism measures.
posted by adamvasco at 5:59 AM PST - 16 comments

It is unlikely that this strategy will succeed the way ISIS envisions in Egypt, but the attempt to implement it will leave a trail of destruction that will primarily devastate Egypt’s Christian minority. The group’s genocidal program may perhaps backfire as it did for their jihadi predecessors of the 1980s and 1990s, whose wanton killing of civilians dried up any base of popular support. But as the ISIS ideologue al-Harmasy hints, there is deep-rooted sectarianism in Egyptian society that has been fanned by Islamists for decades, to which government policies have also contributed.

-Mokhtar Awad is a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, here he examines reasons behind the latest strategies of ISIS in Egypt (alt) [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 4:49 AM PST - 4 comments

"ToposText is an indexed collection of ancient texts and mapped places relevant the the history and mythology of the ancient Greeks from the Neolithic period up through the 2nd century CE. It was inspired by two decades of exploring Greece by car, foot, or bicycle, and by clumsy efforts to appreciate επί τόπου the relevant information from Pausanias or other primary sources. ... Selecting a site from either the list or the map opens up a table of two-line snippets from ancient authors ... . Selecting from this index list, which can be filtered by date, genre, and relevance, connects one to the full text of 240-odd works in English translation, some with the original Ancient Greek as well. [Y]ou can select and read the passages in ancient literature that give a place its historical and cultural meaning. While you are reading, the map alongside shows the location of the ancient places mentioned." Available for iOS, Android, and web.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:41 PM PST - 2 comments

The Remarkable Melonseed Skiff

We often fall in love with our eyes first, and it is pure romance and “love at first sight”. Later we attempt to justify our feelings by trying to become rational and objective, but it was usually that first flush of visual fantasy that started the adventure. And, like most of our romances, that’s how it usually is with boats too, and that’s how it was with the Melonseed Skiff.

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

Julia. "In grade 8, Julia was bullied so badly by a group of girls that she changed schools without telling anyone. Soon after, the girls from her old school showed up at her house and rang her doorbell. She didn’t answer it. For the past 20 years, Julia’s been wondering what those girls wanted." [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:09 PM PST - 41 comments

Lisa Spoonauer best known as Caitlin Bree in Kevin Smith's directorial debut Clerks has passed away at age 44 of unspecified causes. Tributes from Smith and others are online.
posted by jonmc at 7:28 PM PST - 28 comments

The Geography of Hip-Hop is an interactive map documenting the history and geography of hip-hop. The map (and accompanying essay) explore how hip-hop has spread around the world and how different cites have developed their own distinct sounds and styles of hip-hop. The interactive hip-hop map allows you to browse and listen to hip-hop music by location. The map features 955 songs, most of which you can listen to directly from the map. The size of the markers on the map reflects the number of artists featured from that location. In this way you can get a rough idea about the size of the hip-hop communities in these different urban locations. [via Maps Mania]
posted by Room 641-A at 6:27 PM PST - 11 comments

Web thoughts Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head.
posted by dhruva at 6:23 PM PST - 8 comments

In October 2014, one of the Narrow Angle Cameras observing the moon's surface aboard the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recorded a wild, jittery image. The cause of this was determined to be vibrations from a collision with a micrometeoroid at approximately 7 km/s, which fortunately didn't damage the spacecraft or camera. Astronomer Dr. Alex Parker has processed the captured image to produced an audio reconstruction of the strike. SPANG.
posted by figurant at 4:55 PM PST - 19 comments

What can you get for $20 in-game vs IRL? Polygon investigates.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:59 PM PST - 19 comments

infinitestringquartet.com - no bow necessary; just drag and drop the circles on the grid and see what happens.
tl;dr it makes music! [via jessamyn]
posted by not_on_display at 3:31 PM PST - 11 comments

and he married Gilda Radner! George Edward "G. E." Smith -born 01/27/52--is an American guitarist. He was the lead guitarist in the band Hall & Oates and the musical director of Saturday Night Live. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 11:52 AM PST - 46 comments

Far Cry 5 asks you to kill thy neighbor [Polygon] Far Cry 5 [YouTube] takes place in the fictional Hope County in the very real state of Montana — a state that, even today, is wrestling with issues like gun control, religious tolerance and citizen’s access to public lands. Fight against religious fanatics hell-bent on taking over a piece of the American West [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 11:36 AM PST - 77 comments

Spanish photographer Javier Torres writes about how to take fluorescent pictures. Also a lot of other nice stuff on photography basics and principles.
posted by cortex at 10:04 AM PST - 8 comments

The Lost Art Press blog has published a biography of Jennie Alexander, lawyer, jazz musician, and pioneer in modern greenwoodworking. More information is available at her website.
posted by jedicus at 9:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Paul Romer is an economist whose academic contributions focus on how endogenous improvements in production contribute to long-run growth. Last July, he was appointed chief economist of the World Bank. This week, he was apparently removed from his managing duties after his staff rebelled against his management style, apparently in part for asking them to communicate more clearly. [more inside]
posted by dismas at 9:14 AM PST - 15 comments

The cost of keeping bees. By getting a few hives we could save the bees, and in return the bees could save our bank account. It would be a mutually beneficial relationship.
posted by threetwentytwo at 8:47 AM PST - 46 comments

A look at the UK, EU and WTO with an eye on Brexit. Includes a brief explanation of the WTO system, and a taste of how negotiations work in the WTO

posted by infini at 7:51 AM PST - 4 comments

The Nerdwriter examines the recent film Logan using popular culture critic John G. Cawelti's essay on Chinatown(PDF) as a jumping off point to see where it fits in the life-cycle of genre films. (Nerdwriter previously)
posted by octothorpe at 5:03 AM PST - 37 comments

At a historic convention in the centre of Australia, indigenous leaders from across the country have outright rejected the idea of mere recognition in the constitution, instead calling for a representative body to be enshrined in the nation's founding document and a process established working towards treaties. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is the result of three days of deliberations during the national gathering. [more inside]
posted by valetta at 4:38 AM PST - 39 comments

Let’s follow Crowley the Crocodile as he goes about his day in the year 2030, from the moment his bitcoin-powered bioalarm clock wakes him, until he eats his late night pizza ordered using a rating service that runs without human owners. - this exploration of FinTech first appeared at Blockchain Futures which explores uses and avenues for the blockchain and other FinTech forms [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 3:45 AM PST - 63 comments

Cherry Lane Theater, November 1989: Lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr (Miss Saigon) and Composer Davie Shire (Saturday Night Fever) open their "bookless book musical" Closer Than Ever, a two act musical revue without dialogue that ran for 312 performances; a grown-up collection of song performances, each an individual story that all echo and reflect on each other. The original cast album is available to listen to on YouTube [23 tracks] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 3:42 AM PST - 3 comments

On food & climate change: "We can still act and it won’t be too late" (The Long Read - The Guardian) If people feel as if they don’t have control over their lives, or that their children don’t have a good future, then they will resist efforts to deal with climate change because right now they’re concerned about feeding their child. It’s a luxury to worry about climate change; you have to have enough to eat before you start worrying about what’s going to happen to the planet 30 years from now. If we do not pay attention to increasing inequality – and the fact that technology and globalisation are accelerating – there will be a backlash.
by Barack Obama
posted by CrystalDave at 11:49 PM PST - 54 comments

The Australian Pokédex, by Paul Robertson [1-29][30-57][58-86][87-111][112-130][131-151] [more inside]
posted by grobstein at 9:02 PM PST - 18 comments

Olivia P. Judson in Nature: "Over the course of Earth history, the harnessing of free energy by organisms has had a dramatic impact on the planetary environment. Yet the variety of free-energy sources available to living organisms has expanded over time. These expansions are consequences of events in the evolution of life, and they have mediated the transformation of the planet from an anoxic world that could support only microbial life, to one that boasts the rich geology and diversity of life present today. Here, I review these energy expansions, discuss how they map onto the biological and geological development of Earth, and consider what this could mean for the trajectories of life–planet systems elsewhere." [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:58 PM PST - 11 comments

The National Gay Flag Football League (NGFFL) is a 501(c)(3) sports organization that "seeks to promote the positive social and athletic enjoyment of American Flag Football." It's next championship team will be crowned in Gay Bowl XVII, October 5-8, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. However, this year's Gay Bowl will be unique: for the first time, it will count among its sponsors an NFL team: the reigning Super Bowl champion New England Patriots.
posted by 4ster at 6:29 PM PST - 4 comments

Apple designer Marc Newson made a $12,000 hourglass filled with nanoballs.
posted by klausman at 5:41 PM PST - 117 comments

Over the past 3 months, we have largely completed the rollout of Git/GVFS to the Windows team at Microsoft. [more inside]
posted by cgc373 at 3:42 PM PST - 47 comments

Joss Whedon, nerd icon, has a new video in support of Planned Parenthood. Joss Whedon, known throughout various demographics for Buffy, Dollhouse, The Avengers, Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and the immortal Firefly, recently released a three minute video made for Planned Parenthood exploring some of the consequences of clinics closing. Whedon is also known for support of Equality Now.
posted by Jacen at 3:31 PM PST - 26 comments

Spend an hour with New York City’s breathtaking, hilarious, inspiring burlesque diva, Fancy Feast, in this documentary from Leon Chase. Or just catch this quick 2 minute teaser. She’ll leave you hungry for more.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:43 AM PST - 7 comments

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Official Trailer [YouTube] is an upcoming English-language French science fiction action-adventure film co-produced, written and directed by Luc Besson. [wiki]
posted by Fizz at 10:45 AM PST - 73 comments

Key Crazy: Inside the Wonderful World of Keyboard Fanatics A proud tradition of hackers going back decades gets another moment in the spotlight thanks to Gizmodo. If you're interested in building your own, you might be interested in Jesse Vincent's blog series from 2012,Building a Keyboard, or the venerable Key64 site.
posted by boo_radley at 10:31 AM PST - 38 comments

The Mexican Pago en Especie program allows artists to pay their taxes with art instead of money. It started informally in the 1950s and was codified in the 1970s. The program includes a jury system to ensure that the country is getting a good value and has amassed a collection of more than 7,000 pieces of art. It even survived a recent bout of tax reform.
posted by Etrigan at 8:13 AM PST - 19 comments

Imzy, the "kinder, gentler" Reddit alternative (previously), is shutting down on June 23rd. The site raised an $8 million Series A in October 2016, and opened its platform up to the public that same month. According to The Verge article on the shutdown, less-friendly Reddit clone Voat is also at risk of being shut down due to funding issues.
posted by SansPoint at 8:03 AM PST - 62 comments

How many ways can you destroy a piano? Piano smashing contests were a UK fad in the 1960s, eventually crossing over to the US. Teams used sledgehammers to destroy an upright piano to the point where pieces of the piano could be passed through a 9-inch diameter hole. Infrequent piano smashing contests have been held in recent years although Guinness World Records has retired the category from active competition. Using sledgehammers is one thing, but composer Annea Lockwood has several creative ways to dispose of pianos.
posted by achmorrison at 7:35 AM PST - 36 comments

The History of Porridge in Bantuphone Africa, with Words as Main Ingredients
posted by infini at 6:40 AM PST - 5 comments

How to make Maple Syrup (slyt) I really enjoyed this video of a modern maple syrup farm. Lot's of tubes and filters and pumps. [more inside]
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:05 AM PST - 29 comments

"The language repeatedly emphasizes consumer choice as particularly important. Residents “prefer to drive alone” and the car became “the option of choice.” But consumers can only choose among the options that are provided to them. The implication here is that people don’t want good public transit, they want GM cars." - Blight At The Museum, how corporate donations are taking control of American history at the Smithsonian.
posted by The Whelk at 4:53 AM PST - 34 comments

Renting in London in 2017 is grim. While the city is in the middle of a record construction boom, almost all of that is luxury apartments for overseas investors. “Golden postcodes” such as Kensington, Highgate and Notting Hill are the preserve of the international “alpha elite”, displacing the local wealthy, and setting off a chain reaction. As rents go up, people on above-average incomes find themselves in “middle-class poverty”, having to move repeatedly and to make do with smaller spaces. As there is no regulation, any house that is not a hazard to health is legal, and it makes economic sense for landlords to evict tenants rather than carrying out repairs. Meanwhile, in outer boroughs, poor workers live in bunks in cramped, shared rooms in houses and sheds, preyed on by chains of “rent to rent” entrepreneurs sometimes shading into human trafficking rings. [more inside]
posted by acb at 4:51 AM PST - 95 comments

Chicago Cubs' President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein's Class Day speech at this years's Yale graduation
posted by Mchelly at 4:26 AM PST - 1 comment

40 years ago. Star Wars. May 25, 1977. It only opened on 42 screens. Basically everyone who tells you they were there on opening day are lying to you. Five veteran distribution execs who were there when George Lucas' first installment of the space saga was set to premiere look back on the challenges that came with being part of movie history.
posted by hippybear at 3:10 AM PST - 83 comments

"At approximately 6:30 a.m. Monday, a car crash involving two pickup trucks sent one of the vehicles inside the AnalTech building of Newark, Del., leaving a giant hole." [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:20 PM PST - 74 comments

On the eve of Election Day for Montana's special election for a new Congressional Representative, Republican candidate Greg Gianforte allegedly body slams Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs. [more inside]
posted by Grandysaur at 6:30 PM PST - 402 comments

New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, who has presided over the city's dismantling of Confederate monuments, delivered a righteous defense of the decision in a speech about history, race, and legacy. Seriously, read the whole thing.
posted by Anonymous at 3:43 PM PST - 117 comments

In the days before widespread high-resolution graphics, many of us were familiar with ASCII Art, either on screen or printed out. But there were predecessors in the form of typewriter art. (Previously) And going through newspaper ads in old issues of the New York Times and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jacob Harris has found 19th-century examples of typeset images made of letters, as well as larger characters composed of smaller ones. [more inside]
posted by larrybob at 11:36 AM PST - 18 comments

In a year of dramatic change and threat, An unprecendented 40-foot deep and 1/3 mile wide tongue of earth is newly jutting into the Pacific Ocean across the historic Roosevelt Highway portion of California’s Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur, at Mud Creek. [more inside]
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:32 AM PST - 35 comments

"Today, the Chancellor of Justice announced that the Swedish state will not appeal the decision by the Svea Court of Appeal regarding the case of the police’s registration of Swedish Roma citizens. Damages will be paid to all persons included in the illegal registry. Civil Rights Defenders, which represented eleven of a total of about 4 700 people included in the registry, won the court case against the Swedish state in the Svea Court of Appeal on April 28, 2017. The state was found guilty of ethnic registration and discrimination, and ordered to pay 30 000 SEK in damages to each of the eleven Roma plaintiffs." [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 11:17 AM PST - 7 comments

In February 1975, the stars aligned in such a way that jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and eclelctic singer-guitarist Jose Feliciano appeared together -- as actors and as a musical double-act -- on the influential eastern-western television series Kung Fu. [more inside]
posted by Herodios at 10:45 AM PST - 7 comments

Game of Thrones: Season 7 Official Trailer [YouTube]
posted by Fizz at 10:35 AM PST - 55 comments

Author and historian Gellert Kovacs was watching a TV segment on cyber security, when he thought he recognized someone. [more inside]
posted by Ideefixe at 10:17 AM PST - 9 comments

Not only do we have the recent announcement of Mega City One a planned television series set in the Judge Dredd universe (this guy is excited), the fan film Search / Destroy based on another of 2000AD's beloved stories, Strontium Dog, has appeared by the makers of the Judge Dredd fan film Judge Minty (previous) [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:50 AM PST - 14 comments

"A Guide to Conservative Publications: Which ones are trolling you, and which ones are simply bad?" by Alex Nichols in The Outline.

How thoroughly do they embody the worst characteristics of conservative writing? How smug are they? How convinced are they of their own superior intellect? Are they painfully, seethingly horny? As many of the worst specimens delight in terrifying the world with poor grooming decisions, our measuring stick will be the goatee, here affixed to a tiny troll face. The longer the goatee, the more batshit insane the publication.

[more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:27 AM PST - 38 comments

A terrible, little club. “It’s called disenfranchised grief. It’s also referred to as the grief that has no voice, because it’s a grief that our society typically does not recognize.”
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:23 AM PST - 28 comments

Hot Wheels Stunt Race [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 9:16 AM PST - 11 comments

Toilet seat art? Currywurst? Mammal penises? A clickable list of 86 very specific museums around the world.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:20 AM PST - 19 comments

Teen Vogue covers the latest weird thing to go viral: Avril Lavigne died years ago and has been replaced by a doppelganger named Melissa. But they take the opportunity to educate as well as shrugging at the weirdos who spend too much time on this sort of thing:

It's a premise that assumes a lot about Avril's mental health based on, well, basically nothing, and that is problematic because we should never assume anything about anyone's mental health.

posted by Etrigan at 7:47 AM PST - 51 comments

Paganism is dying. "Much of what once made Paganism radical is now widely accepted by those of all religions and none. It is no longer particularly progressive to believe in the central importance of the natural world, or in basic equality for all." It's eating its own. "We are beginning to see those fighting oppression using the tools of the oppressors upon one another." Maybe it deserves to die. "Institutions have a way of taking on a life of their own, so that people start asking how to save the institution, and forget to ask whether it should be saved." No, Paganism is evolving. "Even as parts of Paganism are dying, new parts are being born." It's just fine. "Just because groups like CUUPS or certain Druid orders might be losing members doesn’t mean that Paganism as a whole is headed down the same wormhole." The Pagan world is big and diverse. "So while I believe Paganism is fairly healthy, I could be wrong, but I trust my eyes when my contacts are in and things look pretty good from here."
posted by clawsoon at 7:00 AM PST - 57 comments

"The idea that incorporating a gig economy structure to education would result in freedom and active employment of previously untapped talents is laughable. The charter school’s yearly contracts did nothing but create a toxic, anxious environment. As the end of every school year loomed, we would whisper in passing around the copy machines, counting off on our fingers all of those we knew were most disliked by the administration. Even if we hadn’t squared off with an administrator, there were always those who walked out of the office having been told their jobs were reduced to part time the following year. No one was ever safe, secure. Long-term plans were always at risk.

Substitute teaching with a third party contractor has turned me into a ghost."

