MetaFilter

Rudolfo Anaya, grandfather of Chicano literature, New Mexico treasure and author of Bless Me, Ultima has passed away.
posted by jabo at 6:38 PM PST - 14 comments

Australian study finds links between aphantasia & autobiographic memory deficiencies. 26 per cent of aphantasic study participants reported a broader lack of multi-sensory imagery – including imagining sound, touch, motion, taste, smell and emotion. “This is the first scientific data we have showing that potential subtypes of aphantasia exist,” says Professor Joel Pearson, senior author on the paper and Director of UNSW Science’s Future Minds Lab.
Interestingly, spatial imagery – the ability to imagine distance or locational relationship between things – was the only form of sensory imagery that had no significant changes across aphantasics and people who could visualise. [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 5:55 PM PST - 31 comments

Here's a continuous-shot video of a surprisingly complicated backyard Rube Goldberg mechanism. [SLYouTube]
posted by eotvos at 4:54 PM PST - 39 comments

Indigo Girls' latest album includes the song Country Radio, a paean to being a queer kid listening to straight songs. In an article in The Bluegrass Situation, Amy and Emily engage in perhaps the most outspoken discussion of politics and race I've ever seen from them and provide a playlist of country and Americana songs that address diversity, heteronormitivy, race, and gender. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:31 PM PST - 3 comments

A yt playlist of 1902-1919 films by Segundo de Chomón. Also, here's a list of his films, ranked. [more inside]
posted by sapagan at 2:31 PM PST - 2 comments

macroinvertebrates.org is an interdisciplinary research and development effort to create an innovative resource for aquatic insect identification to support citizen science activities. [more inside]
posted by hydropsyche at 2:30 PM PST - 14 comments

Antoine d'Agata has been using a thermal imaging camera to document people, in isolation and interacting, during the pandemic in France, with eerie and striking results. More images at his Instagram.
posted by Kat Allison at 1:50 PM PST - 4 comments

Schwa (Never Stressed). In Episode 44 of the Lingthusiasm podcast, Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about the schwa (see blog for resources). The most recent, Episode 45 is on languages before recorded history. Episode 43 focuses on the singular they.
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:06 PM PST - 23 comments

Catnip’s chemical attractant is new twist on old family tradition (Florida Museum): Catnip is most famous for its ability to launch felines into a euphoric frenzy, but the origin of its cat-attracting chemical is a remarkable example of evolutionary innovation. [...] Many of catnip’s relatives in the mint family use iridoids as chemical armor. But an international team of researchers (Science Advances) found the ancient ancestor of catnip lost a key iridoid-making gene. Descendants in this lineage – herbs such as basil, oregano, rosemary, lemon balm and mint – had to lean on other defenses, with one notable exception: catnip, which revived the family tradition by evolving a new iridoid production line from scratch.
posted by not_the_water at 11:41 AM PST - 21 comments

Carl Reiner dead at 98, natural causes. Carl Reiner, the quintessential straight man for Sid Caesar and Mel Brooks who based the beloved sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show on his own life and jump-started Steve Martin’s big-screen career, has died, his assistant Judy Nagy confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 98. The influential writer, director, actor, author and 12-time Emmy Award winner died Monday night at his Beverly Hills home of natural causes, Nagy said. Son Rob Reiner, the actor, writer, director and Oscar-nominated producer, said in a tweet Tuesday morning: "Last night my dad passed away. As I write this my heart is hurting. He was my guiding light."
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:44 AM PST - 110 comments

Fired over zoom. There’s no good way to be fired, but this new way sucks.
posted by w0mbat at 7:01 AM PST - 83 comments

In November 1959, balloonists on Strato-Lab IV reached an altutide of 81,000 feet (25,000 m) to perform spectrographic analysis of Venus (Wikipedia), which was reported on in Life magazine a month later, with the article "Target: Venus—There May Be Life There" (Google books), and fostered the dream that "life—even as we know it on earth—may exist on Venus." Three years later, Mariner crushed those dreams (NASA), but what about the Venus of the past? The Romantic Venus We Never Knew—Venus used to be as fit for life as Earth (David Grinspoon, Nautilus). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:48 PM PST - 20 comments

Nieman Journalism Lab reports on two key dates: June 30th, when Tribune Publishing's two largest shareholders (Alden Global Capital, with 33 percent and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, with 25 percent) will reach the end of their agreement not to buy or sell shares in the company, and July 1st, when final bids are due for the 30 local newspapers owned by McClatchy, which filed for bankruptcy in February.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:21 PM PST - 11 comments

Why the Mueller Investigation Failed (Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, July 2020)
posted by box at 2:35 PM PST - 43 comments

There are certain things you don’t know you’re missing in life until you’re exposed to them, right? EXP TV just might be one of those things. It’s got an aesthetic that hovers around the same territory as Everything is Terrible! and Vic Berger, it even reminds me of Mike Kelley’s stuff, but that’s only going to get you in the ballpark. Which is good enough, but you just have to click on the link and see for yourself. It’s a barrage of strange imagery and is really quite an inspired—not to say elaborate and work intensive—art project. And just in time for a pandemic. Bored with Netflix? Have enough Amazon Prime? Maxed out on HBO Max? You need to tune in, turn on and drop your jaw to the floor at what’s screening on EXP TV.

EXP TV the brainchild of Tom Fitzgerald, Marcus Herring, Taylor C. Rowley. I asked them a few questions via email. (Richard Metzger, Dangerous Minds) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:20 PM PST - 32 comments

"In the midst of one of the darkest moments in the history of independent Bangladesh, we have lost a guardian and a beacon of hope, Professor Anisuzzaman. The Dhaka University Professor Emeritus, a public intellectual, historian, writer, activist, teacher and researcher, passed away on May 14. From his participation as an activist in the Language Movement in 1952 to his role as a member of the planning commission of the government-in-exile in 1971 as well as a member of the committee drafting the Constitution in Bangla in 1971; from his contribution during the movement for restoration of democracy in Bangladesh in the 1980s to his commitment to the trial of war criminals, he was a moral compass who led the nation through its most challenging transitions for over six decades." (The Daily Star) [more inside]
posted by Not A Thing at 12:17 PM PST - 5 comments

'Doing any sort of comedy so soon after 9/11 was exceptionally complicated and the stakes were no less high for The Onion. Not only was this their first issue back, but again, it was their first “New York City Edition” as well, meaning it was the first time The Onion would be available on newsstands throughout the city'. An Oral History of The Onion’s 9/11 Issue.
posted by figurant at 10:10 AM PST - 47 comments

Hugs to Look Forward to After the Pandemic is Over (Eleanor Davis for The California Sunday Magazine) [more inside]
posted by book 'em dano at 9:45 AM PST - 18 comments

Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, reviews Spike Lee's new movie about the Vietnam War, "Da 5 Bloods", from a perspective rarely heard in America: a Vietnamese one. [more inside]
posted by Ouverture at 9:28 AM PST - 20 comments

Victims of Chris Avellone (Planescape: Torment, Fallout: New Vegas), Insomniac Games (Spiderman PS4), Ubisoft (Far Cry, Assassin's Creed) and multiple twitch personalities have spoken out about the sexual harassment, abuse and assaults they have suffered. "The game industry is rotten from within and without. Nakedly, openly abusive of its staff as a matter of course, the stuff it actively hides and covers for consists of more personal, and more horrifying abuse."
posted by simmering octagon at 9:10 AM PST - 27 comments

Every year Mobile, Alabama chooses fifty high school girls, on merit, to join the nearly 100-year-old court of Azalea Trail Maids as town ambassadors. Adair Freeman Rutledge explores the contradictions of her hometown's tradition by photographing these racially diverse 21st century teenagers wearing antebellum dresses in order to “embody the ideals of Southern Hospitality” and as a proud family tradition. All links go to the photographer's site.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:07 AM PST - 23 comments

Ten years ago, the "Big Four of Thrash"--Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax--stopped bickering long enough to go on tour together. Watch some concerts from the tour: Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Metallica.
posted by goatdog at 7:51 AM PST - 23 comments

An overview of evolution and atmospheric changes. Why birds have great lungs and mammals don't.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:32 AM PST - 14 comments

The origin story of Mr. T's name is the best. "I think about my father being called ‘boy’, my uncle being called ‘boy’, my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called ‘boy’. So I questioned myself: “What does a black man have to do before he’s given the respect as a man?” So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T so the first word out of everybody’s mouth is ‘Mr.’ That’s a sign of respect that my father didn’t get, that my brother didn’t get, that my mother didn’t get."
posted by thirdring at 5:21 AM PST - 42 comments

The term "object head" refers to a specific type of character in which the individual has, as may be surmised, an object for a head. [more inside]
posted by brook horse at 6:21 PM PST - 37 comments

It's been ten years since the original publication of the Tau Manifesto, advocating the simplification of a broad range of mathematical formulae by replacing pi with a bigger, better circle constant. Check out the celebratory State of the Tau report for the latest, including new translations of the manifesto and an endorsement from Drake*. [more inside]
posted by kaibutsu at 3:07 PM PST - 57 comments

I'd ask how a black person is meant to feel when they go to Lord's - the so-called home of cricket - and there is a stand named after a man whose family wealth was built on slavery. I'd ask how you are meant to feel when you know the MCC, in recent times, appointed a man as president who led a rebel tour to South Africa during the apartheid years. And I'd ask whether there would be support for the recall of a young black man who had been seen fighting in the street and had failed a drugs test. [more inside]
posted by smcg at 1:18 PM PST - 5 comments

Intergalactic Fishing (PC) is "a fishing RPG that makes use of procedurally generated content and graphics. Travel to lakes all over the universe and catch unique fish, explore uncharted lakes and sell data, complete quests, upgrade your gear, compete in fishing tournaments, design your own lures, and more!" [more inside]
posted by Drastic at 12:06 PM PST - 11 comments

While the rest of the world has been concentrating on making cameras smaller and lighter photographer, Ian Ruhter (previously) was making one literally the size of a house in order to make the world’s largest wet collodion plate (Wikipedia). The camera was used to produce a portrait of a 100-year-old local resident, Ted (PetaPixel), on a sheet of glass measuring 66x90 inches (DP Review) in Bombay Beach, California (Wikipedia), after he took a series (Ian's gallery) of similarly antiquated ambrotype (Wikipedia) portraits. The process by Ian and his team, and their time with some residents of Bombay Beach and Slab City, was captured by Lauren Vance in the short documentary "Obscura."
posted by filthy light thief at 11:52 AM PST - 11 comments

The Mississippi state legislature has cleared the hurdles towards removing and replacing the official state flag, which has contained the Confederate battle emblem since 1894. This follows a recent cascade of institutions, businesses, and towns refusing to display the current flag. Perhaps most cuttingly, the SEC football conference no longer wants to hold championship events in the state. A vote is expected today; the governor has grudgingly indicated that he will sign the bill if it is passed. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 9:24 AM PST - 52 comments

We don’t accept these odds. That was Greta Thunberg’s principal message while speaking before the General Assembly of the United Nations last year. It referred to the remaining CO2-budget of humanity. But the only message that seems to have resonated is 'how dare you', she says in the beginning of her Program, Summer on P1, a well-known Swedish Radio Show. After her speech, Greta and her father travel through 37 states in total. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 8:30 AM PST - 12 comments

Wig in a Box - Can’t Cancel Pride
John Cameron Mitchell, Neil Patrick Harris, Darren Criss, Stephen Trask, Andrew Rannels, Jinkx Monsoon, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Lena Hall, Mason Alexander Park and others sing Wig in a Box for #CantCancelPride.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 8:18 AM PST - 8 comments

Ei Wada and collaborators make delightful musical instruments by hacking familiar, analog consumer electronics.
posted by eotvos at 8:03 AM PST - 8 comments

The Spaceguard Centre, near Knighton, in Powys, Wales, is a working observatory which tracks "near-Earth objects" - comets and asteroids which could hit Earth. [more inside]
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:28 AM PST - 9 comments

Using live weather and ocean data, SailNavSim allows you to race (alone or with friends) across the ocean. Instructions here.
posted by 3zra at 4:21 AM PST - 8 comments

Scamming Pizza Hut Was My Family Tradition
posted by Chrysostom at 10:16 PM PST - 107 comments

love is the message, the message is death
posted by Ahmad Khani at 7:05 PM PST - 13 comments

American intelligence officials determined “months ago” that “last year,” Russia’s GRU offered bounties to the Taliban to kill US and UK troops in Afghanistan; while President Trump and the NSC were briefed in late March, the White House did not authorize a response, and now denies only that Trump or Pence was ever briefed on the matter. (NYT; WSJ; CNN; WaPo). The U.S. War in Afghanistan began in 2001 and is the longest war in U.S. history. 22 U.S. soldiers died in combat there last year and at least six so far in 2020. (AP).
posted by sallybrown at 7:03 PM PST - 158 comments

The impact of public opinion towards Facebook has been growing as more and more people are holding the company and its founder to task for its conduct. But that impact goes beyond the scope of Facebook itself, as the operations of Facebook more and more bleed into the operations of the ostensibly independent Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, impacting those working there. (SLRe/code)
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:41 PM PST - 15 comments

"The person who types “lol” is never actually laughing; the person who types I’M SCREAMING is silently dabbing at a screen. In the same way, the person who is perpetually shocked and outraged and brimming with righteous fury is almost always lying to themselves. They’re as affectless as the rest of us: play-acting, downloading synthetic emotions, and then passing them on. Welcome to the age of bad faith."
posted by simmering octagon at 4:13 PM PST - 54 comments

Vox's Emily VanDerWerff: A trans Christian minister came out in a sermon. Now, she’s bracing for what comes next. [more inside]
posted by Frayed Knot at 3:27 PM PST - 14 comments

People on Twitter are ruining great operas by changing one letter
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 12:11 PM PST - 83 comments

Milton Glaser, famed graphic designer, both celebrated his birthday and also passed away yesterday, June 26th 2020. [more inside]
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:32 AM PST - 24 comments

In the DC suburb of Greenbelt, Maryland (previously), one person is living through pandemic quarantine by drawing chalk murals on the public walkways (SLInstagram). Saint Anthony Fauci. Coronavirus Truther Robin. Big Lebowski. Divine. Antifascist Woody Guthrie. [more inside]
posted by sugar and confetti at 7:39 AM PST - 7 comments

The Republican Choice - "How a party spent decades making itself white." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 4:26 AM PST - 22 comments

Unrest and protests continued for a seventh straight day in the former British colony of the United States as the government vowed to use its military to end the demonstrations, US media reported on Tuesday.

The Thai Enquirer reports on the ongoing unrest in the country that the natives call America.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:14 AM PST - 54 comments

Beware, the Big Heads are coming for you over the meadows. By Artist Bedwyr Williams. (Via)
posted by growabrain at 1:48 AM PST - 16 comments

Dwayne Kennedy's first stand-up album covers winning the lottery, talking in movies, the Garden of Eden and seeing-eye cats.
posted by gottabefunky at 12:54 AM PST - 4 comments

"Type Lore" is intended to supply the main facts regarding the development of types. It seeks to aid comprehension and remembrance by an ostensible discussion of the present day's most popular faces of type, which, considered in the order that their ancestors came upon the scene, serve as a background for relating the leading facts of typographical lore. Type lore : popular fonts of today, their origin and use; the history of the art of typography succinctly related for practical men (1925) That dated history of type is focused on famous men (99 Designs). To expand that scope, here's Alphabettes.org, "a showcase for work, commentary, and research on lettering, typography, and type design [...] to support and promote the work of all women in our fields." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:08 PM PST - 4 comments

Alexandra Bell is a multidisciplinary artist who investigates the complexities of narrative, information consumption, and perception. Utilizing various media, she deconstructs language and imagery to explore the tension between marginal experiences and dominant histories. Through investigative research, she considers the ways media frameworks construct memory and inform discursive practices around race, politics, and culture. In her current series, Counternarratives, Bell edits New York Times articles, altering headlines, changing images, and redacting text to reveal oppressive patterns in news reportage and society at large. (9 min doc).
posted by dobbs at 6:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Poppy Seed Pets (formerly named “Maslow’s Pets”) is a virtual pet site based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Pets have four needs: food, safety, love, and esteem. They will focus on meeting lower-level needs (food) before higher level ones (esteem), and the experience they gain is based on how well their needs are met. [more inside]
posted by brook horse at 6:33 PM PST - 24 comments

Why Fireworks Scare Some Dogs but Not Others
posted by y2karl at 5:56 PM PST - 21 comments

Hat history, hat fashion, hat racism-- strangely human [sarcasm]. Some [western] hat history, some racist hat history (of course), some more history of hats (mostly about Western History), but the world isn't limited to ideas of hats in the west. Great hats of Japan, Chinese Traditional Hats, Luxury Hats from Africa [more inside]
posted by winesong at 4:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Business coach Alexis Rockley is pushing back against the idea that we must always be doing something productive or improving ourselves. She says it is unrealistic to believe we should all master new skills during quarantine, because quarantine and the current environment are continual stressors that cognitively exhaust us. In an interview with Smart Bitches, Trashy Podcast, she unpacks the things our brains are doing to help us survive and provides actionable advice for how you can make things better for yourself.
posted by rednikki at 3:30 PM PST - 19 comments

