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James Murphy (formerly of LCD Soundsystem) has built an algorithm to musically interpret live data from the US Tennis Open which will create around 400 hours of music. All previous games can be listened to and each has a different flavour - it can get a little glitchy but try Djokovic vs Querry or Brengle vs Lisick for starters. Or have a play with the algorithm yourself.
posted by meech at 10:27 PM PST - 7 comments

I feel like a Mommy [SLYT, Buzzfeed]
posted by maggieb at 8:31 PM PST - 11 comments

March in August: thousands rally against Tony Abbott by taking to streets:

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets for the latest wave of protests against the federal government.

Demonstrations were held in cities across the country, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, to protest against a range of of social and economic policies being implemented by the Abbott government.

About 3,000 protesters marched through Sydney, voicing their concerns on a range of issues, from Australia's asylum seeker policies, to education cuts and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

[more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:21 PM PST - 40 comments

Tens of millions a viewers a month watch Youtube videos of an orange and white cat and his friends playing in Minecraft. Twenty-three year old Joseph Garrett plans to use Minecraft as a platform for launching an educational channel. [more inside]
posted by carter at 6:19 PM PST - 28 comments

Thousands of cats served in the First World War -- as rat killers, as mascots for troops in the trenches, at sea, and elsewhere. War at its furriest.
posted by heurtebise at 5:52 PM PST - 23 comments

The Tick is a big, blue, nigh-invulnerable, possibly brain-damaged super-hero created by Ben Edlund in 1986. He has appeared in comic books (1988), animated TV (1994), and live action TV (2001). According to The Wrap, Patrick Warburton has worked out a deal with Sony to create a new Tick pilot for Amazon.
posted by Guy Smiley at 5:21 PM PST - 99 comments

Dreadlock Truth is an online community of people from all across the globe that have come together to share their information, experience, and knowledge regarding dreadlocks with others.
posted by josher71 at 4:32 PM PST - 13 comments

Post-Structuralism Explained with Hipster Beards; and Part 2 (DLBuzzFeed)
posted by acb at 3:26 PM PST - 48 comments

Taco Bell opens its "upscale" brand extension, U.S. Taco Co., in Huntington Beach: the first of what could be many. "It's food truck food you don't have to chase." The LA Times takes a first look. Money describes it as taking (secret) aim at foodies: "The goal is to win over entirely new customers, notably the folks who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Taco Bell, KFC, or Cinnabon." [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:42 PM PST - 108 comments

Authors can choose to respond to reviews in many ways. This is a bad choice. Found at the LJ of James Nicoll.
posted by PussKillian at 12:09 PM PST - 135 comments

Crypto machines.
posted by pjern at 11:51 AM PST - 9 comments

This is #WhatTransLooksLike
(see also: #WhatButchLooksLike, #WhatBiLooksLike, #WhatABearLooksLike)
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 9:34 AM PST - 23 comments

The Sad State of America’s Aging Sisters: Why are there so few nuns today?

You may wonder whether the global church the sisters belong to is interested in keeping the convents open. It sure seems like it isn't. By 2005, the Catholic Church had spent $1 billion on legal fees and settlements stemming from priests sexually abusing children. Yet church leaders have allocated no funds to take care of elderly sisters, and while priests’ retirement funds are covered by the church, the sisters have no such safety net. When their orders run out of money, that’s it.

“Why would you want to be a nun if the archdiocese is going to treat you like they do?” Ann Frey at the Wartburg said. “Their whole lives they’ve been obedient and done what they were asked to do, and now nobody is helping them?”

[more inside]
posted by flex at 9:26 AM PST - 79 comments

… all I want is potato chips.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:19 AM PST - 14 comments

Uncomfortable in His Own Skin ‘Your Face in Mine,’ by Jess Row, a Novel About Changing Race: [New York Times]

"When literary fiction dares examine the issue of race at all, it is usually done in an exceedingly tone-deaf way (think William Styron’s Confessions Of Nat Turner or Kathryn Stockett’s The Help) or from a somewhat safe remove (think Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue). It always seems as if the story is accompanied by a blaring announcement that it’s time for this (white) protagonist to learn something. Sometimes the pedantic drum-banging can get so excessive it drowns out everything else, including the inclination to tell a good story. If nothing else, the debut novel from Jess Row, Your Face In Mine, is a refreshing plunge into the deep end of the race conversation." [A.V. Club]

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:17 AM PST - 6 comments

Rachel Sanders of Buzzfeed compares the menus of venerable NYC eateries a 100 years ago to today.
posted by The Whelk at 8:35 AM PST - 58 comments

Beautiful. NSFW imagery.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:14 AM PST - 12 comments

Great American Eclipse of 2017. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:57 AM PST - 45 comments

Do you like television? Touch my nose! You are banished!
posted by angrycat at 6:28 AM PST - 19 comments

End the Tyranny of 24/7 Email — THIS Labor Day weekend, odds are you’ll peek at your work email on your “day off” — and then feel guilty about it.
posted by cenoxo at 6:26 AM PST - 46 comments

I don't doubt characterising Orwell as a talented mediocrity will put noses out of joint. Not Orwell, surely! Orwell the tireless campaigner for social justice and economic equality; Orwell the prophetic voice, crying out in the wartime wilderness against the dangers of totalitarianism and the rise of the surveillance state; Orwell, who nobly took up arms in the cause of Spanish democracy, then, equally nobly, exposed the cause's subversion by Soviet realpolitik; Orwell, who lived in saintly penury and preached the solid virtues of homespun Englishness; Orwell, who died prematurely, his last gift to the people he so admired being a list of suspected Soviet agents he sent to MI5.

For the BBC's Point of View series, Will Self tackles the cult of Orwell.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:14 AM PST - 79 comments

If you're alone and you need a friend
Someone to make you forget your problems
Just come along baby
Take my hand
I'll be your lover tonight
posted by Going To Maine at 1:41 AM PST - 10 comments

Wilson recently calculated that the only way humanity could stave off a mass extinction crisis, as devastating as the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, would be to set aside half the planet as permanently protected areas for the ten million other species. “Half Earth,” in other words, as I began calling it—half for us, half for them. [more inside]
posted by viggorlijah at 12:10 AM PST - 41 comments

Vulfpeck (previously) was "conceived...as a German version of the Funk Brothers – session musicians who performed most of the instrumentals on the 1960s Motown records [previously]. The idea was to channel that era of the live rhythm section." [more inside]
posted by stinkfoot at 11:39 PM PST - 5 comments

Just 3 days before they would go into effect, Federal Judge Lee Yeakel struck down the admitting-privileges and ambulatory surgical center requirements of Texas's recently passed HB2 (remember the one with the filibuster?), finding that they placed an undue burden on women, especially those in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso. [more inside]
posted by LizBoBiz at 11:05 PM PST - 31 comments

Batman has been spotted on Japanese highways, or rather, someone dressed in a Dark Knight Rises style Batman suit and on a custom batcycle-like trike in the Chiba Prefecture, earning him the nickname Chibatman. He has been found and interviewed (Japanese without subtitles), and he even invited the interviewer back to his bat lair humble home. The 41 year-old Chibatman works as a welder, and he wears his Batman costume when he commutes to work, "because I want to see everyone smile."
posted by filthy light thief at 11:04 PM PST - 25 comments

The Fast Show summary from Wikipedia:

The Fast Show, known as Brilliant in the US, was a BBC comedy sketch show programme that ran from 1994 to 1997, with a special in 2000 and 2014. It was one of the most popular sketch shows of the 1990s in the UK. The show's central performers were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Simon Day, Mark Williams, John Thomson, Arabella Weir and Caroline Aherne. Other significant cast members included Paul Shearer, Rhys Thomas, Jeff Harding, Maria McErlane, Eryl Maynard, Colin McFarlane and Donna Ewin.

It was loosely structured and relied on character sketches, recurring running gags, and many catchphrases. Its fast-paced "blackout" style set it apart from traditional sketch series because of the number and relative brevity of its sketches; a typical half-hour TV sketch comedy of the period might have consisted of nine or ten major items, with contrived situations and extended setups, whereas the premiere episode of The Fast Show featured twenty-seven sketches in thirty minutes, with some items lasting less than ten seconds and none running longer than three minutes. Its innovative style and presentation influenced many later series such as Little Britain and The Catherine Tate Show.

[more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:03 PM PST - 32 comments

AM/FM - the story of London's pirate radio stations [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by aniola at 3:35 PM PST - 2 comments

Announced at the end of June, Emojli was billed as "the emoji-only network." One source called it worse than Yo. It launched yesterday with 70,000 names registered. The creators of the app 🌠 Tom Scott (previously on Metafilter) and 😃 Matt Gray (who shows up frequently on Tom's YouTube channel) presented a talk: "Emojli: Behind the Scenes and Why You Should Never Build An App."
posted by BungaDunga at 1:30 PM PST - 85 comments

Invertebrate numbers nearly halve as human population doubles. The decline of birds might have something to do with this recent news that half the insects (and spiders, crustaceans, slugs, worms) are gone.
posted by sfenders at 12:14 PM PST - 61 comments

Ever wondered why your favourite movie star is now in straight-to-video hell? What the hell happened? is a series of articles about the career ups and (mostly) downs of contemporary actors, actresses and directors who were once Hollywood stars (but who stumbled at one point) or serious contenders for stardom (but who did not make it). While the articles are made of known material and rather-matter-of-fact ("...but it got terrible reviews and bombed at the box office"), they offer a singular perspective on what it takes to reach the A-list and stay on it. [more inside]
posted by elgilito at 10:25 AM PST - 172 comments

It’s as if every child under age 5 in the United States has seen it. Four times. The New York Times Magazine explores the world of unboxing videos and boggles at the appeal of DisneyCollector, an anonymous and seemingly independent female toy 'reviewer' who may be earning over seven figures. Are the videos' popularity connected to ASMR?
posted by bq at 8:31 AM PST - 94 comments

A New Yorker Faces His Phobia, One Stroke at a Time [New York Times] With Intensive Swim Lessons, a Man Attacks His Fear of Water

"Traumatized by childhood incidents, Attis Clopton was deathly afraid of water, so he attacked his phobia by enrolling in a program of swimming lessons."

posted by Fizz at 6:35 AM PST - 24 comments

Katherine G. Johnson: NASA Mathematician (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:34 AM PST - 16 comments

How did something as loud as a bell—something which is experienced so much more often, and more powerfully, by hearing than by sight—become dumb?

[more inside]
posted by tykky at 12:05 AM PST - 20 comments

Confessions of a Fat Bastard: Texas Monthly's Daniel Vaughn on the life of a full-time barbecue writer.

"Since Texas Monthly named me the nation’s first and only full-time barbecue editor in March 2013 (previously), my health has been a topic of international discussion. My job requires that I travel from one end of the state to the other eating smoked brisket, one of the fattiest cuts on the steer. And I can’t forget to order the pork ribs, sausage, and beef ribs. Of course my diet is going to raise eyebrows. Including those of my doctor."
posted by porn in the woods at 10:37 PM PST - 46 comments

Looking for another source of public domain images? Yahoo research fellow Kalev Leetaru has extracted over 14 million images from IA public domain book scans, and so far 2.6 million of them have been posted to the Internet Archive Book Images photostream, where they have become part of The Commons. [more inside]
posted by fings at 9:31 PM PST - 25 comments

Mathematician Zachary Abel builds impressive Mathematical Sculptures from office supplies and other household objects. [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:48 PM PST - 11 comments

Big list of Games – "An unfiltered list of games featuring a leading lady, because such a list should exist."
Have a suggestion for a game?
Leading Ladies in Media – "Highlighting female protagonists in Film, TV, Comics, and Books."
Bonus link: hardcore gaming – Fuck Yeah 1990s
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:33 PM PST - 27 comments

Staging lives: "Who do you want to be? Or, more accurately, who could you have been? Czech photographer Dita Pepe takes these musings quite literally, re-imaging her life in a hundred different scenarios in her series Self Portraits with Men. Pepe’s photographs are disarming in their nonchalant subtly, the artist possessing an uncanny ability to become a seamless member of each family." [more inside]
posted by Salamandrous at 4:21 PM PST - 25 comments

"... now, my sight and my world and my life have all returned." Vision: Healing the Blind in Ethiopia [vimeo, 10m] [more inside]
posted by Westringia F. at 1:47 PM PST - 8 comments

St. Paul police roughly assault and arrest man, who is black and sitting in public area waiting for his kids. [SLYT] Police defended arrest but all charges were dropped by St. Paul police against 27-year old Chris Lollie. Lollie is filing complaint and now plans on suing.
posted by Mike Mongo at 1:30 PM PST - 406 comments

This week Allstate Insurance released its 10th annual Best Drivers Report for the 200 largest US cities. It's wicked pissah being at the bottom (again). [more inside]
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 12:57 PM PST - 109 comments

The Nishiyama Silk company explains their silk production process from reeling silk out of the boiled cocoons through handweaving the final cloth. Their factory video is a three minutes of hypnotic machine motion (along with some adorable socks on the weavers).
posted by janell at 12:44 PM PST - 9 comments

Justice Map [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:25 PM PST - 17 comments

“Worldcon is like a family reunion,” said longtime convention-goer and fanzine writer Curt Phillips, at a panel about the history of Worldcon. After a few days, I could only agree. It was indeed like being at a family reunion, in that it felt like you were spending your time with elderly relatives. You might want to talk to them and listen to their stories, but you’ll have to tolerate some offensive and outdated opinions along the way.

For the Daily Dot, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw examines how the growing generation gap is changing the face of fandom, comparing the recent London Worldcon with the Nine Worlds convention run the weekend before.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:20 PM PST - 59 comments

Elephant plays with blue streamer. (SLYT)
posted by overeducated_alligator at 11:55 AM PST - 24 comments

In this video edition of Chad Smith's interview series, the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer sits down with his old friend, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, to talk about their early days on tour together, their attempts to form a "jazz odyssey" band, producers Rick Rubin and Brendan O'Brien, and a whole lot more. A jam-packed, laugh-filled hour-long chat.
posted by hippybear at 11:04 AM PST - 5 comments

A controversial player follows up a disappointing NBA career with a major success in the Chinese Basketball Association, including two national titles with the Beijing Ducks (yes, they're named after the delicious Peking Duck dish). Now, he's Starring in a musical about himself in Beijing.(NYT)
posted by ericbop at 10:00 AM PST - 15 comments

"But not doing things too disastrously is not some minimal achievement; it is a maximal achievement, rarely managed." Does it help to know history?
posted by theodolite at 9:26 AM PST - 46 comments

Former Nippon Pro Baseball home-run king Takashi Yamasaki tries to hit a 186 mph (300 km/hour) fastball from a pitching machine. Skip to 3:29 for the fun part. (SLYT, Japanese)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:49 AM PST - 54 comments

“Until a person has experienced career-harming bias...they simply don’t believe it exists.”
Why Aren't Women Advancing At Work? Ask a Transgender Person.
posted by sp160n at 8:44 AM PST - 46 comments

Pen Paper Ink Letter is a pen and paper blog maintained by Heath Cates. Currently holding Ink Week, its best feature is a massive index of product reviews, from the blog itself and other blogs. [more inside]
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:32 AM PST - 10 comments

IBM's 1939 Corperate Song Book.
posted by The Whelk at 8:27 AM PST - 34 comments

Somebody: A new app by Miranda July (previously) allows you to send somebody a message… sort of. When you send your friend a message through Somebody, it goes — not to your friend — but to the Somebody user nearest your friend. This person (likely a stranger) delivers the message verbally, acting as your stand-in. Watch the Somebody movie.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:07 AM PST - 50 comments

To entice new homeowners, Russia's biggest bank is running a special promotion which adds unusual perk with its mortgage - a cat. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 AM PST - 24 comments

Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital are reporting that xenon gas has the potential to become a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other memory-related disorders.
posted by we are the music makers at 7:04 AM PST - 52 comments

Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1971
posted by nadawi at 6:37 AM PST - 62 comments

So a little while ago, I set out to write some tutorials that would guide the non-coding-but-computer-savvy journalist through enough programming fundamentals so that he/she could write a web scraper to collect data from public websites.

[more inside]
posted by postcommunism at 5:29 AM PST - 40 comments

Kat Chow, with NPR's Code Switch, put together a short piece on the history and the prevalence of the well-known nine note "stereotypical Asian theme." As described in a 2005 Straight Dope forum question: You know, the one that goes dee dee dee dee duh duh dee dee duh. Featured heavily in braindead Hollywood flicks made by clueless directors who want to give a scene an "oriental" feel. Also a variation of it can be heard in David Bowie's "China Girl." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:05 PM PST - 46 comments

“Our target user for this controller is not very specific, it’s very general, as even a beginner who has never touched the controller can use it, your grandmother can use, or even children with small hands can use it." Shigeru Miyamoto devoted more time and energy into the GameCube’s controller than any of Nintendo’s previous controllers. The NES controller was the first controller to add a D-Pad, the SNES controller would be the first to add shoulder buttons, and Nintendo 64′s controller introduced the analogue stick to 3D consoles. How would Miyamoto be able to top his previous three achievements? The Pressure to Create the Perfect Controller, from Dromble.com's Emily Rogers.

Previous Dromble and Emily Rogers on Metafilter: A Dolphin's Tale: The Story of GameCube.
posted by porn in the woods at 8:43 PM PST - 32 comments

From AC/DC to Zappa, these are the “artists” who have ruined music.
posted by wmoskowi at 8:02 PM PST - 176 comments

Inside Google's Secret Drone Delivery Programme The Australian test flight and 30 others like it conducted in mid-August are the culmination of the first phase of Project Wing, a secret drone program that’s been running for two years at Google X, the company’s whoa-inducing, long-range research lab.
posted by modernnomad at 7:05 PM PST - 37 comments

Louisiana is drowning, quickly.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:35 PM PST - 26 comments

"My count is now up to five. Five of my friends and fellow comedians have taken their own life. It's shocking, but, sadly, not surprising. Non-comedians — or as we call them, 'civilians' — are always surprised. And I am always surprised they're so surprised. They have yet to realize the Two Big Things all comedians know." [may be triggering] [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:26 PM PST - 50 comments

Olodum ; - 'The God of Gods' or 'The Supreme God' in Yoruba
A group of Drummers dedicated to cultural activism who famously play in the Pelourinho in Salvador de Bahia.
In 1995 they came to have a wider audience as they appeared in They dont Care About Us, a Michael Jackson single which was shot both in the Pelourinho and the Dona Marta Favela of Rio de Janeiro.
Olodum.
posted by adamvasco at 6:18 PM PST - 4 comments

How to make 2 ingredient ice cream bread. Yes, ice cream bread. From the Simple Cooking Channel on you YouTube.
posted by ocherdraco at 5:45 PM PST - 51 comments

"The abrasiveness trap: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews" A study of 248 performance reviews of 180 people found that women received a much higher ratio of critical feedback than men. Moreover, the reviews of women were much more likely to contain criticisms of their personalities in addition to constructive criticism. According to the article: "This kind of negative personality criticism—watch your tone! step back! stop being so judgmental!—shows up twice in the 83 critical reviews received by men. It shows up in 71 of the 94 critical reviews received by women."
posted by jazzbaby at 5:29 PM PST - 35 comments

This is a beginner's guide to drills and bits. Need something more basic? Then try An Idiot's Guide to Buying Power Tools or stick with Four Essential Power Tools.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:14 PM PST - 73 comments

Some pretty big names are wading into the Amazon waters with a group of new instant video pilots debuting today. Marc Forster ("World War Z") directed Hand of God, "a psychological drama about a morally corrupt judge who suffers a breakdown and believes God is compelling him onto a path of vigilante justice"; David Gordon Green ("George Washington," "Pineapple Express") helmed Red Oaks, "a coming-of-age comedy set in the 'go-go' 80s about a college student enjoying a last hurrah before summer comes to an end--and the future begins"; Whit Stillman ("Metropolitan") turns in The Cosmopolitans, "a dramatic comedy about a group of young American expats in Paris searching for love and friendship and an ocean of distance from their past"; and Jay Chandrasekhar ("Super Troopers") is responsible for Really, "a funny, honest, behind-the-curtain look at the psychological and emotional complexities of marriage and the charged dynamics of a tight-knit group of friends grasping on to what's left of their youth." There's also Otto Bathurst's Hysteria, "an investigative thriller about a haunted young doctor who is summoned back to her hometown to investigate an epidemic that may be linked to social media - and her own tragic past." User reviews determine which pilots get picked up for series.
posted by Clustercuss at 1:40 PM PST - 25 comments

classic first lines of novels... written in emoji [slslate]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:21 PM PST - 34 comments

The experiment to determine whether the universe is a hologram has begun. (Previously)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:16 PM PST - 58 comments

Russia has invaded Ukraine opening a second front to the south to open a land-bridge between Russia and Crimea. The Southern Front Catastrophe – August 27, 2014 translated from Ukraine has military details. Map of Operations Aug 10-27 (detail Mariupol and detail Lugansk pink/red is separatists). So far it's been a stealth invasion and slow escalation, today Russian troops, armor columns and artillery have openly crossed the border (video). Thousands more Russian troops are amassed. Ukraine has announced a reinstatement of the draft to commence in the Fall, and is demanding EU military assistance. An emergency UN meeting is currently in session (the 24th). Russia claims "No Russian forces are crossing in any point the border of Ukraine."
posted by stbalbach at 12:06 PM PST - 356 comments

Say you find yourself at Stockholm's Globe Arena (the largest hemispherical building in the world) and don't feel like taking in a show. No problem -- just find Götgatan and head north. You'll come to the Stockholm City Museum. Look for a short pillar with an orb atop it. That's Mercury. You just walked one twenty-millionth of the distance from the Sun's corona to its first planet, and started your tour of the Sweden Solar System. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 11:43 AM PST - 11 comments

Brickjest is a recreation of Infinite Jest ... in Lego!
The Grauniad interviews Kevin Griffin, who makes the recreations with his 11 year old son, Sebastian.
posted by Lemurrhea at 11:39 AM PST - 11 comments

I don't always ignore your emails, but when I do, it's because the answer is on your syllabus. "In my effort to teach students appropriate use of emails, my syllabus policies [had] ballooned to cover every conceivable scenario -- when to email, when not to, how to write the subject line -- and still I spent class time discussing the email policies and logged hours upon hours answering emails that defied the policies. In a fit of self-preservation, I decided: no more." [more inside]
posted by scody at 11:30 AM PST - 70 comments

Chubby little prairie dog requires aid, plz. (slYT)
posted by Kitteh at 11:15 AM PST - 41 comments

1. Everyone has mites.
2. Humans host (at least) two mite species that aren’t closely related to each other.
3. Mites can tell us about the historical divergence of human populations.