--The Teaching Gig Economy. by @rebeccaheckyea
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:42 AM PST - 30 comments

Twenty-two people were killed and sixty-four injured in suicide bombing at Manchester Arena on Monday night. Nine victims (including an eight-year-old girl) have been named so far. The bombing occurred after a concert by Ariana Grande that was attended by many children and teens. In response, the government has raised the threat level to Critical. The name of the attacker, who is thought to not have been acting alone, was released by police after it was first leaked by US officials. The leak of the attacker's identity has put a strain on US-UK intelligence sharing, since it may have hampered further investigations.
posted by klausness at 3:05 AM PST - 158 comments

Mason is old and ill and grumpy. One day some new kittens came into his foster home. 2m40s to a better day.
posted by hippybear at 1:51 AM PST - 59 comments

Do you miss hearing President Obama? Try this Obama speech generator and hear him in your own words.
posted by roaring beast at 7:03 PM PST - 41 comments

A gentle polemic from Grist against green consumerism, off-gridding, and individualism with respect to ecology.
posted by clew at 5:59 PM PST - 9 comments

Epic Grinds are... meat sculptures. SLTumblr.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 2:22 PM PST - 14 comments

Poems of Protest, Resistance, and Empowerment

Pithy and powerful, poetry is a popular art form at protests and rallies. From the civil rights and women’s liberation movements to Black Lives Matter, poetry is commanding enough to gather crowds in a city square and compact enough to demand attention on social media. Speaking truth to power remains a crucial role of the poet in the face of political and media rhetoric designed to obscure, manipulate, or worse.

[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:43 PM PST - 10 comments

The Unchosen Ones is a project by R.J. Kern featuring photographs of non-winning sheep and their exhibitors from 2016 Minnesota county fairs. Project Statement.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 1:12 PM PST - 42 comments

This compilation reveals one of the many true natures of cats [ambient sounds, occasional music].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:59 PM PST - 35 comments

The Onion has obtained 700 pages of leaked documents from the Trump Administration. "The Onion has done what no other news organization ever could: expose the Trump administration."
posted by zeusianfog at 11:13 AM PST - 47 comments

Maria Bamford delivered a sneakily practical commencement speech about the value of education, money, and valuing yourself at her Alma Mater, The University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:03 AM PST - 10 comments

The 'Artwashing' of America: The Battle For The Soul of Los Angeles Against Gentrfication — Defend Boyle Heights has targeted 10 new art galleries on South Anderson Street, a formerly industrial strip along the desolate eastern bank of the Los Angeles River. Activists say the galleries are a proxy for corporate interests, especially those of high-end real estate. After the galleries will come the coffee shops and bars, and after that, the restaurants that serve bacon in cocktails. After that, unkempt lots empty for decades will be boxed in construction plywood, and then there will be many hollow promises of affordable housing. And then it really will be time for “fucking Victorville.” [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 9:42 AM PST - 74 comments

The Dave Rumsey Historical Map Collection. Over 76,000 maps and images online, housed physically at Stanford but available here for your browsing pleasure.
posted by PussKillian at 8:46 AM PST - 12 comments

In 2016, amidst the Pokemon Go frenzy, a young couple wandered into the woods near Ohio's Little Miami River and glimpsed a four foot tall humanoid frog, known locally as the Loveland Frog. Several artists have tried to capture what the Loveland Frog must look like, with wildly varying results. The Wikipedia gives perhaps the most sobering idea of what a bipedal frog the height of a small child might look like lumbering over a highway guardrail. [more inside]
posted by Copronymus at 8:17 AM PST - 35 comments

On this day, another atomic war scare. "a colossal solar radio burst" (McMath Plage Region 8818) hit important high-altitude sensors, and was interpreted as Soviet radio jamming, which could have been part of an unfolding attack. Space weather forecasters, aided by Pioneer 7, saved the day. (Abstract)
posted by doctornemo at 8:15 AM PST - 7 comments

There are more types of sand than most of us know, and it can come from anywhere. For instance, normal beach sand isn't exactly right for volleyball, and horse-show sand is very specific. This article also discusses the destruction of the seabed to maintain the barrier islands of the US east coast. People have become very complacent about hurricanes and their effects on the sand of the barrier islands. Only two of the top 20 storms in Wilmington NC, for instance, have occurred since 2000.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Take a Look: An Oral History of Reading Rainbow
posted by Etrigan at 7:35 AM PST - 24 comments

Roger Moore – Saint, Persuader and the suavest James Bond – dies at 89. [The Guardian] “He was the epitome of the suave English gent, quipping sweatlessly in a bespoke three-piece suit, who enjoyed an acting career spanning eight decades. On Tuesday, Roger Moore’s children announced his death at the age of 89 in Switzerland, saying: “he passed away today ... after a short but brave battle with cancer”. Moore was best known for playing the third incarnation of James Bond as well as his roles in hit shows The Saint and The Persuaders. He also devoted a lot of his time to humanitarian work, becoming a Unicef goodwill ambassador in 1991.”
posted by Fizz at 7:03 AM PST - 97 comments

Filmmakers Jack Webber and Tommaso Di Paola spent 3 weeks working alongside Anna Rubincam, a contemporary stone carver working in London, as she carved a portrait from start to finish. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 4:10 PM PST - 24 comments

My job involves mopping up the urine-soaked garbage holes that exhausted motorists take for granted. But in another era, the public took great pride in the glory of roadside restrooms. (SL Narratively)
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:41 PM PST - 50 comments

According to the MTA’s own data, New York City subway delays were up some 332 percent between November 2012 and November 2016. The crisis points to larger, systematic and political upheaval, along with real technical issues like " aging cars and track equipment, new cars that struggle to perform as well as well as older ones, and an ancient signaling system, with parts dating back to Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency." Last Monday, the MTA introduced a 6 point plan that they think will help.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:05 PM PST - 37 comments

The 1923 opening of the El Navajo Hotel in Gallup, N.M., created a sensation, with the event reported as far away as in the Washington Post. Its architect, Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, had merged the bold Art Deco patterns with those created by native artists in the American Southwest to start a style called Pueblo Deco. This style was often seen inside and out on Harvey Hotels and restaurants, where she was exclusive employed from 1910 to 1948. Though a number of Harvey Hotels have been demolished, including El Navajo Hotel, you can still visit (Google maps street view) and stay at La Posada hotel in Winslow, Arizona and the Slaton Harvey House in Slaton, Texas (Google maps), which is currently a bed and breakfast, event hall and railroad museum. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:33 PM PST - 11 comments

"As the library overdoses mounted, the soft-spoken Moore, whom the kids call Miss Judi, took actions, small and large." Mike Newall of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports on librarians at the Philadelphia McPherson Square Library dealing with the opioid crisis on their doorstep. [more inside]
posted by CMcG at 12:59 PM PST - 27 comments

Mental Load: why women still do most of the work at home.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:31 AM PST - 238 comments

"[A] group of researchers from New York University.... trained a recurrent neural network to predict and classify text based on the work of Chuck Tingle." (from The Register) [all links should be considered NSFW or very NSFW] [more inside]
posted by frimble at 11:26 AM PST - 18 comments

To Cite or to Steal? When a Scholarly Project Turns Up in a Gallery. Scholar Kevin Ferguson "use[s] public domain scientific image analysis software to create 'sums' of films, adding together the frames of a film to make one single abstract image." He was surprised when he learned about a gallery show of remarkably similar work by artist Jason Shulman. Includes a brief history of visual artists who have done similar work, and a tutorial on how to make your own.
posted by goatdog at 10:52 AM PST - 20 comments

It's the 122nd day of the Trump Administration and his whirlwind diplomatic tour continues, moving on from the Middle East to … Israel? Israel, which, the President clarified, is definitely not a word that he said when meeting with Russian officials last week. Meanwhile, a sinkhole has formed in front of Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort which is almost certainly not a metaphor for his presidency. Unless it is. In which case, Vox makes the argument that there is no one to blame except Donald Trump.
posted by murphy slaw at 10:23 AM PST - 2999 comments

What's Your American Dream Score?

A new project from GALEWiLL and funded by the Ford Foundation, called the Your American Dream Score, deflates that idea that success–or lack thereof–is purely one’s own doing. The calculator is a part of a larger initiative, Moving Up: The Truth About Getting Ahead In America, which comprehensively examines the factors that contribute to mobility in America, and why changing one’s circumstances is far more difficult than the folklore leads up to believe[…]The reasons are myriad: wide disparities in educational quality, access to resources like healthy food, and social and familial support are just a slice. But too often, McKinnon says, when someone “makes it out”–like him–the only reason offered up is: “He worked hard.” When someone doesn’t make it out, the reason is: “He didn’t work hard enough.”

[h/t MeFi's Own Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:45 AM PST - 56 comments

A German Life. Brunhilde Pomsel died on January 27 of this year, at the age of 106. Seventy-five years earlier, in 1942, she began work at the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, as a personal secretary to Joseph Goebbels. Before her death, she recorded 30 hours of interviews, which form the basis of the film A German Life (Trailer 1, Trailer 2, IMDB) [more inside]
posted by McCoy Pauley at 8:44 AM PST - 6 comments

Some sweaters were worn once and then never again, like the neon blue cardigan Rogers wore in episode 1497. Others, like his harvest gold sweaters, were part of Rogers’ regular rotation and then disappeared. And then there were the unusual batch of black and olive green sweaters Rogers wore exclusively while filming the “Dress-Up” episodes in 1991. To this day, members of the Neighborhood Archive message board claim those are the only sweaters Rogers wore that were store bought. The rest were hand knit by his mother. [Every Color Of Cardigan Mister Rogers Wore From 1979–2001 via The Awl]
posted by chavenet at 8:24 AM PST - 16 comments

Investigating the content landfills that sit under the banner of "Related Content", "You May Also Like", or "Around the Web" [SLNYT]
posted by R a c h e l at 7:53 AM PST - 43 comments

Spend twelve soothingly critical minutes with English engine enthusiast Keith Appleton as he tears down, and explains the issues with, a small steam engine. Lots, lots more on his website, mainsteam.co.uk.
posted by cortex at 7:30 AM PST - 8 comments

A year and a half ago, F-class star KIC 8462852 (a.k.a. Tabby's Star or Boyajian's Star after Dr. Tabetha Boyajian) was noted to have strange emission patterns, kicking off a spate of stories about how the patterns are totally due to alien megastructures, such as a Dyson sphere. Now KIC 8462852 is at it again.
posted by Etrigan at 7:22 AM PST - 43 comments

When I first started as a typesetter back in 1962, I knew almost nothing about its history. But I learned on the job from people who'd been in the trade and from books. One name that seldom came up was W.A. Dwiggins. I started in newspapers and Times Roman was the font, a more boring typeface has not been devised. Dwiggins' fonts weren't like that.
posted by MovableBookLady at 6:49 AM PST - 6 comments

I implore you to set your better judgement aside, rationalize the fact that you have already clicked, and take my hand. We're going to the American Girl Store. [SLCracked; weirder than usual]
posted by automatic cabinet at 3:11 AM PST - 35 comments

Polygon recently published a large series on video games in Cuba: Cuba: Where underground arcades, secret networks and piracy are a way of life [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:42 PM PST - 3 comments

Time-lapse video of clouds inside the Grand Canyon are very purty.
posted by clawsoon at 8:34 PM PST - 13 comments

Deconstructing how The Beatles wrote "A Day in the Life" 50 years ago this month. How does a band go from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1964 to "A Day in the Life" in 1967? [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 7:43 PM PST - 55 comments

"Welcome to the positive lexicography, an evolving index of 'untranslatable' words related to wellbeing from across the world's languages." Interactive version. .Pdf version. Via "The Glossary of Happiness," by Emily Anthes, for The New Yorker.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:48 PM PST - 12 comments

If Every Day Is a Rainy Day, What Am I Saving For?
posted by BeBoth at 1:50 PM PST - 89 comments

8-bit Music Theory breaks down why Mario music sounds "fun", examines nonfunctional harmony in Chrono Trigger, investigates the history of Zelda overworld themes, and plenty more.
posted by theodolite at 10:48 AM PST - 22 comments

"Once a little old lady named Laura Scudder had a thing about potato chips" - an ad for Laura Scudder's Potato Chips, which really were made by Laura Scudder, a California entrepreneur who was the first to package potato chips in sealed bags to preserve their freshness, and was the first to add freshness dates to products. You can take the Laura Scudder Noise Abatement League Pledge, and view a short biographical recounting of Laura's life from Pauline Lemire, president of the Historical Society of Monterey Park. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:17 AM PST - 12 comments

How the Wealthy Talk to Their Children About Money. In which the New York Times inadvertently makes a case for the estate tax.
posted by indubitable at 7:08 AM PST - 79 comments

Above all, Ms. Dick shows up in female characters. She inspired Juliana, the heroine of “High Castle,” who has no trouble slashing a Nazi operative’s throat, as well as a number of shrill, carping, unhappy wives in other books. "I was a good — what do you call it? — muse,” Ms. Dick said in a recent interview....

Anne R. Dick, Memoirist and Writer’s Muse, Is Dead at 90
posted by y2karl at 7:03 AM PST - 13 comments

YouTube art channels - Since people always ask me where to find neat art tutorials, here's a comprehensive list of YouTube channels that teach art in one way or another.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:03 AM PST - 10 comments

…stairs [sprightly music] and many other things. Also a puppy versus sleep [ambient noise].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:23 PM PST - 18 comments

A lot of the fallout from opioid addiction, homelessness and gun violence falls on kids. These are a few stories I've read. Tyshaun's dad was killed across the street from his elementary school. [more inside]
posted by bendy at 10:32 PM PST - 8 comments

Lane Loomis: I Invited A Guy From Tinder Over, He Didn’t Look Like His Pics. [some graphic content]
posted by prismatic7 at 5:45 PM PST - 101 comments

Google’s 18-Month Quest To Redesign Its Terrible Emoji Google is notorious for having some of the worst emoji on the planet. Now it’s righting its wrongs–and taking on gender stereotypes, too. [...] It isn’t just a design overhaul of the (melting, yellow) elephant (dung) in the room, though. It also addresses deeper problems within Google’s emoji set: As Google has made its emoji people more realistic, the company had to completely rethink how–and why–it represents people the way it does. (😁 previously.)
posted by Room 641-A at 1:45 PM PST - 92 comments

Destiny 2 [YouTube] [Trailer] “Humanity’s last safe city has fallen to an overwhelming invasion force led by Ghaul, the imposing commander of the brutal Red Legion. He has stripped the city’s Guardians of their power, and forced the survivors to flee. You will venture to mysterious, unexplored worlds of our solar system to discover an arsenal of weapons and devastating new combat abilities. To defeat the Red Legion and confront Ghaul, you must reunite humanity’s scattered heroes, stand together, and fight back to reclaim our home.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:39 AM PST - 32 comments

Crows, and all corvids actually, fascinate me. It seems as though a new facet of corvid behavior is discovered every week or so, and this article is a good summary of what's been learned so far and how the scientists go about learning and testing.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:28 AM PST - 78 comments

You already know the work of BJ Leiderman. What you may not know is that he's released his first album [3m15s Sneek Peak video] after 30 years of aspiring toward the release. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:19 AM PST - 11 comments

Ars Technica takes a look at Avalon Hill's legendary board game version of Dune.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:01 AM PST - 37 comments

Miniature goat vs. a hammock [ambient sounds]. Four minutes of adorable. Bonus: Baby donkey swinging in a hammock [loud non-English cooing]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:07 PM PST - 14 comments

If you were to define 'comedy roast' by the modern Comedy Central Roasts, you could get the impression that it's a chance to heap scorn on celebrities who are already the focus of some level of public disdain. "Who wouldn’t want to see a similar thrashing, leveled at, say, Lady Gaga or every one of the Kardashians," asked Punchline Mag, but then they looked back at the origins of roast, where "they were originally done in honor or respect — real respect not the contemporary feigned type." Let's look back at the original roasts at the Friars Club in New York City, where things were different from today's TV events, yet some crass elements remain. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:24 PM PST - 10 comments

On June 1, 1965 a mild mannered newspaper copy editor at the Cleveland Plain Dealer set off from Falmouth, Massachusetts in his 13.5 foot wooden sailboat Tinkerbelle and headed east. 78 days later, on August 17, he arrived in Falmouth, Cornwall, England. To his shock he was greeted by 50,000 people (Note: PDF) having become something of a celebrity while at sea. [more inside]
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:14 PM PST - 15 comments

Fashionable Flasks: Cosmo tests the latest in women's flasks. But not the tampon flask.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:57 PM PST - 24 comments

The world was surprised and charmed this week to learn that King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has been moonlighting as a pilot for KLM twice a month for the past 21 years, flying commercial passenger flights. He is rarely recognized. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:37 PM PST - 34 comments

[tw suicide] A rare glimpse into a struggling culture where Water is Salmon is Life: How a remote California tribe set out to save its river and stop a suicide epidemic - LA Times. Meanwhile, Berkeley linguists and tribal members are working to save the Yurok Language. [more inside]
posted by The Toad at 6:25 PM PST - 5 comments

A lot more. Matthew "Megatoad" Kai Stonie is an American competitive eater and is the number two ranked competitive eater in Major League Eating. Matt won the 2015 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 4:19 PM PST - 12 comments

On Missy's 2015 song "WTF (Where They From)," there is a sample of a young girl speaking. The voice belongs to Rachel Jeantel, the friend of Trayvon Martin who was on the phone with him when he was murdered. Missy doesn't bring this up, I do. She goes almost mute when I say that by sampling Jeantel's voice, Pharrell and she have done a remarkable thing that has reversed what usually happens to the words of girls who look like Rachel Jeantel.