Supreme Court of Canada: agreement saying an UberEats driver had to go to arbitration instead of suing in Ontario was so unfair it was invalid. Toronto Star: ruling paves the way for $400M class-action lawsuit by Ontario Uber drivers. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 1:27 PM PST - 18 comments

Yes, movie theaters are still closed. But one enterprising filmmaker has the No. 1 film in the US. And his story is better than any script. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 1:14 PM PST - 4 comments

For 40 years, the city’s lifeguard corps has been mired in controversy, and for 40 years it’s been run by one man: Peter Stein.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:37 AM PST - 11 comments

The Messengers: One Small Magazine’s Fight for the Indian Mind (The Virginia Quarterly Review): "The implications, if true, meant major election fraud in the world’s largest democracy. Did they want to look into it? Jose glanced at me, almost helplessly. He had never imagined that his little magazine, with limited funding, a staff of thirty-eight people, and an inclination toward fiction and poetry, would ever become one of the only outlets breaking major, sensitive political stories in a country of over one billion people. “This is the job for leading newspapers and weeklies, but nobody was stepping in to cover them,” he told me after hanging up the phone. He couldn’t help but feel obligated. “How are you supposed to respond to stories which are journalistic but nobody else is doing them?”
posted by not_the_water at 9:58 AM PST - 12 comments

Leigh Stein, former cofounder and executive director of Out of the Binders/BinderCon, maps out the meteoric rise and sudden fall of the Girlboss: "The girlboss didn’t change the system; she thrived within it. Now that system is cracking, and so is this icon of millennial hustle." [more inside]
posted by Ouverture at 8:58 AM PST - 20 comments

Egyptian graphic designer Ibrahim Hamdi has taken a bunch of famous and iconic gaming logos and translated them, keeping their overall design but switching out English (or...whatever is left of the language after everything's been miscapitalised and underscored) with Arabic. The cool thing here, of course, is that he hasn’t simply translated them (or, to be more accurate, transliterated them), but recreated them seamlessly within the design principles of the original Western logo, then dropped that logo onto the box art. You can check the whole project out at Hamdi’s Behance page. [Warning: loud autoplay music on his website.] [via: Kotaku]
posted by Fizz at 8:40 AM PST - 17 comments

Ze Frank shares True Facts About The Macaque.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:04 AM PST - 19 comments

If you want to be Happy, if you want to feel Joy, if you want a blast of Pure Art and Beauty, see this video. I'd never heard her name prior to seeing this Tiny Desk Concert mentioned on Kottke.org but I trust that most Tiny Desk Concerts are at least interesting and often spectacular. (Hello Adele.) So I staggered over there yesterday afternoon and my internet connection kept flopping so I downloaded it, watched it just before going out on my bicycle ride, couple hours ago. Alicia Keys had tears coming down my cheeks, just such a great artist. She's beautiful but that's easy, what's not easy is her kind of beautiful, smiles that make it all the way into her eyes. And her band absolutely kicks ass.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:43 AM PST - 13 comments

Today's Google Doodle celebrates what would have been the 68th birthday of Olive Morris, a community leader and activist in the feminist, black nationalist, and squatters' rights campaigns of the 1970s in the UK. [more inside]
posted by Balthamos at 1:23 AM PST - 5 comments

How a bench and a team of grandmothers can tackle depression. A BBC 'lockdown longread' article by Rachel Nuwer about the Friendship Bench programme in Zimbabwe.
posted by misteraitch at 11:34 PM PST - 17 comments

In response to this rather tasteless NYT piece on 'Southeast Asian' fruits (that among other things, compared the rambutan fruit to resembling the coronavirus), Twitter user @amirulruslan breaks down and documents the history of western media (NYT in particular) trafficking in racist cliche about Southeast Asia through its food coverage. [threadreader link] [more inside]
posted by cendawanita at 10:11 PM PST - 55 comments

On Friday, June 19, 2020, Tennessee's Republican-led House of Representatives passed House Resolution 340, a resolution that congratulates the state's citizens "for clearly seeing that the mainstream media has sensationalized the reporting on COVID-19 in the service of political agendas." (Newsweek). Two days later, the Nashville Tennessean — the largest newspaper in the state — published a full-page ad of an Islamophobic conspiracy (tweet with photos of the print ad) from a fringe post-apocalyptic Christian organization. What Happened in the Tennessean’s Newsroom After That “Indefensible” Anti-Muslim Ad (Slate interview by Aymann Ismail with David Plazas, the opinion and engagement director) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:29 PM PST - 14 comments

The 1982 screen adaptation of Agatha Christie's Evil Under The Sun not only featured Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith and a lot of other greats, but also had a really striking score. Music by Cole Porter, rearranged and "turned into medleys" by John Lanchberry [whom you've never heard of, but who is quite pedigreed], the score didn't see a release until 1999. I think it's charming and fun, and it's a new way to get your Cole Porter on, if that's your thing. Evil Under The Sun Original Film Soundtrack (link lists breakdown of Cole Porter tunes used in each track). CD Track List: Main Titles, Restaurant Interior, Daphne's Island, Poirot On Boat, The Cocktail Party, Arlena & Patrick, Swimming, Hotel Balcony, Myra & Christine, Gardener's Suite, Breakfast On The Terrace, Christine In Hotel Corridor, The Dance Sequence, Daphne's Office, Check Out, The Grotto, Hotel Exterior [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:16 PM PST - 6 comments

Intentional Reading and How to Diversify Your Reading Material is the most recent YouTube video from creator Seji at The Artisan Geek, part of BookTube on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by Glinn at 8:08 PM PST - 2 comments

Let minutephysics tell you about The Astounding Physics of N95 Masks.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:50 PM PST - 17 comments

Alex Kearns, a student at the University of Nebraska, killed himself after mistakenly believing he owed $730,000 on the Robinhood stock-trading app. Robinhood have announced changes to the app's UI and other educational resources, but the app has a long history (WSJ) of making trading feel like gambling or gaming, including the infamous "infinite money" glitch. "Was it the startup’s responsibility to do a better job with design, ethics and friction to better guard against kids like him from going into a fatal tailspin? Yes. Yes. And yes again," says Kara Swisher (NYT). [CW: Discussions of suicide]
posted by adrianhon at 2:52 PM PST - 45 comments

Objects in real life don’t just start and stop instantly, and almost never move at a constant speed. This page helps you choose the right easing function.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:37 PM PST - 12 comments

Ex Eye is an experimental metal band consisting of saxophonist Colin Stetson, drummer Greg Fox (of Liturgy), synth player Shahzad Ismaily (Secret Chiefs 3, Ceramic Dog), and guitarist Toby Summerfield. While it's no replacement for an actual concert, this video of their August 18, 2017 performance at Saint Vitus Bar is the next best thing, especially if you've got a great sound system. [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 11:25 AM PST - 17 comments

Only a certain peanut bred for the proper size and the look of its shell makes the cut for the ballpark trade. It’s called the Virginia. [SLNYT]
posted by Chrysostom at 10:23 AM PST - 15 comments

Following fellow country music act Lady A (pka Lady Antebellum), the Dixie Chicks have changed their name to The Chicks. The Dixie Chicks' last single was 'Gaslighter' released in March. This month, The Chicks' first single is 'March March.'
posted by box at 10:06 AM PST - 42 comments

Kassia St. Clair's book The Secret Lives of Colour covers the back stories to 75 fascinating shades such as puce, amaranth, and Baker-Miller Pink. St. Clair has written extensively on colors, including 2020 pieces on a colour inventor and a mauve creator for Elle Decoration UK, Is Colour Subjective (links to pdf) and Before Pantone There Was Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, a 1814 taxonomy of 108 colors used by Charles Darwin and other 19th century naturalists that featured Orpiment Orange, Gamboge and Gallstone Yellow among others (Architectural Digest, complimentary article before paywall). [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:00 AM PST - 15 comments

The Institute for Digital Archaeology is analyzing and attempting to reproduce historical scents. [more inside]
posted by zamboni at 7:49 AM PST - 11 comments

A Wave Of Sexual Abuse Stories Is Causing A Reckoning In The Twitch Streaming World [Kotaku] “Over the weekend, a trickle of sexual harassment stories surrounding influential figures in the streaming world grew into a tidal wave. More than 50 streamers, most of them women, shared dozens of stories that have already produced vast reverberations, including the resignation of the head of one of the biggest management firms in all of streaming and the departure of over 20 streamers in his wake. In response, some streamers are boycotting the platform altogether today and refusing to stream. High-profile streamers have been accused, often by multiple women, of patterns of inappropriate behavior up to and including sexual assault. The flood of stories this weekend has caused Twitch and its CEO to respond, saying that they will work to address the systemic issues that have so far allowed these kind of predatory behaviors to flourish in the streaming world.” [Discussion & descriptions of sexual misconduct that some may find disturbing.] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:42 AM PST - 20 comments

Animal Crossing’s massive popularity has made it less like paradise and more like Wall Street
posted by divabat at 7:40 AM PST - 49 comments

After a week of numerous sexual assault allegations against WWE, AEW, Impact, and independent wrestlers, the industry needs to evolve. [content warning: sexual harassment, violence, abuse] [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:57 AM PST - 16 comments

Scientists working with Facebook to fact-check articles issued a warning last August about an op-ed in a US newspaper that attempted to undermine the climate science consensus by using misleading data. Facebook’s policy is to pass along fact-check warnings to users when they share such articles. But due to the intervention of an as-yet-unidentified employee, the scientists were overruled in this particular instance and Facebook stopped telling users that the article was false. As a result of these actions Facebook has quietly opened a loophole in its policy, allowing disinformation to be shared as ‘opinion' immune to fact-checking. Meanwhile, the group that was behind the op-ed — a well-funded climate science denial advocacy organization with deep ties to conservative activists, policy makers, and US government officials— plans to exploit this exemption to reach a larger audience. One of its primary messages is that additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually good for the Earth, a message that it has previously targeted to children through cartoons on Facebook. [more inside]
posted by theory at 6:14 AM PST - 92 comments

Don't Be a Sucker is a short film produced by the United States Department of War released in 1943, and adapted as a slightly shorter version in 1947. It has anti-racist and anti-fascist themes, and was made to educate viewers about prejudice and discrimination.
posted by adept256 at 5:50 AM PST - 7 comments

A Brief History of Anti-Fascism
posted by y2karl at 9:58 PM PST - 19 comments

An interview with Walter J. Watts, an Edmonton boy who rode a unicycle around the world in the 1970s, by Ed Pratt, a Somerset boy who rode a unicycle around the world in the 2010s.
posted by clawsoon at 4:52 PM PST - 8 comments

Ron Jeremy, 67, charged with ‘forcibly raping three women and assaulting another’ between 2014 and 2017 [The Sun] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:44 PM PST - 20 comments

After a trip to the grocery store, Sam Darlaston became an inadvertent caterpillar breeder:

Hey @Tesco I was about to cook my favourite vegetable of all time (broccoli) and after unwrapping it, to my surprise, found caterpillars inside! They’re really nice and we’ve ended up keeping one as a pet and naming him. but just as a heads up, some of your broc has c-pillars😳🐛 Twitter | Threadreader
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:30 PM PST - 14 comments

A list of demonyms for US states and territories (official and unofficial) [SLWikipedia]
posted by schmod at 3:12 PM PST - 64 comments

Critics have stamped the works of both Haruki Murakami and Kenzaburo Oe with the label "Translationese". What does this mean? Masatsugu Ono, The Paris Review.
posted by Think_Long at 12:27 PM PST - 12 comments

IoT Security Is a Mess. Privacy 'Nutrition' Labels Could Help (Wired metered paywall): "At the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy last month, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University presented (computer.org) a prototype security and privacy label they created based on interviews and surveys of people who own IoT devices, as well as privacy and security experts. They also published a tool for generating their labels. The idea is to shed light on a device's security posture but also explain how it manages user data and what privacy controls it has. For example, the labels highlight whether a device can get security updates and how long a company has pledged to support it, as well as the types of sensors present, the data they collect, and whether the company shares that data with third parties." S&P 2020: Ask the Experts What Should Be on an IoT Privacy and Security Label (Youtube)
posted by not_the_water at 9:37 AM PST - 29 comments

The A.V. Club with a fascinating look at the Sam & Diane storyline on Cheers.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:17 AM PST - 30 comments

"Goldman Sans is a clean, modern typeface designed for the needs of digital finance." [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 8:15 AM PST - 75 comments

Segway, personal vehicle known for high-profile crashes, ending production. AP via The Guardian.
posted by valkane at 6:16 AM PST - 106 comments

Foundation is a new TV series being adapted from Isaac Asimov's novels. Airing next year on Apple TV+, the show stars Jared Harris as Hari Seldon, Lee Pace as Brother Day, Lou Llobell as Gaal, Leah Harvey as Salvor, Laura Birn as Demerzel, Terrence Mann as Brother Dusk, and Cassian Bilton as Brother Dawn. [more inside]
posted by adrianhon at 3:14 AM PST - 162 comments

numb - a short film // life in lockdown by teen filmmaker liv mcneil, in 203 seconds (music by M83)
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:14 AM PST - 12 comments

This story is nuts: "A group of eight IRS employees led by Jian Wang developed a method for extracting logic from assembly code to convert it into a modern language. They managed to convert 90% of the IRS's Individual Master File code to Java. Until..." IRS programming mystery continues
posted by kliuless at 1:56 AM PST - 82 comments

The Babysitters Club Official Trailer (Previously.)
posted by toastyk at 10:16 PM PST - 30 comments

Japan: Law to Prevent “Powa-Hara” (Power Harassment) Takes Effect

The amended act obligates employers to take measures to prevent power harassment, such as establishing a proper system for providing consultations for employees regarding power harassment followed by responses to their concerns. (Art. 30-2, para. 1.) The amended act also prohibits employers from punishing employees for filing power harassment complaints. (Art. 30-2, para. 2.)

[more inside]
posted by Not A Thing at 9:19 PM PST - 14 comments

On June 19, 2020, Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), an alternative to Wikileaks (Columbia Journalism Review) that publishes caches of previously secret data, released a partially scrubbed 269 gigabytes of data obtained from a security breach at Netsential (Krebs on Security), a Houston-based web development firm. Over the weekend, critics of police abuse took to social media to celebrate the leak and display documents that purportedly came from it (ArsTechnica), using the #BlueLeaks hashtag on Twitter. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:08 PM PST - 17 comments

Wizards of the Coast is addressing racist stereotypes in Dungeons & Dragons [Polygon] “Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast has acknowledged the existence of racist stereotypes in its sourcebooks, and pledged to make changes to ameliorate the issue. In a blog post published on June 17 titled “Diversity and Dungeons & Dragons,” Wizards of the Coast said that depicting a diverse array of human beings — beyond “fantasy versions of northern Europeans” — is “one of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D.” The developers noted that while they want to feature characters “who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs,” the game still contains problematic depictions of fantasy races. Among these races are the orcs, who are often characterized as a savage horde of creatures who lust for battle, and the drow, an evil dark-skinned subrace of elves who dwell in a subterranean matriarchy.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:10 PM PST - 116 comments

Writing for the New York Times, columnist Kevin Roose discusses how social media companies make public proclamations about support for movements like Black Lives Matter while refusing to address the weaponization of their platforms to attack and undermine those movements. (SLNYT)
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:10 PM PST - 5 comments

I’ve always felt everybody has this moral, spiritual geography, emotional geography, inside themselves. You may live in Barcelona, but you can feel you’re related to Asbury Park, some place you may never go. But if a songwriter is writing well and is writing about the human condition, you’ll take them there. They’ll get there. We have our greatest audience overseas—I think two-thirds to more of our audience now is in Europe. People are still captured by and deeply interested in America, what’s going on here and the American myth. The American story is a worldwide story, and it continues to have tremendous power. Bruce Springsteen talks to David Brooks about his Playlist for the Trump Era [via Dave Pell] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:04 PM PST - 11 comments

Just Says In Mice retweets headlines touting new studies with the important and oft-omitted modifier "IN MICE".
The explanation: "Reporting preliminary animal research out of context. Often the easiest way to fix it is appending a simple suffix: IN MICE."
An example: Neurobiologists Discover an “On/Off” Switch for Pain IN MICE
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:48 PM PST - 17 comments

The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring lesson in discrimination. This is the story of that lesson, its lasting impact on the children, and its enduring power 30 years later. [more inside]
posted by hanov3r at 1:15 PM PST - 26 comments

"...as we enter the final act of this Shakespearean tragedy of errors, it seems few will emerge unscathed." An extremely fair overview of the situation that led to CHOP, where it is now, and the tensions within the Seattle political apparatus that will shape what happens next
posted by nikaspark at 10:50 AM PST - 86 comments

In 90s sitcoms with primarily white casts, cops are recurring characters. In sitcoms with primarily black casts during the same era, cops are recurring threats. 90s black sitcoms tried to warn us about how policing is carried out in America.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:41 AM PST - 4 comments

Jellyfish are not a mindless menace. They are not an angry invading hoard. They are part of the ocean landscape. They provide food and safety for countless organisms. Our perception of jellyfish as war-mongering hoards poised to take over the oceans is in stark contrast to the boom-and-bust biology of their natural life cycle. We are not paying enough attention to the economically and ecologically valuable role of jellyfish in the world’s oceans. To counter the risks we’ve caused, we need first to rethink the tarnished image of the humble jellyfish. An essay from marine biologist Rebecca Helm in The Correspondent.
posted by Bella Donna at 10:32 AM PST - 26 comments

South Korea has second wave as Israel ponders second lockdown. African countries have created a market place to lower the cost of PPE and tests. In Himachal Pradesh a WhatsApp group is helping to inform remote communities and counter rumours. Saudia Arabia has banned international pilgrims from Hajj. Foreign Policy asks if Sweden's failure started far before the pandemic. Jair Bolsonaro ordered to wear mask in public. Europe is easing out of lockdown but rules differ across the bloc. French tracing app fails to engage. Ireland's health workers have the highest rate of covid in the world. In the global scramble for the coming vaccine how can distribution be fair? [more inside]
posted by roolya_boolya at 10:27 AM PST - 65 comments

Truth.