"If reading this made your face a little itchy, rest easy. In an evolutionary perspective, humans and Demodex are old, old friends. You are in good company. And so are your mites." [more inside]
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:06 AM PST - 25 comments

Online game retailer GOG--which started (as Good Old Games) with a focus on updating classics to run on modern computers, then branched into offering newer games DRM-free--has announced that they will start selling movies under their DRM-free model. [more inside]
posted by kagredon at 10:44 AM PST - 13 comments

[...]non-black [AirBnb] hosts earn roughly 12% more for a similar apartment with similar ratings and photos relative to black hosts. [more inside]
posted by threeants at 10:33 AM PST - 42 comments

"The new Energy Elixir and “sparkling future pop sensation” QT has finally debuted its new jingle “Hey QT” in full. It’s as if the drink’s creators, SOPHIE and A. G. Cook, harnessed the most cloying earworms and pop tropes of the 21st century, shaped them into slightly grotesque manifestations, and then teamed up with the best marketers in the business to optimize it for mass consumption. The result? A song that provides its listeners with crisp focus, pure energy, and razor-sharp reaction." [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:05 AM PST - 32 comments

I tend to measure most of my work in rent. Freelance game critics, like most freelance writers, probably measure most things in rent. I also like to measure my wellbeing in whether I can afford a bottle of Sailor Jerry that month. This only reflects a little of the type of person I am. The Sailor Jerry sort of helps to cope with the fact that I am my own worst commenter. Sailor Jerry is also very useful for coping with actual commenters and the hell of the internet.

Cara Ellison: How to write about a game.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:39 AM PST - 21 comments

A self-styled 'digital nomad' aims to create 12 startups within 12 months.
posted by mippy at 8:42 AM PST - 24 comments

André 3000 Is Moving On in Film, Music and Life [New York Times]
posted by Fizz at 8:35 AM PST - 32 comments

Gridland is a match-3 game from doublespeak games, makers of A Dark Room.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:25 AM PST - 48 comments

The Academy, by Monica Seles. Yes, that Monica Seles has written a young adult romance series. Grantland writer Brian Phillips provides "62 scalding takeaways from The Academy, by M. Seles,1 Books 1 and 2."
posted by Tevin at 8:10 AM PST - 56 comments

"If a woman is objectified in a relationship, the research indicates, it's more likely that her male partner will sexually coerce and pressure her." [more inside]
posted by flex at 8:02 AM PST - 106 comments

44 Medieval Beasts That Cannot Even Handle It Right Now [more inside]
posted by Grangousier at 7:38 AM PST - 42 comments

In a scientific study of Chinese online state censorship, Harvard researchers not only gathered large amounts of social media in real time from within the country but created a large amount themselves to see what got through and what was removed. Through this method, they reverse-engineered what they describe as "the largest selective suppression of human communication in the recorded history of any country". The results, to use a popular term, will surprise you. [more inside]
posted by Devonian at 7:04 AM PST - 31 comments

Notice that cute girl on campus? Like to know her better? Why not give her a hand?
posted by pjern at 6:58 AM PST - 48 comments

"It involved four international teams and an empty stadium, no ticket sales and yet the game was (open) for betting," Steans explains. "I sat and watched match fixers with a briefcase full of cash to pay the referees."
posted by josher71 at 6:56 AM PST - 4 comments

Ikea migrated from product photography to digital rendering in V-Ray and Max so 75% of its catalog is virtual - down to the afternoon sunlight filtering through soft NORDIS curtains across SLÄTTEN floors near that framed BILD print resting against the BILLY bookcases...
posted by viggorlijah at 3:26 AM PST - 70 comments

V Martineau Illustration: The Miracle of Trees, Sciencia Illustrations, Levels Of Complexity, Plants, The Paper Birch Tree, Why The Sky Is Far Away [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:15 PM PST - 4 comments

What's better than reading a judge ruthlessly dismantling arguments against marriage equality? Hearing the judge's own voice as he makes lawyers arguing for Indiana's and Wisconsin's bans on same-sex marriage look like fools. Previously.
posted by ogooglebar at 6:25 PM PST - 91 comments

Women as Background Decoration: Part 2 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games (28 min 33 sec; here's a pointer to the identical video at YouTube). Warning: contains graphic sexual and violent game footage. Presented by Anita Sarkeesian of the video blog, Feminist Frequency. The website version (first link) is annotated to include links and resources, an "about the series" section, games referenced in this episode, and a transcript. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:11 PM PST - 396 comments

Christine R. Yano is an anthropologist from the University of Hawaii (and currently a visiting professor at Harvard) who has spent years studying the phenomenon that is Hello Kitty. When Yano was preparing her written texts for the exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum, she says she described Hello Kitty as a cat. "I was corrected — very firmly," she says. [more inside]
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 5:53 PM PST - 74 comments

The sliding rocks of Racetrack Playa [previously, previously] have finally been observed in motion!
posted by moonmilk at 5:33 PM PST - 27 comments

The origins, the story and the purposes of the Orixa traditions and practices of Brazil have made Candomblé very careful about what it openly reveals and how it shows itself.
Candomblé has had a fundamental role in preserving and nurturing Afro-Brazilian traditions (Video 7 mins) throughout the history of colonial and modern Brazil.
The Believers are stepping out of the shadows and remembering their past with it's distinctive spirtuality and ritual which is at the root of modern samba.
Candomblé rituals in Brazil were illegal until believers fused their religion with some Catholic beliefs and traditions. Social exclusion, to which the black population was subjected in Rio de Janeiro led to intensification in the development and practice of Afro-Brazilian religion and Samba as it is known today. Here exemplified by Gilberto Gil and Clara Nunes
posted by adamvasco at 5:12 PM PST - 4 comments

(SLTheGuardian) "This is an exhilarating time to be alive. All our efforts, all our resources, our consumption and tastes are maxing out in unison. Everything is hitting its peak."
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:44 PM PST - 34 comments

Talking to women about their vaginas and men about their dicks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:27 PM PST - 38 comments

(Trigger warning) Systemic child sex abuse over at least a decade in Rotherham, involving an estimated 1400 victims. Timeline from the BBC. More news from the Guardian.. Most of the victims were white girls, many of the perpetrators were Asian men. Independent report published this week.
posted by mgrrl at 3:36 PM PST - 72 comments

The drought in California and the American West is bad. Really bad. And it could get worse. The rich have their own plans.
posted by gwint at 3:20 PM PST - 82 comments

In Memphis in the early 1950s, young Elvis Presley would sometimes help out the upstairs neighbors, Rabbi Fruchter and his family, by acting as a "Shabbos goy," -- that is, by doing tasks that Jews may not do on the Sabbath. (The rabbi's son Harold, then a toddler, recalls the arrangement in an audio interview.) Yet Elvis knew he had some Jewish forebears. Tablet Magazine notes that his "great great maternal grandmother was Jewish and had a daughter who had a daughter who had a daughter that was Elvis’s mother." Though he embraced Christianity, he often used to wear a Chai necklace (sometimes paired with a cross), saying "I don't want to miss out on going to heaven on a technicality." In that spirit, a Hasidic Elvis impersonator named Dan Hartal, aka "Schmelvis," recently recited Kaddish at Graceland and traveled to Israel to plant a tree in Elvis's memory.
posted by GrammarMoses at 2:34 PM PST - 13 comments

"These are nude portraits in the sense that I, the photographer, am nude, while the subject is not."
posted by DarlingBri at 2:20 PM PST - 21 comments

His nickname was "The Glue." Coinciding with the unveiling of his star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, Grantland takes a closer look at one of the most celebrated comedic actors of the 80s and 90s known primarily for supporting roles: Phil Hartman. [more inside]
posted by joechip at 12:52 PM PST - 46 comments

Why are Stars Star-Shaped? A SLYT of one of the innumerable little educational youtube channels explaining something that always fascinated me. [more inside]
posted by DigDoug at 10:38 AM PST - 16 comments

Last night, Kate Bush performed her first concert in 35 years at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. She last toured in 1979, following the release of Lionheart. "Not since the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited for a one-off show in 2007 has there been such hype over a comeback." - The Guardian. Last week, BBC 4 released an hour-long documentary called The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill that reflects on Bush’s long and enigmatic career. It features appearances from Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Tori Amos, Annie Clark, Big Boi, Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Kahn, and more. Vimeo link. Guardian review.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:47 AM PST - 58 comments

Galt's Gulch Chile is (was) meant to be a modern and real-world replica of Ayn Rand's objectivist hide-out in Atlas Shrugged. Wealthy investors (or at least folks with a lot of bitcoin) envisioned a protected libertarian community where they could ride out the impending social and financial downfall of American society. Unfortunately for those taken in by the project, it appears now that the whole enterprise was a greed-driven scam.
posted by stinkfoot at 9:39 AM PST - 183 comments

David Chase finally answers the question he wants fans to quit asking. (Agita warning: spoilers. Whaddya, nuts? ) [more inside]
posted by scody at 9:25 AM PST - 132 comments

"You may think you know what a snowball is. That conical treat of chunky ice where all of the flavor drips out of the bottom of a paper triangle? Nope, that's a snowcone. That fruity, pureed ice that you have to scrape with a wooden spoon? Nope, that's Italian ice. Or maybe the fluffy bowl of ice with condensed milk on top? Wrong again—that's Hawaiian shave ice ... A classic Baltimore snowball arrives in a Styrofoam cup: shaved ice sloshed with sweet syrup—mostly artificial flavoring and not any of that "real fruit" stuff—and typically topped with marshmallow cream. While the ice is shaved, it's not fine enough to dissolve, leaving the snowball chunky and intact enough to survive humid Baltimore summers." SeriousEats covers Baltimore's delicious regional treat, the snowball. Summertime snowballs have been a staple of the city for many, many years. A little bit of ambient snowball stand audio.
posted by codacorolla at 9:12 AM PST - 24 comments

Virtual Reality: an oral history.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:08 AM PST - 4 comments

Last week, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project uploaded a YouTube video of Laverne Cox reading a letter written by a New York State inmate named Synthia China Blast, who described living in solitary confinement for the last decade. However, that video has since, at Cox's request, been taken down. (TW: descriptions of murder, sexual violence) [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:25 AM PST - 65 comments

Don’t Want Me to Recline My Airline Seat? You Can Pay Me [New York Times]

"...airline seats are an excellent case study for the Coase Theorem. This is an economic theory holding that it doesn’t matter very much who is initially given a property right; so long as you clearly define it and transaction costs are low, people will trade the right so that it ends up in the hands of whoever values it most. That is, I own the right to recline, and if my reclining bothers you, you can pay me to stop."

posted by Fizz at 8:12 AM PST - 543 comments

Flowchart: Should you catcall her? From playboy.com. Flowchart designed by @sheastrauss. Link is NSFW (images) if you scroll all the way to the footer, or drawn silhouettes of women in the flowchart are problematic. Slightly NSFW text.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:58 AM PST - 32 comments

How rural poverty is changing: Your fate is increasingly tied to your town. (slWaPo)
posted by Kitteh at 7:17 AM PST - 26 comments

"Using contractors it calls "brand ambassadors," Uber requests rides from Lyft and other competitors, recruits their drivers, and takes multiple precautions to avoid detection. The effort, which Uber appears to be rolling out nationally, has already resulted in thousands of canceled Lyft rides and made it more difficult for its rival to gain a foothold in new markets. Uber calls the program "SLOG," and it’s a previously unreported aspect of the company’s ruthless efforts to undermine its competitors."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:15 AM PST - 92 comments

Brave and afraid and heading down the longest road [Part 1/3] The cars made a wet rushing sound as they swept past him, close enough that he could feel their motion in the air. He was certain if he tried, he could reach out and touch them. Mike Bourne stretched out both arms, fingertips extended. He was walking in the middle of the busy street. The yellow line on the pavement told him where to go. He thought of it as the yellow brick road. It would take him somewhere, he knew, somewhere beautiful. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 3:33 AM PST - 16 comments

The Taser Photoshoot: Portraits of People's Faces When Hit With A Stun Gun by Patrick Hall [Possibly NSFW]
posted by chavenet at 1:31 AM PST - 33 comments

"There’s a wonderful term used by anthropologists: “osteobiography,” the “biography of the bones.” Kennewick Man’s osteobiography tells a tale of an eventful life, which a newer radiocarbon analysis puts at having taken place 8,900 to 9,000 years ago. He was a stocky, muscular man about 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds. He was right-handed. His age at death was around 40." After years of legal wrangling and scientific arguments, Smithsonian Magazine takes on the history of the Kennewick Man and the long-awaited publication of studies co-edited by physical anthropologist Douglas Owsley (of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History's Anthropology department.) [more inside]
posted by jetlagaddict at 11:27 PM PST - 14 comments

Wired 'Senior Maverick' Kevin Kelly suggests: Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 10:52 PM PST - 45 comments

The highlight of Monday Night's Emmy Awards telecast was (MeFi's Beloved) Weird Al Yankovic performing a medley of the lyrics that popular shows' theme songs SHOULD have. (With Very Special Guest Andy Samberg as 'Joffrey' making a very special presentation to George R. R. Martin in the audience... that [SPOILER] apparently was NOT poisoned)
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:50 PM PST - 76 comments

A timeline of diseases and vaccines [warning: graphic photo of cutaneous diphtheria at year 1975]. Categories are: diphtheria, measles, polio, smallpox, yellow fever, and 'others'. You can select one keyword to view only that subject's timeline. From the History of Vaccines website (about page | FAQ). Similar timelines at the same site for pioneers, science and society, and there's an En Español timeline, too. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:06 PM PST - 22 comments

Michelle Lyons has witnessed 278 executions in Texas, first in her role as a reporter, and then as part of her job in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Texas Monthly has a long, fascinating profile.
posted by Charity Garfein at 3:54 PM PST - 24 comments

Patrick Cockburn a Middle East correspondent since 1979 has a couple of new articles:
Isis consolidates and The Underrated Saudi Connection, Why Washington’s War on Terror Failed.
posted by adamvasco at 3:13 PM PST - 384 comments

Bees & Bombs is a tumblr of hypnotic GIF animations programmed by Dublin-based physics student Dave Whyte
posted by Mr. Six at 2:34 PM PST - 19 comments

Illegal Weapons Used in Wrestling Death Match (slyt). Not the 'Most Illegal Thing I've Seen in the History of Wrestling', but still good. The pain is visceral. So, so visceral.
posted by Capt. Renault at 2:29 PM PST - 36 comments

Former Virginia Tech professor Steven Salaita's blocked appointment to teach at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has ignited a debate over academic freedom. [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 1:52 PM PST - 601 comments

After customers started requesting it, Arby's started selling an off-menu item called the Meat Mountain. It costs $10, and has some of every meat Arby's sells. Naturally, pictures are popping up on twitter. Hungry?
posted by Curious Artificer at 1:43 PM PST - 122 comments

On Aug. 26, 1920, with the formal adoption of the 19th Amendment, women won the right to vote. Now, a newly discovered collection of Susan B. Anthony letters will help show how. 'The letters were written by Anthony to her “most cherished young lieutenant” Rachel Foster Avery from 1881 through the turn of the century. Acquired last week by the University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries, the historic collection will help bring to life the suffrage movement through the eyes of two of its most important members. Anthony and Avery were connected through the National Woman Suffrage Association and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The new collection includes more than 60 autographed and typed letters, signed cabinet cards and photographs, and other related material.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 12:50 PM PST - 22 comments

Fanvids have come a long way since Kandy Fong's first proto-vids/slideshows in the 1970s-1980s. Vidder lim provides a great example of how far the form has come. Her recent Marvel Cinematic Universe vids Expo (Iron Man), Marvel (MCU), and Time (Captain America 2) are gorgeous examples of vids at their best. [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 12:04 PM PST - 17 comments

"International fast food behemoth Burger King Worldwide Inc. confirmed Tuesday that it will pay about $11 billion to buy Canadian chain Tim Hortons Inc., which sells coffee, donuts, and other breakfast food fare. The deal would merge America's second-largest burger chain, which is valued at nearly $10 billion, with the Canadian equivalent to Dunkin' Donuts, which is valued at more than $8 billion. It would also move the new company's headquarters to Canada, where corporate taxes are significantly lower." [more inside]
posted by flex at 11:34 AM PST - 218 comments

Inside the Art Department at The Onion.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:43 AM PST - 11 comments

A monster mouth doorway, ruined pyramid temples and palace remains emerged from the Mexican jungle as archaeologists unearthed two ancient Mayan cities.
posted by Pr0t35t3r at 10:27 AM PST - 24 comments

Crazy Selfie From Hong Kong Skyscraper [16 second SLYT || some context || #exthetics]
posted by milquetoast at 10:21 AM PST - 36 comments

Ever wanted an IMDB but for guns? Welcome to the IMFDB - The Internet Movie Database of Guns The IMDB [Internet Movie Database] is 23 years old this year. Launched in 1990, and filled with cast/crew info as well as trivia and goofs it is the go to location for film information online. But did you know that the IMFDB [Internet Movie Firearms Database] is the place to go to get the most comprehensive information on any firearms used in media? [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 8:42 AM PST - 27 comments

US states, ranked by beer.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:41 AM PST - 65 comments

this is an album of men and women wearing very similar outfits placed side by side for comparison. I tried to find fits that not only had the same colour palette, but the same clothing cut/style as well. Most images were taken from Pinterest - I just pinned outfits that I thought would transfer well to the opposite gender and started matching. Some resemblances are better than others, but I think the individual touches are what make some fits more characteristically masculine or feminine.

via /r/femalefashionadvice
posted by rebent at 8:39 AM PST - 45 comments

In the southern portion of China there is an expansive karst landscape, formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. The region is home to the South China Karst UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is actually seven different notable features, as well as the visually impressive Moon Hill, some of China's supercaves, and Xiaozhai Tiankeng, the world's deepest sinkhole. You can climb Moon Hill, but it's best to plan ahead. You can also explore China's great caves, but it is necessary to explore between October-November and February-March to avoid the monsoon seasons, and getting down Xiaozhai Tiankeng requires a lot of gear. You can read more about the Tiankengs (giant dolines or sinkholes) in the karst of China (PDF).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:36 AM PST - 6 comments

Hervé This: The world’s weirdest chef [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:15 AM PST - 6 comments

A father finds pornographic websites in his 9-year-old son's browser history in a surprisingly charming and amusing first-person essay: “I know you were looking at porn.” A silence hung in the air between us as I tried to figure out where to go from there. He looked at me, eyebrows up and eyes wide open, on alert for whatever would come next. The past winter had torn up the road, and his still baby-fatted cheeks bounced along with the car as we headed back towards our house. The anticipation of my response was clearly getting to him. “Are you gonna say anything else?” “To be honest, I hadn’t really thought this far ahead,” I told him. “I only planned as far as this, telling you I knew.” [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:09 AM PST - 156 comments

Lena Dunham writes about her childhood anxieties, and growing up in therapy. (SLNewYorker)
posted by magstheaxe at 6:42 AM PST - 131 comments