From Elle's June edition cover story on Missy Elliott as interviewed by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:59 PM PST - 20 comments

The 2007 Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is generally considered to suck, with a flat performance from Kidman, a weak ending and no Donald Sutherland. But what if it there was more to it than people thought? 'The Invasion' as Anti-Fascist film [via mefi projects]
posted by Artw at 3:48 PM PST - 5 comments

A neural network is attempting to learn to drive in GTA V [CW: Profanity, and probably some car crashes] [via waxpancake]
posted by schmod at 3:22 PM PST - 20 comments

BOLTR: Juicero, Cold Press Juicer for Rich Weirdos. (SLYT)
posted by Harpocrates at 1:52 PM PST - 42 comments

After publishing The Rise And Fall Of T.D. Lysenko via samizdat (eng. trans. 1969), Zhores Medvedev was hounded by the Soviet secret police until his exile in the UK. There he continued to write, and after the success of his book Soviet Science (1978), Zhores Medvedev followed it up with Nuclear Disaster In The Urals, which pieced together rumors, scientific reports, and news articles to conclude that there had been an enormous radioctive release near Kyshtym in 1957, and the USSR was covering it up. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:35 PM PST - 12 comments

What the world's most avid pizza box collector thinks of Apple's patented pizza box
posted by R a c h e l at 11:39 AM PST - 44 comments

The Fondoodler is a hollow cartridge and ratcheted plunger mounted in a nozzled pistol, with heated tip. Discharges cheese. [The Guardian] “I’m looking at it right now, and I still don’t know what it is. First impressions are that it resembles one of those “pump up your junk” home devices that, once Googled, will be advertised to you for ever (#apparently #whoknows #notme). I push the cartridge through a block of red leicester – like taking a punch biopsy – then return it to the gun, and plug in to heat. The process “works” with any cheese – I pull the trigger and orange discharge wriggles forth on to Ryvita, where I write my name in coagulating fat. Then I draw some boobs, and then I’m out of ideas. Actively trying to doodle defeats the point, whatever the point of doodling with cheese is in the first place.”
posted by Fizz at 10:24 AM PST - 61 comments

Thousands of 'Second Life' Bunnies Are Going to Starve to Death This Saturday. If this feels oddly familiar, this is why.
posted by Zarkonnen at 10:06 AM PST - 40 comments

Perspectiva Corporum Regularium: that is, a diligent exposition of how the five regular solids of which Plato writes in the Timaeus and Euclid in his Elements are artfully brought into perspective using a particularly new, thorough and proper method never before employed. [more inside]
posted by theodolite at 10:02 AM PST - 5 comments

What happens when you use machine translation on repeating pairs of Japanese syllables? Insane computer poetry (courtesy of Language Log). More examples collected in examples posted by Naomi Clark; likewise from Dan Luu. [more inside]
posted by cortex at 10:01 AM PST - 13 comments

In the latest installment of old/rich people blame millenials for everything, a multi-millionaire property dealer (who inherited wealth) suggests they cut back on the avocado toast so they can buy property. The New York Time fact-checks his "claim", as does SFgate (post title from this), LA Times and CNBC, while social media is wtf, emoji, nope, singing. Elsewhere, gadgets to help you make avocado toast, or consider moving to Ireland. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 9:39 AM PST - 119 comments

Isaiah Xavier Howard is a young rapper/musician who makes incredible and unique music videos with just an iPhone. You've never seen anything like it. It quickly garnered the attention of filmmakers and creators Matthew Cherry, Nick Childs, and was RT'd by the director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. From Jordan Peele: "Isaiah, let's talk." [more inside]
posted by AFABulous at 9:07 AM PST - 16 comments

Matt Zoller Seitz at vulture.com walks through the reasons that the new "Twin Peaks" isn't likely to mesh well with today's style of internet-enabled fandom.
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:39 AM PST - 51 comments

For reasons unknown, "Mr Brightside" is currently in the UK charts. Looking at the UK chart history, you may be surprised to learn that there is actually not a single year since its release in which "Mr Brightside" has not been in the Top 100. [...] We have thought long and hard about this and come up with a few theories about what might be prompting this return to glory, which we are going to share with you below, because we care.
posted by damayanti at 8:37 AM PST - 33 comments

Until the National Park Service took it over in 1968, nobody had ever formally surveyed the trail; a story about the massive project to set survey markers along the entire Appalachian Trail. The trail is also marked with many kinds of less formal AT art. No one is certain if the AT monogram was initially intended to be used as a directional arrow.
posted by jessamyn at 6:53 AM PST - 10 comments

Two professional footballers versus thirty under-9 year olds [slyt]
posted by Stark at 5:53 AM PST - 36 comments

Big John was going to extort a million dollars from Harvey’s Wagon Wheel Casino in Lake Tahoe, and he planned to do it by building a bomb.
posted by Rumple at 12:15 AM PST - 21 comments

There's a big rubber dong in these pictures. (h/t Dangerous Minds)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:40 PM PST - 26 comments

Sticks Red. Ghasty Pink. Navel Tan. Paint colors (and names) invented by a neural net.
posted by zanni at 9:27 PM PST - 44 comments

After 37 episodes of hilarity, existential horror, and good good splosions, Car Boys (previously)--hosted by Nick Robinson and Griffin McElroy of Polygon--has finally come to a close with a thrilling finale.
posted by Lurch at 8:50 PM PST - 40 comments

A Soviet vision of the future: the legacy and influence of Tekhnikia – Molodezhi magazine
posted by Artw at 1:46 PM PST - 14 comments

Did you know there are many kinds of wizards? There are at least a Hundred kinds. There are Camp wizards, Skateboard wizards, Impossible wizards, Pizza wizards, and Very Loud Wizards. Sometimes wizards have Bros. Sometimes they're even on a Team. [more inside]
posted by dismas at 12:05 PM PST - 17 comments

Every year or two, someone writes another article about a genre that women have just now entered, which used to be the province of male writers. Usually it’s some form of science fiction. Lately it’s been fantasy, especially epic fantasy (which strikes me with fierce irony, because I remember when fantasy was pink and squishy and comfy and for girls). And in keeping with this week’s theme, space opera gets its regular turn in the barrel.

Judith Tarr: Yes, Women Have Always Written Space Opera. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 11:27 AM PST - 43 comments

We already know that humanity is having significant effects on the atmosphere and the biosphere, but it turns out that we're changing the lithosphere too. Well, kind of: Humans have caused an explosion of never-before-seen minerals all over the Earth. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:58 AM PST - 26 comments

"A half-century ago, a girl and brother ran away to New York City from their suburban Connecticut home. And the Metropolitan Museum of Art hasn’t been the same since." [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer at 10:11 AM PST - 40 comments

Roger Ailes, Who Built Fox News Into an Empire, Dies at 77 [The New York Times] “Roger E. Ailes, who shaped the images that helped elect three Republican presidents and then became a dominant, often-intimidating force in American conservative politics at the helm of Fox News, which he created with Rupert Murdoch’s money and guided for two decades until he was forced out in a sexual predation scandal, died on Thursday morning. He was 77. No cause of death or other details were given in an announcement by Mr. Ailes’s wife, Elizabeth. Mr. Ailes was a hemophiliac long plagued by obesity and arthritis.”
posted by Fizz at 9:50 AM PST - 142 comments

Trump's budget could eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness. ...the proposed budget would reportedly cut funding in half for the federal work-study program, and would sharply reduce grants focused on career and technical education. The most drastic change, however, may be the budget’s proposed elimination of the public-service loan forgiveness program, which was initially designed to benefit people who work in the public interest.
posted by onecircleaday at 9:23 AM PST - 62 comments

While it once looked like a quiet race, drawing only a single challenger, the 2017 Seattle Mayoral election has become a free-for-all. Incumbent Ed Murray will not be running for re-election, following a series of allegations that he sexually abused teenagers in the 1980s. This has resulted in a flood of more than 15 declared candidates. Who are all these candidates for mayor? Is it possible that you are one of them? If so, be sure to complete the announcement form and select a good slogan. See you in the primary! [more inside]
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:34 AM PST - 20 comments

With little editing, the audio from the Blade Runner 2049 trailer overlaid onto the new Google Assistant ad. (subtitles, video on Gizmodo, previously)
posted by Wordshore at 8:19 AM PST - 16 comments

Three behavioral scientists debunk Charles Murray's junk science on race and IQ, and take Sam Harris to task for showcasing them so uncritically on his podcast.
posted by AceRock at 7:52 AM PST - 66 comments

Comic Book Girl 19 did not have a nice time watching King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the choppy editing and intense music didn't help.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:16 AM PST - 56 comments

Big Finish Productions, producers of Doctor Who audio plays and audiobooks since 1999 (including New Series content since 2015 - guess an obstructive BBC higher-up died or something), on May 8th began accepting submissions for the second annual Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trip Opportunity - a contest whose winner gets to write a Doctor Who short story audiobook that will be made available for free (the first winner: Forever Fallen, a look at what happens to a villain after he fails). The rules and entry format are listed here. Entries close June 30. [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 5:41 AM PST - 9 comments

You think your garden shed is neat, all the tools hung in their proper places? Piker. Peep these garden sheds from the Shed of the Year contest
posted by pjern at 5:32 AM PST - 31 comments

Variety: ‘Arrested Development’ Officially Returning for Season 5 at Netflix [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 4:18 AM PST - 49 comments

Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, a founding father of grunge, dead at 52 [WaPo Obit]
posted by hippybear at 3:33 AM PST - 210 comments

Vulture is hosting a first listen of the Broadway Cast Recording of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, the "electropop opera" adaptation of a 70 page slice of War and Peace nominated for 12 Tony awards. The album features Josh Groban as Pierre, Denée Benton as Natasha, and an eclectic range of musical styles. [more inside]
posted by zachlipton at 11:02 PM PST - 22 comments

How Google Book Search Got Lost - Google Books was the company’s first moonshot. But 15 years later, the project is stuck in low-Earth orbit.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:58 PM PST - 17 comments

In April, researchers from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia announced that they had created an artificial womb and successfully nurtured premature lambs in it. On Tuesday, researchers from Northwestern University announced that they had created an artificial ovary from gelatin which led to successful births in mice.
posted by clawsoon at 10:04 PM PST - 20 comments

The Speaking Telegraph

The telephone was an accident. Whereas the telegraph networks of the 1840s emerged out of a century-long search for the means to communicate by electricity, men only stumbled over the telephone while searching for a better telegraph. For this reason, it is easier to pin down a plausible, though not incontrovertible, date for the invention of the telephone – the American centennial year of 1876. This is not to say that the centennial telephone was without precursors.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:03 PM PST - 5 comments

Neil is in the hospital for a fractured ankle which needs to be manipulated before a cast is applied. The painkiller chosen is ketamine, which provokes an interesting reaction from Neil [LOUD babbling].
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:01 PM PST - 38 comments

Manton Reece and Brent Simmons noticed developers avoiding XML in favor of JSON for APIs. JSON is simpler to read and write, and it’s less prone to bugs. So [they] developed JSON Feed, a format similar to RSS and Atom but in JSON. It reflects the lessons learned from our years of work reading and publishing feeds. via daringfireball [more inside]
posted by cgc373 at 5:36 PM PST - 45 comments

The author talks about why travel can be just as boring as not going. Also, info on how tourist and tourism have changed the world.
posted by MovableBookLady at 4:25 PM PST - 37 comments

Valve is not your friend. It seems increasingly unlikely that Good Guy Valve ever existed. Good Guy Valve is a clever marketing conceit, a machine operating on a massive scale and one that can only do so because it is powered by the one thing Valve would later come to exploit above all: the free labor of adoring users and consumer goodwill that often feels both unearned and bottomless.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:07 PM PST - 48 comments

The first trailer for Star Trek: Discovery (slyt)
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 3:19 PM PST - 123 comments

The lack of accountability isn’t just troubling from a philosophical perspective. It’s dangerous in a political climate where people are pushing back at the very idea of globalization. There's no industry more globalized than tech, and no industry more vulnerable to a potential backlash. From a recent talk by Pinboard/Maciej Ceglowski
posted by roolya_boolya at 1:57 PM PST - 17 comments

Since it was recommended by Bill Gates as the "most inspiring" book he has ever read, Stephen Pinker's thesis on the decline of violence, The Better Angels of Our Nature (prev), has been a number one best seller again. Pasquale Cirillo and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (that one) had previously critiqued the thesis in an paper [technical pdf, though well explained], concluding that "humanity is as violent as usual." Economist Michael Spagat joined Pinker in writing a response, leading to a reply by Cirillo and Taleb, provoking yet another letter. While the argument isn't violent, there are some nasty feelings on both sides. Very recently, and in an easy-to-follow set of slides, Spagat has laid out a final (for now) and fairly convincing argument that we really are seeing a decline of violence in the world. For a visual tour of declining violence, there is this terrific set of infographics.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:54 PM PST - 12 comments

“I wanted the whole world to myself,” she says. “So I made a whole entire book about how to hurt people.” Psychopathy: the condition has long been considered untreatable. Experts can spot it in a child as young as 3 or 4. But a new clinical approach offers hope.
posted by capnsue at 1:50 PM PST - 59 comments

This visualization is a modified version of Chernoff Faces, a technique that maps multiple statistical values to the features of a face. Because it's 2017, we expanded on the technique and made Chernoff Emojis. Each part of the emoji is controlled by the state's ranking in a given metric, which range from the uninsured rate to the percent of adults who report getting enough sleep.
posted by Artw at 1:39 PM PST - 7 comments

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes on the sexism she's experienced as a woman composer in the classical music world. The article began as a response to an NYT review of a piece of hers; it expands into observations on the way her music has been received generally, both as the product of a female composer and as possessing overt and unapologetic emotion. [more inside]
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 1:08 PM PST - 5 comments

Jeremy Blake makes music with an op-1 and records the process in a series of hypnotic videos.
posted by empath at 1:05 PM PST - 22 comments

In 1971, the American Economics Association established a standing Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) They've just released their annual report, which documents the continuing underrepresentation of women in Economics departments in the United States [pdf, the details start around page 14]: "At every level of the academic hierarchy, from entering PhD student to full professor, women have been and remain a minority. [...] Our reliance on this leaky pipeline for gradual progress in women’s representation in the profession depends on continued growth in entry, which no longer appears to be forthcoming." [more inside]
posted by dismas at 11:54 AM PST - 3 comments

The Architect of the Capitol teamed up with the non-profit City Wildlife and recently installed two duck ramps for ducklings to get in and out of the Capitol Reflecting Pool. Of course, this being DC, not everyone is pleased. [more inside]
posted by numaner at 10:56 AM PST - 38 comments

Got one too many of those bright blue Ikea bags? Of course not. You can never have too many. But you can still repurpose them.
posted by Etrigan at 10:50 AM PST - 21 comments

ProPublica: Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break Into Mar-a-Lago
posted by snortasprocket at 10:39 AM PST - 15 comments

‘Prometheus’ is One of the Boldest Science Fiction Movies in Recent Memory

Let me put it to you like this: what are the most frustratingly nonsensical elements of the movie?...[SPOILERS FOR A FOUR YEAR OLD MOVIE]...Had Prometheus been given more latitude – by studio, screenwriters, or filmmaker – to step outside of Alien’s sphere of influence, we may rightly view this as an important film. Instead, Prometheus is left to people like me to defend it.

[more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 10:31 AM PST - 83 comments

A week after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, with varying reasons provided at and after the fact, the New York Times broke the story that Comey wrote a memo describing private meeting in February where Trump asked him "let go" of the federal investigation Flynn, which clearly did not happen, as CNN reported Grand jury subpoenas issued in FBI's Russia investigation, pursuing associates of Flynn, back on May 10. As details of this and other notes kept by Comey were made public, White House staff scramble from one fiasco to the next, and a senior official in the Trump administration summarized the situation as such: "I don’t see how Trump isn’t completely f*cked." And Trump hosted Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House Tuesday, where the Turkish president’s bodyguards beat up US protesters. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:53 AM PST - 3318 comments

When The Moment Sings is a short documentary about rhythm and everyday life featuring musicologist Jon-Roar Bjørkvold. Warning: May contain traces of maize and juxtapositions of Cameroonian and Norwegian 90s walking culture.
posted by klue at 5:32 AM PST - 4 comments

Another ‘Twin Peaks’ Puzzle: How to Make That Cherry Pie [The New York Times] “Finding an authentic recipe for “Twin Peaks” cherry pie is about as easy as figuring out who killed Laura Palmer. They serve a version here at Twede’s Cafe, the restaurant about 30 miles east of Seattle that played a backdrop as the Double R Diner in David Lynch’s quirky 1990s television series. Visitors still come from around the world to linger over slices of the bracingly sweet, viscous red double-crust pie and cups of the “damn fine” coffee at the U-shaped counter. A short drive away, there is another pie, heavily seasoned with cinnamon, at the Salish Lodge & Spa overlooking Snoqualmie Falls, the waterfall in the series’ opening credits. “Twin Peaks,” which returns on Sunday after a 26-year hiatus, fetishized pie [The New York Times Recipe] (as well as doughnuts and that coffee, “black as midnight on a moonless night”) to such an extent that almost any real-life slice is bound to fall short.”
posted by Fizz at 4:51 AM PST - 24 comments

How to do karate in a Victorian Dress. (Tor, SLYT)
posted by loquacious at 3:03 AM PST - 11 comments

When TV network logos were physical objects.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:53 PM PST - 43 comments

Automatonism is a modular synthesiser that runs in the open source programming language Pure Data. It features a large library of 67 modules. It is the successor to Xodular, which has been mentioned here previously
posted by coleboptera at 10:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Did they eat all the humans? Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik asks the tough questions about Cars, like what's the purpose of school buses and why they have human language, directly to its Pixar overlords. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:47 PM PST - 75 comments

"The Weather Channel music has wedged its way into our brains, imprinted itself from an early age. So many of us now associate that particular genre of inoffensive smooth jazz with feelings of home, the 1990s variety: home where you had little soaps in the shape of sea-shells, homes where you had aggressively wood-accented kitchens with lots of white appliances and everyone had very brightly colored windbreakers in various shades of teal and purple." [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 9:09 PM PST - 25 comments

Why waste your time learning photoshop when you can illustrate an entire novel via art created in MSPaint? [more inside]
posted by jeather at 8:54 PM PST - 8 comments

"Well, the F1 is the most iconic, but if you do something, it's a house." The Leno Collection is located in Burbank in some nondescript hangars next to the airport. The buildings house a collection of more than 140 cars, 100's of motorcycles, and a menagerie of engines, spare parts and memorabilia. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 6:45 PM PST - 25 comments

As the trial of Cliven Bundy and his sons over their 2014 armed standoff with federal agents draws closer, The Intercept has obtained footage and documentation from something exceptionally strange: The Bizarre Story Behind the FBI’s Fake Documentary About the Bundy Family. [more inside]
posted by indubitable at 6:06 PM PST - 18 comments

In 2014, MeFite-beloved image sharing site MLKSHK (pronounced "Milk Shake") announced it was shutting down. But have no fear! A dedicated group of volunteer users has worked hard to put together a replacement site based on the original -- and it launched today! Introducing MLTSHP (pronounced "Malt Shop")! See Popular Posts for public-facing content. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:26 PM PST - 51 comments

Who can resist a piggy shayna punim? Certainly not this husky. Or this corgi. Or this teeny human. Many more at Piggy4Me.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:19 PM PST - 9 comments

"These residents are among an estimated 200,000 people in Hong Kong living in such tiny subdivided units, some so small that a person cannot even fully stretch out their legs."
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:05 PM PST - 37 comments