The Lincoln Project unveils its latest ad against Trump.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:55 AM PST - 92 comments

... So then I finish saluting my final salute, I said, “Thank goodness. Thank you very much.” Think of it. So essentially almost 600 times. Now the general says, “Sir, are you ready?” I said, “I’m ready General, where are we going now?” [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 1:25 AM PST - 77 comments

Politics Without Politicians - "The political scientist Hélène Landemore asks, If government is for the people, why can't the people do the governing?" (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:48 AM PST - 55 comments

What is the best way to lace your shoes? Let Mathologer (Burkard Polster professor of maths at Monash University in Melbourne Australia) tell you about his proof by dream.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:52 PM PST - 17 comments

You can just parachute anywhere. You can be on one side of the world and then two seconds later be on the other side, and never have to worry about flying, borders, any of that. – Jacque Kelly has been traveling the world for the past 4 years using Google Street View. [previously]
posted by simmering octagon at 4:44 PM PST - 9 comments

Apple’s WWDC 2020 conference began today with announcements on iOS 14’s new home screen, Apple CarKey, App Clips (similar to Android’s Instant Apps), improved handwriting recognition on iPadOS, 3D audio on AirPods Pro, handwashing and sleep tracking on WatchOS, macOS 11 “Big Sur”, and of course, Apple’s transition away from Intel and to its own in-house ARM processors for its computers.
posted by adrianhon at 1:18 PM PST - 162 comments

CNN reports the coronavirus pandemic does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon in the United States, according Michael Osterholm, head of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and 23 states are reporting a rise in new cases compared to the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. NBC News reports more than 120,000 people have now died from coronavirus in the US, and over 2.2 million people have been infected across the country, while CNBC reports hospitalizations due to Covid-19 were growing in 14 states as of Sunday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that Trump, who hosted a racist campaign-style rally in Oklahoma over the weekend, refuses to wear a mask in public, regularly contradicts health officials, and mischaracterizes the scientific landscape. [more inside]
posted by katra at 1:18 PM PST - 881 comments

‘We have long suffered and today we want to breathe the air of freedom. The Creator has given us this share of the earth that goes by the name of the African continent; it belongs to us and we are its only masters. It is our right to make this continent a continent of justice, law, and peace. All of Africa is irrevocably engaged in a merciless struggle against colonialism and imperialism. We wish to bid farewell to the rule of slavery and bastardization that has so severely wronged us. Any people that oppresses another people is neither civilized nor Christian. The West must free Africa as soon as possible.’

‘Westerners must understand that friendship is not possible when the relationship between us is one of subjugation and subordination.’ [more inside]
posted by Mrs Potato at 12:48 PM PST - 12 comments

Is There a Religious Left? (The New Yorker metered paywall): “In the name of Jesus, this flag has to come down.” So begins one of the most consequential sermons of the twenty-first century. Bree Newsome, a thirty-year-old artist from North Carolina, was a few dozen feet above the ground, scaling a flagpole in front of the South Carolina State House. Police officers were hollering up at her, demanding that she come down, but she kept climbing, and kept preaching: “You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today.” A review of American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country
posted by not_the_water at 12:44 PM PST - 25 comments

Joel Schumacher, costume designer-turned-director of films including “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “The Lost Boys” and “Falling Down,” as well as two “Batman” films, died in New York City on Monday morning after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 80.
posted by Etrigan at 11:12 AM PST - 49 comments

Certain artists are highly productive and constrain themselves to a particular style and format for their entire careers. Charles Shulz, the creator and artist of the Peanuts comic strip, produced thousands of comics over 50 years. As a result, he is one of the few artists who have enough ‘content’ to train a styleGAN2 model. By extracting each frame from nearly 18,000 comic strips I was able to harvest 63,800 distinct images featuring Charlie, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty and the rest of the gang – plenty of food for the network to chew on. Several hundred hours of computational time later, a network containing the ‘visual DNA’ of Peanuts emerged.
posted by chavenet at 10:59 AM PST - 31 comments

Partnerships, or collabs, between rappers and sneaker and athletic companies are now common (Sole Collector, top 10), but it all started in the mid 1980s. Run-D.M.C.'s 'My Adidas' and the Birth of Hip Hop Sneaker Culture (Business of Fashion), and Sneakers That Defined 1980s Hip Hop (Sneaker Freaker). Taking it further, Grailed has An Abridged History of Hip-Hop’s Relationship with Sneaker Culture. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:51 AM PST - 5 comments

125 million bucks may seem like a lot, but sometimes that's what it takes to inspire a properly apocalyptic bad review: The 9 Most Baffling Problems With ‘Artemis Fowl’

... a movie seemingly written at gunpoint by an insane robot. If you taught an alligator English and shouted “do a Harry Potter” at it until it finished typing, you’d get a more coherent story than whatever I just spent 90 minutes watching. So rather than going through every single thing wrong with the movie, I’ve narrowed down the most egregious, stand-out moments of terribality.
posted by philip-random at 9:33 AM PST - 88 comments

Can’t Look Away: Musicians, Writers, and More Reflect on 30 Years of Uncle Tupelo’s ‘No Depression’. Thirty years (and one day) after Belleville, IL's Uncle Tupelo released their seminal alt-country album "No Depression", several current artists and writers talk about discovering the album, what it meant to them, and how it influenced them. Features Lilly Hiatt, Patterson Hood (of the Drive-By Truckers), Rhett Miller (of the Old 97s), Ben Nichols (of Lucero), Eric Earley (of Blitzen Trapper) and many more. [more inside]
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:21 AM PST - 11 comments

In 1883, a drink called "Cronk" started advertising in the Calgary Herald. See if you can spot their ads. (Twitter thread)
posted by figurant at 9:19 AM PST - 61 comments

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time [Game Trailer] “After a more than 20-year wait, a true sequel to 1998’s Crash Bandicoot: Warped is coming to PS4 and Xbox One on October 2nd. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time picks up decades after the events of Warped, back when you defeated antagonists Neo Cortex, Dr. N. Tropy, and Uka Uka and left them stranded on a distant planet. The sequel picks up with the trio escaping, resulting in a rip in the fabric of space and time. Taking inspiration from the original PlayStation trilogy, the game will be a platformer; the trailer shows that we’ll still be spinning and jumping our way through enemies and over bottomless pits while also collecting Wumpa fruits. But it will also add new gameplay mechanics to refresh the classic formula, such as wall running, rope swinging, rail grinding, and Quantum Masks, which appear to allow the fuzzy marsupials to run on the ceiling or slow down time.” [via: The Verge] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:01 AM PST - 1 comment

Delays and long lines at polling places during recent presidential primary elections represent the latest version of decades-long policies that have sought to reduce the political power of African Americans in the U.S. On Friday, a federal judge denied an effort to expand the number of polling places in Kentucky. The state, which holds a primary election tomorrow (June 23) to determine the Democratic candidate to face off against Mitch McConnell, will have fewer than 200 polling places. That is a fraction of the 3,700 polling places in the state during a typical election year, according to Mother Jones. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 6:56 AM PST - 30 comments

It’s quarantine day 637 or something like that and a new sport is born...the American Hedgehog Bowling Association...Pepper and Tuck go head to head in 5 frames of nail biting hedgehog bowling with only one turn per frame so every pin counts....who can knock down the most pins? Don’t worry, it’s totally safe and not what you may be thinking....Check it out and comment if you’re Team Pepper or Team Tuck!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:47 AM PST - 10 comments

Rick Astley performs an incredible cover of Everlong by the Foo Fighters.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:46 AM PST - 18 comments

Following hard on the heels of MrsPotato's recent Mefi post on a 7000 year old stone circle and astronomical site in Egypt, is this - a 1.2 mile diameter circle of giant shafts around Durrington Walls, a henge monument a couple of miles from Stonehenge. [more inside]
posted by reynir at 11:42 PM PST - 21 comments

Enemy Of All Mankind - "In the case of these two ships confronting each other in the Indian Ocean, those nearly microscopic causes will trigger a wave of effects that resonate around the world. Most confrontations like this one, viewed from the wide angle of history, are minor disputes, sparks that quickly die out. But every now and then, someone strikes a match that lights up the whole planet." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:42 PM PST - 3 comments

Adam from BuzzFeed's "Worth It" YT series makes vegan nuggets and sauce. Adam from the very popular "Worth It" video series, exposes that he is as much of a charming curmudgeon as we all expected, and is also a very good instructional cook for fast-food vegan cuisine. Nuggets and ranch are on the menu!
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:39 PM PST - 6 comments

In a recent episode of SciShow (YouTube), Hank Green and his writers share two pieces of good news about the COVID-19 pandemic. First is that for those who get the sickest from the disease, there is finally a drug with solid evidence that it saves lives: the commonly-available generic corticosteroid dexamethasone (Mayo Clinic). Second is that research is now becoming available to quantify exactly how effective quarantining, social distancing, and other policies and recommendations have been at reducing the spread of the virus, and it's pretty dramatic. [more inside]
posted by biogeo at 9:20 PM PST - 29 comments

She couldn't figure out why she kept getting pulled over. "[The officer] looked in the window and flashed his light on Merlin and his demeanor changed. The stern look on his face disappeared, but he seemed…annoyed… I guess is the best word. I thought I was going to get a ticket for Merlin being in the front seat. He didn’t ask if I’d been drinking or had any weapons. He asked to see my license, looked at it under his flashlight and handed it back. Then he explained he pulled me over because I was going 3 miles under the speed limit and was impeding traffic. There were no other cars on the road. I said I was not aware of it. He told me to keep an eye on it and that he was giving me a warning. I thanked him. He walked back to his car." (via @donttrythis)
posted by Kat Allison at 2:21 PM PST - 56 comments

Hard Lads is a new, free downloadable masculinity simulator by Robert Yang (Windows, Mac, Linux). Based on the viral video British lads hit each other with chair, Yang describes how his game echoes it in revealing “how straight mate energy is actually quite fragile ... [and] that queer love is also the force that honors masculine vulnerability, and so only we have the power to reclaim these lads.” [more inside]
posted by adrianhon at 1:09 PM PST - 6 comments

Nabta Playa: This 7,000-year-old stone circle in Egypt tracked the summer solstice and the arrival of the annual monsoon season.
posted by Mrs Potato at 12:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Shostakovich's first opera is a surrealist piece about a man who wakes up one day to discover his nose is missing. It features tap dancing noses.
posted by ChuraChura at 12:01 PM PST - 21 comments

Cook a classical feast: nine recipes from ancient Greece and Rome. Bored with banana bread? Whip up a classical feast with nine recipes from ancient Greece and Rome. Courtesy of The British Museum Blog [more inside]
posted by gudrun at 10:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Robert Rising is a vegetarian who mills his own grains, while also being proficient in antique restoration. In 2004, he set out to build his own house out of local wood, leading him to to start NYCitySlab (don't miss the blog!), a company operated and run by Rising and dedicated to saving fallen trees and rescuing and recycling beautiful slabs. Rising recently started a YouTube series called Conversations with Blacklumberjack that is well worth a watch.
posted by jedicus at 9:16 AM PST - 2 comments

Zack Snyder's Justice League [Teaser Trailer] After months and even years of campaigning by fans, stars, and Zack Snyder himself, the director of Man of Steel confirmed the "Snyder Cut" of Justice League will officially be released on HBO Max 2021. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:42 AM PST - 46 comments

A Twitter thread about excessive amounts of fireworks being let off in urban areas all across the United States consistently overnight since the protests began -- with no police response when 911 is called. Is it "black and brown youth letting off steam with stolen high grade fireworks" or a concerted psyops campaign to destabilize troublesome populations?
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:26 AM PST - 238 comments

The Silver Dish. This story written by Saul Bellow is not well-known but some consider it to be one of the best short stories of the last century. It is about a roguish father who derails the life of his son, and yet the two of them remain essential to each other all the way to the end. The story's prose and construction according to author Ethan Canin, "answers almost every question a young writer could have about fiction writing." Its humor and exuberance is a gift to the reader. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:10 AM PST - 2 comments

Young Malaysians trying to open a durian for the first time [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by cendawanita at 7:43 AM PST - 36 comments

Kristin Enmark was the first person to be diagnosed with Stockholm Syndrome. The story of the bank robbery that originated this diagnosis is familiar to so many of us, filtered through the views of the police who responded to the incident. Less familiar, is the very different story of twenty three year old Enmark herself.
posted by quacks like a duck at 5:35 AM PST - 26 comments

"The UK, Spain, Belgium, and Italy are not only the countries with the biggest incidence of excess deaths in 2020, they are also those that have witnessed the biggest relative decline in government effectiveness, as measured by the World Bank, over the last 20 years."
posted by Telf at 2:09 AM PST - 20 comments

American Experience: Influenza 1918 is a 1998 PBS documentary on the pandemic often referred to as the Spanish Flu. It provides an interesting historical perspective on our current situation. [more inside]
posted by fairmettle at 1:20 AM PST - 5 comments

If you are waiting impatiently to see whether Denis Villeneuve will manage to translate Frank Herbert’s “Dune” to the big screen, or fall short of the mark as David Lynch and the SyFy channel have (yes, those opinions are controversial), you can while away the hours by listening to Megan Sunday and Beau North discuss the first book in the series over 48 podcast episodes. [more inside]
posted by Grinder at 11:54 PM PST - 53 comments

Lorrie Frear for I Love Typography: "My graphic design students love to design posters using the classic eye chart composition, and they frequently ask “What typeface should I use for this?” Not having a definitive answer has always been frustrating, so I decided to investigate to find out what typeface is used on eye charts." Looking for an artistic, global take on the classic Snellen chart (Wikipedia)? See the World: A multilingual eye chart features characters from more than 25 languages, selected for aesthetic and linguistic distinctiveness, described in the legend. (Byte Level Research) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:13 PM PST - 8 comments

From peddler of produce to titan of industry, Slate presents an oral history of the story behind Avatar: The Last Airbender's erstwhile vendor of leafy greens. (SLSlate)
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:31 PM PST - 8 comments

Happy 45th anniversary, Jaws (SLYT) "Produced by The Daily Jaws and created by over 100 super-fans around the world, this special 45th anniversary film uses a mix of live action, animation, action figures and stop motion to reimagine the 1975 shark thriller." [more inside]
posted by profreader at 3:42 PM PST - 24 comments

These past few years have been difficult for a lot of people, so if you find you are in need of some comfort, here is a Sasquatch, playing some sweet, sweet saxophone tunes in the forest. [SLYouTube channel]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 1:12 PM PST - 10 comments

Part 1: Gymnasts Try to Keep Up With Parkour Experts
Part 2: Parkour Experts Try to Keep Up With Gymnasts
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:18 AM PST - 43 comments

Steven Poole is not impressed by Rutger Bregman’s new book Humankind: A Hopeful History. “The attempt to replace a story about humans’ essential wickedness with a contrasting story about humans’ essential loveliness has already run aground – as it was bound to, since any claim that complex human beings are essentially one single thing or another is a fairytale.“ [more inside]
posted by adrianhon at 9:44 AM PST - 26 comments

BLACK PARADE by Beyoncé [YouTube] [Spotify][Instagram]

“I hope we continue to share joy and celebrate each other, even in the midst of struggle. Please continue to remember our beauty, strength and power. “BLACK PARADE” celebrates you, your voice and your joy and will benefit Black-owned small businesses. "Black Parade" benefits BeyGOOD's Black Business Impact Fund, administered by the National Urban League, to support Black-owned small businesses in need. Click the link to learn more.” [via: Beyonce.com]

Written by Beyonce and co-produced by Derek Dixie, “Black Parade” also features her husband Jay-Z as co-writer along with Dixie (the Emmy-nominated music director of “HOMECOMING: A Film by Beyonce Knowles”), Kaydence, Denisia “”@blu_june” Andrews and Brittany “@chi_coney” Coney for @NOVAWAV, among others.
posted by Fizz at 6:44 AM PST - 10 comments

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of The Shadow of the Wind, has died. He was 55. [more inside]
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 3:47 AM PST - 18 comments