92 Gears is a lovely, hypnotic animated GIF. Ball Bearings in a Hypersphere is a mathematical discussion of its generalizations.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:54 AM PST - 22 comments

Dust. A short film starring Alan Rickman.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 10:51 PM PST - 15 comments

Photographer Nick Bower captures portraits of varying scientists contemplating global warming.
posted by xammerboy at 7:53 PM PST - 22 comments

Kittens Game
posted by oceanjesse at 7:22 PM PST - 666 comments

Entomologist and photographer Alex Wild on the process of photographing a funnel-web spider: These Spider Fangs Aren’t Going To Photograph Themselves. "Most photographs involve some combination of creativity and constraint, and this one was no different." [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:06 PM PST - 47 comments

In honor of Saturday Night Live's 40th season, Grantland has been publishing an ongoing series of essays, remembrances, podcasts, and interviews, as well as asking you to cast your votes in The Battle for the Best SNL Cast Member. (They're already down to the final eight; sorry, your favorite cast member has already been eliminated.)
posted by not_on_display at 6:56 PM PST - 85 comments

Unknown orange/red glow over Pacific Ocean "Then, very far in the distance ahead of us, just over the horizon an intense lightflash shot up from the ground. It looked like a lightning bolt, but way more intense and directed vertically up in the air. I have never seen anything like this, and there were no flashes before or after this single explosion of light." [more inside]
posted by gen at 6:53 PM PST - 60 comments

"Hollywood's pathological fear of being political has made them blind to the changes that women's friendships have undergone over the last forty years. We're so far past women's relationships revolving around men that no one is even offended by the suggestion that women have relationships that don't revolve around men. Bridesmaids was a smash among women AND men, and so was [Paul] Feig's follow-up, The Heat, another female driven, non-romantic comedy." (Hat-tip: Mick LaSalle) [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:52 PM PST - 46 comments

You’re allowed to make art with male gaze. But please call a spade a spade. "I don’t think I’ve seen a single page of Dresden Codak that doesn’t feature a woman posed in a male-gazey way, with loving focus on her ass or cleavage, or wearing a sexual costume, or in some situation that puts her in a compromising position (like the most recent page in which Kimiko’s clothing is burned off of her body, which has happened at least twice in the series’ run.) I have a very hard time believing that these details are accidental." [more inside]
posted by moonlight on vermont at 5:43 PM PST - 119 comments

The Feynman Lectures on Physics All three volumes of The Feynman Lectures on Physics are now online. A fantastic resource for anyone interested in Feynman or physics in general. (Previously, when the first volume was available.)
posted by citizenoftheworld at 3:48 PM PST - 23 comments

Every second, a few people on Spotify hit "play" on the same track at the same time. via waxy
posted by graventy at 3:19 PM PST - 34 comments

Angelica Paez is a Texas-based collage artist whose works are wonderfully surreal and weird. She is also a collaborator in the decades-long One Thousand Thousand project, which aims to produce one million hand-made, original artworks.
posted by Mr. Six at 2:28 PM PST - 4 comments

Stack Exchange No Context collects all the weird and funny questions from the Q&A network. Viaby Mefi's own chrismear.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:13 PM PST - 25 comments

On this day one hundred years ago, Imperial German soldiers who had peacefully arrived in the Belgian city of Leuven (Fr: Louvain), having taken hostages and accepted the parole of its mayor on behalf of its citizens, without warning set fire to the city and massacred its inhabitants forever altering the city, its university's library, and the course of the war.

Belgian Judicial Report on the Sacking of Louvain in August 1914

The destruction and rebuilding of the Louvain Library: claim and counterclaim

[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 1:50 PM PST - 13 comments

Gerald Horne is the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He is a prolific author whose most recent book is The Counter-Revolution of 1776: : Slave Resistance & the Origins of the United States of America (published by NYU Press; available on Google Books). From the publisher's description:

The so-called Revolutionary War, Horne writes, was in large part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their liberty to enslave others—and which today takes the form of a racialized conservatism and a persistent racism targeting the descendants of the enslaved.

Early in the book, Horne writes:

The construction of 'whiteness' or the forging of bonds between and among European settlers across class, gender, ethnic, and religious lines was a concrete response to the real dangers faced by all of these migrants in the face of often violent rebellions from enslaved Africans and their indigenous comrades.

He recently sat down with Paul Jay of the Real News Network for the show Reality Asserts Itself. The result is a far-ranging discussion that covers his youth growing up in Jim Crow era St. Louis, his personal and intellectual development, pre-revolutionary America and the lucrative business of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Civil rights movement. The interview concludes by bringing us back to recent events, including the recent chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York, and the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. [more inside]
posted by mondo dentro at 1:20 PM PST - 14 comments

If your cryptography predates The Fresh Prince, you need better cryptography. With recognition of the need for secure communication standards finally going mainstream, crypto researcher and Johns Hopkins University professor Matthew Green takes a hard look at the de facto standard everyone is jumping on, and suggests that we can and should do a lot better. [more inside]
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:16 PM PST - 23 comments

The Wire's Greatest Line Every 'Simpsons' Character Ever Delivered
posted by ellieBOA at 12:58 PM PST - 173 comments

Then and now in New Orleans as the ninth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches. This time it might not hurt to read the comments.
posted by Anitanola at 12:08 PM PST - 18 comments

Award winning Texas brewery Austin Beerworks has announced a revolutionary new packaging option for their Peacemaker Anytime Ale - the 99 pack. It's real, and only $99.
posted by dirtdirt at 11:48 AM PST - 32 comments

Perhaps the fundamental description of the universe does not include the concepts of “mass” and “length,” implying that at its core, nature lacks a sense of scale. 'Supersymmetry posits the existence of a missing twin particle for every particle found in nature.' But there's 'one big problem with supersymmetry: in the particle physics that is observed in today's accelerators, every boson most definitely does NOT have a matching fermion with the same mass and charge. So if supersymmetry is a symmetry of Nature, it must somehow be broken.' 'Scale symmetry[warning: slow-loading pdf], constitutes a radical departure from long-standing assumptions about how elementary particles acquire their properties. 'With their field stuck at a nasty impasse,' 'researchers have returned to the master equations that describe the known particles and their interactions, and are asking: What happens when you erase the terms in the equations having to do with mass and length?' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 11:39 AM PST - 25 comments

"Even as a very small boy I was utterly fascinated by animals of every kind." Shortly before his 19th birthday in December 1957, Bob Goulding accompanied Gerald Durrell on an animal collecting trip to Cameroon. "Our trip to Cameroon, which lasted around six months, is the subject of Durrell’s book ‘A Zoo in my Luggage’, published in 1960 by Rupert Hart-Davis. I am Durrell’s ‘young assistant Bob’ in the book." This was neither the beginning nor the end of a life-long involvement and fascination with tropical natural history which saw Goulding later take over management of the zoo attached to the Department of Zoology of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1963. Now retired back to Bristol, he keeps a personal website which contains a fascinating record of those pioneering years. Particularly poignant is the story of the two gorillas, Aruna and Imade, from their capture by hunters to the years of their maturity. Under Golding's leadership Ibadan Zoo became an early and exemplary instance of zoo habitat design. The website contains an account of building the gorilla enclosure; a heartfelt acknowledgement of his former staff; letters from past visitors, now grown up; stories of research and collecting; a snapshot of Nigeria in the 60's and 70's; an overview of local fauna; and lots and lots of photographs! Also, hairy frogs (don't look at them.)
posted by glasseyes at 11:21 AM PST - 11 comments

You invest so much in it, don't you? It's what elevates you above the beasts of the field, it's what makes you special. Homo sapiens, you call yourself. Wise Man. Do you even know what it is, this consciousness you cite in your own exaltation? Do you even know what it's for?

Dr. Peter Watts is no stranger to MetaFilter. But look past his sardonic nuptials, heartbreaking eulogies, and agonizing run-ins with fascists (and fasciitis) and you'll find one of the most brilliant, compelling, and disquieting science fiction authors at work today. A marine biologist skilled at deep background research, his acclaimed 2006 novel Blindsight [full text] -- a cerebral "first contact" tale led by a diverse crew of bleeding-edge post-humans -- is diamond-hard and deeply horrifying, wringing profound existential dread from such abstruse concepts as the Chinese Room, the Philosophical Zombie, Chernoff faces, and the myriad quirks and blind spots that haunt the human mind. But Blindsight's last, shattering insight is not the end of the story -- along with crew/ship/"Firefall" notes, a blackly funny in-universe lecture on resurrecting sociopathic vampirism (PDF - prev.), and a rigorously-cited (and spoiler-laden) reference section, tomorrow will see the release of Dumbspeech State of Grace Echopraxia [website], the long-delayed "sidequel" depicting parallel events on Earth. Want more? Look inside for a guide to the rest of Watts' award-winning (and provocative) body of work. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 11:17 AM PST - 82 comments

A profile of classicist Mary Beard, and, among other things, her decision to confront sexist detractors online. "The real issue, she suggested, is not merely guaranteeing a woman’s right to speak; it is being aware of the prejudices that we bring to the way we hear her. Listening, she implied, is an essential element of speech."
posted by OmieWise at 10:43 AM PST - 22 comments

what IS country music? Tensions have been brewing and there’s been no shortage of public feuding among the genre’s A-list. As country fights to figure out what it should look and sound like, its biggest stars are airing some very honest (and sometimes harsh) opinions. Here’s a timeline of country’s wild, crazy, and sometimes mud-slinging year. [more inside]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:29 AM PST - 95 comments

This Is What Happens To Your Heart When You Dive Into The Sea

Human blood has a chemical composition 98% similar to seawater. An infant will reflexively breaststroke when placed underwater and can comfortably hold his breath for about 40 seconds, longer than many adults. We lose this ability only when we learn how to walk.

posted by dame at 9:28 AM PST - 38 comments

On March 15, 1969, The Velvet Underground played its last show of a three-day engagement at The Boston Tea Party in Boston, Massachusetts. The entire set was recorded by a fan directly from Lou Reed's guitar amplifier. "Reed’s guitar is, of course, way up front and the rest of the band is barely audible. The result is a mighty electronic roar that reveals the depth and layers of Reed’s playing. Over and undertones, feedback, string buzz, the scratch of fingers on frets and the crackle and hum of tube amps combine to create a monolithic blast of metal machine music." - Head Heritage.

Previously available on a bootleg CD, The Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes has finally made it to vinyl, courtesy of Tummy Tapes. Check out one of the most unique VU boots in existence. [more inside]
posted by porn in the woods at 9:27 AM PST - 10 comments

"Finally. A girlfriend your family can believe in." "Invisible Girlfriend gives you real-world and social proof that you’re in a relationship - even if you’re not - so you can get back to living life on your own terms." [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:10 AM PST - 49 comments

Why the Ice Bucket Challenge is bad for you: "The ALS campaign may be a great way to raise money – but it is a horrible reason to donate it" [more inside]
posted by flex at 9:00 AM PST - 149 comments

What Happens When 'The Simpsons' Becomes Dad Humor? With a ratings-smashing marathon running on FXX and a streaming app due to launch in October, perhaps now is the time to ask an impertinent question: When will The Simpsons become passé? Culture has moved on from The Simpsons, despite the show’s unwillingness to pass into comedy Valhalla. In other words, Simpsons is becoming dad humor: structures so well trod that they can never again surprise, no matter how perfectly crafted. The aesthetic earmarks of this mid-90s humor juggernaut are becoming as antiquated as puns and pies-in-the-face.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:56 AM PST - 107 comments

YouTube theater critic Iain Armitage has never given a bad review. He's six years old. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:41 AM PST - 4 comments

The New York Times calls David Mitchell's new novel, "The Bone Clocks," his most ambitious novel. This is significant because his other novels are fairly ambitious. [more inside]
posted by entropone at 8:11 AM PST - 24 comments

'It’s hard to describe what Fernet Branca tastes like; it mostly tastes like Fernet Branca.' Fernet Branca is a kind of fernet, themselves a classifcation of amaro, bitter Italian digestifs. The Fernet Hot House: Don't Let Hipsters Ruin It For You [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:54 AM PST - 52 comments

The second televised debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling is to be shown across the UK tonight. After a lacklustre first debate, the final days of the referendum campaign are ticking down. There are signs of growing momentum for the Yes side, with undecideds moving to Yes in some polls and the 'Yes Declaration' recently hitting a million signatures. But the Better Together campaign still has some heavy hitters on side, with Sir Ian Wood recently casting doubt on oil extraction figures he had previously agreed with. [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave at 7:21 AM PST - 218 comments

Someone once asked me why "alpha males" were so popular in so much romantic speculative fiction, and I hesitated to answer it. Not because I didn't know, but because I knew I was going to have to have a discussion about teasing out the difference between finding pleasure in something you genuinely find pleasurable and taking pleasure in something you think you're supposed to find pleasurable.

Kameron Hurley talks about Gender, Family, Nookie: The Speculative Frontier.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:21 AM PST - 7 comments

Fareed Zakaria has been taken to task for plagiarism by twitter users @blippoblappo and @crushingbort on their website Our Bad Media. (1) Did CNN, The Washington Post and Time actually check Fareed Zakaria's work for plagiarism? (2) How and why lying about plagiarism is bad - a response to Fareed Zakaria and Fred Hiatt (3) The Paste American World: How Fareed Zakaria plagiarized in his international bestseller (and the magazines he used to run) (4) Our Bad Media previously on Metafilter.
posted by josher71 at 5:55 AM PST - 105 comments

"The Way They Were" [Vimeo] Punk and New Wave 1976 - 1978. Channel 4 UK programme first broadcast circa 1984 / 1985-ish. Hosted by the late Tony Wilson, it's a compilation of performances by bands taken from his previous TV shows in the late 70's, such as So It Goes. [more inside]
posted by maupuia at 1:59 AM PST - 18 comments

The Aftershocks Seven of Italy’s top scientists were convicted of manslaughter after a catastrophic earthquake. What the hell happened in L’Aquila?
posted by gottabefunky at 10:31 PM PST - 31 comments

Three and a half years after the most devastating nuclear accident in a generation, Fukushima Daiichi is still in crisis. Some 6,000 workers, somehow going about their jobs despite the suffocating gear they must wear for hours at a time, struggle to contain the damage. So much radiation still pulses inside the crippled reactor cores that no one has been able to get close enough to survey the full extent of the destruction.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:39 PM PST - 68 comments

776 - 778 - 780 [via mefi projects]
posted by oceanjesse at 6:33 PM PST - 26 comments

Known to one generation as Bartlett in The Great Escape and to another generation as John Hammond in Jurassic Park (plus many roles in between), actor Richard Attenborough has died at the age of 90.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:10 PM PST - 67 comments

Tomorrow is a long time
Suze and The Twerp
Ballad In Plain D – Bob and Suze
We were both overly sensitive and needed shelter from the storm
Previously: I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:41 PM PST - 2 comments

Is Kink a Sexual Orientation?
BDSM As A Sexual Orientation, and Complications of the Orientation Model
SL Letters of the Day: Coming Out Kinky & BDSM as a Sexual Orientation
A conversation about kink with Natalie Zina Walschots
posted by davidstandaford at 3:54 PM PST - 160 comments

In 1942, the US and Mexican governments created the Bracero Agreement, allowing Mexican agricultural workers to come into the United States for a limited time, to provide farm workers while the US was involved in World War II. The program was extended as a series of a series of laws and diplomatic agreements that finally ended in 1964. Probably the most famous popular memorial to the broad program was a poem by Woodie Guthrie, "the last great song he would write," after hearing about a plane crash in Los Gatos, which was reported as a flight full of nameless "deportees." A decade later, a young school teacher/folk singer named Martin (or Marty) Hoffman put the words to music, and Pete Seeger made the song popular, with numerous covers performed and recorded since. 65 years after the crash, those "deportees" were finally named, and that tombstone for "28 Mexican citizens" replaced with the names of those who died. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:00 PM PST - 7 comments

30 year ago last week, on August 18, 1984, Careless Whisper reached the top spot on the UK music charts, ending Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 9-week reign with their single Two Tribes. The debut solo track from George Michael, it ushered in the career of a global music superstar that continues to this day. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:16 PM PST - 76 comments

When I took a closer look I realised I caved in half his face.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:50 PM PST - 70 comments

"EPA defines environmental justice (EJ) as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies." To effectively address EJ concerns, the Agency recognizes that communities must be the driver for local solutions. However, far too many communities lack the capacity to truly affect their environmental conditions." [more inside]
posted by xarnop at 12:33 PM PST - 4 comments

In 1972, long before eBay or Amazon, students from Stanford University in California and MIT in Massachusetts conducted the first ever ecommerce transaction. Using the "Arpa-net" account at their artificial intelligence lab, the Stanford students sold their counterparts a small amount of marijuana. Ever since, the net has turned over a steady but small trade in illicit narcotics. But last year approximately 20 per cent of UK drug users scored online. The majority of them went to one place: the dark net markets. [more inside]
posted by bookman117 at 10:37 AM PST - 35 comments

Pierce Brosnan Plays GoldenEye 007 with Jimmy Fallon [SLYT] Jimmy Fallon fulfills a childhood dream by playing the Nintendo 64 video game GoldenEye 007 against former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan.
posted by Fizz at 8:53 AM PST - 54 comments

Buzzfeed reports: The Life and Death of 22 year old Karyn Washington, creator of the "For Brown Girls" blog and the #darkskinredlip project.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:31 AM PST - 41 comments

If white characters were described like people of color in literature. (SLBuzzfeed)
posted by erstwhile ungulate at 7:45 AM PST - 112 comments

Fifteen years after "The Death of Cinema", Matt Zoller Seitz talks with Godfrey Cheshire about his prophetic series of articles in the New York Press predicting the effects of the coming death of film and the rise of digital video.
posted by octothorpe at 6:48 AM PST - 33 comments

The Major, or Motoko Kusanagi, is the protagonist of each incarnation of the Ghost in the Shell manga-anime-merchadise franchise. If you care to google, Motoko Kusanagi is autocompletes to “a man” and “is hot,” then “in bed with a boy” and “in bed.” For a science-fiction philosophy character named for her military position, we (the audience — although I don’t limit this to those who have experienced the fiction, as the Major is iconic) sure are caught up in thinking about her gender and sexual status. Why could that be?

In a still ongoing series, Claire Napier looks at the Major's body throughout the various Ghost in the Shell mangas and anime series. NSFW, some spoilers. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 5:07 AM PST - 29 comments

Mike Myers' recent appearance on Marc Maron's WTF podcast is thoroughly entertaining. Myers is promoting his film Supermensch, but he and Maron lengthily discuss Myers' career to date. They cover Myers' TV commerical work as a child, his membership of Second City, The Comedy Store Players and Saturday Night Live, and highlights of his film career (Wayne's World, Austin Powers and Shrek). Full of delightful anecdotes and vocal impressions, it's a revealing, amusing and engaging interview.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 1:17 AM PST - 38 comments

The Moral Dilemmas of Narrative, by Bill Marvel
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:00 PM PST - 10 comments

The one that got away - a very short story about exes, by David Sedaris
posted by Mr. Six at 9:00 PM PST - 14 comments

...further, each species is shown upon its native hostplant and each composition aims to tell a story about its subject’s unique natural history.
posted by drumcorpse at 8:31 PM PST - 5 comments

Programming language subreddits and their choice of words presents an interactive chord graph showing how often particular languages are mentioned in other languages' communities. Another chart shows how proportional others' mentions are to the TIOBE Index. And some very elementary sentiment analysis suggests how often each language inspires pure theory, happiness and fun, or cursing. A tongue-in-cheek aside reveals that counting infrequently-mentioned languages yields another happiness/coolness chart that puts Elm at the top, just above other surprises.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:23 PM PST - 28 comments

How an investment by one of America's largest hedge funds helped Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's brutal longtime dictator, maintain his grip on power when he was on the verge of losing it in 2008
posted by knoyers at 5:23 PM PST - 35 comments

Email is still the best thing on the internet

Getting an email address was once a nerdy right of passage for Gen-Xers arriving on college campuses. Now, the kids are waging a war of indifference on poor old email, culling the weak and infirm old-people technology. One American professor maintained that, to his students, "e-mail was as antiquated as the spellings 'chuse' and 'musick' in the works by Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards." The vice-chancellor of Exeter University claimed, "There is no point in emailing students any more." The youth appear to think there are better, faster, more exciting ways to communicate than stupid email.