Last Friday, Feminista Jones jokingly tweeted, "Piss a man off today: Tell him you agree with his compliment of you." Her tweet kickstarted an interesting conversation among women who had done so.
posted by orange swan at 12:32 PM PST - 91 comments

Joanna Brouk, 1949-2017. She was an early pioneer of electronic and new age music, in the geometric/ambient section of that map, active mostly via self-released cassettes during the 1970's and 80's. Last year, Numero Group released a full retrospective of her career, Hearing Voices. Previously not recognized widely, this release garnered her oeuvre attention – she was scheduled to play her first US concert outside of California in June, and she played her first European concert in France earlier this year.
posted by not_on_display at 11:35 AM PST - 6 comments

"Gunn v. Hamilton—an inquiry into whether Abush had two parents or one—began the following week, and was still running in the new year. The proceedings, which exhumed hundreds of e-mails of love and regret, became an intimate history of a New York romance and its aftermath: a study of what counts as splitting up, what counts as a family, and, in a quiet but stubborn subtext, whether the ability to pay for good dentistry enhances a legal claim to be something more than a godmother." (SLNewYorker)
posted by crazy with stars at 11:16 AM PST - 20 comments

A Tale of Three Cities: The State of Racial Justice in Chicago Report. "The central finding of this report is that racial and ethnic inequities in Chicago remain pervasive, persistent, and consequential. These inequities affect the lives of Chicagoans in every neighborhood; they have not just spatial but also deep historical roots and are embedded in our social, economic, political, and cultural institutions; and they have powerful effects on the experiences and opportunities of all Chicagoans." Report from the Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago.
posted by goatdog at 11:02 AM PST - 1 comment

A 6 minute long mini-animation festival from William Garratt -- Have A Look [Vimeo link].
posted by hippybear at 10:17 AM PST - 6 comments

Photographer and cartographer Andrew Lynch presents A Complete and Geographically Accurate NYC Subway Track Map
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:29 AM PST - 8 comments

Imagine you were sent back in time to the Comedy Central offices in 1994, and you had the chance to buy a series by Sofia Coppola and Zoe Cassavetes that also has the Beastie Boys, Keanu Reeves, Martin Scorsese, and other famous friends and relatives. Well, imagine no more, because that fore-thinking version of you not only bought it but made it the first TV series in history to shoot in digital video. Unfortunately, Hi Octane bears only glimpses of the filmmaking pedigrees that would eventually bring us Lost in Translation, Broken English, and A Very Murray Christmas. It aired briefly and vanished into the ether, to the point that it has no Wikipedia entry.
posted by Etrigan at 9:21 AM PST - 5 comments

Fredrik deBoer at the ANOVA explains a new meta-analysis on Academic Interventions for Elementary and Middle School Students With Low Socioeconomic Status.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:16 AM PST - 32 comments

Ivanka Trump: Stepfordian Night Ghast of Neo Capitalism It’s true that anyone can be a dead-eyed Instagram husk of a human being frantically photoshopping themselves in the down-hours between soul-crushing corporate drudgery and unpaid emotional labour for some ungrateful lantern-jawed jock if they really want to, but it takes a special type of person to do all that whilst also being a decoy for a global backlash against women’s rights. - Laurie Penny pulls no punches in her review of Ivanka's latest self help manual.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:42 AM PST - 44 comments

In 1998, five New York friends — Julian Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr., Fabrizio Moretti, Nick Valensi, and Nikolai Fraiture — formed a band called the Strokes. They released a debut album, Is This It, in 2001. In 2009, NME named it Album of the Decade; Rolling Stone ranked it No. 2, behind Radiohead’s Kid A. This is an account of what happened in between, starting in 2002.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:17 AM PST - 77 comments

An app, a man, a painting, a smile (slTwitter)
posted by PussKillian at 7:57 AM PST - 3 comments

Fidget Spinners: The Toy That Changed America: A Ken Burns documentary
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:09 AM PST - 58 comments

My family's slave: "She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was." [more inside]
posted by sour cream at 5:25 AM PST - 231 comments

Louise MacBean (interview) embroiders portraits of Rebel Women from history and blogs about the women: 168 women so far, with plans to do another 1652. Her Rebel Women Embroidery blog has posts up to October 2016; more recent work is on her Instagram. Women include Tapputi (chemist and perfumer in Ancient Mesopotamia), Cai Wenji (Chinese poet in the Eastern Han Dynasty), Aemilia Hilaria (Roman doctor in Gaul) and Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (eleventh century Andalusian poet). MacBean has also written themed posts, including Game of Thrones, Drag Kings and women with ties to the supernatural. Via Rex Factor podcast.
posted by paduasoy at 5:15 AM PST - 1 comment

The Secret History of William Gibson’s Never-Filmed Aliens Sequel (Script)
posted by Artw at 9:58 PM PST - 21 comments

Powers Boothe, Actor Known for ‘Deadwood’ and Other Dark Roles, Dies at 68 [The New York Times] “Powers Boothe [wiki] [imdb], an actor best known for playing dark characters on television shows like “Deadwood” and in movies like “Sin City,” died on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 68. The death was confirmed by his publicist, Karen Samfilippo. She did not specify the cause. Mr. Boothe lent his burly frame and Texas drawl to numerous TV series beginning in the late 1970s. In addition to the acclaimed HBO series “Deadwood,” he was seen on shows including “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Nashville” and “24,” on which he played the vice president of the United States. Among the movies in which he appeared were “Red Dawn” (1984), “Marvel’s The Avengers” (2012) and Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” (1995), in which he played Alexander Haig.”
posted by Fizz at 6:41 PM PST - 57 comments

Retro Tech is a thing now. Digital is cheap, digital is easy, digital is everywhere. Perhaps that’s why some people are turning their backs on it. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 6:35 PM PST - 79 comments

"There is no dominant Islamist group in Indonesia that represents a coherent Islamic community" Interesting article discussing the recent arrest of Jakarta governor Ahok on blasphemy charges, and the broader context of Islam and politics in recent years. Good comment on the article (most are sadly rubbish).
posted by smoke at 5:40 PM PST - 9 comments

'World's happiest animal', the quokka, becomes the most popular tourist attraction at Australia's Rottnest Island [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 5:39 PM PST - 27 comments

While sitting in a hotel bar, photographer Ian Kasnoff came up with the idea of turning his small box trailer into a working ultra-large format camera. After some cocktail napkin sketches, the idea for Kasnoff’s TrailerCam was born. He turned his 5×5.5×8-foot trailer into a camera obscura with an old enlarging lens as an initial proof of concept. When he saw his property projected with “crystal clarity” on every surface inside his trailer, the TrailerCam passed the first test. Since then, he's upgraded the "camera" lens a number of times, and it now features two lenses: a wide-angle and a telephoto. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:39 PM PST - 17 comments

World's longest joke: Nate The Snake
posted by growabrain at 2:38 PM PST - 41 comments

The American landscape is dotted with places that witnessed enormous tragedies, and much like Flossenbürg they have now been absorbed into the everyday landscape. Unlike Flossenbürg, though, many of these American sites clumsily negotiate their dark heritage or simply ignore it in favor of aesthetically pleasant contemporary landscapes.

The Aesthetics of Bliss and Trauma in Plantation Weddings: archaeologist Paul Mullins continues his series on "dark tourism".
posted by Rumple at 12:52 PM PST - 56 comments

MuralsDC is a project funded by the DC Department of Public Works, in cooperation with the DC Commission on the Arts and the Humanities, and is designed to provide permanent graffiti abatement to those properties that have experienced or are at risk of this type of vandalism. Since its pilot in 2007, MuralsDC has painted more than 50 murals in every ward of the city. [more inside]
posted by numaner at 11:13 AM PST - 3 comments

On the eve of their sophomore album release came numerous accusations of sexual assault and harassment by PWR BTTM's Ben Hopkins. Since the news came out on May 11, PWR BTTM: have been dropped by their management, dropped by their label (which offered full refunds to anyone who had purchased the new album), lost touring band members, have seen their openers drop out of their tour, been dropped as festival headliners, and reportedly canceled their entire tour. (tw: sexual assault) [more inside]
posted by palindromic at 10:34 AM PST - 51 comments

The LGBTQ movement is an intersectional fail "One would think that youth homelessness and joblessness, simultaneously affecting the most vulnerable and potentially most dynamic sectors of the LGBTQ movement, would be top priorities of the movement. [...] But we live in a neoliberal age where the only reforms acceptable to the Democrats are those that don’t cost the system any money. [...] Taking its lead from the Democrats, Gay Inc. gives lip service, if that, to the class issues directly bearing on the overwhelming majority of those whom they purport to represent." [more inside]
posted by AFABulous at 8:33 AM PST - 45 comments

"We would lean over the sink in the girls’ room before first period, putting on our war paint and posing with serious pouts in the mirror. Together we would perform this ritual and roll out late for class in a cute, menacing pack like Mexican Heathers (or La Vida Loca, the film that came out not long after). In those early days I drew strength from the ritual. I put my faith in it, in us, and in makeup’s power to transform not just my face but my life." Melissa Mesku, for The Hairpin: "Chola Makeup: An exercise in becoming."
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:08 AM PST - 13 comments

Daniel Jose Ruiz has a great article on Geekdom and Race. D&D has taken strides toward diversity in its artwork, and some Friendly Local Game Stores are thinking about how to be more welcoming, but the angry white male gamer is an ongoing problem. [more inside]
posted by rikschell at 7:58 AM PST - 81 comments

Many Indonesian villages are following this trend and the transformation is stunning. Poor villages and slums invest a few thousand dollars to beautify their buildings and the world takes note.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:52 AM PST - 14 comments

A Load of Old Billhooks is a site dedicated to the history, diversity, and usage of everyone's favorite multi-purpose agricultural and woodcrafting tool, the billhook.
posted by jedicus at 7:21 AM PST - 13 comments

Big crowds, legit lox, a civil suit, and millions in debt.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:10 AM PST - 10 comments

Norwegian police, in conjunction with public broadcaster NRK, have reopened the case of the Isdal woman, an unidentified burned body found in a remote hiking area in 1970. The BBC and Wikipedia have more info on Isdalskvinnen. (Content Warning: graphic photo at BBC link)
posted by Etrigan at 7:04 AM PST - 21 comments

Born a cremator: An Indian boy's fight for an education.
The occupation of burning bodies remains an inherited one - passed from father to son. Despite performing this important Hindu ritual, the community is treated as "untouchable" by Hindus from more privileged castes.
Manikarnika Ghat - The tourism of Death.
Children of the Pyre was a film made in 2008.
posted by adamvasco at 4:13 AM PST - 3 comments

When the Mattel Intellivision tried to become a real computer.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:05 AM PST - 52 comments

Mr. Gonzalez started at a little over $10 an hour in a job he described as “pretty much shoveling dirt.” Nevertheless, he signed an employment contract that included a noncompete clause, enforceable for three years within 350 miles of [Singley Construction’s] base in Columbia, Mississippi.
Conor Dougherty writes about about the increasing pervasiveness of non-compete clauses in contracts for The New York Times.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:58 PM PST - 70 comments

Some of the world’s largest, oldest fish live in Oregon. Why anyone would want to vandalize them, even abduct them, takes explaining. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:52 PM PST - 5 comments

Esquire profiles Matt Nelson, the creative force behind twitter sensation WeRateDogs™. Nelson, who also tweets at The Dogfather and Thoughts of Dog, is a 20-year-old sophomore studying golf management at a small Baptist college in North Carolina. [more inside]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:00 PM PST - 17 comments

A New Way to Frame Dialogue Around Diversity and Social Justice (pdf)
posted by aniola at 6:13 PM PST - 23 comments

Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating boundaries in such a way that favors a political party. If you slice and group in various ways, you can end up with different election results. How many different ways can you draw boundaries though? And can results really change that much, depending on you draw the boundaries? District, by Christopher Walker, is a puzzle game that shows you how it works. The goal: Group circles in such a way that favors your color. (Works on my iPhone but not on my iPad. YMMV.) [via]
posted by Room 641-A at 5:19 PM PST - 22 comments

Doughnuts Are on a Global Rampage, and They Must Be Stopped.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:33 PM PST - 94 comments

My Mom Was My Best Friend, and I Was Kind of a Dick thank you, thank you for being here, thank you so much. by Jeb Lund, in Esquire
posted by theora55 at 4:13 PM PST - 6 comments

Wikipedia:Deleted articles with freaky titles [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 2:06 PM PST - 42 comments

Brent Weinbach (previously very nsfw, sfw version) is an American stand-up comedian based in Los Angeles, California. He is a host of The Legacy Music Hour and has a new comedy special on Seeso titled Appealing To The Mainstream. [more inside]
posted by dagosto at 12:42 PM PST - 6 comments

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? by Kate Gray [The Guardian] “If everything I learned about motherhood was from games, a large part of it would be “you die roughly five minutes after giving birth, surviving just long enough to leave a memento or a letter that will later serve as the motivation for your child to do some big quest”. You are less a nurturing, sentient human being, more a plot device. The statistical probability of this happening is worrying on a pandemic scale: there’s Ellie’s mother in The Last of Us, Evie and Jacob’s mother in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, the drowned mother in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, the protagonist’s mother in Fallout 3, the saintly Lady Comstock in Bioshock Infinite (who, when she returns to life, does so as a nightmarish and deadly siren) … the list continues.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:32 AM PST - 44 comments

The task was to make a film revolving around the villages in the Delta, and around two elements in particular: water problems and water management, and the problems women living in these villages face and their empowerment. [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 9:55 AM PST - 2 comments

The rate of TB infection in Marion, Alabama is a hundred times the national average, and even higher than Haiti, India, and Kenya. There is no hospital in town, two ambulances in the county, and life expectancy here is seven years lower than the US average. Marion sits in the belly of the Black Belt — historically, a ribbon of seventeen counties in central Alabama and parts of northeastern Mississippi, where whites enslaved black people to farm cotton in the dark, fertile soil; the term has come to refer broadly to predominantly African-American areas in the rural South.
posted by stillmoving at 9:32 AM PST - 21 comments

How the redesigned Judy Blume covers avoid nostalgia and embrace universal adolescent angst. [SLVox]
posted by Ziggy500 at 6:40 AM PST - 30 comments

Russian stylist Georgiy Kot creates astonishingly elaborate hair styles. PopSugar collected a few styling videos from his Instagram. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 5:06 PM PST - 15 comments

"Me and Izi have started small adventure company this year. We have started too late and all people has asked us about 2010 ;) This story begun when one journalist has called me and asked about Afganistan tour. - Have you been there? I have heard you intend to take people for Afganistan? Is this true? Well, we have seen Afganistan and road to Wakhan from other bank of Pyanzh but we have not been there. No clients this year, why not take a little ride to Afghanistan just for fun?"
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:47 PM PST - 27 comments

Kind Twitter user ♡ brian essbe ♡ says, "Everything is awful this week so please enjoy this short video I saw today of duckings base-jumping." [quacking, peeping and delighted laughter]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:26 PM PST - 35 comments

Since the announcement in February of this year that the nearby star TRAPPIST-1 has seven earth-size planets orbiting it, popular understanding of its complex orbital mechanics has been enhanced by insights from Jazz Music and a Graphic Novel.
posted by Rumple at 11:56 AM PST - 10 comments

Two articles from the Paris Review about the work of Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, best known for the Andrei Tarkovsky adaptations of their work. Strugatsky Brothers: Yet the ambiguous ending of the novel, and its insistence on disrupting the conventional mystery narrative with fantastic elements, also speaks to the hopefulness of science fiction. The idea that there is something else out there implies that the situation here can potentially improve. Even the most grim dystopias are rarely without their redemptive escape hatch—a way out of the bind in which humanity has trapped itself. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 11:15 AM PST - 8 comments

It’s the nature of fashion that proportions are tweaked, colours altered and ways of presenting garments change. The result is something new despite itself. What about clothes that try expressly to be the clothing of tomorrow? The shape of clothes to come? Not just modern but forward-looking. The concept of purposefully modern clothing is a fairly recent one and has intertwined with science fiction cinema and literature from the beginning. This is a very subjective overview but we’ve tried to tie the various strands of modernity that have come together in the last century, in doing so we attempt to draw attention to the cultural influences that define our era and shape our idea of what it means to be ‘modern’.
posted by rebent at 9:56 AM PST - 41 comments

Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive? Colin Morris tests this hypothesis with data by analyzing the repetitiveness of a dataset of 15,000 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1958 and 2017.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:28 AM PST - 58 comments

Want to know how the future can be invented? Ask visionary computer scientist Alan Kay.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:43 AM PST - 17 comments

A SONG-BY-SONG ANALYSIS/COMMENTARY OF EVERY (*MORE OR LESS) SONG WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED BY PAUL SIMON.
Now, our speaker may or may not know a cinematographer. He may or may not have been to this party, and he may or may not have met this woman there. Even if he did, he may or may not remember her. But he can't tell her this. And anyway, it doesn't matter-- she knows him now. If I say "no," he thinks, the conversation is over. But I can't give a definite "yes," either. So he obfuscates. He says something like, "Sure, why not just say so, if it means we can talk?" But in this case he opts for the more poetic, more off-handed, "Who am I to blow against the wind?"
posted by thatnerd at 10:29 PM PST - 54 comments

Why did so many members of Hypatia’s Board of Associate Editors apologize for an article it published? Rebecca Tuvel’s article, “In Defense of Transracialism,” published in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, clearly touched a nerve. [more inside]
posted by Mr. Justice at 9:13 PM PST - 241 comments

A deep-dive into everywhere Bourdain has been and eaten and drunk. It's a beautifully designed interactive site and lots of fun to poke around and click on things. There's lots of stuff from his previous series with more than was shown on the shows. It's always expanding its offerings so it pays to check it out fairly often. Here's their blurb about their "mission" : [more inside]
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:24 PM PST - 9 comments

Editor quits amid outrage after call for ‘Appropriation Prize’ in writers’ magazine by Deborah Dundas [The Toronto Star] “Hal Niedzviecki has resigned as editor of the Writers’ Union of Canada magazine after sparking outrage with an opinion piece titled “Winning the Appropriation Prize” in an issue devoted to indigenous writing. In it, he states that he doesn’t believe in “cultural appropriation.” “In my opinion, anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.” Niedzviecki, who has been the editor of Write for about five years, later wrote: “Set your sights on the big goal: Win the Appropriation Prize.” In the same editorial, Niedzviecki goes on to note that most Canadian literature is written by people who are “white and middle-class,” and exhorts those same white, middle-class writers to look outside of their own community and write about “what you don’t know” in an effort to “explore the lives of people who aren’t like you.”” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:39 PM PST - 64 comments

Near Roanoke, VA a man was surprised to hear honking from his car. He could bearly contain his surprise at what he found.
posted by stannate at 5:27 PM PST - 29 comments

"Four centuries ago, an Ottoman-era job posting for an imam spelled out the high standards expected of leaders throughout Islamic history. The ideal candidate, the ad stated, must have mastered the languages of Arabic, Latin, Turkish, and Persian. He must know the Quran, the Gospels, and the Torah inside and out, and also be a scholar of Islamic law. And, for good measure, he must be “up to teaching standard” in his grasp of physics and mathematics. Easy, right?" So, how does that translate to Muslim leadership in Trump's America?
posted by ChuraChura at 3:12 PM PST - 7 comments

"we’re excited to present you with a rare testimony from one of the people fortunate enough to witness–and actively participate in–the creation of Stalker. Sergei Bessmertniy, which is more than likely his pseudonym, was hired as a mechanic to work on the set, and in this article he shares a lot of fascinating details about Stalker from a fresh, unique perspective. His account of the process of filming holds value mostly because of the little things, as the mechanic reveals how certain scenes were filmed, describes the footage that was lost or discarded, at the same time giving us hints and information that paint the picture of Andrei Tarkovsky." A Unique Perspective on the Making of ‘Stalker’: The Testimony of a Mechanic Toiling Away under Tarkovsky’s Guidance. [more inside]
posted by sapagan at 2:08 PM PST - 35 comments

When Atlantic City floods, low-income neighborhoods are left underwater.
posted by bq at 1:09 PM PST - 2 comments

I was introduced to Clementine’s music through a friend who insisted I check him out. I was floored, and immediately asked him to perform at a music festival that I curated in London last year. He took the stage in a long coat, no shirt or shoes on, and played the piano perched on a high stool, almost standing. ... a far cry from rush hour in a station of the Métro. And yet, he told me there is something almost harder about formal concerts.