40 Irish women artists collaborate on Dreams by The Cranberries to raise funds for Safe Ireland. (SLYT)
posted by Harald74 at 11:10 PM PST - 6 comments

October 4, 1988 [the same year as Even Worse was released] saw the release of a basically lost project by "Weird Al" Yankovic and Wendy Carlos -- a recording/reimagining of Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter And The Wolf", and Camille Saint-Saëns' "Carnival Of The Animals - Part Two". YouTube Playlist [~55m] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:48 PM PST - 16 comments

While engineering gets more complicated, more opaque and less complex/redundant (Complicated or complex – the difference is important), there's a strand of making where IT is used in system design, but not centrally present in the finished item a softer side of science - an engineering ideas rabbit hole. [more inside]
posted by unearthed at 8:23 PM PST - 7 comments

The Tasting History YouTube channel recreates the ancient Roman ingredient garum from ancient texts. Max Miller's Tasting History YouTube channel recreates the ancient Roman ingredient garum from ancient texts, byzantine and latin. And then he makes it at home, and shows you how, while keeping in mind how garum was used and viewed by its very famous contemporaries.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:03 PM PST - 39 comments

What I Think About When I Hear That Broadway is Racist Writer and actor Heathcliff Saunders (Twitter) writes about his Black body in musical theater.
posted by muddgirl at 3:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh makes a ham sandwich. [more inside]
posted by lucidium at 3:14 PM PST - 24 comments

"That year, 1878, the 14-year-old boy, if he is not already serving time in a cell or on a plantation, will arrive at his destination and not last the year. Out comes confetti. Emancipation? Freedom? The whole thing was a hoax."
posted by simmering octagon at 2:32 PM PST - 5 comments

In the last few weeks, LEGO fan website The Brothers Brick has begun to engage with race and privilege, beginning by highlighting Dave Kaleta’s Black Lives Matter mosaic and asking readers “How has your privilege or heritage affected your participation in the LEGO hobby? And what are you doing to make our hobby a more open and inclusive space for people of all backgrounds?” [more inside]
posted by nickmark at 2:09 PM PST - 6 comments

Bandcamp's June 19th NAACP Legal Defense Fund Donations "Today, from midnight to midnight Pacific Time, we will be donating 100% of our share of sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (and we’re doing this every June 19th from here on out). Below you’ll find a list of artists and labels preparing special releases for today, including those donating their share to organizations in support of racial justice and change." [more inside]
posted by Gorgik at 1:29 PM PST - 7 comments

A librarian from a library that's opened up reports on how it's going. (Thread Reader App link.) "Library workers are suffering and afraid. Library patrons are in danger in a system where, no matter how hard we try and what measures we take, we can't truly keep them safe. This isn't working." [more inside]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:06 AM PST - 50 comments

An article describing the less-known story of the self-empowerment of farmers of color via Community Land Trusts.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 10:11 AM PST - 5 comments

On May 30th, days after the murder of George Floyd, Greg Doucette began collecting videos of the lawlessness and brutality of the police response to the protests. That list passed 500 separate incidents earlier this week, averaging over 30 such incidents per day. [content warning: violence]
posted by mhoye at 10:11 AM PST - 51 comments

Yesterday comic book and pop culture website Bleeding Cool released an article outlining some details of decades of interactions between the famed comic book writer with much younger women, where he deceived, used, and then dumped them. [more inside]
posted by sharp pointy objects at 9:31 AM PST - 91 comments

What Are These Enormous Blobs 1,800 Miles Beneath Our Feet? (Popular Mechanics): Roughly 1,800 miles below Earth's surface, at the boundary between our planet's mantle and molten iron outer core, lurk strange, giant structures. So what are they? Scientists detect unexpected widespread structures near Earth's core (Phys Org): Scientists are unsure of the composition of these structures (image), and previous studies have provided only a limited view of them. [...] The new research provides the first comprehensive view (image) of the core-mantle boundary over a wide area with such detailed resolution. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:27 AM PST - 26 comments

We've talked about workplace sabotage before here on the blue, but back in 1992 somebody actually wrote a book about it. [more inside]
posted by YoungStencil at 8:52 AM PST - 25 comments

Can Unloved Children Learn to Love? 30 years ago Romania deprived thousands of babies of human contact. What happened to them? Following the downfall of Ceausescu, Romanian orphans were adopted by Western families and scientists studied the impact of neglect upon neurological and emotional development. These are the two foci of the article. First, a moving portrait of Izidor who is adopted by a kind family but has trouble with the unfamiliar familial gift of affection; and second the Bucharest Early Intervention Program, the first-ever randomized controlled trial to measure the impact of early institutionalization on brain and behavioral development. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 8:38 AM PST - 11 comments

This approachable blog post from Microsoft Research summarizes this research paper by Swinger, De-Arteaga, et al. [pdf], which demonstrated that commonly used machine learning models contain harmful and offensive racial, ethnic, gender, and religious biases (e.g. associating common Black names with harmful stereotypes while associating common white names with innocuous or positive terms). These biases are harmful in themselves and may also lead to insidious discriminatory effects in software built on these models. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 8:35 AM PST - 22 comments

Ian Holm, British actor known for an astonishing variety of roles in film and on stage, including Ash in Alien, Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, and Father Cornelius in The Fifth Element, has died of complications related to Parkinson's. He was 88. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:54 AM PST - 85 comments

Labour Together Election Review - The UK Labour Party has just published a review, with data and analysis, of their disastrous 2019 defeat. [more inside]
posted by Caractacus at 4:17 AM PST - 36 comments

In the Tyva Republic, which lies southern Russia and includes one of the geographical midpoints of Asia (Wikipedia; user-made panorama in Google maps ), is the Mystery of the Tere-Khol Lake (Earth Chronicles; Google maps), the ruins of a 3.3 hectare (8.15 acre) structure with no confirmed history, but associated with local legend. It was Russia's most mysterious archaeological site (Archaeology, 2010). Until recently, that is, when radiocarbon-based approach capable of subannual precision resolves the origins of the site of Por-Bajin (PNAS, open article). In other words, solar radiation and dead trees tell us when Por-Bajin was built—and why it was neither palace nor fortress (Atlas Obsura). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:39 PM PST - 11 comments

1985 was a ridiculously strong year for music releases. June 18, 1985 is when "Weird Al" Yankovic released his third album, Dare To Be Stupid. Side A: Like A Surgeon [video], Dare To Be Stupid [video], I Want A New Duck, One More Minute [video], Yoda [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:19 PM PST - 45 comments

Les Archives Algeriennes pulls together videos from across Algerian history. For example, Wander through Algiers in 1896. Depart for Mecca in 1966. Return from Mecca in 1954. Watch wild monkeys on the road in 1925. Wander through Algiers in 1919. Go to school in Kabylie in 1950. Watch Alphonse Halimi box in 1960. Join 10,000 women marching in Algiers on International Women's Day, 1965. Visit the Algerian Jewish community of Ashdod, Israel in 1966. Spend some time with the Ouled Nail in 1929. Vote YES for Independence in 1962. Celebrate the International Day of Anti-Colonialism in 1967.
posted by ChuraChura at 9:00 PM PST - 9 comments

Nagaq, from Nunavut, rates the logos of all 24 Nunavut Communities. (Single Link Twitter) A good indication of the shifts in Indigenous representation, some great information on Nunavut, and some solid local flavour.
posted by PinkMoose at 7:57 PM PST - 18 comments

A ten minute video in which Chris Cooper brings us along for a birdwatch outing in Central Park.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 5:04 PM PST - 17 comments

The Quarantine Cat Film Festival (trailer, sample reel) opens on Friday, June 19th. For $12, you can watch a compilation of the "cutest, funniest, bravest, and most loving cat videos" and support your local independent cinema (or any participating cinema of your choice) in the process. [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 4:55 PM PST - 13 comments

Today, Apple doubled down on a decision to reject email app Hey (from the makers of Basecamp). Hey doesn't use Apple's in-app purchase mechanism and therefore doesn't share 30% of its revenue with Apple. According to the chairman of the House antitrust subcommittee, Apple is acting like a monopolist and a bully. This all comes at a time when Apple is facing two antitrust investigations in the EU.
posted by adrianhon at 3:40 PM PST - 54 comments

In a 5-4 ruling today in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, Chief Justice John Roberts cast the decisive fifth vote with the court's four liberal justices, saying the Department of Homeland Security's decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. (NPR News | Guardian | Washington Post) [more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:09 PM PST - 35 comments

September 7, 2020, a choose your own "adventure" about returning to school this fall by Cait Kirby, a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt who promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher ed and STEM.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:45 AM PST - 36 comments

The Case for Reparations: Over 60 million deaths from man-made famines. A 20% drop in life expectancy in just 50 years. Centuries of slavery. A legacy of brutal deprivation and cruel dispossession still materially felt by billions to this day. But despite it all, 80% of Britons do not regret colonialism and 44% are actively proud of it. How is this possible? And what is there to be proud of? [more inside]
posted by Ouverture at 8:55 AM PST - 43 comments

Trans elder Miss Major Griffin-Gracy's life and work is celebrated in the 2016 award-winning MAJOR! from Stonewall, to HIV outreach in the 1990s to ongoing support for trans women in prison. The trailer includes this quote from a younger activist on how Miss Major has been genderqueer long before the concept: "Someone will be like 'you're a woman' and she'll be like 'I'm a Wonder Woman. Wonder what kind of woman I am.'" (Film available on demand at Vimeo) [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:09 AM PST - 7 comments

America has the largest immigrant population in the world and yet a Eurocentric view of what American food is remains pervasive. In the new Hulu food travel docuseries, "Taste the Nation", Padma Lakshmi challenges that perspective head-on, and explores how native and immigrant food shape American food.

"What is American food? That term typically brings to mind the image of hamburgers blanketed in melted cheese, hot dogs dressed in wavy tangles of ketchup and mustard, and fragrant apple pie sealed with a flaky crust. But in a country that has the largest immigrant population in the world, isn’t that a narrow view of what constitutes as American food? Are these the only things we are actually eating?"

In honour of Juneteenth, Hulu has released, subscription-free, the episode on Gullah Geechee history & cuisine directly to Youtube. [more inside]
posted by mayurasana at 7:41 AM PST - 52 comments

Twins in Paradise, an animated short by vewn, aka Victoria Vincent [Content note: nukes, suicide, drug use content]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Princeton professor Imani Perry writes to remind us: Racism is terrible. Blackness is not. [more inside]
posted by eirias at 6:52 AM PST - 2 comments

All My Rockets That Didn't Work
posted by Stark at 1:41 AM PST - 32 comments

Bob Boilen at NPR's All Songs Considered brings us Music For Right Now. "Over the past few weeks and in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of the Minneapolis police, black artists have released a multitude of music that is a must-listen. On this edition of All Songs Considered, we hear from five of them." [25 minutes NPR listen, also accompanying article with YouTube links to all five of the songs.]
posted by hippybear at 6:15 PM PST - 4 comments

The New York Times Opinion: The Rape Kit’s Secret History, by Pagan Kennedy. "This is the story of the woman who forced the police to start treating sexual assault like a crime." Her name was Marty Goddard.

"The rape-kit idea was presented to the public as a collaboration between the state attorney’s office and the police department, with men running both sides... and little credit given to the women who had pushed for reform. Ms. Goddard agreed to this [...] because she saw that it was the only way to make the rape kit happen."

posted by amf at 1:39 PM PST - 12 comments

Think Helvetica is too artsy-fartsy for you? Comic Sans too plebian? How about this deep dive into Cooper Black?
posted by Mchelly at 1:22 PM PST - 38 comments

How one of the most socially conscious hits of the Eighties made a comeback, just in time for a pandemic and social upheaval
posted by Etrigan at 1:22 PM PST - 59 comments

During a special YouTube presentation this morning, The Pokémon Company announced a new version of classic Nintendo 64 game Pokémon Snap in development for Nintendo Switch, aptly named New Pokémon Snap. They also revealed free-to-start puzzle game Pokémon Café Mix and Pokémon Smile, a mobile app meant to help children brush their teeth. This is in a similar vein to their previously released, Pokémon Sleep.
posted by Fizz at 1:06 PM PST - 11 comments

After seven years of clinical trials, the United States FDA has approved the EndeavorRX mobile video game as a prescription-only neurofeedback alternative therapeutic treatment for children (ages 8-12) diagnosed with ADHD. But is neurofeedback therapy a reliable alternative method for treating ADHD? [more inside]
posted by nightrecordings at 12:18 PM PST - 37 comments

Can Anna Wintour survive fashion's reckoning with racism? [more inside]
posted by foxywombat at 10:36 AM PST - 15 comments

A trailer for the upcoming video game Star Renegades. [more inside]
posted by Alex404 at 9:36 AM PST - 8 comments

The Onion, June 12th. Real life, June 17th. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 7:49 AM PST - 74 comments

I want my children—all of them—to thrive, to be fully alive. How do we measure what that means? What does it mean for our young people to be “black alive and looking back at you?” ... My sons love to dance. I have raised them to young adulthood. They are beautiful. They are funny. They are strong. They are fascinating. They are kind. They are joyful in friendship and community. They are righteous and smart in their politics. They are learning. They are loving. They are mighty and alive. Elizabeth Alexander on "The Trayvon Generation" for the New Yorker. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 6:52 AM PST - 5 comments

Steve Byrne investigates the curious case of the too-good-to-be-true beekeeper heart honeycomb image. "[This is] what we call Internet Folklore, where stories spread and change quicker than ever, and involve communities of people experiencing a simple yet heartwarming tale ... On the internet, search behind what you see. Don't take things at face value. Don't let your "aww" gene get in the way of thinking, hmm, is this for real? Because there are people out there who seek to use such kindly human instincts in unkind ways."
posted by adrianhon at 6:30 AM PST - 30 comments

DO NOT USE POPCORN BUTTON
posted by JHarris at 4:06 AM PST - 58 comments

Austrian man fined for farting at police officer ...and this is how we know how that provocatively breaking wind is a 500 Euro offense, a tenfold increase compared to the last time somebody farted at an Austrian police officer, which happened 10 years ago in Styria (article in German). [more inside]
posted by Omnomnom at 11:56 PM PST - 22 comments

The official music video for “The Spirit of Radio” from the 40th Anniversary edition of Permanent Waves (SLYT)
posted by kirkaracha at 10:38 PM PST - 25 comments

According to Outside, Walking Is Making a Major Comeback during ; the WaPo touts "the calming power of a simple walk," and NYTimes claims the "pandemic has turned Los Angeles into a walking city." [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 9:50 PM PST - 32 comments

US attorneys have charged six former eBay workers in association with an outrageous cyberstalking campaign. “If we are ever going to take her down..now is the time,” the first message read, according to a screengrab of the thread. Later, the executive emphasized, “I want her DONE.” What followed was a campaign of harassment so strange and outrageous, its hard to believe.
posted by Toddles at 8:05 PM PST - 71 comments

Lausan revisits their translation and writing on care work, feminized labor, and solidarity with migrant domestic workers in 11 articles (Previously.)
posted by toastyk at 7:21 PM PST - 1 comment

[Canadians] “think that BodyBreak was started because of fitness; well it wasn’t [SLYT]. It was started to combat racism,” Hal Johnson. Toronto Star article. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 2:48 PM PST - 21 comments

The Sirens Motorcycle Club of New York (est. 1986) is the oldest club of its kind in New York City, and thanks to its 40 odd members, who range in age from 25-74, it’s also one of the largest in the state. Not only have they been participating in the New York Pride Parade since 1986, they've led it since 1987, and are also New York Milk Bank's Milk Riders: delivering donated breast milk to hospitals and dispensaries. [more inside]
posted by vespertinism at 2:12 PM PST - 5 comments

The Cheese That Stands Alone - "So how did a working-class cheese, one of the most popular in America, dwindle to but one producer? Not every immigrant’s story is a happy one, and such a tale is Limburger’s." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:37 PM PST - 46 comments

EA returns space dogfighting to Star Wars. Star Wars: Squadrons (coming Oct. 2, 2020) will have cross-platform support between players on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, and VR headset compatability for PS4 and PC. Official Reveal Trailer - EA official site [more inside]
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 11:53 AM PST - 69 comments

There's No Such Thing as a Dangerous Neighborhood. Most serious urban violence is concentrated among less than 1 percent of a city’s population. So why are we still criminalizing whole areas? (Stephen Lurie, CityLab) On the other hand, a study in 2019 (abstract only) shows that growing up in an affluent community brings “compounding privileges” and higher educational attainment—especially for white residents. (Tanvi Misra, CityLab) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:25 AM PST - 21 comments

Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June, the day his 1922 novel Ulysses takes place in 1904, the date of his first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, and named after its protagonist Leopold Bloom. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:03 AM PST - 8 comments

Cancel This Semester. Adopt a Coronavirus Student Bill Instead (Inside Higher Ed): "Some people may claim that remote learning can be very effective. But we are not dealing with faculty members who want to teach remotely, who have had much experience with it or who have had time to develop courses. And we are not dealing with students who prefer online courses, who have had time to acquire proper computer equipment or who can ask their dorm roommate for assistance. So the experience of remote learning now upon us is likely to be worse that what we’ve previously seen. ¶Moreover, a fair amount of evidence suggests that, even under good conditions, online education does not offer the same quality of education that face-to-face classes do." [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:57 AM PST - 166 comments