Yet, despite all the prognosticators predicting it will—choose the violence level of your metaphor—go out of style, be put out to pasture, or taken out back and shot, email grinds on.

posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:07 PM PST - 139 comments

Chicago's Jackie Robinson West Little League team just clinched the U.S. Championship in the Little League World Series, becoming the first all-African-American team to do so. They face the South Korean squad tomorrow. The team has attracted many prominent supporters, from Chicago and elsewhere.
posted by SisterHavana at 3:33 PM PST - 11 comments

Since at least the late 1950s, Walt Disney Studios had a morgue on site (auto-playing music, with option to pause), but rather than a place to temporarily keep dead bodies, the name is a reference to "morgue files" kept by newspaper reporters, where old materials were kept for reference. In 1989, the archives moved to larger, more modern facilities, renamed the Animation Research Library (ARL), a 12,000 square foot housed in a nondescript structure, which guests are required to not describe or identify by location or even neighborhood, as noted in this Telegraph article, The Jungle Book: the making of Disney's most troubled film. Given the limited access and strict controls over what can be recorded in ARL, Ultimate Disney's 2006 tour write-ups with photos and D23's Armchair Archivist interview with select Disney staff may be the closest you can get to getting inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:51 PM PST - 11 comments

I am the woman you laughed at on the internet.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:30 AM PST - 280 comments

A (fake) Pizza Hut in Japan is staffed entirely by cats.
posted by whistle pig at 10:23 AM PST - 27 comments

Stevie Nicks wants a shawl, and Stephen Fry wants a poster. The catch: Both of them want you to do it for free. Or, rather, "for the exposure." [more inside]
posted by wenat at 9:24 AM PST - 67 comments

Can U.S. Men’s Tennis Rise Again? [New York Times]
posted by Fizz at 8:48 AM PST - 3 comments

On Thursday, NASA released the names and designs of three vehicles that could replace the space shuttle as means of sending our astronauts into space. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:35 AM PST - 70 comments

And the winners are shoppers, workers, and Team Artie T. Previously. Boston-area grocery shoppers and Market Basket employees rejoice as the Demoulas families have agreed upon a settlement. An "only in Boston" story, Market Basket's history of family feuding has been resolved with the assistance of MA Governor Deval Patrick and NH Governor Maggie Hassan. [more inside]
posted by kinetic at 6:18 AM PST - 33 comments

Don't do what you love. "We rarely hear the advice of the person who did what they loved and stayed poor or was horribly injured for it. Professional gamblers, stuntmen, washed up cartoonists like myself: we don’t give speeches at corporate events. We aren’t paid to go to the World Domination Summit and make people feel bad. We don’t land book deals or speak on Good Morning America." [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 5:46 AM PST - 76 comments

Damien Walter presents 21 of the best British sci-fi (sic) writers of 2014 you probably haven't heard of.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:08 AM PST - 45 comments

A subreddit full of cats being ( amusingly) startled. ( hat tip feckless fecal fear mongering)
posted by The Whelk at 11:05 PM PST - 29 comments

Behind Claude’s Doors

In 1960s Paris she became known as the world’s most exclusive madam, whose client list was said to include John Kennedy, de Gaulle, Onassis, and multiple Rothschilds, and whose beautiful and cultivated girls often went on to marry wealth, power, and prestige. But among the many secrets Madame Claude kept, perhaps the greatest were her own. William Stadiem, who knew the elusive Claude in the 1980s, follows her trail to the South of France.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:54 PM PST - 14 comments

...the big baleen whales can be over 100 feet in length, so their reproductive tracts likely wind for several feet. That’s a vagina you could walk through. (SFW)
posted by viggorlijah at 8:27 PM PST - 30 comments

Human infants are born with a series of reflexes that help them survive -- or that helped their primate or mammalian ancestors survive, whose persistence marks their importance to primate survival. Reflexes are typically not sent to the brain; they occur along a much shorter pathway called a "reflex arc" (your doctor triggers a simple reflex arc by hitting your kneecap with a hammer; you can't control your leg kicking because the signal doesn't go to your brain but rather hits a reflex arc that is much shorter and only goes to your spinal cord) and "primitive" reflexes in infants are those that disappear and are "integrated" and overwritten by the growing nervous system. You can keep your adult knee-jerk reactions -- infants have much cooler reflexes. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:19 PM PST - 31 comments

Why We're Not Driving the Friendly Skies A number of us can thank a cartoon character from the future, George Jetson, for instilling our longing. Students of aviation history might look for inspiration to the Autoplane prototype built in 1917 by the flight pioneer Glenn Curtiss. And tens of millions of motorists who have been stuck in traffic jams stretching toward the horizon must also feel a need to know: Where are the flying cars?
posted by modernnomad at 8:14 PM PST - 25 comments

Jeff VanderMeer reflects on connections between personal experience and written SF/fantasy, including those in his own work as well as that of Angela Carter, Lev Grossman, Ann Leckie, Lauren Beukes, and Nnedi Okorafor. [more inside]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:21 PM PST - 7 comments

The Loudest Word in Rock and Roll: "In a lot of ways it's really perfect and very cool, almost gang-like: 'We are The Stooges or The Kinks or The Sisters of Mercy.' The mind-set is, 'There is only one of us and we are it and we are gonna do it our way, no mercy.'" [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:36 PM PST - 36 comments

Bryan Goldberg's site for women was doomed from the start. One year later (previously), [bustle.com is] hugely successful. What’s his secret?" (Amanda Hess for Slate)
posted by box at 5:47 PM PST - 19 comments

Adult females replace teenage boys as the largest gaming demographic.
posted by jfuller at 5:14 PM PST - 141 comments

Below you’ll find a haiku extracted from a random Supreme Court opinion.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 5:06 PM PST - 50 comments

Watch a very good YouTube video review of a Cambridge Satchel bag by Nix T., and enjoy the cat's appearance about 2 minutes in (you can hear the cat's jingle-bell collar just prior). (Cat makes valiant effort to keep appearing in that review.) A jingle-bell can be heard, once again, at the start of the follow-up video review of another Cambridge Satchel bag. Timing is everything; the cat waits until the four minute mark to video bomb its owner. Nix T. then proceeds to make use the cat by comparing its body size to his bag.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:57 PM PST - 25 comments

One Generation’s Time: The Legacy of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes (YouTube, 1 hour). The story of two activists who fought to improve the lives of Filipino workers in Alaskan canneries, their murders by members of a street gang, and the eight-year investigation that ultimately found Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos responsible for their deaths. [more inside]
posted by Banknote of the year at 3:46 PM PST - 5 comments

Victor Gama is a self-taught composer and musician who has expanded his process of composing music for himself and others to perform into creating new or modified instruments, and is also involved with traveling to hard to access regions of Angola and recording local music, as documented on his website Tsikaya: Músicos do Interior. You can read an outstanding interview of Victor with Ned Sublette for Afropop, or read more on his creation of instruments as part of his creative process, or you can experience his performances on YouTube and his music on Soundcloud. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:47 PM PST - 3 comments

Why are lawyers so unhappy? One attorney by way of explanation demonstrates exactly what his days are like in an answer pulled out and published from a larger Quora thread.
posted by shivohum at 2:47 PM PST - 45 comments

Last night's season finale of Mythbusters marked the end of an era, with the departure of Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci after a 10-year run. [more inside]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:30 PM PST - 66 comments

Tiny embroidered animals by Chloe Giordano. (via Kate Beaton)
posted by moonmilk at 2:29 PM PST - 6 comments

With the approaching end of the last Mondo Kim's Video & Music, the one on First Avenue, here's an oral history of the iconic, idiosyncratic East Village video store from its clerks and customers, including Richard Foreman, Chloe Sevigny, Andrew WK, and many more. (previously)
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:28 PM PST - 25 comments

With the English Premier League season heading into its second week, The Guardian took the opportunity to publish a strange series of pictures from photographer Ray Wright of some of the top footballers of the 1970s posing at home with their families and a few choice possessions such as vacuum cleaners, radios, moving boxes, tricycles, wallpaper, axes and globes.
posted by salishsea at 1:15 PM PST - 23 comments

On Sunday, Tina Fontaine's body was found in the Red River in Manitoba after running away from a group home. There are more than 1100 missing or murdered indigenous women in Canada, and PM Harper has said that an inquiry into this is not needed, as it is "not a sociological phenomenon [but] crime". [more inside]
posted by jeather at 1:10 PM PST - 31 comments

Celebrated writer Nalo Hopkinson blogs that the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, the largest publicly-accessible collection of sf/f genre books in the world, may be in danger, in the wake of changes in the library and university administration. The archive is housed by the library system of UC Riverside and currently hosts a biennial conference, a lifetime achievement award for celebrated writers in the genre and a student short story contest. The journal Science Fiction Studies (based at DePauw) sponsors a fellowship to promote research at the Eaton archive.
posted by aught at 12:22 PM PST - 4 comments

Puppies. Underwater.
posted by OmieWise at 11:54 AM PST - 25 comments

HiLoBrow (the "p(HiLo)sophical blog" dedicated to highbrow AND lowbrow culture, but NEVER middlebrow, seen previously here) every August does a series of posts with a "(something) Your Enthusiasm" theme. In 2011, it was Jack Kirby for "Kirb Your Enthusiasm", in 2012, it was Captain Kirk for "Kirk Your Enthusiasm", in 2013, it was Very Old School Hip-Hop for "Herc* Your Enthusiasm" and this year, it's a mini-essay a day about specific typefaces: "KERN YOUR ENTHUSIASM". [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:12 AM PST - 18 comments

A serial killer of cities is wandering about the planet. Its name is UNESCO, and its weapon is the “World Heritage” designation
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:02 AM PST - 79 comments

Tea Partiers say you don’t understand them because you don’t understand American history. That’s probably true, but not in the way they want you to think. The Weekly Sift examines the origins and beliefs of the Tea Party movement, tying it back to the Lost Cause movement. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:59 AM PST - 94 comments

Feeling nostalgic for those Read Along Adventure books of your youth? Well, this site has you covered with vintage audio files paired with Flash animation of the books (so you don't even need to turn the pages). List of titles here. Of course, if you're looking for the same format but with a harder edge, the Space Monkey X Audio Workshop just recently started creating their own based on "R" Rated films of the time. Their first project? John Carpenter's The Thing.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:13 AM PST - 19 comments

The Rite of Spring + Cups = Cup song Rite of Spring

See also
posted by Thomas Tallis is my Homeboy at 9:46 AM PST - 14 comments

Oscar Peterson interviews Joe Pass and Count Basie for his 1980 show "Words and Music." [more inside]
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:59 AM PST - 3 comments

In the imagination of a young Parisian named Pablo Padovani there’s a land called Moo. It’s a fantastical place that celebrates nature, the elements, romanticism and sweets [NSFW]. “I think you may like it if you like childhood, sex, dreams and surrealism,” Padovani [says]. “It’s a pornographic episode of Teletubbies mixed with Lord of the Rings.[...]The disc (Le Monde Möö by MOODOÏD) is a walk in the world Möö. This is a soft world made of cream hills and Turkish delight mountains. There are also Camembert mattresses and waterfalls of wine. This is a great, epic adventure."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:03 AM PST - 9 comments

Omni Presents: The Top 10 Dune Art Tumblr Like Sites.
posted by griphus at 6:55 AM PST - 15 comments

If pop culture treated men the same way it treats women. I know you're all way too cool for Cracked but I thought this was both hilarious and on point.
posted by phunniemee at 6:45 AM PST - 91 comments

George Lawler always knew his father was a criminal — his mug shot had been on New York City’s most wanted list in 1962. What he did not know was that his father had been a muse, of sorts, for Andy Warhol. 13 Most Wanted Men was installed by April 15, 1964 at The World's Fair site in Queens, NY. Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller had the work painted over before the Fair opened to the public.
posted by R. Mutt at 5:23 AM PST - 6 comments

Reviews of classic books, culled from the internet's think tank.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:20 AM PST - 64 comments

A federal judge has struck down Florida's state constitutional ban against gay marriage. Four state justices have previously struck down the ban, but U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle became the first federal judge to rule the Sunshine State's ban unconstitutional. [more inside]
posted by none of these will bring disaster at 1:47 AM PST - 36 comments

Aphex Twin announces new album SYRO via the deep web! Richard D James uses deep web browser Tor to announce SYRO, his first album since Drukqs in 2001. [more inside]
posted by gideonswann at 12:13 AM PST - 22 comments

The more we learn about the emotions shared by all mammals, the more we must rethink our own human intelligence [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:38 PM PST - 69 comments

Do you like games with awkward controls and physics? Do you dream of playing QWOP against your friends? Well, Mount Your Friends is just right for you! [more inside]
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:01 PM PST - 12 comments

"A great nightclub with amazing DJs, virgin drinks made with love, and hopefully an exciting atmosphere. It will be just like any club in Berlin, London, or Ibiza - minus the drunks." Stockholm's new nightclub Sober.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:57 PM PST - 48 comments

Things You Only Know When Both Your Parents Are Dead
posted by flex at 7:36 PM PST - 91 comments

Watch Jim Henson's colorful animation of jazz drummer Chico Hamilton's piece, "Drums West".
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:37 PM PST - 12 comments

"When do women in Ireland get to say 'no'? Today we find out that the answer is 'never', not really – not if a man has other ideas and the state decides to enforce his use of a woman's body." [Warning: may be triggering.] New Statesman, "Violation after violation: why did Ireland force a woman on hunger strike to bear her rapist's child?" [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:54 PM PST - 148 comments

Today, there are new brewers in London diving straight in at the deep end, creating beers with wild yeasts, aggressive hops and whisky barrel ageing. Some of them are exceptional. Many are indifferent, and some are plain bad. Some of these cocky rebels could learn a thing or two from the bland brands they rail against: just as Picasso proved he was a master of painting human figures before he evolved into his unique abstract style, any new brewer should prove they can brew a fault-free, balanced lager or pale ale before they earn the right to tackle the hard stuff.

Pete Brown: in defence of bland lagers.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:37 PM PST - 139 comments

Hüsker Dü's landmark double LP hits its third decade this summer. "Nobody was prepared for Hüsker Dü‘s Zen Arcade. It didn’t sound like any other album slapped with the "punk" tag. It didn’t even sound like any other music being made in 1984. Zen Arcade was a double album released in an era when two-record sets were reserved for bloated and pointless live records or even more bloated and pointless “artistic statements” put out by artists with way too much creative freedom. Plus, it’s a concept album — the hoariest of ’70s music shackles. But Zen Arcade was different — a punk-based double album that wasn’t very punk at times. It wasn’t very focused either, moving from folk and pop to jazz and classic rock." - diffuser.fm

The sky's the limit on this chartered trip away. [more inside]
posted by porn in the woods at 3:24 PM PST - 35 comments

Women in India face a whole host of period taboos such as sleeping apart from their husbands, not washing their hair, not touching jars of pickled foods, and not making cheese curd. Most women are too embarrassed to be seen purchasing sanitary napkins or even watching commercials for them. Napkin manufacturer, Whisper, has launched a campaign by addressing the taboo subject head on. So, go ahead and touch the pickle! [more inside]
posted by Foam Pants at 2:37 PM PST - 26 comments

The butt-shakingly over the top video for Nicki Minaj's Anaconda (Previously) was released recently and while there's been discussion if it re-claims the twerk or refuses the male gaze, video artist Jeff Osborne has put the song into its 90s "Baby's Got Back" pop culture context with appearances by Jessica Rabbit, Beavis And Butthead, and more. (all videos quite NSFW) [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 2:30 PM PST - 128 comments

What Should A 4-Year-Old Know? "She should know how to laugh, act silly, be goofy and use her imagination. She should know that it is always OK to paint the sky orange and give cats six legs. He should know his own interests and be encouraged to follow them. If he couldn't care less about learning his numbers, his parents should realize he'll learn them accidentally soon enough and let him immerse himself instead in rocket ships, drawing, dinosaurs or playing in the mud." (ht sonika on FB for this)
posted by Phire at 2:22 PM PST - 25 comments

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it became possible to believe in the existence of life on other planets on scientific grounds. Once the Earth was no longer the center of the universe according to Copernicus, once Galileo had aimed his telescope at the Moon and found it a rough globe with mountains and seas, the assumption of life on other planets became much less far-fetched. In general there were no actual differences between Earth and Venus, since both planets orbited the Sun, were of similar size, and possessed mountains and an atmosphere. If there is life on Earth, one may ponder why it could not also exist on Venus. In the extraterrestrial life debate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Moon, our closest celestial body, was the prime candidate for life on other worlds, although a number of scientists and scholars also speculated about life on Venus and on other planets, both within our solar system and beyond its frontiers. Venusians: the Planet Venus in the 18th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate (PDF), from The Journal of Astronomical Data (JAD) Volume 19, somewhat via NPR and their mention of amateur astronomer Thomas Dick's estimations of the populations of the other planets in our solar system (Archive.org online view of Celestial scenery, or, The Wonders of the planetary system displayed, 1845).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:05 PM PST - 8 comments

The Shadow Syllabus: Writer and professor Sonya Huber offers some bullshit-free advice for her college students.
posted by dr. boludo at 2:02 PM PST - 12 comments

"Each of us is born uniquely and dies uniquely. I think of dying as a final adventure with a predictably abrupt end. I know when it's time to leave and I do not find it scary." Gillian Bennett, whose last words are captured in her eloquent farewell website, has died. (Trigger warning for suicide.) [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 1:58 PM PST - 20 comments

It was just after dark when Michael Martin, 56, was walking back to his home in New Orleans’ Marigny neighborhood, after helping a friend move... That's when he was jumped by a group of 13-year-olds and kicked, punched, and choked unconscious. He's not alone. It turns out that New Orleans middle schoolers are beating the shit out of artists and gays.
posted by shivohum at 11:49 AM PST - 72 comments

explore.org livestreams beluga whales from Hudson Bay / Nelson River in Northern Manitoba. Thousands of belugas migrate hundreds of kilometres each summer from the Hudson Strait to warmer river waters on the western side of Hudson Bay so they can feed, mate and rear their young. This year, their activities are being captured in real time by cameras mounted underwater and on the bow of a small Zodiac boat, which trolls the water for a few hours each day, Monday to Friday. The next live showing is tonight @ 5pm EST. [more inside]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:18 AM PST - 3 comments

Middle East Peace Potential through Dynamics in Spherical Geometry: Engendering connectivity from incommensurable 5-fold and 6-fold conceptual frameworks. This is an exploration of the hypothesis that unique belief systems depend for their coherence on distinctive patterns typically embodied in geometrical symbols in two dimensions. On the basis of that assumption, the case tentatively explored here is that of the "incommensurability" of the 5-fold Star of Islam and the 6-fold Star of David of Judaism...Mathematically these patterns cannot be readily combined. This issue is described in mathematics in terms of tiling...A set of hexagons and pentagons can however be uniquely fitted together as a particular three-dimensional polyhedron, namely the truncated icosahedron. [more inside]
posted by leahwrenn at 10:33 AM PST - 31 comments

A surprisingly dramatic world of lawsuits, mass resignations, and dysfunctional relationships between humans and apes. From Koko and Kanzi to Chantek and Nim Chimpsky, research into human-ape communications used to be all the rage. Nowadays, not so much. What happened?
posted by gottabefunky at 10:22 AM PST - 33 comments

http://www.codefights.com/
posted by boo_radley at 10:12 AM PST - 36 comments

If you've recently been called for jury duty, you may have been asked some rather personal questions. "In a recently concluded federal racketeering trial in Brooklyn, potential jurors were asked what public figures they admired the most and the least. For a political corruption trial, they were asked to list their three favorite movies and what the bumper stickers on their cars said." The New York Times, with the help of a jury consultant, created this quiz to see if you would potentially be seated on a jury.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:38 AM PST - 137 comments

The coolest, weirdest Internet community you’ll never be able to join [more inside]
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:02 AM PST - 94 comments

Emojinalysis: You show me your recently used emojis. I tell you what's wrong with your life.
Previously from the same author. Emoji previously.
posted by Thomas Tallis is my Homeboy at 8:42 AM PST - 22 comments

Perfectly Timed Dog Pictures. Does what it says on the tin.
posted by hippybear at 8:36 AM PST - 28 comments

For the second year, the campers at Deaf Film Camp, a two-week summer experience for deaf and hard-of-hearing teens interested in filmmaking, have made a great ASL music video. The video is entirely produced by the campers with guidance from a staff of filmmakers from the deaf community. This year's selection is Pharrell's "Happy", with ASL Interpretation created by Azora Telford and Rosa Lee Timm and performed by Telford, Timm, the campers and camp staff. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 8:27 AM PST - 8 comments

"i’m really excited about this video……this Sears store is going out of business so we walked around the decaying retail ruins and the perfect song came on and we had a true vaporwave experience" from game developer Porpentine (previously)
posted by codacorolla at 8:21 AM PST - 32 comments

"I present to you Poseidon's Fortress (SYTL). Standing guard as you arrive is Poseidon himself as a winged muscular bronzed beast wielding his famous trident spear." One man's themed house in St. Cloud, Minnesota can now be yours. Turn on the laser light show for even more action and entertainment, enter the Cave Bedroom where if you leave the room disappointed you only have yourself to blame, and pump up in a gym complete with temple. [more inside]
posted by Muddler at 7:27 AM PST - 41 comments

The National Portrait Gallery's exhibit American Cool is both an exhibition of portraits of 100 iconically cool Americans (pdf) and a meditation on what it means to be cool and how the concept has changed over time. Among those who made the cut are Bessie Smith, Joan Didion, and Benicio Del Toro. [more inside]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:04 AM PST - 63 comments

Pitchfork recently released a list of what they consider the 200 best tracks of the decade so far (2010-14). [more inside]
posted by threeants at 10:47 PM PST - 153 comments

A Four-Year Old Reviews The French Laundry (with very cute photos.): "For our fifth installment, extreme fanciness edition, we took Lyla Hogan (favorite food: 'good ice cream in a hard cone') to what Anthony Bourdain has called 'the best restaurant in the world, period.' (It won that title officially in 2003 and 2004 and is still the #1 restaurant in California and #3 in the country). Lyla is the youngest person to eat a full tasting menu at the French Laundry."
posted by raihan_ at 9:59 PM PST - 186 comments

The Australian Radio National program Poetica recently broadcast two episodes of Jamaican Poetry, and it's a real delight to listen to these contemporary and archival recordings of Jamaican poets (from all over the world) reading their poetry, some with musical accompaniment. Episode 1 ----- Episode 2. [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:55 PM PST - 2 comments

Arms Identification With Wikipedia, Holiday Photographs, and Shoe Size Conversion Charts - from the recently launched bellin¿cat 'by and for citizen investigative journalist'. [previously] [more previously]
posted by unliteral at 7:50 PM PST - 8 comments

Guy Fieri has made culinary TV into a viewer’s hell: "Unless I’m mistaken, you only had to give him one show." A thoughtful response from Allen Salkin, author From Scratch: Inside Food Network: "He isn’t the real problem at Food Network: The real problem is a loss of inventiveness at the company’s core." Leave Guy Fieri alone. [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:42 PM PST - 113 comments

Top Five Architecture Maps:

• Iconic Houses is an international network connecting architecturally significant houses from the 20th century that are open to the public as house museums. The Iconic Houses website includes a useful Google Map showing the location of architecturally significant houses around the world.
• Archilovers is a social network for architects, designers and lovers of architecture. Users of the network can post projects, exchange opinions and interests, and get to know designers and architects around the world.
• The World Architecture Map (WAM) is a database of architectural information that uses Google Maps to show the locations of architectural interesting buildings around the world. It is possible to search for buildings on WAM by location, building type, architectural style or by tags.
• Arti-Fact is great collection of architecturally important buildings and sculptures that can be found on Google Maps Street View.
• MIMOA is a Google Maps based guide to modern architecture around the world. It is possible to browse the collection of modern architectural gems by location and by type of project.