~ David Byrne, Unlocking the Mystery of Benjamin Clementine (March 2, 2016; New York Times Style Magazine) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:46 PM PST - 4 comments

A massive ransomware campaign appears to have infected a number of organisations around the world. Computers in thousands of locations have apparently been locked by a program that demands $300 (£230) in Bitcoin. There have been reports of infections in as many as 74 countries, including the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy and Taiwan. (BBC) [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:33 AM PST - 96 comments

Everyone’s in your shit. Fifteen minutes of infusing means an hour of jack-off jokes. No one is meaning to be a dick, it’s just how we act at this age, but it can make infusing a pain in the ass.

Why young men with hemophilia fall out of compliance with their medication schedules.
posted by Rumple at 11:24 AM PST - 10 comments

North Korea has a private, foreign-funded university. The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology is largely funded and staffed by evangelical Christians, some of whom have been arrested for "hostile acts" against the state and at least one of whom was undercover to write a book. Other support is provided by China and PUST's sister school, the Yanbian University of Science and Technology.
posted by Etrigan at 11:13 AM PST - 6 comments

sun tzus the art of war
posted by griphus at 10:16 AM PST - 42 comments

In what is arguably the most turbulent week of the fledgling Trump Administration, FBI Director James Comey was fired, in spite of the fact that he was conducting an active counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government. [more inside]
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 9:54 AM PST - 3033 comments

The LDS church, major sponsor and cultural driver within the Boy Scouts of America and Scounts Canada has started to pulling up stakes in both organizations. They cite diverging values. [more inside]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 9:19 AM PST - 44 comments

A day in the life of the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine on the Upper West Side. They're the vets for your pets when your pets are a bit....unusual. (And less than 50lbs.) [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 8:54 AM PST - 3 comments

"Federal authorities are investigating whether a former Cabot Creamery employee committed what could be one of the Vermontiest crimes ever: stealing parts from a major Vermont cheese company to make maple syrup manufacturing machines." Vermont State Police began investigating earlier this year. The FBI was eventually brought in to assist with the investigation. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:05 AM PST - 17 comments

Every year in the U.S., 700 to 900 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes, and some 65,000 nearly die — by many measures, the worst record in the developed world. (Kleenex alert)
posted by Dashy at 6:23 AM PST - 47 comments

The co-owner of restaurant Alinea and its cocktail sibling, Aviary, explains why they will be self-publishing their next book after going a somewhat more traditional route with the first book. Restaurateur Nick Kokonas (who co-owns world-renowned Alinea with chef Grant Achatz) talks about his experience with the publishing industry — including rarely discussed sales numbers and dollar amounts — and sets out his plan to avoid it the next time around. (It involves a rented studio and a 27-item list of equipment and supplies. Plus staff.) [more inside]
posted by veggieboy at 6:22 AM PST - 26 comments

One is a respected journalist. The other is the king of Bravo's reality tv empire. Together, they're BESTIES4LYFE, and they're taking their friendship on the road. At the 92nd Street Y in New York, Anderson Cooper talks to BFF Andy Cohen about his new book, The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year, a behind-the-scenes look at his late-night talk show, Watch What Happens Live, "the gayest letters you've read in your whole life" aka Andy's 3rd grade letters from summer camp, fame, celebrity, and of course, real housewives. Later, Andy plays a dangerous game of Plead The Fifth. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 6:06 AM PST - 3 comments

where the water tastes like wine
posted by Sebmojo at 3:31 AM PST - 10 comments

“The best long-term care insurance in our country is a conscientious daughter..." "Though men do provide some caregiving for older family members with dementia, the burden is not shared equally," experts say. Per the cited article (paywalled), "The mainstay of treatment is functional support, and 83% of caregiving comes from unpaid sources: family. The average person with dementia requires 171 hours of care per month, which is more than 100 hours more care per month than those without dementia (mean of 66 hours per month)." Similarly, the Guardian looks at aging and health support for childless couples and childless women, encouraging a more active role of the state.
posted by stillmoving at 3:13 AM PST - 47 comments

It’s a Beautiful Day in Twitch’s Neighborhood: All 886 ‘Mister Rogers’ Episodes to Stream "It’s going to be a beautiful day on the internet May 15, as Twitch will start a 17-day free marathon of all 886 episodes of iconic children’s show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on the gaming-focused streaming service — including many episodes that have only aired once."
posted by hippybear at 1:37 AM PST - 24 comments

Glass sponges, or hexactinellida, are uncommon sponges with siliceous skeletons found in deep waters all over the world and renowned for their intricately beautiful forms. They are among the oldest animals on Earth, and individuals can be literally unbelievably long-lived. Although not composed of actual glass, the spicules that form their characteristic skeletons are made of silica, used to produce glass and optical fiber. Starting today, you can watch livestreamed deep research off the coast of British Columbia into glass sponges living there and the ecosystem supporting them.
posted by byanyothername at 12:06 AM PST - 8 comments

Mom turns her breastfeeding journey into dreamy drawings. "One of the hardest assignments I received as a new mom was to keep my baby alive with my boobs.."
posted by annekate at 9:19 PM PST - 10 comments

The devil almost got me for some goddamn rosebushes and a built-in china cabinet. Author Olivia A. Cole tells a story about viewing an apartment with her husband (twitter thread) [more inside]
posted by chaoticgood at 7:48 PM PST - 65 comments

Do you miss that inconsiderate neighbor or roommate who would blast their music into the wee hours of the morning? Then you're in luck! From Another Room is a playlist of songs equalized to sound like they're playing in another room or far away. FAQ and more at the FAR Tumblr.
posted by Woodroar at 7:22 PM PST - 33 comments

Featuring Milton Glaser as an introduction to this site, which has a plethora of book and magazine covers. 50 Watts has six pages of assorted groups of covers that cover the 20th century, mostly European but also Chinese and Japanese. For anyone who loves graphic design and illustration, it's a gold mine. An article from The Atlantic about the blogger. There's also a mefite post from 2014 about one category but I haven't yet figured out how to do that link; sorry.
posted by MovableBookLady at 5:42 PM PST - 5 comments

Cheeky chipmunk caught red-handed stealing from bird feeder is overcome by remorse. More animals stuffing their faces.

Bonus: “I declare May 7th is International This Puppy day.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:32 PM PST - 21 comments

Which Tech Giant Would You Drop? by Farhad Manjoo [The New York Times] “Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, are not just the largest technology companies in the world. As I’ve argued repeatedly in my column, they are also becoming the most powerful companies of any kind, essentially inescapable for any consumer or business that wants to participate in the modern world. But which of the Frightful Five is most unavoidable? I ponder the question in my column this week.”
posted by Fizz at 5:12 PM PST - 103 comments

The Weekly World News was billed as The World's Only Reliable Newspaper. It was born as a celebrity gossip mag, a way of keeping the old presses running when American Media Inc.'s National Enquirer switched to color, but under the guidance of Eddie Clontz, it became something wonderful and crazy (and occasionally true). But nothing good lasts forever, and WWN shut down in 2007 (previously), only to find new life as an internet-only publication the next year, returning* as The World's Only Reliable News. It's great that Ed Anger lives on in the digital realm, but if you're craving replicas of the original publications, Google books has an extensive archive (previously, twice), from Oct 13, 1981 to the final publication dated Aug 20, 2007. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:42 PM PST - 55 comments

How Karen Carpenter, the whitest singer of the '70s, became an icon in the Philippines, in an article by USC professor Karen Tongson, who was named after her and has a forthcoming book called Why Karen Carpenter Matters. [more inside]
posted by larrybob at 12:30 PM PST - 40 comments

This is the 3rd year of the 200 word RPG Challenge. Here's the winners from 2017 and beyond. But that's just the beginning. There is much, much more inside. [more inside]
posted by hot_monster at 12:29 PM PST - 42 comments

Turning $100 into $8.20 in 34 steps.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:02 PM PST - 20 comments

Ash Wednesday, a new experimental memoir by Samuel R. Delany in the Boston Review. [more inside]
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:42 AM PST - 6 comments

Experts in authoritarianism advise you to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. It has been a little exhausting to keep track of the news lately, and things can start to seem normal or quickly disappear from memory when something new takes its place. Amy Siskind of the New Agenda has been posting a weekly list of events since Trump has taken office. We're up to Week 25 with 73 items on it. MoveOn recently made a short video about her which gives a good overview. "There's so much chaos, so much volume of change, that we're starting to normalize." [more inside]
posted by Peach at 11:22 AM PST - 38 comments

You can backspace on the iPhone calculator by swiping the numbers left or right. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 11:01 AM PST - 36 comments

Back in 2011 when photographer Akihito Yoshida visited his cousin living in a small rural town in Miyazaki prefecture, he discovered a very special relationship. The younger cousin, born in 1990, was living with and caring for his Grandmother, born in 1928. With over 60 years between them, they had done everything together. The grandmother had been there for every important day. “I grew up basking in the love of my grandmother, so it’s only normal that I care for her until her death,” the cousin told Yoshida.

posted by infini at 10:28 AM PST - 5 comments

The rise of modern virtual reality brought with it a nasty rash of discrimination and harassment issues, both inside the headset and out. Problem #1 is a tale as old as time: a high-profile lawsuit between Magic Leap and former employee Tannen Campbell, who sued the company for sex discrimination after originally being hired to help create a more female-friendly product. The second problem? A growing list of women who have experienced physical/sexual harassment from other users while inside multiplayer VR experiences, where being touched inappropriately can have the same emotional and psychological impacts as if they were harassed in real life. (CW: descriptions of physical/sexual harassment in the links) [more inside]
posted by Snacks at 10:22 AM PST - 61 comments

The Internet is Roasting Bow Wow for Pretending to Fly on a Private Jet to New York and It’s Amazing
posted by Lexica at 10:10 AM PST - 23 comments

Finnish spring weather has been exceptionally miserable and cold this year. It's getting so unbelievable that even weather forecasters are having trouble keeping a straight face while delivering the bad news. Here's Pekka Pouta trying to get through his morning forecast.
posted by severiina at 9:52 AM PST - 10 comments

Entomologists call it the windshield phenomenon. "If you talk to people, they have a gut feeling. They remember how insects used to smash on your windscreen," says Wolfgang Wägele, director of the Leibniz Institute for Animal Biodiversity in Bonn, Germany. Today, drivers spend less time scraping and scrubbing. "I'm a very data-driven person," says Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in Portland, Oregon. "But it is a visceral reaction when you realize you don't see that mess anymore."

Where have all the insects gone?
posted by MartinWisse at 9:26 AM PST - 46 comments

Kanno Sugako, an early-20th century Japanese anarcha-feminist and the only woman to be hanged for treason in Japan, kept a diary in prison during the final days of her life. These entries range from detailed reporting of the trial of her and 25 other Japanese anarchists for treason against the Emperor, her thoughts and feelings, and her determination in the face of certain death. [more inside]
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:01 AM PST - 9 comments

Marijuana legalization takes a big step forward in a little state. Vermont's House passed a bill legalizing the growing and possession of small amounts of marijuana. The law also establishes a commission to study regulation and taxation of the plant. It's a compromise on many levels, including with the state's Senate's recently passed version.

Now it's up to state governor Phil Scott to sign or not. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 6:06 AM PST - 50 comments

Food Grails is a new First We Feast travel series hosted by Miss Info. In episode 1 [13:25] Miss Info meets a group of young, charismatic African-American entrepreneurs from Watts, South L.A, and Compton who are shaking up the taco scene, finding new meaning in L.A.’s iconic street food. Find out how upstarts like All Flavor No Grease and Taco Mell are making a name for themselves, and why rapper Casey Veggies says, "The food game turned into the rap game."
posted by Room 641-A at 5:30 AM PST - 3 comments

1970, Rita Abrams was teaching 4th grade in Mill Valley (no, not Hill Valley, that was where Marty learned about the Flux Capacitor). Miss Abrams felt that her class had a message for us, they felt that times were dark and America had to "get started again". Two years later Tricky Dick was forced out of office.
posted by HuronBob at 9:18 PM PST - 11 comments

let's blame the maine on spain (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by holmesian at 8:13 PM PST - 17 comments

What happens when craft breweries become part of big, bad megabrewers? From Beervana: "The age of consolidation has surfaced one of the more unusual quirks of the American craft beer segment: the strange morality that has come to pervade it." [more inside]
posted by Charity Garfein at 5:55 PM PST - 69 comments

It’s the distant future and the earth is in ruins. Machines have replaced mankind, and therefore they must be destroyed. [Polygon] “And there are a lot of reasons to play Nier: Automata [YouTube] [Trailer] beyond its fusion of melee action and bullet hell shooting. It makes one hell of a first impression for one thing, seizing control of the camera to stage sweeping scenes that make 2B seem no bigger than an insect, then squaring her off against a living oil rig that feels bigger than the buildings themselves just to rub it in. And remarkably Nier only ever builds on that opening scene, moving from spectacle to spectacle, impression to impression, as if to say "Oh, you thought that last thing was cool? Well how about this?" Even after finishing the first ending and pursuing the others, the stakes kept rising.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:51 PM PST - 39 comments

Vote The Rock: Caity Weaver profiles Dwayne Johnson for GQ. Photos -- including The Rock dressed as a Butterfly -- by Peggy Sirota.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:08 PM PST - 71 comments

Cookbooks based on fictional worlds are nothing new (witness this Dragonlance classic), but there are now many sites that offer recipes from the Hobbit to the Hunger Games to My Little Pony to various video games, with Wired putting together a list of 14 greatest hits. One of the most ambitious fantasy chefs is Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, who has put together an exhaustive Worlds of Warcraft cookbook based on in-game recipes. She also has a site with lots of Game of Throne recipes (among others), and is publishing a Hearthstone (!) cookbook soon.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:58 PM PST - 33 comments

“Darwinian” stands in for “cutthroat,” “survival of the fittest” signifies survival of the ruthless. We see selective pressures that hone each organism for success and drive genetic innovation as the natural order of things. But we know now that that picture is incomplete. Evolutionary progress can be propelled both by the competitive struggle to adapt to an environment, and by the relaxation of selective forces. When natural selection on an organism is relaxed, the creative powers of mutation can be unshackled and evolution accelerated. The relief of an easier life can inspire new biological forms just as powerfully as the threat of death.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:32 PM PST - 20 comments

SankeyMATIC is an easy way to create Sankey diagrams
posted by alby at 1:07 PM PST - 11 comments

Tom Holland - Lip Sync Battle - Umbrella
posted by zabuni at 1:03 PM PST - 37 comments

Kashink, an artist from Paris, is one of the few well-known women in the male-dominated field of street art (Street Art 360 lists a few other notables). Her visual style is bold and unique -- four-eyed, free spirited androgynous cartoon people, a phrase used to title her manifesto. Elle has a short interview with her, in which she talks about her painted mustache, and the lack of notable female artists, and she talks about her inspirations and themes with Murals in the Market, as well as Brooklyn Street Art. More: her art shared on Twitter | Kashink on Instagram, which includes this stop-motion animation | h/t to Shea Couleé
posted by filthy light thief at 12:18 PM PST - 1 comment

Teen Vogue continues hitting it out of the park with a column exploring "Who gets named a terrorist, and why." [more inside]
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 11:58 AM PST - 43 comments

Put a camera at the bottom of a bucket full of water, and wait for the animals to visit [SLYT]
posted by ShooBoo at 11:34 AM PST - 13 comments

Minority Neighborhoods Pay Higher Car Insurance Premiums Than White Areas With the Same Risk [more inside]
posted by indubitable at 10:07 AM PST - 38 comments

Janelle Shane, super-genius, trained a neural network to come up with new D&D spells, based on a dataset of 365 "actual" D&D spells. Highlights include Cow of Auraly, Mous of Farts, and Farming. Slate attempts valiantly to kill the joke by explaining it, including the gem "As a game designer, then, Gygax himself was a bit like the open-sourced neural network employed by Shane, trying to come up with new ideas from a familiar set of influences."
posted by Etrigan at 9:53 AM PST - 47 comments

Mallory Ortberg and Patricia Lockwood discuss Lockwood's memoir Priestdaddy , growing up as children of clergymen, and Evelyn Waugh's bananas
posted by The Whelk at 9:49 AM PST - 21 comments

Meet Zuul, destroyer of shins--a new ankylosaur. "In the creature’s horned head, she saw the spitting image of Zuul, the Gatekeeper of Gozer—the demonic dog that appeared in Ghostbusters and haunted Sigourney Weaver’s fridge." Also at Smithsonian.
posted by goatdog at 9:29 AM PST - 30 comments

A novel about kabbalah, the structure of the universe, etc. It has weirdness and puns. Who watches the watchmaker? I don't think I can do it justice, but if you like fiction that's very much the mind at play, full of good things which is also emotionally intense, I suggest taking a look at it. [more inside]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:04 AM PST - 11 comments