A conversation with Boots Riley and Noname on music and revolution, theory and practice, and intersectional activism. [more inside]
posted by jshttnbm at 9:38 AM PST - 1 comment

Unheard: Sexual assault survivors tell their own stories. "Alaska has the highest rate of sexual assault in the nation. These women and men did not choose to be violated, but they now choose to speak about what happened." [more inside]
posted by cnidaria at 9:18 AM PST - 4 comments

The Poetics of CLI Command Names.
posted by signal at 8:25 AM PST - 55 comments

"O’Connor is now as canonical as Faulkner and Welty. More than a great writer, she’s a cultural figure: a funny lady in a straw hat, puttering among peacocks, on crutches she likened to 'flying buttresses.' The farmhouse is open for tours; her visage is on a stamp ... [But] letters and postcards she sent home from the North in 1943 were made available to scholars only in 2014, and they show O’Connor as a bigoted young woman." (SLNewYorker, June 22, 2020)
posted by Countess Elena at 8:14 AM PST - 12 comments

Saturday is Chet Atkins’ birthday! Here is Chet Atkins and the Blue Boys ripping it up for an enthusiastic crowd in Oslo on April 15, 1964, as part of a tour to introduce the Nashville sound to Europe. [more inside]
posted by swift at 7:40 AM PST - 5 comments

Mike and Jay from Red Letter Media talk about the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
posted by Pendragon at 6:04 AM PST - 33 comments

Unique idea from scraps of wood! I am very happy with the result! By Vanya (Handcraft).
posted by valkane at 1:09 AM PST - 20 comments

"Toyah has described Fracture as being like a mouse on caffeine tap-dancing." (Links to a short video on Mrs Fripp's Twitter account.)
posted by Paul Slade at 12:05 AM PST - 12 comments

30 years and 6 months ago, They Might Be Giants released their first major-label album, Flood. 6 months ago, a number of accomplished musicians spoke to Spin magazine about what the album meant to them, as did John Flansburgh. In addition, Spin republished their original review of the album, which was much more positive than Rolling Stone's dismissive 2/5 star review. [more inside]
posted by subocoyne at 10:26 PM PST - 54 comments

Orlando Bloom looks at me soulfully, and I can tell that he’s about to kiss me the exact way I want to be kissed, which is by darting his tongue in and out of my mouth like a hermit crab. His body throbs because he knows how smart and good at making friendship bracelets I am.
posted by MoonOrb at 8:14 PM PST - 14 comments

What happens when a maker (Adam Savage) and a Maths Promoter (Matt Parker) get together in Adam's shop and build a thing? Well it's a pretty awesome thing. Lets skip to the 46 minute mark and watch them complete the build and turn it on and share in the glee... Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Rhombic Dodecahedron with Matt Parker! [more inside]
posted by zengargoyle at 6:08 PM PST - 12 comments

There had been paintings of hell before, showing people (much like the people for whom the paintings were made) undergoing various punishments for their sins. But this painting no longer represents generic humanity. Here, the tortured are marked as white Europeans, being punished by mostly swarthy monsters with distinctly exotic trappings drawn from the newly encountered inhabitants of the farthest ends of the world—all the way down the African coast, all the way across the (Atlantic) Western Ocean, and, possibly, as far as India. And the punishments seem to concentrate on the sins unleashed by the European expeditions, the sins of rapaciousness: lust, gluttony, and greed.

Hell is for White People: A painting from 1515 turns a mirror on its viewers
posted by Rumple at 5:06 PM PST - 6 comments

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes about the history of black electoral politics and how its complex legacy of progress and backlash has brought about its end and the start of a new era.
posted by Ouverture at 1:06 PM PST - 3 comments

[T]he beloved children’s television show was shaped by the African-American communities in Harlem and beyond
posted by Etrigan at 12:16 PM PST - 27 comments

A Love Letter to All the Overwhelmed White People Who Are Trying (Medium starred article), from That White Lady who shared the video of two black men being arrested at Starbucks for doing nothing.
posted by sunset in snow country at 9:52 AM PST - 19 comments

MeFite simonw has been building tools to liberate photo metadata from Apple Photos. In addition to machine learning labels (it automatically tags photos with categories as detailed as lemur, pelican and seal) Simon also found an intriguing collection of quality scores, with names like ZPLEASANTCAMERATILTSCORE and ZSHARPLYFOCUSEDSUBJECTSCORE. Come see the most aesthetically pleasing photographs of pelicans according to Apple's fancy machine learning algorithms! [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:33 AM PST - 18 comments

Why Ancient Toys Are Elusive Artifacts (Discover): In the past and today, [adult rituals and children’s play] leave similar material traces. They often involve miniatures, like effigies or dolls, carefully arranged — perhaps on an altar or make-believe tea party table. Both create unusual patterns of debris, distinct from everyday acts like tool making and food preparation. And rituals and play generally occur in peripheral spaces, away from the hubbub of daily life. [...] But over the past few decades, scholars have taken more interest in ancient children and developed methods to identify their marks -- traces left from kids' labor, learning and play. Thanks to this research, we now have some sense of the toys and games that amused children of the past.
posted by not_the_water at 9:28 AM PST - 15 comments

Video Games Have To Reckon With How They Depict The Police [Kotaku] “The depiction of police in video games has taken many forms over the years. Officers might appear as antagonists exemplifying corruption and violence, or as benevolent forces doing their best to protect and serve. Recent weeks of protests against police brutality and racism have upended video games’ ability to depict the police as neutral arbiters of justice, which should make game developers reckon with how they will present the police in the future. [...] But given recent events, it is difficult not to reflect back on how Spider-Man and other video games offer a rigidly positive portrayal of police. That uneasiness, born from the game’s utopian depiction of law enforcement, has begun to crystallize for many. Many video games depict police as purely altruistic, not reflecting any of the bitter reality of prejudice and violence. Those that might not have understood that before are now starting to get it, and that might be a problem for future video games.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:55 AM PST - 38 comments

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Gorsuch [pdf], the United States Supreme Court has held that "In Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964], Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law." [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 7:41 AM PST - 134 comments

A collection of free books from Springer

To help support everyone during Covid-19, Springer has released a ton of free textbooks. This is great, but their web page for this is not super friendly, and expects you to download some Excel sheet to figure out what they have on offer. This web page hopes to make it easier to access all this knawledge [sic].

[more inside]
posted by zengargoyle at 5:30 PM PST - 40 comments

After 25 years, your wait for a playable version of Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge from The Simpsons is finally over.
posted by killdevil at 5:25 PM PST - 13 comments

NPR Music brings us A Not-At-All Exhaustive LGBTQIA+ Country Playlist. You can stream the playlist at YouTube or Spotify. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:03 PM PST - 17 comments

“Trolley — New Orleans” is all about division. Two rows of windows, each window a frame. NYT [more inside]
posted by blue shadows at 2:44 PM PST - 6 comments

Randy writes and performs satirical showtunes lampooning political figures. Cheeto Christ Stupid Czar. A Spoonful of Clorox. The Bunker Boy.
posted by adept256 at 1:24 PM PST - 20 comments

Duck wearing a bow tie walks into pub, downs pint, fights dog.
posted by Evilspork at 12:41 PM PST - 22 comments

30 Years of Philly Ballroom documentary and Philadelphia Inquirer feature article. In the article, legendary voguer Madelyn recalls being schooled by "Mother Hands" Dee Dee who sat down in a chair near the judges, crossed one leg over the other, and battled Madelyn with one hand: "She ate me to smithereens, I'd never seen somebody make so many shapes and movements and in one hand ever in my life. I was more in awe than I was devastated.”
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:09 AM PST - 7 comments

Drive and Listen is a mashup of YouTube city driving videos with the same city's local radio stations. Pick a location, sit back and relax.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 7:11 AM PST - 25 comments

The 15-hour working week predicted by Keynes may soon be within our grasp – but are we ready for freedom from toil? [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 11:33 PM PST - 109 comments

Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (Wikipedia) are British Overseas Territories located in the South Atlantic and consisting of the island of Saint Helena, Ascension Island and the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha. More than 1,500 miles (2,4600 km) west from the coast of Namibia, and 2,000 miles (3,270 km) east of Brazil (Google Maps), the island group includes Inaccessible Island (Wikipedia), which is home to world’s smallest flightless bird, the Inaccessible Island Rail (Oiseaux Birds). How did the little birds get there? (Atlas Obscura) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:44 PM PST - 17 comments

Tap dancing, cartoon cats, strict formation moves, and really catchy tunes. Paula Abdul's debut album Forever Your Girl from June 13, 1988 was a huge juggernaut. A so-called "six-pack" album [YT playlist] for having 6 Top 45 hits, it is perhaps the most successful first album ever so far. Side A: The Way That You Love Me [video], Knocked Out [video, alternate (original) video] , Opposites Attract (with The Wild Pair) [video with MC Scat Cat], State Of Attraction, I Need You [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 3:35 PM PST - 41 comments

Black People Are Always The Side Story by Gita Jackson [Vice Gaming] “Thursday's Playstation 5 presentation opened with Spider-Man Miles Morales. Though the teaser was brief, I couldn't hide my glee. I've wanted to play as Miles Morales—the black Spider-Man that is beloved by the fandom—since I first saw that the character would make an appearance in Insomniac's Spider-Man game. Turns out, this game is just a side story. I should have known. Black people are used to being DLC, side stories, and expansion packs. There are very few games where Black characters are the leads. [...] I just think it's really lame that we won't get a full on, 60 hour video game-ass video game where I can play as the Brooklyn-born-and-bred webslinger. Especially in these major franchises, Black characters aren't given a chance to really take the lead in the same way their white counterparts are.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:59 PM PST - 33 comments

A new edition of Letters for Black Lives has been published. It is a letter translated into 26 languages, explaining and providing context of the Black Lives Matters movement for mostly Asian-Americans to give to their parents. 65 Harvard college graduates on the Chinese American site wrote a heartfelt open letter to their parents, explaining why standing up for the Black community is also their fight. Asian Americans need to go beyond apologizing for anti-black racism.
posted by toastyk at 8:30 AM PST - 20 comments

In 1838, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet reported that “the best treatment of sea-sickness” would be to place the patient with eyes covered in a hammock slung with long strings and on deck as near the center of the ship as possible. The article added that “if any palliative be given, it should be large doses of ammonia with opium.” It’s sound advice, minus the opium and ammonia.

--The Rolling, Lurching, Vomit-Inducing Road to a Seasickness Cure
posted by MoonOrb at 9:50 PM PST - 48 comments

The Mad Magazine Fold-In Effect in CSS After 65 years at Mad Magazine, comic artist Al Jaffee announced his retirement. Jaffee was best known for his Mad Fold-Ins, where folding the page would reveal a hidden message in the artwork. Plenty of examples can be found on the web. The problem is, they all show the before and after statically, side by side, which diminishes the magic (see here and here). There’s a whole generation who may have only seen the fold-ins in this format.
Of course I had to create the paper folding effect for the web.
[via mefi projects] Previously
posted by Going To Maine at 7:30 PM PST - 21 comments

The Last of Us Part II Is Uncomfortable and Exhausting, But That's What Makes It Great [The Verge] “The Last of Us Part II is a sequel to the acclaimed PS3 game, which transformed developer Naughty Dog — then known primarily for lighter fare like the Uncharted series — into a studio able to tackle more serious and resonant stories. On the surface, the two games are similar. The original starred Joel, a haunted man who latches on to 14-year-old Ellie as a daughter figure, in a quest that sees them traverse a post-apocalyptic America in search of safety. It ends with him making a devastating choice to protect someone he cares about. The sequel is centered on Ellie, now 19 and settled in a relatively safe community in Wyoming. She has work, friends, a love interest. She struggles with Joel’s overprotective nature. Aside from the regular patrols to clear out infected monsters, it’s almost idyllic. But a few hours into the game — for reasons I won’t spoil — she sets off for Seattle with vengeance on her mind.” via: [Official Cinematic Trailer][Launch Trailer][Warning: trailers/reviews contain graphic descriptions of violence, murder, animal-abuse, & torture.] [*Discussion also contains spoilers*] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:37 PM PST - 94 comments

Among the many lives lost to Covid-19 was that of Margaret Holloway[NYT], known around the Yale University campus as the Shakespeare Lady of New Haven. A short documentary about her from 2001, God didn’t give me a week’s notice, is available on Vimeo.
posted by Mchelly at 1:18 PM PST - 7 comments

"Bicycle politics, the causes championed by cycling advocates and activists, are often dismissed by critics as esoteric or élitist. But transportation issues are social-justice issues... In fact, you could say that Black Lives Matter is a moral crusade about freedom of movement and who is at liberty to go where." [SLNewYorker on the role of bicycles for protesters and the regimes they challenge.]
posted by ferret branca at 12:36 PM PST - 19 comments

What happens when a blogger with access to the full archives of "Boys' Life" decides to write a meticulous analysis of the "Nuns' Life" scene in Airplane!?
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:17 PM PST - 29 comments

Many readers have asked me "why do so many pulp covers feature women in ripped red blouses standing in swamps while a man fights off an unusual animal attack?" (Twitter thread, with many images of violence and objectified women) [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 11:44 AM PST - 30 comments

For a brief period in the 1960s, the Afro-Brazilian author of the memoir “Child of the Dark” was one of the most well-known writers in the world. - Tarisai Ngangura writes for Longreads. [more inside]
posted by plant or animal at 9:31 AM PST - 5 comments

Sharks, Death, Surfers: An Illustrated Companion (Bookforum): Sharks, Death, Surfers is a beautiful art object, petite and strange, replete with artist renderings of sharks that span the ages, from 750 BCE to the cover of Jaws. It is more a brief philosophical exploration of the intersection described in the title than anything else, unique in its take on the topics at hand but at times scattered and abstract. McCarthy is the chief obituary reviewer of the International Necronautical Society, a twenty-year-old organization whose goal is to “bring death out into the world.” It was in this role that she began to study obituaries of surfers, and thus the lives of sharks. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 8:44 AM PST - 9 comments

For the first 30 years of her life, Grace Olive Wiley was deathly afraid of snakes—a strange trait for someone who would come to be known as the most celebrated snake woman of her time. As a child and young adult, she would blanch in horror at even the most harmless varieties. But the story goes that one day in the early 1920s, while working at the Minneapolis Museum of Natural History, a rattlesnake slithered across her hand as she was talking to a visitor. When the reptile didn't strike, she thought that perhaps all snakes could be tamed, and decided she wanted to know how. The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of Snake Handler Grace Olive Wiley (Mental Floss) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:42 PM PST - 9 comments

Body beautiful: In boxing, aesthetics don’t count for much.
posted by MoonOrb at 9:24 PM PST - 35 comments

The Marx Brothers Early Career Explored in Fascinating New Book Robert S. Bader spoke to us about his book detailing the Marx Brothers' rise in vaudeville. In a 2016 article, Robert S. Bader talks to DenOfGeek about the Marx Brothers' early career on stage, even on Broadway, long before their movie career started. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:05 PM PST - 25 comments

DISRAELI GEARS - A bicycle derailleur collection. "I have been working in bicycle shops since the mid 1970s, and I decided to put together this collection to represent rear derailleurs that I have worked on, sold, heard about or seen at trade shows in that time. Some are gears that I had only heard of, vehemently discussed by crusty old geezers in draughty Cyclist Touring Club club rooms, some are models that I personally sold in their hundreds and some are exotic beauties that I dreamed of owning"
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:46 PM PST - 90 comments

The European man who showed command over his own body would surely also be successful in dominating a “savage wilderness”—which was, of course, neither savage nor unpopulated.