[via Google Maps Mania]
posted by Room 641-A at 6:51 PM PST - 2 comments

What if Michael Bay Directed "UP"?
posted by Nevin at 5:55 PM PST - 33 comments

The Victoria & Albert Museum is hosting Disobedient Objects, an exhibit on 'out-designing authority.' [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:48 PM PST - 6 comments

Meghan Trainor - a primer: "How many of you have no idea what we're talking about? Follow-up question: How many of you have looked at the iTunes chart and felt old recently? Come, let's learn together about Trainor, 'All About That Bass,' and the problematic nature of this song."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:48 PM PST - 73 comments

Rónán Ó Snodaigh plays bodhrán, the Irish frame drum. For most traditional Irish musicians bodhrán's are the bane of their existence, often played poorly by people who can do nothing else, but in Rónán's hands, the bódhrán is a expressive instrument brought to life by a master who is willing to show you how to really play it. [more inside]
posted by salishsea at 3:24 PM PST - 22 comments

So if Thor is a woman now, and Marvel is a Disney subsidiary, does that make her a Disney Princess? For Tor.com, historian and geek Ada Palmer answers this joke question seriously and thoroughly while using it as a springboard to look at what makes a Disney Princess and what it says about us.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:55 PM PST - 47 comments

That these men, these U.S. Marines, openly engage in this behavior, openly harass and denigrate women and minorities — under their real names, their real pictures, with no fear of repercussions — reflects a perceived tolerance of their actions. Senior leaders have never told them not to do it, never said that it’s unacceptable, and they’ve never seen anyone get in trouble for it. Although women have been in the US Marines for nearly one hundred years now, a large "traditionalist" Marine culture still resents them and others in private and now increasingly in public through social media. [more inside]
posted by Lord Chancellor at 1:48 PM PST - 42 comments

GQ: The Strange and Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit. "For nearly thirty years, a phantom haunted the woods of Central Maine. Unseen and unknown, he lived in secret, creeping into homes in the dead of night and surviving on what he could steal. To the spooked locals, he became a legend - or maybe a myth. They wondered how he could possibly be real. Until one day last year, the hermit came out of the forest." [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 1:21 PM PST - 39 comments

Dancehall in Japan. A short mini documentary from the Scene Unseen project at #ListenForYourself. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 1:12 PM PST - 5 comments

British subtitles
posted by The Whelk at 1:06 PM PST - 32 comments

Bárðarbunga, an Icelandic volcano named after a Norse viking, is maybe going to erupt soon. Webcams are standing by.
posted by slater at 11:23 AM PST - 120 comments

Sports and pop culture junkies Bill Simmons and Rembert Browne visit the 2014 National Sports Collector's Convention.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 11:21 AM PST - 15 comments

The Oral History of CSNY's Infamous 'Doom Tour'
posted by josher71 at 11:03 AM PST - 39 comments

On Twitch, two fish are playing Street Fighter II. It's unexpectedly entertaining.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:12 AM PST - 58 comments

In the wake of the great miracle fruit craze of the late 00's, Francis Lam tested two more obscure taste distorters: adenosine 5′-monophosphate, which blocks the sensation of bitter flavors, and Gymnema sylvestre, a South Asian herb that does the same for sweetness.
posted by Iridic at 10:04 AM PST - 32 comments

A compilation of people fucking up the ice bucket challenge. (Mildly NSFW).
posted by empath at 9:21 AM PST - 145 comments

This fall, the South Dakota Historical Society Press will publish Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography of Laura Ingalls Wilder - apparently full of "not-safe-for-children tales includ[ing] stark scenes of domestic abuse, love triangles gone awry and a man who lit himself on fire while drunk off whiskey" (or, more academically put, "full of the everyday sorts of things that we don't care to think about when we think about history"). They've been blogging the process of research, annotation, and publication at The Pioneer Girl Project, as well as stories about crabs, a new letter from Pa, really useful books, as well as photos and a series of interviews with the researchers involved via.
posted by ChuraChura at 8:52 AM PST - 30 comments

How do I get a static IP address for my teapot? The story of the teapot: HTCPCP (Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol) and the mentioned Wikipedia link.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:22 AM PST - 11 comments

A series of Pop Songs converted into Shakesperean-style sonnets. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:06 AM PST - 30 comments

Pianist Jon Cleary is not a native New Orleanian (he hails from Cranbrook in Kent, England) but when it comes to the history and practice of New Orleans music, and piano music in particular, hell, you'd think he'd grown up on Basin Street or maybe next door to Tipitina's. You'll see what I mean when you watch this little clip, Jon Cleary - History of New Orleans Piano, and hear this masterful player roll through an exhaustive (and very entertaining) demonstration of the musical styles that the city is renowned and revered for.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:14 AM PST - 6 comments

BKS Iyengar, one of the most prominent founders of modern yoga practice, has passed away. His 1965 book Light on Yoga (pdf link) sold millions of copies and began the growth of yoga into its current popularity. Namaste, Guruji. [more inside]
posted by dnash at 5:11 AM PST - 22 comments

In the 1951, impressed by the amount of Tupperware she was selling (especially compared to other outlets), Earl Tupper hired Brownie Wise to run his sales organization. As a VP of the company, she revolutionized Tupperware with her Tupperware parties, her salesforce management, and other sales and marketing techniques, thus allowing him to stay in the background, creating new designs. Sales skyrocketed and Tupperware became popular throughout the United States. [more inside]
posted by julen at 5:02 AM PST - 21 comments

One of the craziest "crowdsourcing" exercises in Marketing today is Lay's "Do Us A Flavor" Contest for new potato chip flavors. The first year in the U.S., 'Cheesy Garlic Bread' defeated 'Chicken & Waffles' and 'Sriracha' in a popular vote to earn its creator a million dollar prize. Exporting the competition to Canada (where it was named "Do Us A Flavour"), had a more dubious result when 'Maple Moose' outpolled 'Creamy Garlic Caesar', 'Perogy Platter' and 'Grilled Cheese & Ketchup' then bombed in the stores. But both contests are back for 2014, with American contenders 'Bacon Mac & Cheese', 'Cappuccino', 'Mango Salsa' and 'Wasabi Ginger' and the Canadian competitors 'Bacon Poutine', 'Cinnamon Bun', 'Jalapeño Mac & Cheese' and 'Tzatziki'. No wild animals there, but in the U.K., their British brand Walkers is doing it's own "Flavour" with six choices: 'Cheesy Beans on Toast', 'Hot Dog with Ketchup', 'Pulled Pork in BBQ Sauce', 'Steak Fajita', 'Chicken Curry' and 'Ranch Raccoon' (no Rocket Raccoon endorsement implied).

If you thought it couldn't possibly be worse, here's how it could be. (based on past experience, 'Rancid Owl' and 'Marsupial Medley' COULD be future contenders)
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:22 AM PST - 133 comments

It's Science Week in Australia and the crowdsourcing call has gone out for Weather Detectives to look through old ships' log books and track weather observations from the 1890s and 1900s. It's a good project for older kids, and aims to improve weather forecasting and track climate change. Do try this at home, kids.
posted by superfish at 1:05 AM PST - 3 comments

Representing New England in the Little League World Series, the Cumberland, RI American team lost to Jackie Robinson West of Chicago in a 8 - 7 game Monday night. Coach Dave Belisle's consolation speech to his team has been making the rounds as an example of the best of youth coaching. [more inside]
posted by Ruki at 10:59 PM PST - 22 comments

Brenna Twohy, representing Portland, OR, performs her poem "Fantastic Breasts and Where To Find Them," about Harry Potter, pornography, and non-consent, at the 2014 National Poetry Slam.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:28 PM PST - 67 comments

Fark Wants to Ban Misogyny. Is That Even Possible?
posted by CitoyenK at 8:05 PM PST - 65 comments

Patrick Lin discusses ethics, responsibility and liability related to safety programming in self-driving cars: Robot Cars With Adjustable Ethics Settings.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:48 PM PST - 31 comments

Do you or your family live, work, or go to school within the potential blast radius of the next Lac-Mégantic?
posted by 256 at 5:40 PM PST - 67 comments

Mahmoud Darwish once wrote, of Gaza, “We are unfair to her when we search for her poems.” [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:40 PM PST - 5 comments

Video has emerged showing the beheading of journalist James Foley. James Foley has been reportedly beheaded by Isis in retaliation for US airstrikes in Iraq. He was working in Syria when he was reported missing in 2012. [more inside]
posted by lpcxa0 at 4:35 PM PST - 265 comments

Barely Legal Pawn, starring Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Aaron Paul. (SLYT)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:25 PM PST - 24 comments

For over 25 years, film critic Leonard Maltin (along with a team of contributors and editors) have produced what has been the Bible of movie geeks everywhere in his annual movie guide. The 2015 edition that will be released next month will be his last. The Dissolve has offered their own eulogy. (The folks at MST3k were also fans, as evidenced to three memorable moments that pay tribute to the man, the book and his not entirely accurate rating system.)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 3:12 PM PST - 31 comments

Nigella Lawson's Coffee Ice Cream: 4 ingredients. 1 step. No cooking. No churning. One of Food52's Genius Recipes.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:03 PM PST - 75 comments

Billy Hammerfist avenges Tommy Scissorkicks for killing his lover numerous styles of filming - some very bad, some very well done, a 2D Dr. Mario homage, a 3D outer space scene, most definitely amateur, most definitely B-movie at the best of times.
posted by Pr0t35t3r at 2:50 PM PST - 1 comment

The world is a dark and a terrible place. Horrible, morally insane things are happening. Let us resist them as best we are able, and in the meantime replace various nouns in the lyrics of well-known pop songs with the word “cats,” that we might whistle against the coming of the night together a while longer.

Song Lyrics Improved By Replacing Proper Nouns With Cats: Part 1. Part 2. By Mallory Ortberg. DLTT.
posted by medusa at 2:45 PM PST - 52 comments

Things That Don't Suck, Some Notes on The Stand

I recently reread The Stand for no particular reason other than I felt like it. I'm honestly not sure how many time[s] I've read it at this point, more than three, less than a half dozen (though I can clearly remember my first visit to that horrifyingly stripped bare world as I can remember the first reading of all the truly great King stories). It's not my favorite of King's work, but it is arguably his most richly and completely imagined. It truly is the American Lord of The Rings, with the concerns of England (Pastorialism vs. Industrialism, Germany's tendency to try and blow it up every thirty years or so) replaced by those of America (Religion, the omnipresent struggle between our liberal and libertarian ideals, our fear of and dependence on the military, racial and gender tension) and given harrowing size.

I'm happy to say that The Stand holds up well past the bounds of nostalgia and revisiting the world and these characters was as pleasurable as ever. But you can't step in the same river twice, even when you're revisiting a favorite book. Even if the river hasn't changed you have. This isn't meant as any kind of comprehensive essay on The Stand. Just a couple of things I noticed upon dipping my toes in the river this time.

[Spoiler alert: assume everything, from the link above to those below, contains SPOILERS.] [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:31 PM PST - 160 comments

A "secret" government proposal would no longer mean automatic citizenship to babies born to foreign parents on Canadian soil, despite this happening fewer than a few hundred times each year.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:17 PM PST - 133 comments

You have demons in your subconscious? In a fantasy world those demons can get out, where you can grapple with them face to face. The story I was telling was impossible, and I believed in it more than I believed in the 10,000 entirely reasonable, plausible things I’d written before. Lev Grossman, author of the Magicians series of books, on how he found his voice as a fantasy novelist.
posted by shivohum at 12:57 PM PST - 66 comments

Shakespeare's Restless World is a BBC radio series (podcast link) where the director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, explores England during the lifetime of William Shakespeare as represented by twenty objects, much in the way of his earlier A History of the World in a 100 Objects (previously). The focus is on Shakespeare's plays and how they were understood by his contemporaries. The series was also published as a book.
posted by Kattullus at 11:06 AM PST - 11 comments

Aphex Twin at Big Love, Otmoor Park, UK on MTV in 28/10/96 (Interview, video clips, etc.) [SLYT]
posted by Fizz at 11:04 AM PST - 4 comments

Broadway's Patrick Page Shares His Personal Struggle with Depression The night I heard that Robin Williams died, I slept very little. And it wasn't just grief keeping me awake. It was fear. I know my depression is lurking just around the corner-waiting. As Harvey Fierstein says, "All it wants to do is get you alone in a room and kill you."
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:56 AM PST - 20 comments

Back in 2012, fashion photographer and filmmaker Milton Tan shot a time lapse film over a six month period, of planes overflying Singapore's Changi Beach on their way to and from Changi airport. After his "The Air Traffic" video went viral, managers at the airport made Tan an offer: six months of access to a restricted runway for a second film: The Air Traffic Two. (Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:55 AM PST - 11 comments

'"The good news is we solved the murder of your husband. The bad news is you're under arrest.' Everyone's a noir hero!" A new HBO documentary explores what happens when the media are mixed up in a crime from the very beginning-- with fiction and film added in for good measure. A local news writer is incensed with HBO for bringing it all up again. (She will not be watching the documentary.)
posted by BibiRose at 8:54 AM PST - 36 comments

For a century and a half, The New York Times has been earnestly—and hilariously—defining the evolving language of cities.

We marveled at the way these expressions—the ones we understood, anyway—captured the spirit of the era in which they were defined. It makes sense, for instance, that the Times defined acid ("a slang term for the drug LSD") in 1970, grunt ("a slang word for an infantryman") during the Vietnam War, diss ("a slang term for a perceived act of disrespect") in 1994, and macking ("a slang term for making out") in 1999.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:53 AM PST - 46 comments

Jesse Thorn tells a story from his childhood about police violence. Story starts at the four-minute mark.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:50 AM PST - 17 comments

The Upshot asked: Where are the hardest places to live in the U.S.? (A bit more on the ranking.) Now, given continuing economic divergence (previously): What do the two Americas search for?
posted by psoas at 7:00 AM PST - 42 comments

Three times she married, and all three times her husbands died. Her first husband, David Stegall, a young, talented dentist, shot himself to death in 1975. Her second husband, a popular hotelier and investor who conceived the luxurious Mansion Hotel on Turtle Creek, died of cancer in 1982. Her third husband, Alan Rehrig, a former college basketball star in Oklahoma who had come to Dallas to hit it rich in real estate, was found murdered in December 1985. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 3:46 AM PST - 31 comments

Struggling UK indie developer PuppyGames' uncomfortable truths about selling indie games: Steam and bundles have destroyed the market for games, individual customers are now worthless, but everyone has to keep on smiling. Oh, and the demo is dead: 1, 2.
posted by Zarkonnen at 1:10 AM PST - 84 comments

We are now entering day 10 of protests in Ferguson, MO, protesting the murder of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by local law enforcement officer Darren Wilson on August 9th. [more inside]
posted by Phire at 11:45 PM PST - 3234 comments

Don Pardo, announcer for Saturday Night Live, The Price Is Right and Jeopardy!, has died. [more inside]
posted by kagredon at 11:44 PM PST - 67 comments

Somewhere on the internet Barbie, Elsa, and Anna are BFFs. Disneycartoys is a mashup of doll, action figure, and play-doh "unboxing" videos which often break out of the unboxing genre and evolve into full-on crossfic narratives, featuring Barbie, the Disney princesses, and occasionally an effeminate Spiderman.
posted by analogue at 10:58 PM PST - 7 comments

According to the Daptone Gold compilation liner notes (auto-playing music, click on "Biography"to read the notes), written by Pitchfork contributor Douglas Wolk, "the world capital of soul" has moved from the US ("between Memphis and Detroit, with occasional stopovers in New Orleans, Cincinnati and elsewhere") in the 1960, to Lagos in the 1970s, then it went into hiding, finally reappearing in Brooklyn, with Daptone Records. Let's go back - why Lagos in the 1970s? [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:00 PM PST - 10 comments

All of California remains in drought with over 80% in worst categories of 'extreme' or 'exceptional' drought. Reservoir levels are 50% below average. (previously) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:18 PM PST - 72 comments

I Know Times Are Changing: Anil Dash dives deep into Prince's Purple Rain.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:05 PM PST - 23 comments

Has your neighborhood become 'upscale'? Take a San Francisco gentrification quiz from 1985 and find out. In 1985, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a tongue-in-cheek quiz allowing readers to see if their neighborhood had turned upscale. It's interesting to see how many of these types of business no longer exist (travel agencies!) and to think about what some of the others have morphed into almost three decades later.
posted by Blue Meanie at 5:49 PM PST - 62 comments

10 Elaborate Floor Plans from Pre-World War I New York City Apartments
posted by nadawi at 4:58 PM PST - 35 comments

Amazing Russian dancing men in uniform Don't know much about this, but thought you'd like it.
posted by Listener at 4:49 PM PST - 18 comments

Lou Reed's New York LP hit the quarter-century mark earlier this year. "Meant to be listened to in one 58-minute sitting as though it were a book or a movie," New York couples an unusually accessible rock style with some of most topical lyrics of Lou's career. "Protesting, elegizing, carping, waxing sarcastic, forcing jokes, stating facts, garbling what he just read in the Times, free-associating to doomsday, Lou carries on a New York conversation--all that's missing is a disquisition on real estate." - Robert Christgau

Get caught between the twisted stars, the plotted lines, the faulty map that brought Columbus to New York. [more inside]
posted by porn in the woods at 3:01 PM PST - 37 comments

Ross and Carrie are "curious investigators who love asking questions about spirituality, fringe science, religion and the paranormal." They investigate by joining religions, attending events, trying out alternative treatments, and just generally participating in anything weird. [more inside]
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Director, writer, and producer Mick Garris releases videos of his interviews with people in the horror and sci-fi entertainment industry at his new website, Mick Garris Interviews. There is also a YouTube channel. An introduction can be found at the about page. According to The Nerdist, interviews will be released at the rate of one per week. Interviews already uploaded: a four-parter with Director John Carpenter (here's Part 1 YT), and one segment with John Badham, director of Dracula (1979) and, incidentally, Saturday Night Fever (1977).
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:01 PM PST - 3 comments

Please enjoy six minutes of Willie Nelson performing a card trick.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:49 AM PST - 26 comments

The 2014 Hugo Award Winners were announced at the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, Loncon3. The Hugo Awards are "the premier awards in the Science Fiction field, given annually for over 50 years in over a dozen categories." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:49 AM PST - 96 comments

A Memoir Is Not a Status Update by Dani Shapiro [The New Yorker] "What would have become of me if I had come of age as a writer during these years of living out loud?"
posted by Fizz at 7:52 AM PST - 20 comments

I quit liking things on Facebook for two weeks. Here's how it changed my view of humanity [more inside]
posted by flex at 7:44 AM PST - 72 comments

They saw "birds entering the solar flux and igniting, consequently become a streamer," for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair. BrightSource concentrated solar plant is a "mega-trap" for wildlife, with the bright light of the plant attracting insects, which in turn attract insect-eating birds that fly to their death in the intensely focused light rays. Estimates range as high as one streamer every two minutes at a single plant, though this is disputed. A Federal report (PDF) is "occasionally gruesome".
posted by stbalbach at 7:35 AM PST - 68 comments

34 Panoramic Shots which illustrate why leaving all the photography decisions to your phone software, is not always the best decision Do not click link if you don't want to see images which simulate bodyhorror. Think videodrome-esque. As per usual YMMV. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 7:31 AM PST - 36 comments

Delhi College of Linguistics presents How to Talk Australians. (YouTube playlist).
posted by hawthorne at 6:18 AM PST - 68 comments

Speke latyn lyke a scoler!
“I am almoost beshytten”: A 16th Century English to Latin Textbook
Here is a direct link to the start of the phrasebook
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:12 AM PST - 25 comments

Your body is home to about 100 trillion bacteria and other microbes, collectively known as your microbiome. Naturalists first became aware of our invisible lodgers in the 1600s, but it wasn’t until the past few years that we’ve become really familiar with them. This recent research has given the microbiome a cuddly kind of fame. We’ve come to appreciate how beneficial our microbes are — breaking down our food, fighting off infections and nurturing our immune system. It’s a lovely, invisible garden we should be tending for our own well-being. But in the journal Bioessays, a team of scientists has raised a creepier possibility. Perhaps our menagerie of germs is also influencing our behavior in order to advance its own evolutionary success — giving us cravings for certain foods, for example.