"When war broke out in Sana'a, Yemen's capital, in September 2014, Thana Faroq was accustomed to walking freely through the city. Until then, Faroq, in her mid twenties, had been working as a street photographer. When the bombs began to drop six months later, she resolved to show the world there was still life on Sana'a's streets." Faroq discusses her work (including Everyday Yemen, In Memory of Shattered Windows, and Women Like Us) and photography as connection and conversation. She has previously spoken about the magic of street photography [TED talk, English subtitles available].
posted by mixedmetaphors at 6:57 AM PST - 1 comment

The Rock-Star Appeal of Modern Monetary Theory - "Their foundational point [is] that fiat currency is a social construct, and that there are therefore no fiscal limits on how much a sovereign currency-issuing nation can spend... once we change the way we think about money, we can provide for everyone: We don't have to 'find' the money to 'pay' for universal health care by 'cutting' the budget elsewhere. In fact, our government already works that way: Spending must precede taxation, or there would be no dollars in the economy to tax. It's the political will to spend on certain things, not the money to afford it, that's lacking." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 10:21 PM PST - 75 comments

"[T]he scientists who uncovered Homo naledi have announced two new findings: They have determined a shockingly young age for the original remains, and they found a second cavern full of skeletons. The bones are as recent as 236,000 years [academic article], meaning Homo naledi roamed Africa at about the time our own species was evolving." The claims are, of course, disputed. Previously
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:06 PM PST - 27 comments

Damien Henry trained a neural network on train videos and used it to generate a Steve Reich video.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:58 PM PST - 12 comments

Little "How-To" Girl: a three-year year girl shows you how to fix a leaky faucet; change a lock; change a car's ignition coils; cut a man's hair; vacuum your living room; make a bedtime snack and fix a headlight; replace a lawnmower battery; do an oil change.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:33 PM PST - 20 comments

"At the intersection of thread, leaves, and her steady hands, artist Susanna Bauer produces miraculous little sculptures that fuse the natural world with the handmade..."
posted by web-goddess at 5:11 PM PST - 25 comments

Martin Schoeller (previously) is a photographer whose Instagram feed is devoted to portraiture of folks visiting the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition, a volunteer-run organization which has been feeding the houseless and hungry for 28 years. [more inside]
posted by sutureselves at 5:04 PM PST - 6 comments

STRAFE® [YouTube] [Mature Content] The megahit video game of 1996 is now the motion picture event of a lifetime. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:16 PM PST - 15 comments

28 people who are too good and too pure for this world. (SL Buzzfeed)
posted by lunasol at 2:09 PM PST - 49 comments

Suzuki Vitara '96 for sale (dramatic music) SLYT
posted by not_the_water at 1:58 PM PST - 16 comments

The maps, carved from wood, were held inside the users’ mittens, and read by feel, rather than visually.
posted by stonepharisee at 12:17 PM PST - 19 comments

If you're in the US, today is National Teachers' Day, a day celebrated around the world on different days. If you're wondering about the apples that teachers might get, the Smithsonian Magazine has a brief history of the apple in America, including as a present to teachers. A related musical interlude: "An Apple for the Teacher," by Bing Crosby & Connee Boswell. (And if you're wondering about keeping the doctor away, Phrases has the story of how Wales became the source of this commonplace English phrase.)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:06 PM PST - 6 comments

In West Berlin the question was asked with great courtesy and tact, not many miles from where Adolf Hitler proclaimed the Second World War and Dr. Goebbels advanced the notion of ''total war.''
posted by Cozybee at 11:57 AM PST - 7 comments

....there have also been stark indications of a kind of damage that is readily quantifiable and severe: the damage that Brexit has and will continue to inflict on the UK economy—an economy that, after decades of mismanagement, is overwhelmingly dependent on foreign enterprise and foreign capital.

posted by infini at 11:49 AM PST - 48 comments

Joseph Beyrle was the only American soldier to serve with both the US Army and the Red Army in WWII. The story in his own words. Arlington National Cemetery page with more details. [more inside]
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 11:48 AM PST - 8 comments

The Physics of Fidget Spinners. All your questions about Fidget Spinners, Answered. Watch a Fidget Spinner spin so fast, it destroys a Samsung Galaxy S8
posted by Mchelly at 11:22 AM PST - 64 comments

It all started when Carter Wilkerson contacted fast food chain Wendy's asking how many retweets he would need for a year's supply of nuggets. They said 18 million. And a campaign was launched. While he hasn't reached that total, he now has the most retweeted Tweet of all time. That's enough for Wendy's, who are paying out in terms of nuggets and cash after offering $100,000 to charity if he broke the record.
posted by rewil at 11:21 AM PST - 23 comments

Katherine Dey (previously) was commissioned by Buzzfeed to make face cakes of staff members Jazzmyne and Keith. Hilarity ensued. Kindred spirits Natalie and David Sideserf emphasized the with the “Till Death Do Us Part" bit for their own wedding cake. Gruesome not your, er, piece of cake? There are plenty of other ways to make disturbing cakes.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:28 AM PST - 8 comments

A searchable database of all the registered dog names in New York City.
posted by guiseroom at 9:44 AM PST - 88 comments

Macron's IT team expected interference in the recent election. They prepared disinformation to feed the hackers in terms of bogus documents and other misdirection. This allowed them to quickly control the narrative of "fake documents" right before the media blackout when the documents leaked.
posted by k5.user at 8:38 AM PST - 38 comments

In 1962, singer/pianist/comedian Vaughn Meader realized that his Maine/Boston accent sounded a lot like President John F. Kennedy. He quickly worked up a routine and recorded an album called The First Family, which went septuple platinum and won the Grammy for Album of the Year (beating out Tony Bennett, Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd, Ray Charles, and Allan Sherman). Kennedy himself once told a DNC meeting, "Vaughn Meader was busy tonight, so I came myself." (As it happened, on the night TFF was recorded, Kennedy debuted some famous material as well.) [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 8:36 AM PST - 15 comments

Here is a short comic about an alligator trying to hatch a pumpkin.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 7:50 AM PST - 14 comments

Prosecutors filed criminal charges on Friday against 18 Penn State fraternity brothers in the death of Timothy Piazza. After downing a dangerous amount of alcohol and suffering severe internal injuries during a fraternity hazing, a 19-year-old college sophomore died. Not long ago, the story might have ended there, except for some hand-wringing and litigation. [more inside]
posted by A. Davey at 7:45 AM PST - 53 comments

In 1835, abolitionists discovered a new way to use the postal system. (PDF) The explosion of anger and outrage which followed transformed the debate over slavery, free speech, the role of women in politics, the bounds of polite public discourse, the ability of isolated farmers to participate in national debate, and the nature of Christianity. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 7:41 AM PST - 10 comments

Who benefits most from US housing policies? Not the poor! American homeowners who can afford big mortgages get tax breaks that those who can only afford more modest homes, or who cannot afford any home at all, do not get. Unless I missed something the writer failed to mention the mortgage interest deduction for vacation homes.
posted by mareli at 7:40 AM PST - 49 comments

Kenneth Williams was the fourth person executed by the state of Arkansas this April. "Three experts examined Williams and determined that he met the criteria for the definition of intellectual disability, which should have protected him, but the Supreme Court declined to stop his execution." David M. Perry writes for PSMag: What percentage of people sentenced to die in the United States are disabled? Our best guess: all of them.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:33 AM PST - 4 comments

Do you want to learn the basics of composing music, but don't have the hardware or software to do it, or don't want to spend time around countless tutorials aimed at a particular DAW or that just tell you what to do without explaining the basics? Ableton has you covered.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:12 AM PST - 23 comments

Polish startup Userfeeds is developing new algorithms to help create transparency around the sources of news. They seek to highlight Return-On-Attention the most important metric of the attention economy, primarily by 'unbundling'. [more inside]
posted by yoga at 5:59 AM PST - 13 comments

So, you might have heard about fecal transplants- did you know they can have strange side effects? Listen to this six minute Melbourne radio segment (ABC Melbourne) that perhaps isn't meal appropriate. [more inside]
posted by freethefeet at 5:29 AM PST - 29 comments

Brewer Chris Herron on goodwill, impairment charges, and why AB InBev is buying a lot of craft breweries.
posted by metaquarry at 5:05 AM PST - 44 comments

The Piano Trio, typically comprising piano, violin & cello, has been the most popular three-piece line-up in classical music since the late 18th century. Non-aficionados may know some of the trio repertoire from TV or film soundtracks: for example the main theme of the second movement of Franz Schubert’s piano trio no. 2, which was featured to great effect in Stanley Kubrick’s movie Barry Lyndon. For anyone with the time and the inclination, the full version of this piece, along with many others (mostly old chestnuts, but also including some less well-known compositions), can be found within. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 2:07 AM PST - 10 comments

Day 109 of the Trump Administration was one of the strangest yet, with former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifying that she twice met with White House Counsel Donald McGahn to warn that Michael Flynn had lied about his contacts with Russian officials, leaving him vulnerable to blackmail [video]. Yates urged the White House to take action, because, "to state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians." President Obama also personally warned President Trump about Fynn two days after the election. However, 18 days would elapse after Yates' warning before Flynn's false statements were publicly exposed and he was subsequently fired. Yates also explained her refusal to defend the travel ban executive order, while taking Sen. Ted Cruz down a few pegs, stating that she "believed that any argument that we would have to make in its defense would not be grounded in the truth." [more inside]
posted by zachlipton at 10:11 PM PST - 2960 comments

222 CHATHAM Street, Brantford, Ontario N3S4H1 [scroll through the photos] [more inside]
posted by andoatnp at 10:02 PM PST - 53 comments

"Pete Seeger..... spoke with Bill a number of times over the years, and even sang a few of his folk songs. In remembrance of the activist and folksinger, we’ve pulled together some highlights..." Some messages for today....
posted by HuronBob at 8:37 PM PST - 2 comments

"The central idea that animates the book is a longstanding one that [Richard] Prum has rebranded as the 'Beauty Happens hypothesis.' It starts with animals developing random preferences—for colors, songs, displays, and more—which they use in choosing their mates. Their offspring inherit not only those sexy traits, but also the preference for them. By choosing what they like, choosers transform both the form and the objects of their desires." [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:32 PM PST - 24 comments

In 2007, less than two years after the face of Baton Rouge shifted, the remix to Foxx’s “Wipe Me Down,” featuring fellow Baton Rouge MCs Lil Boosie and Webbie, was released as a single. It matters that this was a Baton Rouge song, made by a Baton Rouge producer and three Baton Rouge rappers who were icons within their city, in a time when Baton Rouge was in the business of recovering its own identity, waiting for someone to carry it to the light. The story underneath the story is about the weight one city can carry on its own. The edges of New Orleans broke open, and there was a flood, and those fortunate enough to escape the flood became a flood themselves, and pushed the edges of another city to its breaking point.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:51 PM PST - 5 comments

Writer and comedian Chris Reinacher constructs a Rube Goldberg machine to make life a little easier for his future drunk self. [h/t]
posted by Room 641-A at 6:06 PM PST - 7 comments

"Whatever differences there are in the moral psychology of today’s college students, as compared to their elders, there is little doubt that technology is driving some of the worry about violating social norms, getting called out, and becoming objects of stigma. Social media enables students to be hostile from behind a screen, or to pile on." Conor Friedersdorf shares reactions from college students to questions he asked about the impact of social media on campus dialogue.
posted by R a c h e l at 1:43 PM PST - 140 comments

In late April, Purdue University said it will buy for-profit Kaplan University for $1, with plans to turn it into a new, nonprofit Indiana public university for “nontraditional adult learners.” The announcement was a surprise to the general public and Kaplan's students, about 32,000 current students will transfer to the new institution, nicknamed "New U" for now. While noteworthy in its scale, this is part of a trend -- for-profit companies develop online program managers (OPMs), then design, run, and market the virtual programs for non-profit colleges, but this deal goes beyond those. In comparison to several hundred other OPM contracts, this new contract is OPM "on steroids." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:53 AM PST - 24 comments

The new Blade Runner 2 trailer is out. Replicants and their opponents are at it again. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 11:24 AM PST - 121 comments

Meet the Jenndashian family member you don't already know way too much about. More on Kirby's instagram page.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:29 AM PST - 29 comments

This interview is remarkably optimistic. Thanks to 60 Minutes for locating such a subject.
posted by Alensin at 9:14 AM PST - 25 comments

British Columbia goes to the polls on Tuesday, to determine if the governing BC Liberals (not to be confused with the federal Liberals) deserve to win a fifth election in a row, or if a stream of scandals and perceived corruption will cause voters to show them the door. [more inside]
posted by Banknote of the year at 8:36 AM PST - 85 comments

How a company named Franklin blatantly ripped off Apple … and set a legal precedent in the process [and] Why the eventual demise of the Apple II clone market was a good thing for consumer electronics

posted by Etrigan at 8:29 AM PST - 29 comments

Almir Guineto was one the great architects, renovators and experimenters of Brazilian music. [auto-translated, original]
A master of the Partido Alto, he also introduced the American banjo to samba.
posted by Tom-B at 8:19 AM PST - 5 comments

Writers of Color Discussing Craft: An Invisible Archive [De-Canon] by Neil Aitken “A couple weeks ago I was thinking about how Junot Diaz often comments on the fact he’s almost never asked to speak about craft, and instead always is asked to talk about race, identity, and the immigrant experience. And it’s true — when I think about all the books on writing craft I’ve read or heard about over the years I’m struck by how few POC-authored books on writing I’ve seen. Are they really that rare? Or are the books and essays out there, but we don’t know where to find them? This list is an ongoing project to catalog what writing resources are out there (if you are aware of other texts, essays, and resources that should be listed, please post in the comments and I’ll add them in).”
posted by Fizz at 7:53 AM PST - 11 comments

Feeling particularly bad (or good) about your weight these days? My Animal Weight lets you find out just how much you weigh - in other species.
posted by Mchelly at 7:01 AM PST - 59 comments

Washington Apple Growers Sink Their Teeth Into The New Cosmic Crisp - "He doesn't remember the day in 1997 when he took a bite of an apple from the tree that was labeled WA 38. But it must have made a good impression because he and his colleagues kept it around. It's still there, in a research orchard near Wenatchee. Most of the orchard is filled with rows of young seedlings, the latest products of Washington state's breeding program. At the far end of the orchard, though, stands the original WA 38 'mother tree'. Every one of the millions of Cosmic Crisp trees now growing in orchards and nurseries is a clone of this tree."
posted by kliuless at 6:32 AM PST - 47 comments

The ACLU says more than 30 bills have been introduced amid a huge swell of activism, prompting UN intervention over criminalization of peaceful protest More than 20 states have proposed bills that would crack down on protests and demonstrations since Donald Trump was elected, in a move that UN experts have branded “incompatible with US obligations under international human rights law”. The proposed laws would variously increase the penalties for protesting in large groups, ban protesters from wearing masks during demonstrations and, in some states, protect drivers from liability if they strike someone taking part in a protest.
posted by A. Davey at 6:30 AM PST - 88 comments

Star2.com investigates if minimum wage policies in Asia are enough to protect vulnerable workers. Journalists from Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines attempt to live on the local minimum wage. Also includes video diaries from minimum wage workers in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Pakistan Thailand and the Philippines to show their daily lives.
posted by roolya_boolya at 5:44 AM PST - 3 comments

100 years ago: feast leaves bees lethargic and sleepy
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:22 AM PST - 5 comments

The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked. Details about Cambridge Analytica, Robert Mercer's big data company that helped Trump and Brexit achieve political victory. How Facebook and marketing data are creating a new kind of precision electioneering.
posted by Nelson at 1:08 AM PST - 53 comments

The Designer Notes podcast just completed a four part interview with game designer Sid Meier. Part one is about how he got into computer games and his early career. Part two is about the games that made him famous, focusing on Civilization. Part three continues into the founding and success of his company Firaxis. Part four brings us to the present day, as well as going into some other matters at the end. If you're interested enough in game design to listen to a seven hour interview with Sid Meier, dipping into the Designer Notes archive might be worth your time. It's hosted by Adam Saltsman, best known for making Canabalt, and Soren Johnson, designer of Civilization IV and other strategy games, who interviews Meier.
posted by Kattullus at 12:30 AM PST - 19 comments

Many conservationists argued for a dam in Glen Canyon as a trade-off, feeling they had to be cooperative and believing that if there was going to be a dam, then the little-known, unprotected, remote place was one they were willing to sacrifice. They were finding their way through new territory that required them to learn not only about dams and water and the landscapes of the Southwest, but about themselves — who they were and what they stood for and who they dared stand against. As the fate of Glen Canyon was sealed, members of the Sierra Club leadership went there and learned how magnificent the place was. They regretted their decision, but it was too late.

(slCaliforniaSundayMagazine) (Previously)
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 12:04 AM PST - 5 comments

Blair Mountain is the closest thing to Gettysburg that the American labor movement has. Its historic significance is immense. It also happens to sit in the poorest region of a state that is in desperate need of tourism dollars and economic development. Drive on Route 17 to the speck of a town called Blair, though, and all that you will find is a single historic marker for the battle, along with a trailer-sized post office, two churches, and a handful of houses. There is no museum. There is no trail. You cannot even wander up Blair Mountain yourself, because it is private property, owned by coal companies and patrolled by their private security. In fact, those coal companies have, since 2009, been waging a legal battle to prevent the Blair Mountain site from being added to the National Register of Historic Places, so that they can strip mine it instead of preserve it.

- How West Virginia Lost the Workers' Revolution [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:44 PM PST - 4 comments

This weekend, Chicago-raised, New York-based free music trumpeter Jaimie Branch released Fly Or Die, her debut album as a leader. Interview [via Aquarium Drunkard]. Feature article [via the Chicago Reader]. Nice introductory video by her label International Anthem.
posted by LeLiLo at 9:28 PM PST - 5 comments

BROCCOLI HAS CAUSED SYSTEM FAILURE
When the massage is too strong
CAT likes HUGS
oh my god, please take 3 seconds out of your day to watch this.