Postcolonial Bodies: a short essay by David L. Chapman.
posted by Rumple at 7:20 PM PST - 5 comments

Janelle Shane got a chance to preview the new OpenAI API, which is "REALLY good at following all sorts of prompts", making it great at creating believable Twitter bots: This is the OpenAI API. It makes spookily good twitter bots 13/10 would retweet [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 5:40 PM PST - 29 comments

As the coronavirus pandemic has forced hospitals to impose strict restrictions on visitors and clergy, the work of people like Quinteros has become even more important, say health care experts. They don't just keep the rooms clean of harmful germs. Many also try to lighten the mood with smiles or jokes, provide encouragement when patients lose hope and offer an attentive ear when patients need to process their emotions. And so it was that a housekeeper from Guatemala and a retired Air Force colonel met in a hospital room in Florida. And slowly, one began to heal the other. "I don't think she realized at the time what she was doing for me," Denney told CNN in recent interview. "She was saving my life." (Daniel Burke, CNN) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:48 PM PST - 13 comments

PS5: The Future of Gaming Show [YouTube] [Twitch.tv] The PS5 reveal event starts today, June 11th, at 1 PM PDT / 9 PM BST / 10 PM CEST. The digital games showcase itself will run "for a bit more than an hour" and give viewers a "first look" at some PS5 games that will be playable when the console releases this holiday season, according to the official PlayStation blog. The event will be "best" streamed with headphones due to some "cool audio work in the show," but Sony did not specify further. [via: Gamespot]
posted by Fizz at 12:46 PM PST - 88 comments

The Harry Potter book series helped me realize I’m nonbinary. Now I know that had nothing to do with J.K. Rowling. By repudiating Rowling’s anti-trans comments, millions of Harry Potter fans are also turning the series into a symbol of the power of a collective voice to drown out an individual one. The power of fans’ love and empathy for trans people and other vulnerable communities, and their steady rejection of Rowling’s prejudice, is a potent, raw form of cancellation — one undertaken not out of a spirit of scorn and ostracism, but with something closer to real grief — and it deserves to be a part of the story of Harry Potter.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:31 PM PST - 164 comments

Anansi, the trickster god of the Ashanti of West Africa, takes the shape of a spider who goes to the sky god to buy his stories to share with the world. He once enjoyed his life as a man. Nyame (N'-ya-mae), his father, changed his mischievous son into a spider. As a spider-man, Anansi continued his pranks.
posted by Mrs Potato at 12:17 PM PST - 17 comments

How to Grow Vegetables from Kitchen Scraps. Spring onions, bok choy, celery and other vegetables can be grown from scraps in just a little water. In soil you can grow carrots, potatoes, turnips, beets, bok choy, cabbages....
posted by storybored at 11:41 AM PST - 24 comments

Multi-award winning country group Lady Antebellum has announced a name change, and now ask to be called "Lady A". [more inside]
posted by hanov3r at 11:10 AM PST - 59 comments

Leadership at the storied cultural institution resigned this week. That’s just the first in a series of demands penned by an all-star coalition of Chicago poets.
posted by Etrigan at 10:56 AM PST - 5 comments

4/28: sorry for being dramatic but my editors just assigned me a piece that means watching a TV show i never, ever wanted to see and i'm on the verge of tears
5/23: have completed one season. please flatten my head with a hammer
6/11: My Journey to the Heart of Darkness in “Entourage”
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:16 AM PST - 12 comments

Jake Blount is a fiddle and banjo player whose new album Spider Tales is "[N]amed for Anansi—the great trickster of Akan mythology," and "features fourteen carefully chosen tracks drawn from Blount’s extensive research of Black and Indigenous mountain music. The result is an unprecedented testament to the voices paradoxically obscured yet profoundly ingrained into the Appalachian tradition." Tracks from the album include Goodbye, Honey, You Call That Gone (with Nic Gareiss), Roustabout (with Tatiana Hargreaves), Brown Skin Baby, a gender-swapped version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night, Old-Timey Grey Eagle, and Beyond This Wall. Jake Blount (writing for No Depression): Across Generations, The Healing Power of the Banjo. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:04 AM PST - 3 comments

After seven years, Allie Brosh, creator of the blog and book Hyperbole and A Half, has written a second book, due out in September.
posted by JHarris at 9:25 AM PST - 34 comments

With Chicago restaurants struggling to carry on in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the health restrictions it has triggered, The Wiener's Circle (previously, previouslier), has found its way to cope (NSFW).
posted by kgander at 7:18 AM PST - 16 comments

Jazz Sabbath (1968) were considered to be at the forefront of the new English jazz movement. Long forgotten but now, startlingly, rediscovered. [more inside]
posted by epo at 6:13 AM PST - 16 comments

A great essay on the insidiousness of white supremacy and how deeply ingrained it is in the United States.
posted by dark matter at 5:24 AM PST - 37 comments

Just a short clip of Mrs. Hawkins the K-8 dance teacher leading the students down a hallway at the Birney School in Southfield, Michigan to Michael Jackson's Thriller (SLYT, pre-COVID-19)
posted by Harald74 at 12:55 AM PST - 18 comments

Even wonder about the story of suds? Then join Judith Ridner, Professor of History at Mississippi State University, for a look at the the dirty history of soap (The Conversation), full of links to research on different products and periods. Soap History (dot net) also has extensive information, but without the citations. If it's citations you want, the lengthy Wikipedia article on soap may be what you want. Bonus link: history of hand-washing (The Conversation), from medical historian Leslie Leighton.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Mari Naomi is best known as a gifted queer Asian-American comics artist and illustrator, but she also raises monarch butterflies and has a lengthy twitter thread about this spanning the last year, filled with photos and videos of monarchs at various stages in their life cycle.
posted by bile and syntax at 4:28 PM PST - 6 comments

“The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry. Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.” [more inside]
posted by pjsky at 3:21 PM PST - 105 comments

It started innocuously enough. A motorcyclist turned bikie discovered the old dirt road west of Fairfax, Marin County, in the early ‘70s. He and his buddies would ride or push their 1930s or ‘40s ballooners to the top of the ridge for the downhill thrill. The road plummeted 1300 feet in less than 2.1 miles. On the twisting, sometimes precipitous decent, the bikes’ antiquated hub coaster brakes would get so hot that the grease would vaporize. After a run or two, the hub had to be repacked with new grease (thus the term “Repack”)

Joe Breeze recounts the beginning of people taking cheap bikes down forest roads on the Marin Peninsula, and what would become 'mountain biking,' for the Marin Museum of Bicycling.
Racing klunkers on Repack Road [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:57 PM PST - 12 comments

Should the funny pages look like the news? Josh Frulinger writes for Polygon about how newspaper comic strips are handling the pandemic. [more inside]
posted by bijou243 at 12:58 PM PST - 16 comments

Theaster Gates first encountered creativity in the music of Black churches on his journey to becoming an urban planner, potter, and artist. Gates creates sculptures out of clay, tar, and renovated buildings, transforming the raw material of the South Side into radically reimagined vessels of opportunity for the community. (Art21 Video) [more inside]
posted by plant or animal at 12:34 PM PST - 3 comments

The Roses and other denizens of Schitt’s Creek have a message and a song for the teachers and students of the Class of 2020...with a visit from a special guest. (And if you have never watched the show, Vanity Fair would like to tell you, Yes, Schitt’s Creek really is that good.)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:38 AM PST - 19 comments

Did Galileo Truly Say, ‘And Yet It Moves’? A Modern Detective Story: An astrophysicist traces genealogy and art history to discover the origin of the famous motto (Scientific American metered paywall): There is no doubt that he thought along those lines. His bitterness about the trial; the fact that he had been forced to abjure and recant his life’s work; the humiliating reality that his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems had been put on the Church’s Index of Prohibited Books; and his deep contempt for the inquisitors who judged him continually occupied his mind for all the years following the trial. We can also be certain that he did not (as legend has it) mutter that phrase in front of the inquisitors. Doing so would have been insanely risky. But did he say it at all? If not, when and how did the myth about this motto start circulating?
posted by not_the_water at 9:32 AM PST - 10 comments

Shut Down STEM is a day of action planned for today (June 10th, 2020) to call attention to the ethical duty of global academic and STEM communities to eradicate anti-black racism. "Black academic and Black STEM professionals are hurting because they exist in and are attacked by institutional and systemic racism. Black people have been tirelessly working for change, alongside their Indigenous and People of Color allies. For Black academics and STEM professionals, #ShutDownAcademia and #ShutDownSTEM is a time to prioritize their needs— whether that is to rest, reflect, or to act— without incurring additional cumulative disadvantage. " [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 9:24 AM PST - 32 comments

First American Woman To Walk In Space Becomes First Woman To Dive To Deepest Spot On Earth — Kathy Sullivan, a former NASA Space Shuttle astronaut and the frst American woman to walk in space back in 1984, just added another record to her illustrious career by becoming the first woman to visit Challenger Deep — the bottom of the Mariana Trench — during a daring expedition last weekend. She's now also the only human to have ever been up in orbital space and down below at maximum ocean depth (SYFY Wire, Jeff Spry, 6/9/2020). More about the DSV (Deep Submergence Vehicle) Limiting Factor TRITON 36000/2 and its ongoing Ring of Fire Expedition to the Mariana Trench (WP) at Caladan Oceanic.
posted by cenoxo at 8:58 AM PST - 24 comments

The Swedish Olof Palme assassination commission has decided to close the 1986 case and declared "Skandiamannen" Stig Engström the killer. Olof Palme, prime minister during the 70s and 80s, was the architect of many of the social reforms that contributed to Sweden and the rest of the Nordic region's reputation as progressive social democracies. He was assassinated on an open street after watching a movie with his wife and son on the last night of February, 1986. [more inside]
posted by St. Oops at 8:48 AM PST - 19 comments

The hashtag #PublishingPaidMe has reignited a conversation about the disparities between how much Black authors and non-Black authors make. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:08 AM PST - 16 comments

Give a man a snake.... [SLYT]
posted by chavenet at 3:23 AM PST - 40 comments

How to get good horses in medieval China
posted by Chrysostom at 9:55 PM PST - 16 comments

Ike White had the kind of life that sounds too outrageous to be true. Given a life sentence for murder at the age of 19, he spent his time writing songs with his fellow prisoners and was soon discovered by Jerry Goldstein, a record producer and affiliate of Jimi Hendrix. They managed to record Ike’s debut album, Changin’ Times (YouTube playlist), from a mobile studio in prison in California in 1974. By 1978, Stevie Wonder had caught wind of the socially conscious, funky record and secured a new attorney for White, who petitioned for his release that year. Set free, White was poised for stardom and had just had a child with his new wife – Goldstein’s secretary. Then he disappeared. Murder, mystery and a hit record: the unbelievable story of Ike White (Ammar Kalia for The Guardian) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:34 PM PST - 2 comments

Our nation is not like imperial Germany, and great as our dangers are, they can’t be compared to the horrors of that earlier time. But there may be a distant lesson from a country whose rulers in war, quarrelling among themselves, inflicted unimaginable harm to their people and to the world with their mendacity, secrecy, and paranoia. The consequences of their leadership—bolstered as it had been by claims of divine guidance, shrouded in chauvinism, and fortified by the cunning manipulation of pervasive fear—became fully manifest only later, as the people of an aggrieved nation turned against each other, almost reveling in their deep political and moral divisions and hatreds. It took a worse catastrophe, a world-historical scourge, to teach a lesson to these affected people. By distant analogy, we too might learn a lesson about the dangers and follies of imperial hubris.

Imperial Hubris: A German Tale
posted by MoonOrb at 9:25 PM PST - 23 comments

1985 was a ridiculously strong year for music releases. June 10, 1985 saw the release of Talking Heads' Little Creatures. Their best selling album [YouTube playlist], it was on many end of year best lists, and it spawned two hit singles. Side A: And She Was [video], Give Me Back My Name, Creatures Of Love, The Lady Don't Mind [video], Perfect World [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:29 PM PST - 47 comments

Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop [Content Warning: Discussion of violence, abuse, killing].

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, [...] understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

Via.
posted by glonous keming at 5:00 PM PST - 95 comments

This blog post provides an in-depth look at accessibility features from The Last of Us Part 2, due for release June 19. [more inside]
posted by Alensin at 4:37 PM PST - 6 comments

Bill & Ted Face the Music [Official Trailer]
posted by Fizz at 3:28 PM PST - 61 comments

The 100 greatest UK No 1 singles is a Guardian listicle ranking songs that reached the top of the UK singles chart from the 1950s until today. But there is much more than just the list, including essays by Guardian critics about each track in the top twenty.
posted by Kattullus at 11:57 AM PST - 55 comments

'She still lives!' Famed Yellowstone bear emerges from winter – with cubs
posted by Slinga at 10:44 AM PST - 19 comments

"Quisieron enterrarnos, pero se les olvido que somos semillas."
The history of ‘They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.’

I first encountered this Mexican dicho in the mid-90’s reading poems and graffiti from Zapatistas. Then, when we lost the Ayotzinapa 43, the refrain came back as if a whole crop of teachers were about to burst from the earth in Iguala.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:42 AM PST - 5 comments

Itch.io's bundle for racial justice and equality ($5+) already includes 1000 projects at the time of this post, with more to come, with all proceeds being donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund. Not only does it includes indie heavy-hitters like Night in the Woods, Cook Serve Delicious 2, Minit and Oxenfree but it also includes a selection of LGBT friendly games like A Mortician's Tale, Highway Blossoms, EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER and Serre; tabletop rulebooks like Glitter Hearts, Blades in the Dark and Lancer; along with many many other games and software. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by simmering octagon at 9:54 AM PST - 84 comments

Last night, protestors captured several blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle after police abandoned the East Precinct, which had been the epicenter of the worst police-vs-protestor clashes over the past week. Mutualists, voluntaryists, and other anarchists are now supplanting police and other city services in the "Free Capitol Hill" autonomous zone.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:47 AM PST - 47 comments

Yori is the CMD replacement you never knew that you needed.

Featuring:
* Suggestions as you type
* Ctrl+Click to select values
* Better tab completion
* Background jobs

and more! Add it to your Windows Terminal.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:05 AM PST - 25 comments

Matthew Hockenberry has thoughtfully compiled a list of source material on topics in the critical study of logistics, including: "Logistical Media; Mining and Extraction; Production and Assembly; Shipping, Storage, Distribution; Speculations on Supply; Activism and Resistance; Logistical Histories; Commodity Communications; Migration, Mobility, and Movement; Corporations and Capitalism; Computational Production; Infrastructures and Spaces; and Consumers and Consumption." But first, let's set the stage. A Supply Studies Syllabus, from Supply Studies (via The Prepared newsletter).
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:36 AM PST - 3 comments

So when word started to circulate that a Black Lives Matter rally was being planned in Vidor, many people on social media thought it was a trap. On Saturday, 150 people showed up in Texas’s “most hate-filled town” to turn their backs on Vidor’s past. [more inside]
posted by jozifd at 7:09 AM PST - 8 comments

The queerness of Bruce Springsteen.
posted by Etrigan at 6:48 AM PST - 9 comments

Overfishing on the rise as global consumption climbs: U.N. agency - "More than a third of the fish stocks around the world are being overfished and the problem is particularly acute in developing countries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a report on Monday." (pdf) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 4:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Adam Rapoport, the editor-in-chief of Bon Appetit has stepped down and most stars of the Bon Appetit youtube channel have refused to appear in further videos pending action after a brownface picture of Rapoport surfaces, Sohla El-Waylly shares information about major pay disparities at BA, and other BIPOC youtube stars share their own stories of poor treatment at BA. (All reddit links as most updates are happening in instagram stories. Current roundup here.).
posted by mosst at 3:04 AM PST - 92 comments

Former workers at Cards Against Humanity, the popular and controversial party game, have spoken up about the company's toxic work environment. Beginning with Theresa Stewart's story of casual racism and bullying, others added their stories of "the unethical, racist ... predominantly white, upper-middle class [writers'] room" and how "we tried to write cards calling out abusers or punching up at rape culture and we're told they would never be in the game because of the accusations against Max Temkin." Anita Sarkeesian has declared, "by publicly associating with Max, I allowed him to take cover via tacit approval from me and my nonprofit. I am not willing to do that anymore." [more inside]
posted by adrianhon at 2:41 AM PST - 96 comments

Shelby of the Tech Tangents Youtube Channel examines Blip, a mechanical version of Pong from 1977.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:12 PM PST - 8 comments

Vox [CW: suicide]:

The show, then, is a perpetual commentary on what it means to be a public figure living an “authentic” life in the intensely private space of the Terrace House, nonetheless aware at all times that you’re being filmed. As the house’s residents watch the show on TV, they frequently cringe at themselves and adjust their behavior week after week, trying to recalibrate their expectations of themselves and each other, according to the edits onscreen and the social media reactions of the show’s viewers. Where other reality TV shows normally sequester their stars, Terrace House crafts dramatic narratives for its seasons by doing just the opposite. It allows residents to interact with the world as the world reacts each week to the show. This meta-layering creates what Ridker called “genuine literary excellence.” But it also may have created a parasocial illusion of intimacy that was always destined to blow up — though not in a way anyone could have predicted, staged, or scripted.

[more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 9:13 PM PST - 7 comments

Kurt Thomas has passed away.
posted by vrakatar at 5:45 PM PST - 16 comments

"These last two months I’ve grown obsessed with one American painting: a bloody masterpiece of pain and healing, made in Philadelphia nearly a century and a half ago. Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) was still a young artist when he completed 'The Gross Clinic' (Wikipedia) an in-action, up-to-the-minute depiction of the vanguard of American medicine that feels particularly relevant right now." Critics initially hated it, but now praise it. Jason Farago reviews the painting, in detail, in an interactive New York Times article [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:01 PM PST - 11 comments

How Many People Did it Take to Build the Great Pyramid? Let's ask the engineers... [more inside]
posted by zengargoyle at 4:46 PM PST - 25 comments

Twitter user silliWillis (@bubblemonkey15) dresses a penis (presumably theirs) in cute costumes. So, so NSFW. (h/t ColdChef)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:16 PM PST - 29 comments

How do you sign ‘Black Lives Matter’ in ASL? For black deaf Angelenos, it’s complicated.

The phrase begins with four fingers cut across the brow, followed by two thumbs drawn up like breath from navel to chest, ending with a fierce tug with two hands down from the chin into fists toward the heart. Black. Life. Cherish. This is how Harold Foxx and many other black deaf Angelenos sign “Black Lives Matter,” though it is by no means a universal translation.