Maybe the microbiome is our puppet master.

[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 4:48 AM PST - 56 comments

Evolving QWOP gaits is the first work that samples video from the QWOP game to drive the fitness function of a genetic algorithm, which allows a fully autonomous simulated runner to kind of slowly shuffle forward, effectively achieving human-like levels of performance.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 4:38 AM PST - 12 comments

when my boyfriend proposed, I cried — more like panic tears. but I wasn't certain I should end it — until I met her
posted by yeoz at 3:45 AM PST - 115 comments

The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles Jon Bois (previously) writes what Spencer Hall called "the world's first CFL-seaventure-GIFstory novella" covering Tim Tebow's future as a Toronto Argonaut and a whole lot more.
posted by creade at 1:35 AM PST - 50 comments

On 16 April 1746, the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart fought loyalist troops commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. In 1964, Peter Watkins wrote and produced a docudrama for the BBC, from the perspective of a documentary crew on the ground, depicting the battle and its aftermath: Culloden. [1:12:14]
posted by cthuljew at 12:39 AM PST - 15 comments

A guide for the perplexed. [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 6:55 PM PST - 21 comments

Oh, this will surely go over real well.
posted by Curious Artificer at 6:38 PM PST - 49 comments

Kim Dotcom is working hard to keep himself out of jail. [more inside]
posted by dimejubes at 6:35 PM PST - 31 comments

The puppy is present.
posted by moonmilk at 5:43 PM PST - 34 comments

Amusing Surface Tension Experiment (SLYT) Mad science with a ball point pen, cup of water and a bit of liquid soap. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 4:03 PM PST - 25 comments

New analysis on Richard III's bones reveal the richer diet available to a king, as well as his drinking habits.
posted by PussKillian at 3:57 PM PST - 35 comments

Breathtaking Aerial Landscapes of Iceland by Sarah Martinet [via Colossal]
posted by capricorn at 3:43 PM PST - 5 comments

A company in Tennessee will, for a small fee, cover someone's lawn with pink flamingos for one day.
posted by The Whelk at 2:19 PM PST - 51 comments

So all of your friends have either just started playing Magic: the Gathering or have picked it up again or else admitted to having played it continually for twenty years now, and eyes are glazing over as they discuss bomb rares and 2-for-1s and mana flooding and drafting. You're not sure if you actually want to immerse yourself in this but you can't know for sure without, well, immersing yourself in it. We've all been there. Thankfully, Felicia Day's Geek & Sundry channel has a show for you - Spellslingers! [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 1:49 PM PST - 71 comments

(NSFW) Gay Men Read 50 Shades of Grey. Related: Straight Men React To Grindr - Gay Dating App
posted by the_bone at 12:18 PM PST - 35 comments

A hypnotic video merging every actor who's played Doctor Who into one average face. [SLYT] (Laughing Squid via)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:52 AM PST - 29 comments

"Friends tell me I’ll be remembered as the author of the definitive book on football [The Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football]. Or as the writer who popularized weekly NFL picks. Or one of the early crossovers into 24-hour sports television. To me, none of that matters. Right now, I’m just a guy whose library went dark on November 22, 2008."[auto play video] - Paul Zimmerman, known as Dr. Z, collaborates with Ken Rodgers, the supervising producer for NFL Films, to tell his story. Thank you, Dr. Z. Yours truly, Everybody.
posted by nadawi at 9:51 AM PST - 6 comments

"A run-of-the-mill report on Kim Jong Un attending the test fire of a rocket showed a series of photos of the Supreme Leader enjoying himself far too much as he farts about with weapons of mass destruction. Oh-ho! Says an internet wag." #KimMischief
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:32 AM PST - 12 comments

Dr. Simon Park is Exploring the Invisible, the world of microbial art, with Physarum (writeup), A New Field Guide To The Wild Flowers Of The Crystal World, Designing Flowers For A Bee-Less World, Ghost. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:25 AM PST - 2 comments

"The posters are paragons of graphic design principle—but beneath their tidy exteriors are convulsions of pure lust and panic." From the Paris Review, Sam Sweet draws our eyes to Ryan Mungia's "Protect Yourself: Venereal Disease Posters of World War II." Brief interview with Mungia, plus a few more images, here.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:36 AM PST - 27 comments

Tony Zhou (previously) has created another great video essay on filmmaking techniques: "A brief look at texting and the internet in film" (also previously).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:07 AM PST - 26 comments

One of the great things about medieval art and architecture is that people just went in and did things. They didn’t build models and scale them up. Building great cathedrals and abbeys was a learning process as much as anything else. This means many of these apparently perfect aspirations to the Heavenly Jerusalem have some often quite comical mistakes, corrections and bodge-jobs that once you see, you can’t unnotice. Great Mistakes in English Medieval Architecture.
posted by verstegan at 3:59 AM PST - 44 comments

Hextris: A fast paced puzzle game [via mefi projects]
posted by kagredon at 3:10 AM PST - 30 comments

Kiesza's Hideaway video is a fantastic single-shot tribute to 1990s dance. (She even broke a rib shooting the video.) But check out what happens when Russian performance duo Bonia and Kuzmich (Mikhail Kuzmin and Julia Starikova) (Боня и Кузьмич) created a tribute video.
posted by k8t at 12:53 AM PST - 13 comments

L. W. De Laurence has been called "the incorrigible reprobate of twentieth century publishing" but his extensive and well-written catalog, and the books he offered on subjects ranging from mind-control to Hindoo magic, had an immense influence over American voodoo and hoodoo, as well as Jamaican obeah. The general hatred for De Laurence seems to stem primarily from his plagiarizing of magic-related texts by other famous authors. While this sort of act was frowned upon, at the time that he was operating it was all perfectly legal; the only thing he did that was not, was the actual selling of occult products by mail. Carolyn Morrow Long's book Spiritual Merchants contains excerpts from the trial. The lawsuit didn't seem to stop the De Laurence company, however. They continued going strong for many years, even outlasting the companies that manufactured most of their original perfumes and incenses. The De Laurence Company is still in business but no longer produces the fancy catalog and appears to have turned its 21st century focus toward jewelry making.
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 6:26 PM PST - 3 comments

Downtown Soulville, WFMU's weekly show for classic soul 45s, hit its 20th anniversary on Friday. The learned, laidback cratedigger Mr Fine Wine has played an estimated 20,000 old soul 45s since the show's launch. The full shows from the last six years are available on the WFMU website. Expect two-hour bursts of soul vinyl, early RnB and Detroit funk from Matt Weingarden.
posted by garlicsmack at 4:17 PM PST - 13 comments

With a combination of humor and fearlessness, Last Week Tonight has done an unlikely thing: spurred action. John Oliver’s segment on net neutrality this past June perfectly summed up what his HBO show Last Week Tonight is so good at: transcending apathy. It’s an ingenious formula that’s making a difference in the real world. “Making a difference” isn’t hyperbole. The FCC’s website actually crashed from overwhelming web traffic the day after Oliver’s segment originally aired. The Atlantic looks at How John Oliver Beats Apathy.

• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, previously
• John Oliver on net neutrality, previously
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on FanFare

posted by Room 641-A at 3:11 PM PST - 89 comments

But in addition to our retreat into wishfulness, something else was brewing: a sense that the past was not only better than the present, but that the past’s predictions for the future were also better than what had actually become the present. No longer content to live in (or through) our memories of the past, we also yearned to live in the past’s vision of the future. We were nostalgic for yesterday’s prognostications: You could say that we succumbed to prognostalgia. Living with our backs to the future, on the cultural fixation with past dreams of the future, on the 50th anniversary of Isaac Asimov's write-up on the 1964 World's Fair, which is still being reviewing to track Asimov's hits and misses [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:03 PM PST - 15 comments

A series from Re/code exploring the explosion of tech startups that cater to our every need and desire, on demand. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 11:12 AM PST - 10 comments

Regulations For Your Rage – The Toast
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:04 AM PST - 17 comments

Timelapse nature video interrupted by marmot (SLYT)
posted by Shepherd at 10:44 AM PST - 25 comments

"Enrique Martinez didn't like chocolate, but he was eating as many as 10 pieces a day, drinking chocolate protein shakes and rubbing a chocolate-based skin cream on his face. It was expensive chocolate, too. Martinez and his wife, Michelle, were going through $2,000 in chocolate a month."
posted by reenum at 10:30 AM PST - 31 comments

"There are a lot of people who are so innovative on twitter. That’s why it’s so puzzling to me when someone like Jonathan Franzen is like, 'twitter is murdering literature with a gun!' Twitter is seen as a millenial thing. Naturally, older people assume we only use it to send thousands of disrespectful selfies to God, or whatever the stereotype is nowadays." - Kimmy Walters (@arealliveghost) to Sheila Heti in Part One of The Believer Logger's interview series, "What Would Twitter Do?" [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:18 AM PST - 56 comments

Koryos, who previously explained how cats got domesticated using tumblr, now explains why homosexual pair-bonding can be a successful reproductive stratagem. Also, Coot Parenting Tips, Queen Cowbird Of The Brood Parasites , There's No Such Thing As An Alpha Wolf, and Can Animals Have Pets?
posted by The Whelk at 9:16 AM PST - 9 comments

In 1924 the BBC transmitted its first live outside broadcast: a duet between cellist Beatrice Harrison and the nightingales nesting in the garden of her Surrey home. Capturing the song of the Nightingale. [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:22 AM PST - 10 comments

The angel approached in the summer of 1993, after the storm. Ron Magill, the goodwill ambassador and communications director of Zoo Miami, wrote this first-person article for the Miami Herald as a tribute to two longtime donors to the zoo.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:03 AM PST - 9 comments

WYNC's Manoush Zomorodi investigates the gender gap in tech and computer science, and finds a number of people working towards bridging that gap, from childhood to university: completely restructuring a required computer science course to make it more welcoming to female university students, celebrating women in computing history (and recognizing that computer science wasn't so male-dominated, and making children's books and toys (even dollhouses!) for kids to explore programming concepts on their own. She also noticed that the majority of female computer science students in the US had grown up overseas - possibly because computer science isn't a common subject in American high schools. This is slated to change: a new AP Computer Science subject is in the works, with efforts to get 10,000 highly-trained computer science teachers in 10,000 high schools across the US. If you want to join Mindy Kaling in supporting young girls entering computer science, tech, and coding, there's a lot [more inside]
posted by divabat at 12:45 AM PST - 68 comments

A Soviet take on Rambo (brief clip; Rutube) is "unique in its violence and anti-Americanism." A Russian point of view on James Bond remarks that "so widespread was the interest in Bond that an official Soviet spy serial ... was released." But the spy novel / miniseries Seventeen Moments of Spring (somewhat digestible in 17 highlights with commentary: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17) is for interesting reasons not a Soviet counterpart to James Bond or Rambo. See also Seventeen Moments fanfic, two pages of jokes about its hero, and how he figures in the present. [more inside]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 12:13 AM PST - 9 comments

Colour Mixing: The Mystery of Magenta [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:52 PM PST - 46 comments

"It seems that, if you just present the correct information, five things happen," he said. "One, students think they know it. Two, they don’t pay their utmost attention. Three, they don’t recognize that what was presented differs from what they were already thinking. Four, they don’t learn a thing. And five, perhaps most troublingly, they get more confident in the ideas they were thinking before." It turns out that confusion is a powerful force in education.
posted by shivohum at 7:31 PM PST - 26 comments

Via Awwwards.com, it's The 100 Greatest Free Fonts for 2014
posted by porn in the woods at 7:23 PM PST - 23 comments

I Intervened On Behalf Of A Young Man Who Was In Danger Of Being Unfairly Arrested
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 7:03 PM PST - 29 comments

Georgia Teens Develop App to Document Police Abuse - Five-O, allows citizens to enter the details of every interaction with a police officer. It also allows them to rate that officer in terms of courtesy and professionalism and provides the ability to enter a short description of what transpired. [more inside]
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:35 PM PST - 26 comments

Rick Perry Indicted on Charges of Abuse of Power
posted by box at 5:17 PM PST - 144 comments

Modcloth just became the first fashion retailer to sign the Heroes Pledge for Advertisers, promising the following: [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:51 PM PST - 14 comments

Ever wonder what giant people eat? Ever have the feeling that you're a "weird eater"? Ever feel like you need some inspiration to eat more? EliteFTS, a website geared mostly towards selling powerlifting gear and educating competitive strength athletes, has put together a list of what their staff and sponsored athletes typically eat for lunch. [more inside]
posted by faceattack at 4:37 PM PST - 27 comments

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Why Can't a Smart Woman Love Fashion? [more inside]
posted by flex at 4:00 PM PST - 33 comments

PAPER BOYS: The Dark World of Debt Collection [New York Times] In the murky world of unpaid bills, a banker and an ex-con can make a fortune — if they don’t run into too many crooks.
posted by Fizz at 3:35 PM PST - 16 comments

Huntbnb is a new service that helps landlords and neighbors find Airbnb listings within their own buildings. While Airbnb does not list actual addresses for listings, HuntBnB matches user-entered exact addresses to Airbnb listings within close proximity. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:14 PM PST - 44 comments

The Pipe Guy is a 10min medley of songs played on PVC pipes with flip-flops by a busker at a mall that is so good I can't stop playing it over and over.
posted by mathowie at 12:58 PM PST - 37 comments

Futurama 3D Test Shot (plus photos and making-of video).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:13 PM PST - 37 comments

46 Photography eBooks to download for free. Among the free resources compiled by LS are National Geographic‘s “Ultimate Field Guide to Photography,” Strobist‘s “Lighting 101,” Adorama‘s “Guide to Lighting” and many many more.
posted by spock at 12:13 PM PST - 12 comments

A scan for systems allowing remote desktop connections without passwords performed during a Defcon talk about the Masscan tool found a wide variety of system open for anyone with knowledge of the correct IP address, such as access to a hockey rink, a manufacturing plant for a Swedish condiment, hydroelectric plants and a lot more. [more inside]
posted by rpn at 11:04 AM PST - 17 comments

Meet craft brewers, home brewing enthusiasts, bartenders in "Craft Beer – A Hopumentary", which focuses on California. [YT] [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:02 AM PST - 32 comments

The Cherry Cordial Revolution Do I help Grandma? Or do I follow the (eavesdropped) rules and refuse to buy Grandma her cherries?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:59 AM PST - 45 comments

I finally gave in and started reading Game of Thrones. When I got to the end of the first chapter, I texted a bunch of my nerd friends like, "Why do people think this is surprising? It is like super-obviously signposted!" From there, it turned into a project where I try to predict what will happen in Game of Thrones. Predicting Game of Thrones, a blog by Eyebrows McGee, with an accompanying predictions log. NOTE: this is full of spoilers for the first two books, and the first half of Book III (Storm of Swords) will be online soon. Plus any number of theories could come true in the later books. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:30 AM PST - 90 comments

The most striking feature of the Direct PLUS Loan program is that it limits neither the amount that a school can charge for attendance nor the amount that can be borrowed in federal loans. "This is, for a private-equity firm, a remarkably attractive arrangement: the investors get their money up front, in the form of the tuition paid for by student loans. Meanwhile, any subsequent default on those loans is somebody else’s problem—in this case, the federal government’s." [more inside]
posted by TheLittlePrince at 9:13 AM PST - 63 comments

Last night was the third annual Internet Cat Video Film Festival in Minneapolis. (previously, previouslier) This year's fest was curated by 2012 Golden Kitty award winner, Will Braden, of Henri fame. [more inside]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 9:07 AM PST - 9 comments

"This summer marks 20 years since Inside the Actors Studio debuted and so here are some of those appearances that both "won" and "lost" the show, those appearances which through the alchemical/semantic machinery of celebrity made their actors never less than or much too much."
posted by The Whelk at 9:01 AM PST - 16 comments

The Peg Solitaire Army is a problem spun off from a classic recreation, and yet another example of the golden ratio turning up where you least expect it. If you want to look at the game more deeply, George Bell's solitaire pages are the ne plus ultra: There's more about the solitaire army (and variants), ... [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 8:49 AM PST - 6 comments

I've no idea what this video is. It crawled out from some dark corner of my computer after evolving from the virtual maggots that feast on rotting film footage. The new thing by Cyriak Harris.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:26 AM PST - 43 comments

Metal Cat
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:18 AM PST - 27 comments

In Search at San Jose the R&D minds at IBM describe how they designed & built the world's first hard drive, the IBM 305 RAMAC (previously). First sold in 1956, it stored a whopping 5 million characters of information, all ready for immediate access to the user.
posted by scalefree at 7:32 AM PST - 28 comments

Love Drow? Love Copkiller? These two great tastes come together as Law & Order star Ice-T reads a tale of the Forgotten Realms' most misunderstood of dark elves, Drizzt Do’Urden. And it's free! And Ice is bringing all his celebrity friends: The Legend of Drizzt: The Collected Stories expands upon the epic legend of the dark elf with 12 tales performed by the all-star cast of Felicia Day, Dan Harmon, Greg Grunberg, Tom Felton, Danny Pudi, Sean Astin, Melissa Rauch, Ice-T, Wil Wheaton, Al Yankovic, Michael Chiklis, and David Duchovny! And there are behind the scenes glimpses.
posted by Mezentian at 5:32 AM PST - 46 comments

How to Be Polite
posted by keli at 3:49 AM PST - 153 comments

Six Fruits you are Eating (Preparing) Wrong. [slyt]
posted by quin at 9:34 PM PST - 110 comments

Wave instruments: San Francisco's gurgly Wave Organ; Blackpool's moaning High Tide Organ; Zadar's hypnotic Sea Organ. [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:52 PM PST - 10 comments

Ok, this may be the most important email I send all year, so PLEASE RESPOND RIGHT AWAY. We need to figure out our summer weekend plans ASAP!!!! We’re closing in on our mid-twenties and I think this is gonna be the summer we all meet our potential first husbands, so location is EVERYTHING!!! Plus Sex and the City. Let’s take a vote! Creeping psychological horror, hilarious satire, or terribly accurate glimpse into the emails of a group of passive aggressive group of "friends" in their mid-late twenties? The Hey Ladies saga by Michelle Markowitz and Caroline Moss at The Toast chronicles the adventures of a group of friends who live in New York via their group emails as they plan various outings and events. [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 7:24 PM PST - 136 comments

About Colonial Indoor Lighting
Buttons In Colonial America
Colonial Meals Were Fattening
and more
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:16 PM PST - 10 comments

If I said to you, “Describe Anna Karenina,” perhaps you’d mention her beauty. If you were reading closely you’d mention her “thick lashes,” her weight, or maybe even her little downy mustache (yes—it’s there). Matthew Arnold remarks upon “Anna’s shoulders, and masses of hair, and half-shut eyes … ” But what does Anna Karenina look like? What do we see when we read?
posted by shivohum at 7:11 PM PST - 24 comments