And many more at Baby Animal GIFs.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:01 PM PST - 34 comments

An instagram account of homemade bike crates in Amsterdam. Or you can buy one already made. Or, re-watch one of the most touching Dutch shorts about bicycles.
posted by growabrain at 6:13 PM PST - 20 comments

A beginner’s guide to Scientist, dub reggae’s experimental genius -- A truly outstanding practitioner who thrived on innovation, Scientist helped dub reach some of its greatest heights of creativity. He became one of Jamaica’s most sought-after engineers at a very young age, his mixing artistry rising up in tandem with the Roots Radics in the late 70s and early 80s. Because of the incredible dub works he fashioned as an apprentice engineer at King Tubby’s studio, many dub fans consider Scientist to be the last of the classical Jamaican dub mixers, yet his overall contribution to the evolution of reggae is far more multifaceted than most realise. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 5:21 PM PST - 8 comments

“You Don’t Own Me” is a song by Lesley Gore.
“You Don’t Own Me” (Featuring G-Eazy) is a modern cover by Grace.
This one-minute video in a tweet is the best music video for the cover.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:39 PM PST - 31 comments

The BMW Art Car Collection
Exactly what it says on the box.
Olafur Eliasson
Jenny Holzer
Alexander Calder
Jeff Koons
posted by dfm500 at 10:06 AM PST - 4 comments

Cool video of the latest in computer graphics research and computer wizardry from this year's SIGGRAPH.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:59 AM PST - 28 comments

Inside the fake news capital of the world. [more inside]
posted by roolya_boolya at 5:28 AM PST - 27 comments

With a few months left until the IAAF World Championships begin, the European Athletic Association is proposing a reset of all European and World records set before 2005, as anti-doping testing was not to modern standards. [more inside]
posted by lmfsilva at 4:17 AM PST - 23 comments

Among the books recently published with support from the still funded NEH, six are prizewinning history books, each of which has related material online. For example, Mark G. Hanna wrote a short piece on his book Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740 for the NEH's own Humanities magazine: "A Lot of What Is Known about Pirates Is Not True, and a Lot of What Is True Is Not Known." [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:35 AM PST - 13 comments

Polling stations across France opened this morning for the presidential election's second round of voting between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen (though the vote began in the Pacific). The final turn of a twisty campaign was a leak of emails from the Macron campaign on Friday. The opinion polls, historically quite accurate in France, indicate that Macron is the overwhelming favorite. His party, En Marche, is also polling well in the June legislative elections. Though the establishment has flocked behind Macron against the far-right Le Pen it has not gone as smoothly as was expected, which is Jeremy Hardin's topic in the essay Whose Republican Front?
posted by Kattullus at 12:10 AM PST - 152 comments

If People Talked About Other Things the Way They Talked About Gender Identity.
posted by loquacious at 11:52 PM PST - 39 comments

Smuggling cartels get (much) richer and more powerful when the border gets tougher (slNYT)
posted by spbmp at 8:15 PM PST - 17 comments

Reporting in Indigenous Communities is a program of the University of British Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, which focuses on Indigenous news stories and how to report on them in a culturally-nuanced and historically-sensitive manner. Their focus is on some of the Coast Salish First Nations and the Urban Indigenous Communities in and around Vancouver. [more inside]
posted by Rumple at 7:57 PM PST - 4 comments

"Hey my name's Dave, and I'm actually a rapper, and we were making a music video about how we made the most epic rap video ever on no money and I was wondering if we could come in to you home/boat/car dealership & get a few shots?"
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:42 PM PST - 24 comments

Dunkirk [Trailer] [YouTube] From filmmaker Christopher Nolan (“Interstellar,” “Inception,” “The Dark Knight” Trilogy) comes the epic action thriller . [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 6:59 PM PST - 57 comments

44 Dog Memes. That is all.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:41 PM PST - 13 comments

Radio stations across Europe and India are coming together in the early hours of Sunday 7 May (i.e. now) to track the sound of birds bursting into song as the sun rises from Delhi to Dublin in a unique broadcast for International Dawn Chorus Day. Link to the BBC webcast. [more inside]
posted by life moves pretty fast at 5:46 PM PST - 10 comments

"There are many indications that the sole important application of arithmetic in Europe in the Middle Ages was the calculation of the date of Easter," wrote Donald Knuth. The single most complicated computation in calendar math, Easter's cycle repeats only once every 5.7 million years. It's easy to figure out one year at a time with several tables and two calendars (lunar and solar), possible but hard to do with an algorithm -- but can it be done mechanically with a clock? What about a watch? (<--best link) [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:39 PM PST - 23 comments

You're sly. You've got moves. You know your job better than you know your own face. You make this look GOOD. Nissan Japan Understands You. (SLYT) (Previously) [h/t qbject]
posted by endotoxin at 4:57 PM PST - 10 comments

But how exactly can a shirt with Link cycling next to Batman and Harley Quinn exist in a world of DMCA takedowns, cease-and-desist letters, and stringent IP enforcement? Where do these designs come from and how can the sheer mass of these T-shirt sites all successfully operate? When it comes to the Internet-based economy of pop culture T-shirts, it turns out a few loose threads are holding the whole landscape together. -- Hanging by a thread: How the online nerdy T-shirt economy exists in an IP world
posted by Room 641-A at 4:56 PM PST - 30 comments

Sumaya Agha is an American photographer of Syrian descent, who has among other things spent several years documenting the lives of Syrian refugees in camps and in transit. There's a continuity in her work with families across multiple years, as with young brothers Amir and Ibrahim in 2013 and in 2015.
posted by cortex at 3:30 PM PST - 2 comments

"The most emotionally devastating comic book in recent memory features a man coming to grips with his obsolescence, questioning humanity’s squandering nature and gross consumerism, and coping with the scars of war." It's DC's new (2016) Flintstones (Steve Pugh, Mark Russell) [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:14 PM PST - 62 comments

"Photos [c. 1918] from the Vancouver Public Library record players from the Vancouver Millionaires and Vancouver Nats, two now-defunct professional hockey teams. Many of the photos have been partially painted over, apparently in an attempt to isolate or cut out the individual players for placement in the layout of a poster or book — a delicate task to do by hand."
posted by gemmy at 1:31 PM PST - 10 comments

They are the Dark Knights of the office: lone vigilantes who police the workplace, ever watchful for heinous crimes that cannot go unpunished. Woe to those who step out of line and return from break two minutes late, leave food in the office fridge too long and fail to refill the photocopier...Researchers [Katy DeCelles and Karl Aquino] in Canada asked 2,000 people in the US if they had come across workplace vigilantes, meaning those who took it upon themselves to dob in their colleagues for breaches of company policy, or what they deemed to be egregious moral violations. 58% had, and on average, respondents recalled four work colleagues over the course of their career who fitted the description. (From The Guardian, via). You can read the original paper here.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:29 PM PST - 22 comments

Eighty years ago today, Luftschiff Zeppelin #129 Hindenburg crashed, killing 13 passengers, 22 crew members, and one worker on the ground. Radio reporter Herbert Morrison's cry of "Oh, the humanity!" quickly became one of the most famous broadcasts in history, and the film reel of the disaster essentially ended the dirigible industry. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 1:23 PM PST - 23 comments

You’ve probably heard the news that the celebrated post-WW II beating heart of America known as the middle class has gone from “burdened,” to “squeezed” to “dying.” But you might have heard less about what exactly is emerging in its place... Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, draws a portrait of the new reality in a way that is frighteningly, indelibly clear: America is not one country anymore. It is becoming two, each with vastly different resources, expectations, and fates. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 10:48 AM PST - 78 comments

Did you see this outstanding baseball play last week, when Chris Coghlan of the Blue Jays found an impressive way to reach home, getting past Yadier Molina of the Cardinals? The link collects a bunch of other great sliding leaping circus plays from baseball history, too.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:43 AM PST - 11 comments

In the 1200s, the University of Paris was a meeting place of nations. And when nations met, they insulted each other. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 10:19 AM PST - 13 comments

It’s been a big year for marathon running. Mary Keitany broke the women’s only world record at the London Marathon in April. Now as part of a Nike sponsored effort to break the 2 hour marathon barrier, Eliud Kipchoge completed the distance in 2 hours and 25 seconds. Unfortunately because of the way pacers were used, this doesn’t count as a world record, but it’s still a major milestone on the road to a sub-2 time.
posted by crocomancer at 8:10 AM PST - 27 comments

The Bad Grade that Changed the Constitution - NPR ATC (text) FTA: "Twenty-five years ago, the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified — nearly two centuries after it was written. The improbable story of how that happened starts with the Founding Fathers themselves and winds up at the University of Texas. And it's a heartening reminder of the power of individuals to make real change."
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:50 AM PST - 19 comments

The Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts. How could someone (or many someones) steal a single multi-ton ship—let alone three or four—without leaving a trace?
posted by nevercalm at 6:19 AM PST - 35 comments

As reported in The Independent, actor/author/public figure Stephen Fry is being investigated after a complaint that he violated Ireland's Defamation Act (2009) by committing blasphemy. If found guilty he could fined up to €25,000.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 6:15 AM PST - 36 comments

In which Jonah, Tom, and Crow rap about the giant monsters that exist in the cultures around the world. #NewMST3K
posted by hippybear at 5:50 AM PST - 25 comments

It's the everyday lives of everyday people that really bring history alive. Victorian Farm is a six-part BBC series which does exactly that. Part documentary, part reality show (in the best possible sense), it follows historian Ruth Goodman, and archeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn, as they LARP a year in the life of a restored Victorian farm in Shropshire, England – getting by with only Victorian-era technology, cookery, clothing, and customs. But there's much more... [more inside]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 10:26 PM PST - 41 comments

“There was something that kind of irked me about the [The Little Free Libraries],” says Jane Schmidt, librarian at Ryerson University in Toronto. “As a librarian, my gut reaction to that was, ‘You know what else is a free library? A regular library.’”
posted by Rumple at 6:05 PM PST - 278 comments

Brad Pitt opens up to GQ (Prada, $3,499) about his failures as a father and his new life ("I just felt like Brad was a misnomer, and now I just feel like fucking Brad.") and is then pilloried (with his interviewer) in The Gaurdian. Hilarity ensues.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 5:01 PM PST - 86 comments

The story of coach Bob "Bull" "Cyclone" Sullivan, legendary coach of East Mississippi Junior College, as told by Frank Deford.
posted by holmesian at 3:40 PM PST - 2 comments

Late last year, the Army Training and Doctrine Command announced that its inaugural Mad Scientist Science Fiction Writing Contest was open to aspiring writers. The theme: “Warfare in 2030 to 2050.” The results are in, and you can read a few of the ideas that might shape the future of warfare. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:57 PM PST - 18 comments

With one miscalculation, by one startled pilot, at 400 miles an hour. And now that Russia is determined to destabilize the West, this scenario is keeping the military establishment up at night.

- This Is How The Next World War Starts
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:59 PM PST - 53 comments

The Big Bang Theory but with Ricky Gervais as the whole studio audience. Just as terrible as you can imagine it is. [more inside]
posted by bondcliff at 10:45 AM PST - 63 comments

A classic scene from Willy Wonka as performed by Gene Wilder, drums, and saxophone. There's a growing series of these, including takes on the USAs recent popular vote loser and random farm animals.
posted by cubby at 10:35 AM PST - 26 comments

Ryuichi Sakamoto (previously) has released "async", his first solo album in eight years. To the NYT, Sakamoto says: “I actually thought it could be my last one. I just wanted to put down just what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear sounds of everyday objects — even musical instruments — as things.” Karl Smith at The Quietus "finds a record concerned with the varied states of human life and a sprawling piece of music less fixated on the task of world building than the more daunting prospect of penetrating the complexities of our own universe." Full Youtube playlist from Milan Records. [more inside]
posted by sapagan at 10:28 AM PST - 11 comments

William Baumol, R.I.P. Best known for Baumol's cost disease, "one of the greatest of living economists" William Jack Baumol died at 95.
posted by doctornemo at 10:08 AM PST - 9 comments

Give Mom her true heart’s desire this Mother’s Day—a family meal and a romance novel featuring Colonel Sanders. — KFC (@kfc)

Promo video, Amazon Reviews
posted by romakimmy at 10:01 AM PST - 30 comments

Filmmaker Dilman Dila describes the joys and difficulties of making a low-budget indie scifi feature film in Kampala. Her Broken Shadow (trailer) is a horror movie about "a single person stuck in one place".
posted by brainwane at 8:57 AM PST - 3 comments

Last December, the University of Oregon hosted the second Tiptree Symposium, this year focusing on the works of writer Ursula K. Le Guin. The videos of all the panels and speeches are available for streaming. [more inside]
posted by mixedmetaphors at 8:36 AM PST - 4 comments

Rarely is the question asked: what would you get when you use the style of the Take on Me music video to adapt a Warhammer 40K story. But luckily Richard Boylan did.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:13 AM PST - 20 comments

Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100, read by the poet Martin Espada. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:09 AM PST - 1 comment

From the New Yorker archives: Lillian Ross chronicles the obsessions of private-school teens on the Upper East Side in the mid-nineties.
posted by thursdaystoo at 7:04 AM PST - 25 comments

Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist who makes huge sculptures out of recycled materials. Most recently, he constructed six giants out of recycled wood, and then hid them in the woods in Copenhagen. [more inside]
posted by mishafletch at 3:57 AM PST - 20 comments

Apologies if this content is US only, but PBS is currently running Victorian Slum House [link to first episode, 55m], which "takes viewers back to the British slums of the 1800s, where a group of modern-day families, couples and individuals recreate life in London'’s East End as their forbearers once lived between 1860-1900." [Ed. note: I rolled my eyes at it when I first saw it on the schedule but ended up watching it tonight and was impressed by its depth and emotional honesty.]
posted by hippybear at 2:57 AM PST - 52 comments

Kara-Lis Coverdale is an organist by day and an electronic music composer by at night.
A contributor to Tim Hecker’s Virgins and Love Streams and Lee Bannon’s Pattern of Excel, she’s released several well-regarded indie electronic music albums built on samples: Triptych I; A 480 (built from vocal samples); Aftertouches (built from electronic instrument clips); and -with LXV- Sirens.
Having gone on tour and done some interviews, she has just released her first (solo) vinyl album, a 22-minute long, three part meditative piece entitled Grafts. It can be streamed at her Soundcloud page.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:10 PM PST - 4 comments

Songdo, Korea has a new shopping mall called Triple Street, and to celebrate their grand opening they are having a Pokemon Festival. Unfortunately, not all Pikachu (Pikachii?) are created equal. (DLSYTV - Double Link Silly YouTube Videos) [more inside]
posted by Literaryhero at 10:17 PM PST - 9 comments

After the breakup, the final show, the side projects and remixes, the one-off Christmas single, the high-profile reunion shows, and before they play Saturday Night Live tomorrow, May 6, LCD Soundsystem have finally treated us to the first two songs from their unfinished, (so far) untitled, upcoming fourth album, the first since 2010's This Is Happening. Those songs are Call The Police and American Dream. Spotify. iTunes/Apple Music. Tidal. Enjoy. [more inside]
posted by JimBennett at 9:22 PM PST - 13 comments

"After Glen Campbell's 2011 Alzheimer's diagnosis, which he followed with the Goodbye Tour and the documentary film I'll Be Me chronicling both, the performer returned to the recording studio one final time to leave family, friends and fans worldwide a remarkable gift. Adiós, the final studio album from the six-time Grammy winner, spotlights some of Campbell's favorite songs, most of which he had never recorded before. But rather than a collection of mere musical afterthoughts, the LP stands among Campbell's best – heartbreaking and imbued with poignancy, but sung with the same pure, sparkling vocals that are a distinguishing hallmark. Listen to the album's title track"
posted by HuronBob at 8:32 PM PST - 24 comments

The World from Above is a series of 30 minute aerial journeys, featuring landscapes, history and culture from 4 continents. Produced by Skyworks, formed by narrator/ producer/ director/ aerial camera operator Richard Mervyn. The series is now in its 8th season and there are more than 100 episodes, with some content on YouTube: Italy from Above - our best sights from Verona, Venice, Vicenza; Beautiful Flying Journeys from Caserta to Tivoli; and Straits of Messina to Bay of Naples from Above | South Africa from Above - 6 Unique Journeys from Cape Town to Drakensberg inc. Garden Route | Yellowstone National Park from Above - 7 Stunning Sights from Yellowstone Lake to Old Faithful | and more on YouTube from worldfromaboveHD [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:20 PM PST - 2 comments

Amy Newman's "Howl" is at once an homage to and feminist critique of Allen Ginsberg's 1956 poem. You can listen to Newman read part of her poem here, and you can hear a recording of Ginsberg reading the original poem here.
posted by Gymnopedist at 8:05 PM PST - 16 comments

Alex Jones Will Never Stop Being Alex Jones After two decades toiling at the fringes of politics, Alex Jones and his Infowars media empire have architected the current moment and helped usher a president into office. Now, the only person standing in Jones' way is Jones.
posted by nevercalm at 6:11 PM PST - 89 comments

Just a Kitten and Bunny Playing Tag
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:37 PM PST - 30 comments

Original production art used in the creation of Katsuhiro Otomo's 'Akira' (1988). (single link Tumblr)
posted by Artw at 4:10 PM PST - 9 comments

It's Friday, it's been a long week, so here are 27 pages of nothing but doggo and pupper memes. Some you've seen, many are probably new, but they're all are good dogs, Brent.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:50 PM PST - 14 comments

Science Fiction Interfaces -- A project by nnkd
posted by chavenet at 1:04 PM PST - 30 comments

“I actually half-jokingly bet Daniel that nobody had done research on the topic, because I’m just so used to women’s-health issues and such not being covered,” said Lee, who works in the tech industry. Epstein, a graduate student studying self-tracking tools at the University of Washington, didn’t believe it. “He was like, ‘No it’s such an obvious research topic… surely lots of people must have studied it.’” Of course, she was right. [more inside]
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 12:35 PM PST - 31 comments

"At any African-American gathering, it was like it was official, you had to close it out; there was a prayer, then there was a Soul Train line. You gotta give it up to Jesus, and then Don Cornelius." -Cedric The Entertainer

Soul Train; The Hippest Trip In America
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:17 PM PST - 21 comments

The most beautiful shrug of all time...
posted by dfm500 at 10:54 AM PST - 24 comments

You want to throw more accurately? Throw softer. [The New York Times] “That’s one of the takeaways from a new study by Yale and Harvard professors on the physics of throwing. The findings might interest quarterbacks, dunking booth participants and anyone throwing wadded-up paper into a wastebasket. If you’re missing a lot, try throwing a little slower. The paper, published last week in Royal Society Open Science [.pdf], is not likely to take the sports world by storm, with its talk of the “dynamics of the projectile” and “propagating distributions with non-infinitesimal variance.” But inside is quite a bit of solid advice for athletes who throw things. It is well known that there is a trade-off between throwing fast and throwing accurately. A reason for this, many people believed, was that throwing fast made it harder to release the object at just the right moment.”
posted by Fizz at 10:45 AM PST - 17 comments

Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code — But Can’t | David Molina launched Operation Code with a single goal: Modernize the outdated GI Bill so veterans can land tech jobs.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:24 AM PST - 46 comments

When conservatives disengage from organized religion, however,

they don’t become more tolerant. They become intolerant in different ways. Research shows that evangelicals who don’t regularly attend church are less hostile to gay people than those who do. But they’re more hostile to African Americans, Latinos, and Muslims. ... When cultural conservatives disengage from organized religion, they tend to redraw the boundaries of identity, de-emphasizing morality and religion and emphasizing race and nation.

posted by clawsoon at 9:03 AM PST - 68 comments

Why Americans Smile So Much
posted by octothorpe at 8:58 AM PST - 62 comments

More people have died trying to come to the U.S. than in two major disasters combined More deaths occured over the last 16 years in the Mexico-U.S. border than Hurricane Katrina and September 11th deaths combined.
posted by Yellow at 8:26 AM PST - 8 comments

"One by one, nearly all the state psychiatric hospitals were boarded up or bulldozed, but Massachusetts leaders broke their promise to replace them with something better — or much of anything at all"
posted by Lycaste at 7:47 AM PST - 7 comments

For many, writing a book is a “bucket list” item — something you want to do while you’re still alive to do it. For a Dorset, England woman named Trish Vickers, that was certainly true. In 2010 or 2011, Vickers — then age 59 — decided to pick up a pen and paper and put words to page, much like other aspiring writers would. But Vickers’ story wasn’t the same as others. First, she refused to type her story — she wanted to write her book by hand. And second, she was blind; she lost her sight to diabetes a few years earlier.

posted by Etrigan at 7:04 AM PST - 5 comments

The Sandwich Alignment Chart
It's like a D&D alignment chart, but with food, using "structure" and "ingredients" as axes, ranging from "Hardcore Traditionalist" (a BLT is a sandwich) to "Radical Anarchist" (a pop-tart is a sandwich)
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:41 PM PST - 229 comments

NY Times: The High Price of Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Life - "Young adults who decide to abandon their cloistered Jewish communities have only one another — and a single organization — to help them navigate the alternate reality of modern-day New York." - Taffy Brodesser-Akner [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:31 PM PST - 18 comments

It was night, stormy, and the oil rig Transocean Winner was somewhere in the North Atlantic on 7 August 2016 when her tow-line broke.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:25 PM PST - 10 comments

Michael Davis has been juggling objects and audience expectations for many years. Here are a few of his routines: My Philosophy Of Juggling, a ping pong ball trick, and a mostly-musical appearance on the Tonight Show.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:10 PM PST - 15 comments

How the Overlook Film Festival turned itself into a living, breathing horror movie. The part of the Overlook there being played by Timerline Lodge, which was built during the depression by the WPA. Though the movie uses Timberline Lodge for exteriors the interiors are quite different, being filmed on a set inspired by the Ahwahnee Hotel. Other shooting locations include the maze (previously) and a partial replica of the extra of theTimberline which were both built in Hertfordshire, England.
posted by Artw at 3:57 PM PST - 6 comments

“Before we get to your car questions,” my former next door neighbor, Terrance, said, “I need to tell you both something. My wife left me. My kids won’t talk to me. I lost my job. I embezzled almost a half a million dollars because I’m addicted to BMWs, and have been hiding them all over the state. I’ll probably be going to prison soon.” [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 3:56 PM PST - 70 comments

If You Like Good Music, You Should Get a Perfect Score on This Quiz, says Esquire. Match 30 seconds of fifty songs to their album covers. (via kottke.)
posted by progosk at 2:27 PM PST - 97 comments

How Canada's First Women's Shelters Saved Women From Their Husbands
posted by jacquilynne at 2:10 PM PST - 8 comments

Sideways Dictionary: Using analogies to explain concepts in technology. A project of Jigsaw and the Washington Post.
posted by Cash4Lead at 1:39 PM PST - 49 comments

After escaping from the Orange County Jail, three violent criminals needed transportation, so they called a taxi and took the driver hostage for six days. Predictably, they went back to prison. But that wasn't the end of the story for the driver.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:17 PM PST - 9 comments

On April 23rd, 2017, the Pacific Order of Onomatopoeia Professionals held its First Annual Regional Terminology Summit at the Alaska Robotics “Comics Camp.” At this summit, The Order discussed onomatopoetic solutions to many sound-effects problems common to the sequential arts. The Order’s proceedings and conclusions have been recorded and summarized and are available in the document linked [here] (pdf).

posted by rollick at 11:36 AM PST - 31 comments

One hundred years ago the Nivelle Offensive fails. In April 1917 the Allies launched an enormous attack on German forces designed to crack enemy lines in 48 hours and send them reeling back to the Rhine. General of French forces on the Western Front Robert Nivelle, a hero for his role in Verdun the previous year (previously), deployed a mix of tanks, artillery, air power, and multiple assaults across hundreds of miles. While some gained ground, the offensive, marred by leaks, a lack of leadership support, and bad tactical decisions, failed to break the Germans. Nivelle was fired and the offensive petered out. The human costs on both sides, including French, Germans, British, and Canadians, were very high. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 10:37 AM PST - 9 comments

Through sands and mountains in search of a gulag ghost town: "We all know what Siberia means. It means Lake Baikal and the Altai Mountains. It means bears, long winters and vast expanses of taiga. All true enough. But if you scrutinise the map of Siberia, choose a little-known region and pluck up the courage to undertake an unconventional itinerary, you’ll have the chance to experience a Siberia at once recognisable and unanticipated."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:34 AM PST - 10 comments

The full-length trailers for the Defenders has dropped Marvel's the Defenders will be available on Netflix August 18th
posted by dinty_moore at 9:46 AM PST - 110 comments

The founder of a popular South Carolina barbecue restaurant was a white supremacist. Now that his children have taken over, is it O.K. to eat there?
posted by Blasdelb at 7:15 AM PST - 65 comments

In January 2017, the United States Marine Corps assigned its first infantrywomen to line battalions. Later that month, Marine veteran and reporter Thomas Brennan asked USMC HQ about a Facebook group named "Marines United", which included "hundreds — possibly thousands — of naked photographs of female service members and veterans." The Marines United scandal triggered a wide-ranging NCIS investigation, official guidance that outlined both resources for affected personnel and PR tips for commanders (10-page PDF), and a personal response from the four-star Commandant of the Marine Corps. Marine veterans Jeannette Haynie and Kyleanne Hunter argue that The Marines United scandal should be seen as a national security issue.
posted by Etrigan at 6:58 AM PST - 29 comments

The first official trailer for The Dark Tower has dropped.
posted by Kitteh at 6:53 AM PST - 142 comments

New Zealand Court Plays Eminem's "Lose Yourself" A very nicely edited video of a court hearing listening to Eminem's Lose Yourself and the NZ National Party's election ad music which is alleged to have ripped it off eh. [more inside]
posted by hawthorne at 5:32 AM PST - 16 comments

You feeling a bit down in the dumps? You want something that'll kinda maybe cheer you up a little bit? OK, then, just drop in and listen to what these wild and crazy guys got for you. Gonna brighten your day, for sure. You liked that, right? OK, then, now go to the version with English subtitles, if your Italian was a bit too rusty to keep up. Even more fun the second time around. Prego!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:19 AM PST - 23 comments

A young soldier sketches his way through World War II - and, boy can he sketch. [more inside]
posted by ecorrocio at 10:49 PM PST - 23 comments

Miniature Bottle Library - [frames!!] You can view alphabetically, by country, etc. but I will only link to one set - the alcohol fuelled nightmare theme that is (no, not sex or zombie but, clown)
posted by unliteral at 9:46 PM PST - 6 comments

Yet this, also, turned out to be a failure, because Large Son insisted on making Batman fight Steve from Minecraft. This is not canon. Worse, Large Son insisted that Batman would lose the fight because Batman was not—and here I quote directly—“immune to lava,” namely because Batman was incapable of carrying cobblestone.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:20 PM PST - 27 comments

Bella is a small mutt. Hank is a large Golden Retriever. Bella figured out the best way to get to the treats is to stand on Hank. (Includes bonus blep.)
posted by Room 641-A at 7:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Every year, I’m blown away by the intricate gowns at the Met Gala. I’m impressed not just by the creativity, but by how much math, physics, and engineering is lurking beneath the layers of silk and lace. [more inside]
posted by Shmuel510 at 6:57 PM PST - 57 comments

Phase-Functioned Neural Networks for Character Control, aka holy shit look at this character animation. If you want some more details, check out the research paper by Daniel Holden, Taku Komura, and Jun Saito.
posted by cortex at 6:20 PM PST - 28 comments

"It’s coming around again, as it has probably for time immemorial — the thing where someone who doesn’t knit discovers that there are people who do knit, and some of them are apparently under the age of 90, and then the next thing we know, someone is writing articles or spouting this line on TV or social media or something: 'This is not your grandmother’s knitting.'" [more inside]
posted by sibilatorix at 5:37 PM PST - 64 comments

In the 1970s the Big Apple was rotten to the core. But amidst the ruins and squalor, a golden era of music was born. In downtown Manhattan, Punk was created. In the midtown, Disco was king. Whilst on the streets of the Bronx, Hip Hop sprung up. In 1970s New York, you cold be whoever you wanted to be.

-Once Upon a Time in New York. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 4:07 PM PST - 16 comments

Mnemonic Generator - generate mnemonics.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:31 PM PST - 24 comments

You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. A short comic from The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman on belief, the brain, and the Backfire Effect, aka the response of confirmation bias.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:37 PM PST - 96 comments

On being a fat medical student, at the start of our metabolism module.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:04 PM PST - 70 comments

Cats aren't so easy to kill, Grim Reaper. More at KatRaccoon Comics. [h/t Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:06 PM PST - 6 comments

After winning the silver medal in the Rio marathon, Feyisa Lilesa engaged in a dramatic protest against the Ethiopian government's treatment of his Oromo ethnic group (previously). Today, he lives in Arizona, but he still feels like he has to watch his back because of his continued protests.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:04 PM PST - 2 comments

"Among many liberals, there is an understandable impulse to raise the drawbridge, to deny certain ideas access to respectable conversation, to prevent certain concepts from being “normalized.” But the normalization has already occurred — thanks, largely, to voters across the West — and willfully blinding ourselves to the most potent political movement of the moment will not make it go away. ." [more inside]
posted by lattiboy at 10:46 AM PST - 114 comments

The perfect 80s interior decor accessory: a bowl of fruit
posted by The Whelk at 8:24 AM PST - 106 comments

Why I don't trust Batman. A reflection on the impact of Batman on Gotham from the people he thinks he is protecting.
posted by Apoch at 7:44 AM PST - 120 comments

In what will certainly go down as one of the most memorable exits in show business, Col. Bruce Hampton collapsed at the end of a tribute show honoring his 70th birthday. He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead a few hours later. [more inside]
posted by TedW at 7:19 AM PST - 29 comments

From The Atlantic, a plea for shorter yoga classes.
posted by Gordion Knott at 3:05 AM PST - 41 comments

An SB Nation essay on the future of football.
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:56 AM PST - 56 comments

"Just as the bright city lights are vanishing behind us, the Milky way starts to become clearly visible up ahead. Its now us, pacing at almost the speed of sound along the invisible highway and the pitch-black night sky above this surreal landscape. Ahead of us are another eight hours flight time, but we already stopped counting the shooting stars. And we got already to a few hundred." -Beyond Clouds
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:22 AM PST - 9 comments

A century ago, abortion was on trial in Canada's capital. Megan Gillis, in the Ottawa Sun, writes about the trials of Dr. J.A. Ouimet, a prominent Hull doctor, and Annie Balcomb, who "together and separately [were] accused between 1911 and 1914 of murdering the abortion-seeking women who died and performing 'criminal operations' on the ones who lived." At the time "birth control was illegal, unwed motherhood meant ruin and only tuberculosis killed more young women than childbirth. In the 1920s, childbirth was killing four Canadian women a day." A window to the past and the desperate situation of women faced with an unintended pregnancy, as well as the racist roots of anti-abortion laws.
posted by jokeefe at 10:44 PM PST - 11 comments

Are We Having Too Much Fun? - And the metaphorical nature of television, Postman argued, has meant that TV and its very particular logic—its assumptions, its aesthetics, its image-oriented and episodic understanding of the world—have found their way into other areas of American cultural life. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:11 PM PST - 30 comments

Side by Side versions of Bohemian Rhapsody by Pentatonix and Queen. If you're going to cover a song.... and, a little extra.. Can't Helping Falling in Love With You.
posted by HuronBob at 9:29 PM PST - 53 comments

Making Love in an Iron Age: "The gulf between unspeakable feeling and meaningful action is ever present in the archaeological record. Behind the plexiglas and placards of museum displays are artifacts taken from cemeteries and graves. These are traces of people who gathered together for a final opportunity to express the things that words could no longer say. As a scholar who works with these artifacts, it’s often hard to know exactly what they mean—but sometimes it’s all too clear."
posted by steady-state strawberry at 8:46 PM PST - 7 comments

Hun Choi, the artist better known as Hunee, is a daring DJ -- he's gutsy enough to play classic tunes to a crowd of heads and adventurous records to packed dance floors. "My aim is always to maintain a certain freedom," he says. "Very early on I realised there are two kinds of paths with DJing. You can really specialise in what you play, but I knew pretty quickly that's not how I work. I've always liked to explore different sounds." Enjoy 2 hours of a curated musical journey with Hunee's recent Essential Mix (BBC; Mixcloud; Global DJ). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:23 PM PST - 1 comment

It's the Sgt. Pepper's/Star Wars mashup you didn't know you needed. Palette-Swap Ninja has adapted the entirety of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band into a long form musical adaptation of Star Wars: A New Hope. [more inside]
posted by ursus_comiter at 7:14 PM PST - 53 comments

“I asked myself, if I had kids here, what would I want for them?” he says. That’s when Wilson started spending his own money. Tom Wilson played trumpet for 36 years before being forced to quit his career as a musician or go blind. While studying to become a teacher he saw a documentary on Venezuela's El Sistema. "That’s social justice mixed with music,” he remembers thinking, “and I can do that.” Warning: may be dusty
posted by Ogre Lawless at 6:28 PM PST - 7 comments

A Generative Approach to Simulating Watercolor Paints, by Tyler Hobbs. via migurski
posted by cortex at 3:11 PM PST - 15 comments

It’s great that journalists and scientists are sharing data and code. But code on GitHub is not always easy to run: you need to reproduce the necessary environment, the operating system, the application, the packages, etc. If your code is already running in the browser, it runs in any other browser; that’s the beauty of the web. Mike Bostock writes 4300 words for Medium (with LOTS of pretty pictures).
posted by cgc373 at 2:39 PM PST - 61 comments

One day in the late 1990s, Myria walked into the Irvine High School computer room and spotted a boy playing Final Fantasy V. There were two unusual things about this. The first was that Final Fantasy V had not actually come out in the United States. To play the 1992 Japanese game in English, you’d have to download a ROM, then install the unofficial fan translation patch that had recently begun circulating the internet. Myria knew about this patch because of the other unusual thing: she helped make it.
posted by byanyothername at 1:27 PM PST - 13 comments

"The last time New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art honored a living designer with a retrospective, the year was 1983, and the designer was Yves Saint Laurent. It has taken a whopping 33 years for the institution—and Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor pulling strings behind the scenes—to deem another talent worthy of such an honor. This week, Rei Kawakubo will become the second living designer to have a monographic show inside the hallowed halls of New York’s largest museum." Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between [more inside]
posted by everybody had matching towels at 1:16 PM PST - 11 comments

The battle of Shanghai in 1937 was unique in many ways. For example, it was recorded more exhaustively in the western media than any other battle in China’s long war with Japan. This was because of the presence, in the city’s international districts, of foreign journalists and photographers. The latter left a treasure trove of photos, some of which are unknown to the wider public to this day, nearly 80 years after the battle. Bonus: Asians in WWII Poster Art
posted by infini at 12:58 PM PST - 13 comments

"It’s April 1992, and ABC commentator Judith Miller’s voice has an exasperated tinge as she reports to her audience that not one of the officers who beat Rodney King on that infamous videotape has been found guilty of any charges. Soon, riots break out in Los Angeles. Thousands of stores are destroyed. At least 55 people are killed. And less than a mile away, Joel Schumacher is directing Falling Down." April Wolfe writes for LA Weekly on the 25th anniversary of a film that remains as polarizing and provocative as ever. Hey, White People: Michael Douglas Is the Villain, Not the Victim, in Falling Down
posted by naju at 12:34 PM PST - 107 comments

The 2017 winners of the Lyttle Lytton Contest have been posted. (previously) [more inside]
posted by crazy with stars at 10:58 AM PST - 26 comments

Speeches and papers from a Computer Science Professor that are even more relevant today. Dr. Harvey taught computer science for over 25 years at U.C. Berkeley and also led a course on the Social Implications of Computing. What follows are a few excerpts from his papers on computers and education. [more inside]
posted by threesquare at 10:49 AM PST - 17 comments

Civic bankruptcy. Drugs. Sex. Sleaze. Gangs. Dance. The Son of Sam. The Blackout. Punk. Hip-hop. Disco. NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:44 AM PST - 13 comments

"The product of a talented programmer who designed a hit shareware game while he was still in high school, NESticle was so good that everyone looked past the fact its name was basically a dick joke."
posted by griphus at 10:03 AM PST - 34 comments

For about two centuries after the Black Death, workers in Europe had it good, medievally speaking. The medieval calendar was filled with festivals and feast days; dragons and church ales, carnivals and food fights, and an extra day off every week of the year. In bad years, it took only a few hundred hours of work to pay for the grain needed to feed a family; in good years, closer to a hundred hours. Then, in less than 50 years starting in the mid-1500s - and as quickly as the 10 years from 1540 to 1550 in at least one area - everything changed, almost everywhere in Europe. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 9:36 AM PST - 18 comments

How to get Google Assistant on your desktop (pc, mac, linux).
posted by signal at 9:09 AM PST - 28 comments

After a short twenty-year breather, former WFMU DJ The Hound, featured previously on Metafilter here and here, is back.
posted by thursdaystoo at 7:26 AM PST - 7 comments

Which is more squeeful, a puppy eating a banana or ten kittens being corralled for a family photo? [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:21 AM PST - 43 comments