(LA Times link) [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 12:35 PM PST - 9 comments

The Video Game Industry Has No Clue How to Respond to Protests [Vice Gaming] “As protests against police brutality and anti-Black racism have arced across the United States, the video game industry has been slow to show its solidarity with Black people in the community. When they do, some of these statements are shy of showing an actual commitment to the cause. [...] How can I trust that Activision Blizzard supports these protests when Blizzard suspended players for speaking out about the protests in Hong Kong last year, where protesters were also beaten by the cops? How am I supposed to believe EA is delaying its Madden announcement because it cares about Black lives, when it censored Kapernick’s name in a song in their last game? I am happy to see and hear the solidarity. But the games industry has to clean its own house too, and admit that it is part of the problem.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 12:01 PM PST - 55 comments

The BBC has produced a series of audio adaptations of Patrick McGoohan's series The Prisoner. They are up to Season 3, and three episodes are currently available: Free For All, The Girl Who Was Death, and The Seltzman Connection. [more inside]
posted by wittgenstein at 11:21 AM PST - 23 comments

In this series of videos from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, orphaned Sea Otter Pup 696 is rescued, learns to drink from a bottle, has his fur fluffed and brushed, learns to swim, gets strong, chews on toys and gets an otter foster mom for sea-life survival skills. [more inside]
posted by Hypatia at 10:43 AM PST - 20 comments

The 50 Most Powerful LGBTQ Players in Hollywood: In its inaugural Pride Issue, The Hollywood Reporter honors the most powerful LGBTQ people in the industry who are making global culture more inclusive
posted by hippybear at 9:41 AM PST - 21 comments

Ink Mapping: Video Mapping Projection on Tattoos (Vimeo)
posted by not_the_water at 9:15 AM PST - 1 comment

Driving into Athens from Nelsonville, it’s impossible to miss the massive billboard sitting on the right side of Route 33. The sign is loud, yellow and black, its text practically shouting at motorists, “WE ONLY SERVE MEATLOAF AND STRAWBERRY MILK.” This is the now-famous sign for Margie’s Meatloaf Mecca, a restaurant that doesn’t, and will never, exist.
posted by Etrigan at 6:43 AM PST - 31 comments

From the StarTribune: In their boldest statement since George Floyd’s killing, nine Minneapolis City Council members told a crowd Sunday that they will “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.” “We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” they said, reading off a prepared statement. “We’re committed to engaging with every willing community member in the City of Minneapolis over the next year to identify what safety looks like for you.” Their words — delivered one day after Mayor Jacob Frey told a crowd of protesters he does not support the full abolishment of the MPD — set off what is likely to be a long, complicated debate about the future of the state’s largest police force. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 6:41 AM PST - 148 comments

Residents of a small street in the ancient city of Chester performed a one-shot “socially distanced production” last week, featuring World War II songs. Orchestrated by a musical director Matt Baker.
posted by growabrain at 3:49 AM PST - 5 comments

"Construct the computer from your childhood or build an entire computer museum at home with these paper models, free to download and share." via Ian Visits.
posted by paduasoy at 3:21 AM PST - 27 comments

Classical flutist Heline reacts to hearing Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson for the first time. She later listens to Thick as a Brick, Bourée, Elegy, and Griminelli's Lament. [Previously]
posted by Knappster at 12:08 AM PST - 42 comments

Police Are Killing Fewer People In Big Cities, But More In Suburban And Rural America [more inside]
posted by queen anne's remorse at 8:12 PM PST - 12 comments

A treasure chest hidden in the Rocky Mountains for a decade has finally been found. (CNN, June 7, 2020) [more inside]
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:19 PM PST - 24 comments

Stranger Fruit was created in response to the senseless murders of black men across the nation by police violence.
posted by ColdChef at 6:25 PM PST - 7 comments

Canadian Julie Nolke makes YouTube sketch comedy. One of her sketches is Explaining the Pandemic to My Past Self - in which Julie from April 2020 went back in time to explain the pandemic to Julie in January 2020. In the latest update on her time-travelling self, she posted Explaining the Pandemic to My Past Self Part 2, in which Julie from June 2020 goes back in time to talk to Julie from April. It's a tricky balancing act - comedy and tragedy - and I think she nails it. Like many of her commenters, I hope there's no need for a third installment.
posted by Mogur at 4:35 PM PST - 26 comments

Inspector Gadget for 8 cellos
Imperial March (Darth Vader theme) for 8 cellos
Knight Rider for 8 cellos
Thudercats for 8 cellos
by Samara Ginsberg
posted by fings at 3:39 PM PST - 6 comments

Milbern, a Korean-American who identified as queer, was a well-known advocate and organizer for disability justice and in particular for insisting on the importance of decentering whiteness and heterocisnormativity within the movement. In her last few months, she worked on organizing mutual aid and support for the homeless in the face of the coronavirus, as well as serving as impact producer for the recent Netflix documentary Crip Camp. "Oftentimes, disabled people have the solutions that society needs,” Ms. Milbern told the San Francisco public radio station KQED. Stacey Milbern, a Warrior for Disability Justice, Dies at 33 [more inside]
posted by praemunire at 11:43 AM PST - 25 comments

"We have become so accustomed to looking at life through a racial lens that we imagine that all societies and all ages have done so, too. That is not so. It was only with the emergence of modernity that both the scientific concepts and the political language underlying the concept of race came to be developed." Kenan Malik (previously) talks about the origins of white identity, from the counter-Enlightenment to the alt-right. [more inside]
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 11:40 AM PST - 4 comments

Pero's Bridge is a pedestrian footbridge that spans Bristol's floating harbour, and was named in honour of Pero Jones, who came was forced to live in Bristol as the slave of John Pinney. On June 7, 2020 at 4:03pm BST, a statue of Edward Colston, a Bristolian slave trader commemorated by many of the city's institutions was dropped into the harbour off Bordeaux Quay at the foot of Pero's Bridge, 80 minutes after having been toppled from a podium outside The Hippodrome theatre.
posted by ambrosen at 10:00 AM PST - 92 comments

Pierre Imans was a French mannequin manufacturer in the 1920´s.
Les Cires de Pierre Imans were disturbingly lifelike and gender-bending.
Here is a further selection.
How Mannequins mirror society. Silent Partners - a short video.
posted by adamvasco at 8:57 AM PST - 9 comments

The human mind has long grappled with the elusive nature of time: what it is, how to record it, how it regulates life, and whether it exists as a fundamental building block of the universe. This timeline traces our evolving understanding of time through a history of observations in culture, physics, timekeeping, and biology. [SL Quanta Magazine]
posted by ellieBOA at 7:54 AM PST - 42 comments

The big video games of summer 2020 [Polygon] “The summer of 2020 is shaping up to be one of the most unusual seasons for video games. It’s an atypically busy summer, in part thanks to a series of delays that have pushed AAA video games like The Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima to the summer months. Summer 2020 is also when video game fans will get to experience blockbuster movie properties as games: There are no major Marvel Studios movies this summer, but there is a pair of major Marvel games, one starring Iron Man and the other the full team of Avengers. And in the absences of the massively delayed Fast & Furious 9, we have an original Fast & Furious video game from the team behind Project CARS. It’s a summer full of big adventures, including a new Paper Mario game and the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077. (Nintendo Switch owners who don’t dig Paper Mario have plenty of ports to play to this summer: BioShock, Borderlands, and XCOM collections just dropped, as did the massive RPG Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition.) And much more.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:48 AM PST - 34 comments

Majorana: Genius and Mystery
In the early twentieth century, in the years preceding World War II, the young physicist Ettore Majorana made several profound discoveries, including a relativistic wave equation that rivaled that of Paul Dirac and predicted a world of Majorana particles - and now it is believed that Majorana predicted the neutrino and much of its oddness. The impact of and controversy around his work haunts Physics to this day. Enrico Fermi considered him one of the most brilliant physicists of the age, a new Galileo or Newton.
But, in 1938, Majorana suddenly cleared out his bank account, boarded a ship and was never seen again. What happened to this young genius? Where did he go? It is an enduring mystery that has fascinated generations of journalists and writers and one which may have now been solved… [more inside]
posted by vacapinta at 2:48 AM PST - 9 comments

Food Waste: The world's dumbest environmental problem. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 10:34 PM PST - 77 comments

Hildegard von Blingin' presents, for the discerning clergyman, noble, or muck-gathering peasant, Medieval Style covers of Pumped up Kicks, What is Love, and Bad Romance.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 10:19 PM PST - 20 comments

1985 was a ridiculously strong year for music releases. We missed May 20, 1985, when U2 released their EP Wide Awake In America. Featuring possibly the best recording of Bad ever, it was an enormous success, going Platinum in the US. Side A: Bad (Live), A Sort Of Homecoming (Live) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:16 PM PST - 7 comments

You're quarantined , you want to recreate The Rocky Horror Picture Show's "The Time Warp" number, but you only have two people. So, maybe you do what Gelsey Laurie and her father did in April...
posted by the sobsister at 7:07 PM PST - 12 comments

"Binge Watching" is a sci-fi short film by Nigerian-British filmmaker Nosa Igbinedion which was recently screened on DUST (previously). "In the near future, a woman comes across a VR film where she will experience a tense encounter with a pair of policemen… through the eyes of a black man." (possible trigger warning as it depicts an assault from the victim's POV.) [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 3:52 PM PST - 4 comments

Röhrenblues Armin Küpper : Tenor Sax with acoustic pipeline delayed looping.
(via MLTSHP, where Armin's Pipelinefunk was posted.)
posted by scruss at 3:49 PM PST - 4 comments

From the Library of Congress: Footage of the first Gay Pride Parade in New York City in 1970.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:08 PM PST - 4 comments

A momentous event took place in Toba Aquarium on 26 May, when the keeper of the facility’s five giant isopods discovered fecal matter in their tank. This would be the first time since April of 2018 that even a trace of poop had been found. Notorious for their slow digestion, giant isopod eating habits can range from swiftly and viciously eating the face off a live shark, to not eating at all for five years. (Sometimes when their keepers try to feed them, the giant isopods will just play with their food and pretend to eat.) Some responses from Japanese citizens on hearing about the happy event: “This is the most relaxing news I’ve heard in months.” “Giant isopods make people happy by pooping. I want to be a giant isopod.” Giant isopods previously on Metafilter.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:18 PM PST - 30 comments

Smashed Peacock - Is it a play? A juggling act? Cabaret? A musical? Dance? A comment on gender or race? It's all of the above with a bit of opera. (sl vimeo | via progosk in an earlier thread)
posted by dobbs at 2:10 PM PST - 1 comment

How about some weird stop-motion animation: Human Flesh Story: Donuts
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:47 AM PST - 13 comments

Surprise! People love to recreate not only great and famous artworks, but also terrible amateur paintings. Remember the Getty Museum Challenge? Previously on MeFi. This one is even more hilarious! (Facebook group is private, but Sad & Useless Humor has a round up of outstanding accomplishments)
posted by pjsky at 11:35 AM PST - 8 comments

As China comes into greater conflict with the West, and the United States in particular, now is a good time to consider the long arc of this relationship. In the West, Chinese history is commonly framed as having begun with the first Opium War, giving the impression that European powers always had the upper hand. But from the first direct contact between East and West—the arrival of the Portuguese in south China in the early 16th century—the Chinese were dominant. When China Met the West by Michael Schuman, from his forthcoming book Superpower Interrupted
posted by chavenet at 10:09 AM PST - 3 comments

Issac Newton, Daniel Defoe and the Dynamics of Financial Bubbles. "A famous anecdote tells of Sir Isaac Newton realizing large gains in the early stages of the South Sea Bubble, but then losing all that and more by buying back in at the top. On the other hand, the fact that the author of Robinson Crusoe was also associated with that episode of extreme investor exuberance is little known. And that is a pity, since Daniel Defoe’s words, as well as Newton’s actions, are very illuminating about an important aspect of bubbles that deserves much more attention. This is the social network element..."
posted by storybored at 8:03 AM PST - 6 comments

Cop shows are undergoing a reckoning as the nation confronts policing in the streets. On TV, cops are always the main characters. [more inside]
posted by toastyk at 7:43 AM PST - 136 comments

Soundness is an Illusion, a musical summary of the many principal types of logical fallacies encountered in argument. From the same artist, songs concerning The Ultimate Source of Morality, and the hazarding of the journey from Mythos to Logos.
posted by bertran at 1:20 AM PST - 3 comments

John Taylor, bassist for Duran Duran, has been working during lockdown. He recently did a reddit AMA, he has an Instagram channel in which he chats with other musicians [I am not an Instagram member but I did look at the summary page available to me], and he has a YouTube "bass tutorial" channel Stone Love Bass Odyssey which so far has covered Girls On Film, Planet Earth, and Rio. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:07 PM PST - 15 comments

If your music playlists or collection is getting stale, here are two more sources for your enjoyment. The first: Terminal Passage on YouTube, who uploads and shares a wide variety of sounds, from Japanese prog Flied Egg (Discogs) from 1972 to modern chillhop from Channel Aria Sound (linking to their YouTube channel), there's something new every day. If you're looking to support Black artists and labels in general, or in the last few hours of this Bandcamp Friday (if you're reading this too late, it'll be back on July 3, 2020), here's a volunteer-managed spreadsheet of 1000+ Black Producers / Artists / Labels, with notes on where the artist or label resides, and the style(s) of music to expect, from well-established groups to up-and-coming artists.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:21 PM PST - 2 comments

As the Punisher Skull Re-Emerges on Cops in U.S. Protests, Marvel Comics Reckons With Its Imagery
posted by Etrigan at 9:20 PM PST - 57 comments

An essay on the satisfaction of hating concrete architecture: Hating and demolishing concrete feels so good because eliminating concrete as a remnant of 20th-century experiments in social government – from liberal to totalitarian – creates literal space to erect buildings that reflect new values.
posted by MoonOrb at 9:03 PM PST - 24 comments

The 2017 documentary I Am Not Your Negro (SLYT trailer) is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and takes its script from Remember This House, a manuscript by James Baldwin left unfinished following his death in 1987. The film's narration is entirely from the book and is accompanied by photos and video clips that cover the the history and culture surrounding the deaths of Medgar Evers, Malcom X, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the early beginnings of the BLM movement. I Am Not Your Negro is available on several streaming sites including Amazon.com
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 8:46 PM PST - 4 comments

Ready or Not, Here Comes the NBA [The Ringer] “On one side is law enforcement, some with badges covered and weapons raised—the face of a system of oppression. On the other is the looming threat of the coronavirus, which has now killed more than 100,000 Americans. Our present moment is trapped in that tension. All the while, the NBA’s board of governors is planning a trip to Disney World. Topics of the day include a play-in tournament for the eighth seed, resort assignments, and whether players and coaches will be allowed to golf. [...] On Thursday, the league approved a plan for 22 teams to resume the season in Orlando on July 31, and picking up with eight regular-season games before the commencement of a full-fledged playoff.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:53 PM PST - 24 comments

Millions of people drink mineral water every day that has previously been transported thousands of kilometres around the world. Often in plastic bottles, always at the expense of the environment. But almost everywhere in Europe we have great tap water, of high quality and inexpensive. Which is why we, the Duisburg Public Services, decided to hold up the mirror to the water industry. (SLYT)
posted by growabrain at 2:14 PM PST - 51 comments

"Documents obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a Pentagon war game, called the 2018 Joint Land, Air and Sea Strategic Special Program, or JLASS, offered a scenario in which members of Generation Z, driven by malaise and discontent, launch a 'Zbellion' in America in the mid-2020s." [original document] [more inside]
posted by Ouverture at 1:52 PM PST - 42 comments

The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents
posted by Monochrome at 12:46 PM PST - 25 comments

Revisiting an American Town Where Black People Weren’t Welcome After Dark Most people I met in Anna, Illinois, wish the racist lore behind the city’s name would go away. So why hasn’t it? [more inside]
posted by shoesietart at 10:50 AM PST - 15 comments

The Evening of Life In our society, to come directly to my point, old age is understood and framed in ways that lead inevitably to its devaluation. Its status is low and arguably is falling. On its face, such a claim might sound preposterous. Surely, the opposite is true. From the Social Security safety net to the Americans with Disabilities Act, from the positive portrayals of older people in popular media to near-record life expectancy, this is unquestionably the golden age of the golden years, a time of “No Limits. No Labels,” to quote an AARP slogan. -- Joseph E. Davis goes long in The Hedgehog Review
posted by dancestoblue at 10:47 AM PST - 11 comments

Whoooaaa Duuuuude: Why We Stretch Words in Tweets and Texts (Wired): "Stretchability is a powerful linguistic device that visually punches up a written word, imparting a wide range of emotions. That goes for the gooooooaaaaaaal of a soccer announcer, a teenager’s exasperated finallyyyyy, and a surfer’s aweeeeeesome. And booooy are they popular on Twitter. Writing today [May 27] in the journal PLOS One, the researchers detail how they combed through 100 billion tweets, mapping how often these words are stretched, and how far they are elongated—haha versus hahahahaaaa, for example. [...] That can be particularly powerful on a platform like Twitter, whose inherent brevity doesn’t exactly encourage nuanced communication. Those extra letters add some oomph to a brief message, making it more attention-grabbing. “You're taking what we would think of as the dictionary text and you're turning it into something visual,” says Danforth. “It can't be ignored when you see 20 As in a row.” [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:23 AM PST - 29 comments