Dads Respond to Disney's Frozen [SLYT]
posted by Jacqueline at 6:16 PM PST - 34 comments

In honor of the 10 year anniversary of Garden State, we explore some alternative soundtracks to that infamous "this song will change your life" scene, featuring the aforelinked Spin Doctors (#1) and Katy Perry (#2) as well as such musical luminaries as [more inside]
posted by ch1x0r at 4:28 PM PST - 69 comments

A video about skin and ultraviolet rays (slyt)
posted by curious nu at 3:14 PM PST - 22 comments

How extreme isolation warps the mind Among other things, extreme isolation can warp our perception of time, lead to both visual and auditory hallucinations, and impair our social functioning.
posted by Michele in California at 3:08 PM PST - 25 comments

On November 9, 1874, one of the worse incidents in New York history occurred when a polar bear, a panther, a Numidian lion, several hyenas, and a Bengal tiger, slipped their cages from the Central Park Zoo. "The animals, some of which had first attacked each other, then turned on nearby pedestrians who happened to be strolling through Central Park. People were trampled, mauled, dismembered—and worse." [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 2:53 PM PST - 22 comments

...You Won't Believe What Happened Next
posted by neroli at 2:11 PM PST - 26 comments

Millennials Don't Stand A Chance. A terrific debate from Intelligence Squared: "...spotlight is shown on millennials and their use of revolutionary technology while growing up in a time of recession. Some think they are coddled, narcissistic and lazy. Have we let conventional wisdom blind us to the millennial's openness to change, innovation, and optimism in the face of uncertainty, which, in any generation, are qualities to be admired?" (running time ~50:00) [more inside]
posted by xtian at 2:07 PM PST - 51 comments

A New York Times interactive graphic feature charting how Americans have moved between states since 1900.
posted by MoonOrb at 1:26 PM PST - 28 comments

AdDetector is a browser extension that spots articles with corporate sponsors. It puts a big banner on top of any article that may appear unbiased at first glance, but is actually paid for by an advertiser. For example, it turns the small, light-grey-on-white "Sponsored" on this deadspin article into a giant red banner. "Native advertising" previously.
posted by Zarkonnen at 1:18 PM PST - 16 comments

"This fall, the long-running NBS sketch show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is set to enter its 29th season, and no one has been a larger part of the program's success than its head writer and executive producer Matt Albie, who has been a major creative force behind the show since he was first hired in 1997. I was fortunate to be granted a rare interview with Albie, who contacted me via his Twitter account to set things up during his summer break from S60."
posted by Snarl Furillo at 1:10 PM PST - 29 comments

Shedding light on collective beauty, a body project (nsfw)
posted by Marinara at 12:24 PM PST - 39 comments

Daniel Older explains why you shouldn't italicise Spanish words in English.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:56 AM PST - 69 comments

Infographic for the next time a cop pulls you over. (via Infographic Pics)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:52 AM PST - 122 comments

The Wiki Game is a collection of five browser-based games that challenge you to find things in Wikipedia. Play modes are Speed Race, Least Clicks, Six Degrees of Wikipedia, Five Clicks to Jesus, and No United States. Warning: VERY addictive.
posted by jbickers at 10:32 AM PST - 17 comments

How scheduling software is making being a working parent harder [NYT]
posted by Mchelly at 9:33 AM PST - 59 comments

Tables For One is a collection of restaurant reviews "from another New York City" by A. Ponitus and illustrated by Evan Johnson. The restaurants include Frito-Lay themed places, salt-obsessed aliens, a gelato cult, notable NPR personalities, and a cafe for heartbreak.
posted by The Whelk at 8:12 AM PST - 21 comments

New GM technique injects mosquitoes with a gene that results in mostly male offspring, eventually leading to a population crash. Previous efforts to tackle the disease, that kills more than 1 million people each year – most of whom are African children – have included bed nets to protect people and insecticides to kill the mosquito species most responsible for the transmission of malaria (Anopheles gambiae). The new technique by a team at Imperial College London involves injecting mosquitoes with a gene that causes the vast majority of their offspring to be male, leading to an eventual dramatic decline in population within six generations as females disappear. “You have a short-term benefit because males don’t bite humans [and transmit malaria],” Andrea Crisanti, one of the authors of the new research, which was published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday, told the Guardian. “But in the long term you will eventually eradicate or substantially reduce mosquitoes. This could make a substantial contribution to eradicating malaria, combined with other tools such as insecticides.”

These new mosquitoes are now set to be used in Brazil, having been approved for use by the Brazilian government with a factory for their production now opened.

[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 8:03 AM PST - 122 comments

Congratulations on winning our sweepstakes! We’re pleased to welcome you on a most-expenses-paid, open-ended trip to The Future, where you will enjoy fantastic technologies, abundant luxuries, exhilarating freedoms and opportunities, an inexhaustible supply of entertainment, and other truly ludicrous privileges. Offer may expire without notice. Please take advantage while supplies last. Prizes may not be exactly as described; some may be replaced with others for logistical reasons, but the approximate value remains the same. For example, instead of squirrels, you may receive additional birds. Bartering of prizes is allowed and encouraged.
posted by hapax_legomenon at 7:59 AM PST - 10 comments

As production of the fifth (of a probable seven) season of Games of Thrones proceeds, book author G.R.R. Martin admits that fans have accurately guessed major spoilers for the ending of the series. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:45 AM PST - 117 comments

Jenée Desmond-Harris, associate editor of features for The Root, answers a reader who wrote in wondering if his compliment of a stranger's Afro was out of line. Though acknowledging that some women won't want to hear a compliment, regardless, Desmond-Harris elucidates three points on how to compliment a black woman's hair without being a jerk: 1) Hands to yourself. 2) Compliment, don't query. 3) Consider the context.
posted by girlmightlive at 5:47 AM PST - 136 comments

First they're carved, then they are dipped, and finally they are painted. In the late 1930s, the Dalahäst (Dalecarlian horse, or Dala horse to Americans) made the transition from traditional home-made Swedish toy to Swedish symbol when they became the centerpiece of the Swedish Pavilions at the 1939 World's Fair. Although many (Scandinavian-)Americans associate the brightly painted wooden horses painted in the kurbits style with yuletide decor, the toys have no seasonal assignation for Swedes.
posted by julen at 5:44 AM PST - 16 comments

Welcome to Al Zimmermann's Programming Contests. You've entered an arena where demented computer programmers compete for glory and for some cool prizes. The current challenge is just about to come to an end, but you can peruse the previous contests and prepare for the new one starting next month.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:18 AM PST - 11 comments

In 1930, a 29-year-old composer named Ruth Crawford (wiki) became the first woman to ever receive a Guggenheim fellowship—despite the chairman of the awards wondering, of women composers, "Is there any such beast?" The next year she wrote her modernist masterpiece String Quartet. [more inside]
posted by Zephyrial at 10:29 PM PST - 8 comments

Chronicler of the gross and creepy Bogleech presents a look at the bosses of classic NES weirdfest Monster Party and the sprites recently discovered in a ROM dump from a Japanese prototype cart.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:16 PM PST - 7 comments

South China Morning Post interactive graphic detailing the effect typhoons have had on Hong Kong since settlement.

‘When the typhoon was at its height a Chinese was blown down Pedder Street toward the wharf, and unable to stop went headlong into the harbour… A European rushed across the windswept space and boldly jumped in to the rescue. He succeeded in securing the drowning man with the aid of an Indian constable who unrolled his turban and threw the end to the rescuer.’

posted by awfurby at 10:04 PM PST - 3 comments

BAH GAWD! (exp.) — A shocked evocation of the deity in order to underscore the gravity of a moment or situation, popularized by announcer Jim Ross. Must be screamed loudly in a pinched Southern tenor. (Related expressions: MAH GAWD!; GOOD GAWD ALMIGHTY!; slobberknocker — an unsightly brawl; shades of [wrestler X] — when a wrestler uses a move in a manner reminiscent of a previous wrestler; business has just picked up — an unexpected entrance that raises the stakes in a segment; bowling shoe ugly — a roughneck or plainly (and woefully) uncoordinated match; That’s [wrestler X]’s music! — a surprise appearance by a wrestler, as forewarned by his entrance music playing before he appears in person.)

Feeling overwhelmed by wrestling, sorry, sports entertainment lingo? David Shoemaker at Grantland presents the Grantland Dictionary: Pro Wrestling Edition.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:01 PM PST - 31 comments

Behold, the fish cannon. Fish ladders are passé. If you want to move your salmon upriver, shoot them there!
posted by pjern at 5:21 PM PST - 64 comments

Producer Michael Shamberg Wants to 'Invent the Future' With BuzzFeed Motion Pictures - "I don't think there's ever been a Hollywood R&D model like we have here." (previously 1,2,3) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 4:04 PM PST - 28 comments

The Rise of Beefcake Yoga. (slnyt) Not the trend piece the title suggests, instead a very particular story centered around Diamond Dallas Page.
posted by PMdixon at 3:49 PM PST - 14 comments

Jonathan Novick gives us a bit of his background and shows us a day in his life as an achondroplastic dwarf living in New York City.
posted by gman at 3:09 PM PST - 23 comments

The Collectif Textile has the most kickass Pinterest feed. [more inside]
posted by clavicle at 3:00 PM PST - 2 comments

Men Try Women's Makeup For The First Time (SLYT) Five ordinary, average Joe's get women's make-up applied to half their face. The film includes their comments about the experience as it occurs, a split screen at the end showing the "male" and "female" halves of their faces (it can help to pause and compare each one), and an interesting effect where they slowly turn from one side to the other. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 2:56 PM PST - 103 comments

Despite the comment collecting engine crashing on the last day to submit comments on the very popular topic of Network Neutrality, the system worked well enough to collect 1.1 million comments, which the FCC has made available to the general public as six XML files, totaling over 1.4 gigs of raw data. Mailed comments postmarked prior to July 18 are still being scanned and entered, so this isn't everything, but it's a lot of data. TechCrunch graphed the frequency of certain words, with the high score going to Comcast, with 4,613 mentions. NPR shared the visualized results of Quid's analysis of a sample of 250,000 comments, and Quid's analysis of a sample of 317,000 comments to map geographic sources of the public comments and adjusted them based on state populations to depict which states care more about net neutrality, while The Verge dug deeper, mapping comments by zip code.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:52 PM PST - 12 comments

Dell SecureWorks has discovered that a blackhat used spoofed BGP announcements in order to steal cryptocurrency worth about $83,000 over the course of a few months earlier this year. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:36 PM PST - 39 comments

GenCon, the best four days of gaming starts tomorrow. It is also very white.
posted by cuscutis at 12:28 PM PST - 56 comments

A 14-year-old Texas boy ran away from home on July 28. Rather then flee to a friend's or relative's home, or hiding out in nearby woods, the boy chose a location with more abundant resources. A Corsicana, Texas, Wal-Mart. The boy managed to remain undetected inside the store for roughly two and a half days (some reports count it as four days based on the dates) through some surprisingly sophisticated techniques to avoid discovery using the materials available to him. The boy is now back with his family, and Child Protective Services was not formally brought into the case as police report he did not appear to be suffering from neglect or otherwise living in a dangerous environment.
posted by Naberius at 12:18 PM PST - 60 comments

"Having influential figures like George Takei publishing a meme that reinforces disabled=fake is incredibly damaging to disabled people." [more inside]
posted by flex at 12:00 PM PST - 129 comments

Being a practical handbook of pertinent expressions, striking similes, literary, commercial, conversational, and oratorical terms, for the embellishment of speech and literature, and the improvement of the vocabulary of those persons who read, write, and speak English. (Grenville Kleiser, 1917)
posted by Iridic at 11:58 AM PST - 19 comments

"In a society obsessed with comfort, it’s only reasonable for someone to come up with a solution to this self-inflicted problem. Since hangovers stem from lack of hydration, water is the secret weapon. But imbibing one fluid after over-imbibing many isn’t always in the cards, especially when the thought of consuming anything at all makes you gag." Enter, the I.V. Doc. [more inside]
posted by heyho at 11:44 AM PST - 51 comments

Folger Shakespeare Library Releases 80,000 Images for Creative Common Use. The Folger Shakespeare Library announced yesterday, that they have released the contents of their Digital Image Collection under a Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA) license. Full database can be accessed here.
posted by Fizz at 10:49 AM PST - 18 comments

"However you look at this style, truth is, it's the best cluster of masculine, feminine, chic, laid back, basic, put together & casual and does really work with everything: skirts, dresses, trousers, jeans for either work or not." Oxford shoes, "flat and happy". [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:44 AM PST - 110 comments

Even the first-year student of anthropology quickly learns that cultural groups are “varied” and “diverse.” Yet one group that has not been studied in all its diversity is the Nairarbi, an information-working caste scattered through many societies in the modern world.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:28 AM PST - 12 comments

Selected pages from Adriaen Coenen's Visboek, an illustrated guide to the strange and wonderful world of fish. No sixteenth-century mariner should leave shore without it. The National Library of the Netherlands has the complete book, with commentary.
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:50 AM PST - 8 comments

Cross-dressing trapeze and tightrope artist Barbette seems to have sprung out of a Jean Cocteau fantasy, but surely was a real person. Exact birthdate and parentage subject to dispute, but somewhere around the dawn of the 20th Century in Texas. Subsequent to highschool, he replaced a deceased woman in the Alfaretta Sisters aerialist circus act. Barbette toured the vaudeville circuit and debuted in Europe in 1923. Barbette's curtain-call wig-ripping-off move was ripped off for Victor/Victoria. [more inside]
posted by larrybob at 9:27 AM PST - 3 comments

A north Texas man in the "sovereign citizen" movement attempted to take over a mansion in north Dallas on Monday. Upset with the current state of affairs in the United States, Douglas LeGuin attempted to occupy a mansion in far north Dallas. After knocking on the door and threatening a nanny, he started a dumpster fire. When first responders arrived, he began shooting at them, but no one was injured. LeGuin had also set up propane canisters around the house as explosives but none were detonated. He called 911 and it really is a doozy. [more inside]
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:22 AM PST - 283 comments

Humans Need Not Apply. Video essayist CGP Grey explains why we need to start preparing for a post-human economy.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:20 AM PST - 103 comments

Edward Snowden - The Untold Story, from Wired's Threat Level.
posted by nevercalm at 5:31 AM PST - 100 comments

Breathtaking collection of images at The Atlantic: Viewing the Earth From Space
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:13 AM PST - 13 comments

In refusing to address the problem, Gawker's leadership is prioritizing theoretical anonymous tipsters over a very real and immediate threat to the mental health of Jezebel's staff and readers. If this were happening at another website, if another workplace was essentially requiring its female employees to manage a malevolent human pornbot, we'd report the hell out of it here and cite it as another example of employers failing to take the safety of its female employees seriously. But it's happening to us. It's been happening to us for months. And it feels hypocritical to continue to remain silent about it.

Because somebody is spamming Jezebel with violent porn gifs and Gawker has been lackadaisical in dealing with it, the problem has now spread to other Gawker sites.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:12 PM PST - 132 comments

Two guys hilariously high while working.
posted by srboisvert at 7:44 PM PST - 66 comments

Calico, the company Google launched in September to try to cure death by tackling aging and illness, now has an official website..." [more inside]
posted by danabanana at 7:03 PM PST - 130 comments

How a handful of Brooklyn Law students forced a patent troll to drop a meritless lawsuit.
posted by stp123 at 6:03 PM PST - 27 comments

Petaluma couple rescue tiny ambulatory pom-pom; turns out to be rare shorebird. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia at 5:49 PM PST - 18 comments

Elizabeth Dorfman of Bainbridge Island, WA, is the 32nd grand prize winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which challenges writers to concoct the worst opening sentence of a hypothetical novel. The winning entry:

When the dead moose floated into view the famished crew cheered – this had to mean land! – but Captain Walgrove, flinty-eyed and clear headed thanks to the starvation cleanse in progress, gave fateful orders to remain on the original course and await the appearance of a second and confirming moose.

More notable entries from this year. [more inside]
posted by Shmuel510 at 5:13 PM PST - 45 comments

Lauren Bacall, the film and stage actress and model who was known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks, died Tuesday at the age of 89. IMDB, Wikipedia, An interview from 1994. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? Previously
posted by chavenet at 5:01 PM PST - 116 comments

12 Hours of the Ambient noise in Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner.
posted by The Whelk at 4:45 PM PST - 20 comments

Skylab is Falling! (SLYT) A seven minute Indian film about the 1979 Skylab "disaster" as seen through the eyes of a child. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 2:47 PM PST - 6 comments

Why Did Michael Brown Die in Ferguson? - According to the police of Fergusson, Missouri it was because he reached for an officer's weapon, necessitating that he be shot multiple times as he ran away empty handed. Eyewitness tell a different story. Whatever happened the killing has prompted demonstrations and looting. Ferguson police responded in full force, firing teargas and wooden rounds into crowds of protestors and sealing the area off from the media. In the wake of the tragedy questions of racial profiling, the paramilitarization of police and media depictions of black shooting victims have been raised. Meanwhile the shooter has not been named to preserve his safety.
posted by Artw at 1:53 PM PST - 3298 comments

The 2014 Fields Medals have been awarded to Artur Avila, Manjul Bhargava, Martin Hairer, and Maryam Mirzakhani. Mirzakhani, a professor at Stanford, is the first woman to win math's highest prize, and Avila is the first South American. Erica Klarreich at Quanta Magazine has profiles of all four winners. [more inside]
posted by escabeche at 1:47 PM PST - 34 comments

Balls to the Wall: Inside New York City's Thriving Lacrosse Culture
posted by josher71 at 1:21 PM PST - 14 comments

Julia Eccleshare knows what kids should read in order to experience an antidote to our money-fuelled world, to learn to question authority, have smart female role models, learn about feminism, get to know South Asian characters and families with same-sex parents. Which books help to feel good about wearing glasses, when one feels 'weird' or different, which make the dark less scary or would lure a 13-year-old boy away from his Xbox. She is the book doctor. [more inside]
posted by travelwithcats at 12:59 PM PST - 11 comments

Every Canadian Novel Ever [more inside]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:58 PM PST - 72 comments

Íslandskort is a digital collection of historical maps of Iceland put online in high quality pdf-files and jpegs by the National Library of Iceland. Here are a few of my favorites: 1, 2, 3. You can either browse a timeline of all the maps or browse categories such as first maps of Iceland, Iceland on sea charts in the 17th and 18th centuries and other maps, which includes maps of Frisland (1, 2), a phantom island that bedeviled cartographers for centuries.
posted by Kattullus at 12:27 PM PST - 3 comments

LEGO does something good! (Sets revolving around female scientists sold out in one day; previously.) LEGO does something bad! (Sets with major petro-company branding.) [more inside]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:23 PM PST - 81 comments

The Economist takes a quantitative look at prostitution in the Internet age.
posted by meowzilla at 11:01 AM PST - 26 comments

Delta Hot Tamales Are Hotter Than Ever

Delta "hots" themselves perfectly exemplify the tamale's malleable properties. Made with cornmeal instead of the lime-treated masa used in Mexico, a Delta hot is simmered (rather than steamed) in a spiced broth—hence the name. Though the dish's precise origin remains elusive, it's said that at one point in the 1920s a few Mexican cotton pickers made their way up from the Rio Grande Valley, toting a recipe that was then transformed by local African-American cooks—possibly aided by southern Italians who'd settled in the area. Whatever. By 1936, tamales were so entrenched in Delta culture that Robert Johnson, who'd made his pact with the devil just up the road from Greenville, recorded a song about them called "They're Red Hot."