In Washington, DC, the capital of the USA, 16th Street runs directly into Lafayette Park, across from the White House, the residence of the President. That street now sends a message to the current resident, thanks to DC's Mayor Muriel Bowser.
posted by rikschell at 9:20 AM PST - 71 comments

2020 has been a counterintuitively strong year for music releases. Madrid rock quartet Hinds released their third album today, The Prettiest Curse, adding pop sensibilities to their lo-fi aesthetic, and singing in both English and, for the first time, in Spanish. Listen here. [more inside]
posted by signal at 8:51 AM PST - 3 comments

After an Egyptologist Tweeted Instructions on How to Knock Down an Obelisk, Protesters Tried It Out on a Confederate Monument. It Worked. Art history doesn’t usually have much to offer in the way of practical, directly actionable lessons. But Sarah Parcak, a renowned professor of Egyptology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, recently plumbed humanity’s cultural past to offer some very concrete advice. On Sunday, she posted detailed, step-by-step instructions on Twitter (including a helpful diagram) for how to tear down an obelisk, culled from her research into ancient Egypt. (For every 10 feet of monument, you need 40 or more people; use rope attached to a chain; everyone should wear gloves; pull hard in unison from either side.) [more inside]
posted by plant or animal at 8:20 AM PST - 40 comments

"Though it’s today one of the lesser-known ‘decorative arts’, the technique of pietra dura is highly prized and widely used, and can be found in settings ranging from antique jewellery boxes to the walls of the Taj Mahal." [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 7:06 AM PST - 8 comments

It is the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when the Chinese government killed their own citizens for protesting. Thousands of Hong Kongers defy the police ban to commemorate the event. [more inside]
posted by toastyk at 10:43 PM PST - 26 comments

BBC World Service brings us the audio series 13 Minutes To The Moon. Season 1 is the story of the Apollo program from its beginning to the Apollo 11 lunar landing, across 12 episodes and bonus moments, totaling something like 10 hours of audio documentary. Season 2 is about the Apollo 13 mission, so far with 6 episodes and some bonuses, but Episode 7 is on COVID delay. The entire series is available as a podcast, and can be found wherever you do that kind of thing.
posted by hippybear at 9:56 PM PST - 8 comments

On June 5, Albany, New York, commemorates the life and work of Henry Johnson, and awards the Henry Johnson Award for Distinguished Community Service to a community member who goes above and beyond the call of duty. While Johnson was one of the United State’s first heroes of World War I, he was among the last to be recognized by his country (Times Union) in any lasting fashion. He leads the ranks of forgotten black Americans with notable military records, like the Golden 13, the first black men to attend officer candidate school (The Daily Beast). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:03 PM PST - 3 comments

"We are using our streaming platform, the Criterion Channel, to highlight films that focus on Black Lives [and] we’ve taken down the paywall on as many of these titles as we can, so even if you aren’t a subscriber you can watch them for free." [more inside]
posted by dobbs at 7:36 PM PST - 29 comments

Painstakingly created mostly from photos of actual cereal boxes. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 5:16 PM PST - 24 comments

Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages
posted by Chrysostom at 5:03 PM PST - 19 comments

Amsterdam - My Home(SLYT). A 4K timelapse from Albert Dros. [more inside]
posted by selfnoise at 3:51 PM PST - 9 comments

How this wallpaper kills your (Android) phone SLYT
One number in one pixel is enough to send your phone into this spiral of doom. [more inside]
posted by zinon at 3:48 PM PST - 61 comments

An anti-racist reading list means well. How could it not with some of the finest authors, scholars, poets, and critics of the twentieth century among its bullet points. Still, I am left to wonder: Who is this for? [more inside]
posted by jshttnbm at 1:30 PM PST - 56 comments

30 years later, a lost Days of Thunder NES game has been recovered from 21 floppy disks [Ars Technica] “In one of the most unreal data-recovery projects we've ever heard of, a seemingly lost NES game has been unearthed—as archived on a single hard drive backup, spread across 21 5.25-inch floppy disks. A joint effort led in part by the Video Game History Foundation began earlier this year with a pile of leftover CD-Rs, floppies, computers, and other errata donated by the family of late programmer/designer Chris Oberth. The results, thus far, are one fully functioning game whose code had to be recovered, then compiled, to run on original NES hardware.” [Days of Thunder NES Gameplay]
posted by Fizz at 12:34 PM PST - 7 comments

Herb Stempel, who revealed that the game show Twenty-One was rigged, has died at 93. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 12:29 PM PST - 5 comments

An Occult Psychogeography of Hawksmoor’s London Churches

There was a time when I used to hate London. I thought of it as a compound of tourist hotspots, rude locals and (admittedly quite useful) airports. Back then, I didn’t have much interest in graphic novels, either. My opinion on both has since reversed, and it’s in no small part due to the incomparable work of speculative historical fiction that is From Hell; written by Alan Moore, and brought vividly to life through the artwork of Eddie Campbell. The following tour of London was inspired by the book – a gruelling 45-mile route visiting lesser known occult locations spread across the British capital, and connecting in its path a whole world of mythologies from Queen Boadicea to Jack the Ripper. Make sure you’re sitting comfortably… this won’t be a short post.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:55 AM PST - 8 comments

Since the dawn of written communications, missives sent by card or letter have been the source of both joy and pain for recipients. During times of epidemics, however, the mail is viewed with extra wariness. […] That’s as true today as it was in the late 19th century, when—before sanitizing sprays and disinfectant wipes—American post offices responded to persistent yellow fever epidemics with perforating paddles used in the fumigation of the mail. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:55 AM PST - 5 comments

If you need a break from all the awful, there's a lot of joy to be found in watching Anne Marsen dance through crowded NYC streets in GirlWalkAllDay. Or take your pick from a ton of other Movies That Are Unlike Anything You've Seen Before.
posted by Mchelly at 7:10 AM PST - 41 comments

Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men. The evolution of The Punisher, big trucks, and militarized toxic masculinity as an illustrated webcomic.
posted by loquacious at 10:40 PM PST - 82 comments

The Incredible Story of the US Army's Earth-Shaking Off-Road Land Trains

You need to get 500 tons of supplies from Fairbanks, Alaska to the Arctic Ocean—a journey of about 400 miles through pure wilderness. There are no roads, very few airstrips, and endless ice. You're going to have to withstand minus 68 degree temperatures. Also, nuclear armageddon is on the menu if you're not quick about it. You, my friend, need a LeTourneau land train.

[more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:55 PM PST - 29 comments

The Great American Breakup Political scientist Louis Hartz accurately described the United States’ underlying cultural hyperindividualism. Is the next logical step the dissolution of the centralized federal state to become more like the EU? [more inside]
posted by Verg at 9:53 PM PST - 55 comments

It's the !nternational Archive of Dreams. Dreams categorized by theme. Submit yours; read others.
posted by MoonOrb at 4:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis has publicly denounced the Trump Administration [sl The Atlantic] Pretty much what it says on the tin. Mattis has broken his silence and come out in public condemnation of the President. The celebrated general had previously argued that it would be inappropriate and unproductive for him to do so.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:03 PM PST - 126 comments

"F*ck it, why wait." Run the Jewels 4 has been released by Killer Mike [@killermike] and El-P [@therealelp], the duo behind Run the Jewels. The album is available for free, with an option to donate to the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Program. [more inside]
posted by miguelcervantes at 1:46 PM PST - 20 comments

Studies That Most Likely Led WHO to Halt Hydroxychloroquine COVID-19 Trials are Under Fire Amid Questionable Data from Surgisphere (The Science Times, June 3, 2020) Other COVID-19 studies also drew from Surgisphere datasets. [more inside]
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:37 PM PST - 43 comments

Things. This is a time for poetry, this one is by Lisel Mueller.
posted by storybored at 10:43 AM PST - 6 comments

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition [Game Trailer] “First released in 2010 for the Nintendo Wii, Xenoblade Chronicles was a smash hit in Japan that was heralded as a breakthrough innovation for the JRPG genre - and then took a year to release in PAL format and another year after that to arrive in North America. [...] Ten years after its initial release, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition comes to Nintendo Switch and brings with it an overhaul of the original's now-dated graphics. The title goes well beyond that description though, providing fans with new content, additional features, and a preservation of the series' appealing storytelling.” [via: ScreenRant] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:08 AM PST - 27 comments

8x6 Tiny Workshop Tour (Youtube): A calming, 15-minute walkthrough of a woodworker's tiny, immaculately organized workshop [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:03 AM PST - 41 comments

Both terrible and beautiful things have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen. Nothing will be unchanged, including board games. Yes, the coronavirus will change board games. That’s what I want to talk about today. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 8:38 AM PST - 46 comments

Inside every dog there’s a hero waiting to be unleashed, or at least, that’s what we’d like to believe about our canine companions. New research suggests dogs truly want to rescue us when we’re in a bad situation, but they have to know how to help. […] At the same time, however, the new study still leaves us wondering if their heroic actions are prosocially motivated or if their behaviors are driven by other factors.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:07 AM PST - 19 comments

Foregoing plans to launch Pride Month with live events across their network of museums, the Smithsonian presents Project Pride, a 2 hour video [YT link] which host Ari Shapiro introduces as a time capsule of LGBTQ Pride in 2020. Participants include Alex the Astronaut, Big Freedia, Bright Light Bright Light, Cameron Esposito, Courtney Barnett, Claud, Dorian Electra, Girl in Red, Indigo Girls, Jake Shears, Joy Oladokun, Kat Cunning, Madame Gandhi, mxmtoon, Nakhane, Pabllo Vittar, Pet Shop Boys, Roxane Gay, SOKO, Tig Notaro & Stephanie Allynne, VINCINT, and other guests. And the Smithsonian throws in their own historical context too. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:53 PM PST - 4 comments

In the broadest of terms, animals are generally born one of two ways*: egg laying (oviparity) and live birth (viviparity), which raises the question: When and why did live birth evolve? Enter the Australian three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis), which can it both lay eggs and bear live young, and can do both within a single litter of offspring. Egg Laying or Live Birth: How Evolution Chooses (Quanta Magazine). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:45 PM PST - 10 comments

If you're looking to decolonize your canon, this is a hell of a place to start: Funny, wholly original and unlike anything other than the many books that came after it and seem to have knowingly or not borrowed from it. There’s also a long hallucination involving a hippopotamus. The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas is a 19th century novel by Machado de Assis, the greatest writer of Brazilian literature and “the supreme black literary artist to date” according to some. There's a new English translation by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux just out! (Machado previously)
posted by Tom-B at 6:44 PM PST - 17 comments

Defunding The Police Will Save Black And Indigenous Lives In Canada When victims are not the right kinds of victims, police have utterly failed. When the queer community in Toronto told police there was a serial killer targeting racialized queer men in the Church Street village, the police openly denied there was a serial killer and did not take the threat seriously. This allowed serial killer Bruce MacArthur to get away with murdering at least eight men over at least seven years. [more inside]
posted by plant or animal at 5:44 PM PST - 79 comments

"It is one of the largest pyramids in the northern hemisphere and may be among the top 10 biggest pyramids in the world, depending upon how you measure. It has been called the “Tomb of Doom” and is rumored to have been cursed by the removal of a crystal skull. It’s also a Bass Pro Shop, and it’s located in Memphis, Tennessee." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:27 PM PST - 51 comments

Join Robert Evans (of Behind the Bastards) and Katy Stoll and Cody Johnston (of Even more News) have a bout a million podcasts between them, including The Worst Year Ever. They started this podcast in 2019 to cover the US Presidential race. Then the pandemic. Now the United States burning down. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:20 PM PST - 6 comments

Difficult conversations with children have to happen. A resource list for parents (caregivers, teachers, therapists, etc) around speaking plainly with children about race, racism, and racialized violence. [more inside]
posted by fairlynearlyready at 10:37 AM PST - 8 comments

Umurangi Generation [Game Trailer] “The pitch for Umurangi Generation is that it's a photography game. Much like Pokemon Snap, you're venturing around, trying to capture the best snapshot possible of your surroundings for cash. But Umurangi Generation isn't on-rails, and it isn't about cheerful monsters and surfing rodents. It's a first-person photography sim set in a "shitty future," where it sometimes feels like you're taking pictures in the ruins of the old world—or the origins of a new one. The city is in a crisis, and that means it's the best time to start exploring the streets and filling up a few rolls of film. [...] Players can either chase the bounties and objectives or, like me, wander aimlessly, trying to line up whatever shot strikes their fancy. Did I often fall off the building trying to get a picture of a seagull? Yes, but we all make sacrifices for the craft.” [via: US Gamer][Free Demo via Steam] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:26 AM PST - 12 comments

Here’s How Low-Budget Horror Film ‘The Wretched’ Is Breaking Box Office Records
posted by Etrigan at 6:56 AM PST - 9 comments

Journalist and activist for greater family court transparency, Louise Tickle, posts about attending three family court sessions during lockdown: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The Transparency Project blogs about reporting a remote hearing. Lisa Harker, head of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, interviewed: 'Remote family court hearings are not just or humane'.
posted by paduasoy at 4:05 AM PST - 4 comments

• The Fundamental Difference Between Stories And Reality - "Characters have clear transformative arcs [whereas] our identities and personal journeys are so much more complex."
• Your Life is Not a Hero's Journey - "The history of the heroic adventure and the implications of projecting the hero's journey on our own lives."
• Identity Without Storytelling - "The only thing is, when it comes to the stories of our own lives, we are both author and character."[1,2,3]

[more inside]
posted by kliuless at 1:49 AM PST - 15 comments

1985 was a ridiculously strong year for music releases. June 1, 1985 saw the release of the debut album by a-ha, Hunting High And Low. Probably purchased by everyone because of That One Song and That One Video, it was a remarkably strong album [YT playlist], with other international hits. It continues to be a gem of 80s rock, even 35 years later. Side A: Take On Me [video version one, video version two (this is the one you remember)], Train Of Thought [video], Hunting High And Low [video], The Blue Sky, Living A Boy's Adventure Tale [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:50 PM PST - 31 comments

There’s a lot going on in this film: satire of the Japanese craze for European-style fine dining, comic reappropriation of American Westerns and Kurosawa, criticism of the relegation of women to the least prestigious kinds of cooking. In one of the movie’s many surreal interludes, a dying woman rises from her sickbed to cook one last dinner before expiring. My Quarantine: Savoring the Ramen Western by Sophie Pinkham for NY Books. Except Tampopo is far from the first western-styled Japanese movie, as discussed in Ramen Westerns: Far East Meets Old West from Criminal Elements, which looks at the movie exchanges between Japan and the United States. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:29 PM PST - 19 comments

The Thick Blue Line - Patrick Blanchfield reviews Stuart Schraders' book Badges Without Borders, which covers the intertwined histories of policing and counterinsurgency in the United States.

Better remembered today by his nickname, “Bull” Connor was an outspoken white supremacist who believed desegregation was a communist plot; just five years earlier, as commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, he had notoriously unleashed riot police, fire hoses, and attack dogs on nonviolent civil rights protesters. That such a man should have been on the receiving end of America’s first 911 call is fitting. As Stuart Schrader reveals in his new book, Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing, the United States’ 911 system was modeled on an earlier program pioneered by American-funded police forces fighting a Marxist insurgency in Caracas.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:37 PM PST - 19 comments

Over the past 20 years, renowned illustrator John Burgoyne has produced more than 150 intricate, hand-drawn illustrations for Cook’s Illustrated magazine. In 1886, the US Government Commissioned 7,500 watercolor paintings of every known fruit in the world. Now, using materials from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, you can make your own Cook's Illustrated poster! (Some assembly required.) 2019 OpenCulture article on the collection is here, with great examples and interesting context. My own fave, the pawpaw. [more inside]
posted by wenestvedt at 1:04 PM PST - 9 comments

Laura Kampf gives some Workshop Tips - Measuring, Marking & Math tips about how to avoid using math while making stuff.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:33 AM PST - 41 comments

This Lickable Screen Can Recreate Almost Any Taste or Flavor Without Eating Food (Gizmodo): "…The Norimaki Synthesizer takes a more aggressive approach through the use of five gels that trigger the five different tastes when they make contact with the human tongue. ¶The color-coded gels, made from agar formed in the shape of long tubes, use glycine to create the taste of sweet, citric acid for acidic, sodium chloride for salty, magnesium chloride for bitter, and glutamic sodium for savory umami. When the device is pressed against the tongue (Youtube), the user experiences all five tastes at the same time, but specific flavors are created by mixing those tastes in specific amounts and intensities, like the RGB pixels on a screen. To accomplish this, the prototype is wrapped in copper foil so that when it’s held in hand and touched to the surface of the tongue, it forms an electrical circuit through the human body, facilitating a technique known as electrophoresis." [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:55 AM PST - 47 comments

Both Michael Roth’s The Web Opera and HERE’s all decisions are made by consensus use our screen-mediated world as a narrative given.
posted by Etrigan at 6:54 AM PST - 2 comments