[more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:42 AM PST - 46 comments

Vice has obtained "unprecedented access" inside the Islamic State in a 5-part documentary The Islamic State. War photographer and corespondent Medyan Dairieh spent weeks alone among the Jihadists. Other films by Dairieh include Rebels of the Bridge, and A City Left in Ruins: The Battle for Aleppo
posted by stbalbach at 10:40 AM PST - 96 comments

Percebeiros [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:22 AM PST - 5 comments

Depression is like being forced to wear a cloak made of lead. You don’t get to choose when to put it on and take it off. It is a second skin which gradually seeps into your own real skin and poisons it until you are a walking, toxic, corrosive bundle of infectious awfulness. The thought of suicide is the only real respite and the only chink of light at the end of the tunnel. You can "pull yourself together" only inasmuch as you can make yourself three feet taller. [more inside]
posted by guster4lovers at 9:16 AM PST - 105 comments

Meet the Beer Bottle Dictator: For years, one man has approved virtually every beer label design in the United States. Among brewers, he’s a tyrant. A legend. A pedantic pain in the ass. Brewers and legal experts speak of him in hushed tones, with equal parts irritation and reverence. "He’s the king of beer. His will is law," said one lawyer who works with him regularly. The lawyer asked to remain anonymous, for fear of crossing the beer specialist. "There’s one dude in the government who gets to control a multibillion-dollar industry with almost no supervision." And he goes by the name "Battle."
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:12 AM PST - 76 comments

This past Sunday, Philadelphia's Taney Dragons punched their ticket to the Little League World Series behind the complete game shutout pitching performance of Mo'Ne Davis, who at 13-years-old already throws a 70 MPH fastball. Davis will become only the 17th girl to play in the LLWS in 68 years. She has become an inspiration to others as she redefines what it means to "throw like a girl".
posted by The Gooch at 9:03 AM PST - 40 comments

Deep Chords: Haruki Murakami’s ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage’ [New York Times] Patti Smith reviews Haruki Murakami's latest novel. Book Trailer
posted by Fizz at 8:30 AM PST - 40 comments

Grumbling Fur are a pair of former choir boys drawn to each other as teenagers by a love of metal and hardcore punk. Now they "make music that is terribly English: both polite and sinister," one part drone, one part rural psychedelia. Their new album, Preternaturals, released yesterday, is now streaming over at The Quietus. [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 5:51 AM PST - 6 comments

The Public Art Archive is a free database of publically visible and accessible works of art, primarily in the United States. It currently contains 8605 works of art, by 3578 artists. For an idea of what's there, they also produced an overview map
posted by frimble at 2:52 AM PST - 10 comments

…and trash the rest. Massimo Vignelli's design canon circa 2008, in PDF form.
posted by klangklangston at 11:04 PM PST - 38 comments

Computer users pass around USB sticks like silicon business cards. Although we know they often carry malware infections, we depend on antivirus scans and the occasional reformatting to keep our thumbdrives from becoming the carrier for the next digital epidemic. But the security problems with USB devices run deeper than you think: Their risk isn't just in what they carry, it's built into the core of how they work.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 10:57 PM PST - 70 comments

Baseball writer Rany Jazayerli tells us about his online acquaintance Sung Woo Lee, fan of the Kansas City Royals, who is having a good week. He's been a Royals fan since the 1990s and this week, he came to the US to see them play for the first time. KC rolled out the red carpet and the Royals are even winning. [more inside]
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:32 PM PST - 16 comments

Vinyl Kitty
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:09 PM PST - 10 comments

The Most Fascinating Profile You’ll Ever Read About a Guy and His Boring Startup.
posted by chunking express at 7:52 PM PST - 43 comments

Like Hell.
posted by alms at 7:48 PM PST - 36 comments

Robin Wiliams famous for his impressions, role as Genie in Aladdin, standup comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire and many other comedy roles has died at the age of 63.
posted by Carillon at 4:40 PM PST - 848 comments

"Burkhard challenged Miller to a 'Cheese Duel': Burkhard and Miller would sit at a table, and if Burkhard could cut a piece of Limburger cheese and Miller not wretch, Miller would be forbidden from complaining about Wisconsin and her cheese ever again." [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 1:47 PM PST - 42 comments

"The world isn't being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist -- the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they're truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love. We must not let this happen."

Andrew W.K. (previously applauded advice columnist) offers advice to a guy who reduces even his own father to a set of beliefs and political views and how it relates to him.
posted by dios at 1:20 PM PST - 619 comments

Best Selling author Douglas Preston, along with 907 other authors, signed a letter that ran as a double full-page ad in yesterday’s print edition of the New York Times, asking Amazon to stop blocking or delaying the sale of books on their site as a tactic to lower the e-book prices that Amazon is charged by the publisher Hachette.* The three month dispute between Hachette and Amazon previously prompted a response by Amazon’s self-published authors and readers, but it took an odd turn Saturday night when Amazon posted this letter on a site called ReadersUnited.com, after sending it as an email to all of its Kindle Direct Publishing authors. In that letter they include Hachette’s CEO’s email, and have asked their KDP authors to write to Hachette’s CEO telling him what they think about cheaper ebooks. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 1:19 PM PST - 145 comments

Automatic gear shifting, auto-adjusting lights, built-in fenders and platform rack, an electric motor (with detachable rechargeable battery) for pedaling assist, and a detachable handlebar that turns into a bike lock: "The Denny," designed in Seattle, has won a nationwide design contest and will be produced by Fuji.
posted by gottabefunky at 12:43 PM PST - 92 comments

Gender-neutral fashion + The right to be handsome: Clothing for gender non-conforming people on the rise.
posted by travelwithcats at 12:23 PM PST - 48 comments

Maddy Myers of Paste magazine connects the influence of the film Alien on the game Metroid and looks at how subsequent imitators have failed to live up to the promise of Metroid's original design. 'Troid Rage: Why Game Devs Should Watch Alien—and Play Metroid—Again
posted by codacorolla at 12:14 PM PST - 14 comments

Guest Comics are as much a part of Webcomic Culture as missed deadlines and hiatuses (but often intended to prevent the other two)*. But occasionally there's a special reason to drag other creators into your webspace. Semi-infamous Penny Arcade artist Mike Krahulik has been featuring his young son (actually named Gabriel after his comic alter-ego) as a plot device, but when the real Little Gabe started asking about "where babies come from", he did what any successful media creator would do: "have a carousel of strangers explain 'the penis' to you while I hide in the basement". And it's an All-Star Carousel of Strangers (by webcomic standards), obviously kinda NSFW, but with NO rapewolves, thankyouverymuch. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:40 AM PST - 65 comments

Up, up and g'day: Superdoreen is Miss Galaxy 1982 A fascinating peek into Australian history and culture through a tiny sliver of artwork. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 11:35 AM PST - 10 comments

Watching The Eclipse - "Ambassador Michael McFaul was there when the promise of democracy came to Russia—and when it began to fade."

In the three months between McFaul’s appointment and his arrival in Moscow, a great deal changed. Putin, feeling betrayed by both the urban middle classes and the West, made it plain that he would go on the offensive against any sign of foreign interference, real or imagined. A raw and resentful anti-Americanism, unknown since the seventies, suffused Kremlin policy and the state-run airwaves. As a new Ambassador, McFaul was hardly ignorant of the chill, but he launched into his work with a characteristic earnestness. “Started with a bang,” he wrote in his official blog. During the next two years, McFaul would be America’s primary witness to the rise of an even harsher form of Putinism—and, often enough, he would be its unwitting target.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:14 AM PST - 43 comments

There is no place on the social structure for a second-grade boy who thinks rats are “pointy kitties” and calls his teacher “Mommy.” Kids can be misfits (Milhouse), or they can be brownnosers (Martin), or they can be troublemakers (Nelson), or they can be tattle-tales (Sherri and Terri), but being Ralph is simply not a taxonomically viable option. Ralph Wiggum's Finest Moments.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 9:14 AM PST - 114 comments

Microsoft Research presents Hyperlapse videos
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:46 AM PST - 39 comments

Every Good Boy Does Fine: A life in piano lessons. [SLNewYorker]
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:43 AM PST - 16 comments

"Twenty-five years after its release, The Abyss remains an oddity in director James Cameron's filmography. But the fact that it's an oddity seems like an oddity. The underwater sci-fi epic, about a team of commercial drillers who stumble upon a deep-sea alien civilization, wasn't a flop by any means. It made more money than The Terminator and came very close to matching Aliens at the box office. It holds a higher critical rating than Avatar and Titanic (according to the almighty Rotten Tomatoes, at least). And yet it has utterly failed to reach the same levels of cultural saturation as Cameron’s other works."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:48 AM PST - 114 comments

Italo Calvino profiled on the BBC TV show Book Mark in 1985: [SLYT] Rare interview with the great Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels.
posted by Fizz at 7:36 AM PST - 4 comments

Digital artist Laurie Fauvel knows about the terrors that haunt children's dreams. In her "Terreurs" series of digital manipulations, children fight against the monsters menacing them in their beds
posted by happyroach at 7:30 AM PST - 13 comments

Inside a group of young paedophiles and their fight to stop themselves from offending. Needless to say, trigger warning. [more inside]
posted by nerdfish at 7:26 AM PST - 62 comments

Massive East Coast All-Star Freestyle on Arsenio - 1994 (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by honestcoyote at 7:12 AM PST - 19 comments

Slot machines and video gambling were once marginal to the success of casinos — but nowadays, they account for up to 85 percent of the gaming industry's profits. And casinos have devised a dizzying array of strategies to make these machines as addictive as possible, from the elaborate algorithms beneath the hood to the position of the armrests.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:05 AM PST - 38 comments

Be a fly on the wall while John Lennon gives birth to a song. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:57 AM PST - 5 comments

I have one great party trick. Anytime someone asks me if I’ve ever come across something really cool while working in the Motion Picture Preservation Lab, I tell them about the time we had what looked like footage of a Boy Scout camp and then the Boy Scouts raised a Nazi flag along with the red, white, and blue.

Audrey Amidon, of the (US) National Archives Motion Picture Preservation Lab, tells the story of that time they found 1937 film footage of an upstate New York nazi youth summer camp.
posted by MartinWisse at 5:23 AM PST - 76 comments

In These Hopeful Machines "James Gardner traces a personal path through the evolving world of electronic music – and meets some of the people who made it happen. In six content-rich episodes he looks at over 100 years of recording techniques, electronic instruments and gizmos, and their use in popular music, art music and their position in Western culture." [more inside]
posted by coleboptera at 11:33 PM PST - 27 comments

Civilians in Abandoned McDonald’s Seize Control of Wandering Space Satellite (with NASA's silent blessing)
posted by Itaxpica at 8:40 PM PST - 44 comments

You may have seen stories about a magical bear in New Jersey who walks on its hind legs like a person (if not, here's a video and a second.) Sadly, this might be because it's front paw is injured, possibly "suffering a partial amputation." For another example of a bear making do with less, here is a three-legged bear walking on its hind legs at times.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:12 PM PST - 25 comments

Harry Shearer reenacts the moments preceding Nixon's resignation speech as captured by a running television camera. If it seems weird and stylized, the actual footage seems even weirder. The reenactment is part of a television series, Nixon's the One, created by comedian Shearer and Nixon scholar Stanley Kutler. Andrea DenHoed writes about the TV show and the strange scene before the speech in The New Yorker.
posted by Kattullus at 5:44 PM PST - 47 comments

Food of the Wisconsin State Fair
posted by The Whelk at 5:00 PM PST - 109 comments

Who's Lying? Who's Self-Justifying?: Origins of the He Said/She Said Gap in Sexual Communications. Carol Tavris, a social psychology researcher, took the stage at The Amaz!ng Meeting 2014 to talk about sexual abuse allegations, feminism and rape culture.
posted by huguini at 4:43 PM PST - 62 comments

The Minimal Superpermutation Problem - Imagine that there is a TV series that you want to watch. The series consists of n episodes, with each episode on a single DVD. Unfortunately, however, the DVDs have become mixed up and the order of the episodes is in no way marked (and furthermore, the episodes of the TV show are not connected by any continuous storyline – there is no way to determine the order of the episodes just from watching them). Suppose that you want to watch the episodes of the TV series, consecutively, in the correct order. The question is: how many episodes must you watch in order to do this? [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 4:19 PM PST - 34 comments

Need a few hours of relaxed, fun, afro-cuban and funk based house DJ mix music to help you get through the end of your weekend, or perhaps to give next weekend the fun party vibe it needs? Martin Solveig (French DJ/Producer, produced Madonna's MDNA album, but don't let that scare you off) has you covered. 2006's Defected In The House is a three disk album available on Grooveshark, full of bongo and conga beats, uplifting lyrics, and just enough fun and groove to keep your booty shaking or your day at work flying by.
posted by hippybear at 3:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Ever see someone who's so good at something that you just kind of have to take the crowd's word for it? Take a gander at the freshly enYouTubed championship performances from the World YoYo Championships in Prague this weekend. Gentry Stein won the Single Hand String Trick (1A) championship, while Takuma Yamamoto took the Two Hands Looping Trick (2A) crown. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 11:24 AM PST - 20 comments

A video of the Guitar Center store in Times Square. As per the video description, "36 seconds of hell on earth".
posted by codacorolla at 11:11 AM PST - 108 comments

The true origins of Australian rules football, first codified in 1859 following a famous letter by Tom Wills, have been the subject of sometimes bitter disputes that have been referred to as football's history war. Although the earliest formal football clubs were founded in 1858 (and the earliest known women's clubs in the 1910s), informal football games were widely played in the early 1850s. Scholarly and public discussions about the origins of the game centre on Marn Grook, a collection of indigenous games played with possum skin game balls. Although the lack of documentary evidence makes definitive answers hard to come by, the link between Marn Grook and Aussie rules in modern culture is very prominent, showing up in documentaries (clips: 1 2 3), TV shows, and even children's books. [more inside]
posted by langtonsant at 10:38 AM PST - 16 comments

"Farhad Dolatizadeh" writes about coming out and being outed in Iran. [more inside]
posted by frimble at 9:27 AM PST - 15 comments

Chesscademy is a chess teaching website modelled on Codecademy. As such, it gives a sequence of short puzzles and exercises which help you build up knowledge of everything from how the pieces move to the intricacies of positional play. Sections of each 'course' are introduced by a short video. It's like a well-written chess book with interactive diagrams!
posted by kaibutsu at 9:23 AM PST - 11 comments

The power of math: 17 Equations That Changed the World - a one table summary of the book by Ian Stewart FRS. Business Insider gives its interpretation of the importance of each equation. Brain pickings (2012) on this book and equations, and another extract from the book. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 9:06 AM PST - 36 comments

The Foehr Reef is part of the worldwide Crochet Coral Reef Project. It was made by over 700 women and combines more than 4000 individual pieces of marine wonder. A short video shows its beauty [alternating English and German audio]. PDFs with pictures. "The Crochet Coral Reef is a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world." It originated out of a desire to increase awareness of environmental threats to the world's reefs and is a conjunction of art, environmentalism, and geometry. [more inside]
posted by travelwithcats at 8:34 AM PST - 7 comments

"Woolf often conceives of life this way: as a gift that you've been given, which you must hold onto and treasure but never open. Opening it would dispel the atmosphere, ruin the radiance—and the radiance of life is what makes it worth living. It's hard to say just what holding onto life without looking at it might mean; that's one of the puzzles of her books. But it has something to do with preserving life's mystery…" Virginia Woolf's Idea of Privacy
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:44 AM PST - 11 comments

Storm Chasing on Saturn with Cassini [viz. cf.] - "The sun is slowly rising over Saturn's north pole, exposing an immense six-sided hurricane. The storm, big enough to swallow four Earths, was first spotted by the Voyager missions in the early 1980s. [Cassini] will be passing directly over the north pole with its cameras pointing down later this month." (previously 1,2)
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM PST - 9 comments

In their long and seemingly hopeless search for answers, journalists have internalized the abusive rhetoric of the “disruption” brigade. Jarvis tells beleaguered journalists that they themselves, the lowly content-serfs—not short-sighted newspaper proprietors, not the Wall Street backers of corporate media conglomerates, not the sociopathic unchecked tech monopolies, not hostile politicians and prosecutors—are to blame for their sudden loss of livelihood. Don’t blame remorseless corporate Vikings like Craig Newmark for killing the news business. Blame old-school reporters like Dana Priest for failing to cultivate their Facebook fanbases.

The Baffler puts the boot into cyberjournalist hustler Jeff Jarvis.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:48 AM PST - 42 comments

New Zealand's next general election is in September. With the 2011 turnout (74%) the third lowest in a century, political groups are working hard to increase youth enrolment, turnout on the day and political engagement in general. And they're not afraid of using cartoon sheep where necessary. Bonus: record levels of political billboard vandalism.
posted by superfish at 3:19 AM PST - 48 comments

The closure of the Hindustan Motors factory in Uttarapara, West Bengal, is the end of an era in Indian history. The Ambassador is the perfect example of all that was wrong with Indian policy towards industrialization, manufacturing and business. Protectionism and the license raj created a seller's market where people waited years to buy a car. Until liberalization in the 1990s, the Amby hadn't known any real competition, and there was no pressure to either modernize or improve quality. None of this mattered, at least we had a car. And there wasn't any other quite like it in the world. RIP, motor gadi.
posted by infini at 2:42 AM PST - 18 comments

How to Use Your Cat to Hack Your Neighbor’s Wi-Fi.
posted by homunculus at 10:30 PM PST - 57 comments

How Dungeons and Dragons is endorsing the darkest parts of the RPG community "Three weeks ago the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons came out. D&D is the iconic tabletop role playing game, so a new edition is a big deal. It’s one of the few times that the small, insular pen and paper community gets noticed by the rest of the world. Many game websites have talked about it, notably Polygon’s piece on gender inclusive language. Yet at the same time as D&D tries to appeal to those outside the gender binary, it has been driving them away by employing two of the most toxic personalities in tabletop gaming." [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 10:24 PM PST - 181 comments

The mechanical artwork of metalsmith and jewelry-maker Dukno Yoon simulate the flapping of wings through the simple swish of a finger, or powered by metronome. Artist's Series, youtube
posted by rebent at 9:16 PM PST - 4 comments

How To Make Shoes (silent SLYT), from the 1930's
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:15 PM PST - 10 comments

"Novels are no use at all in days like these, for they deal with people and their relationships, with fathers and mothers and daughters or sons and lovers, etc., with souls, usually unhappy ones, and with society etc., as if the place for all these things were assured, the earth for all time earth, the sea level fixed for all time." [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 6:39 PM PST - 55 comments

Bill de Blasio has reduced the use of stop-and-frisk, but he still supports the kind of policing that led to Eric Garner’s death. New York City cops are fuming. On Tuesday, union officials gathered to publicly denounce “police haters” and defend the conduct of police officers involved in the apprehension of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who was killed while being placed under arrest for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. Last week, the state medical examiner’s office said Garner died as a result of being put in a chokehold — a tactic banned by the New York Police Department. [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 6:19 PM PST - 171 comments

If you visit the Humans of New York website or on the Facebook page now and in the next few months, you'll find portraits and stories from beyond New York. Brandon Stanton and HONY will be going on a "world tour," to be part of the UN's Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group effort to raise awareness for the eight international Millennium Development Goals with a target date of 2015 . Currently, HONY is "suddenly a war report form Iraq". [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:47 PM PST - 13 comments

"When Dystopia Rising went well, there were moments that felt natural, perfect. My first night was filled with gang warfare and hunts for a cult of radiation-worshipping Social Darwinists, but one of the parts I remember best was sitting next to a busker who played me a song from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, gave a mythologized retelling of the musical, and ended up explaining the origins of a group I believe was called the Church of Daft Punk" -- The Verge on playing in the massively complex post-apocalyptic LARP ( Live Action Role Playing) game, Dystopia Rising.
posted by The Whelk at 4:40 PM PST - 10 comments

Matter and MSNBC.com, along with 40 writers, are rereading Susan Faludi’s 1991 feminist classic, Backlash, this summer, one chapter at a time, and inviting you to read along. [more inside]
posted by emjaybee at 4:38 PM PST - 8 comments

Check out the New York Public Library’s hilarious archive of librarians’ harsh children’s book reviews [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:19 PM PST - 11 comments

NSA Tried To Delete Court Transcript In Lawsuit Over Deleting Evidence On three separate occasions in the Jewel V. NSA case, the NSA sought to delete evidence. Then it sought to redact the transcript.
posted by Sleeper at 1:45 PM PST - 43 comments

Terrifying sex organs of male turtles
posted by Dim Siawns at 12:52 PM PST - 44 comments

"First it was knitting; then came excessive facial grooming, vegan baking and urban beekeeping. You thought hipster hobbies couldn’t get weirder? Brace yourself." [more inside]
posted by Flannery Culp at 10:49 AM PST - 52 comments

An internaut helped some statues take their first selfies at Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Ireland.
posted by BaffledWaffle at 10:44 AM PST - 7 comments

Medieval Times: Attack of the giant killer rabbits!
posted by curious nu at 10:42 AM PST - 15 comments

Phosphates, Fizzes and Frappes [via mefi projects]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:37 AM PST - 17 comments

This well-known personality test is taken by over two million people a year. It's the go-to-quiz for the career consultant industry. It is used by 89 of the Fortune 100 companies and 200 Federal agencies, including the CIA and the military. But not many know that this test was developed by two people in 1940 who had no formal training in psychology. And that the test is based on a 90-year old speculative framework that has no scientific support. Yes, the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless.
posted by storybored at 10:26 AM PST - 112 comments

The Washington Post compares beers available at various ballparks, based on locality, quality and uniqueness.
posted by frimble at 9:16 AM PST - 23 comments

Swedes are mourning the death of Åle, the world's oldest European eel, who was found dead on Friday at age 155.
posted by argonauta at 8:13 AM PST - 49 comments

In an unprecedented move, former United States press secretary James Brady's death has been ruled a homicide, 33 years after he was shot by John Hinckley Jr. Some history of the incident at the Washington Hilton and a sweet rememberance of "Bear".
posted by josher71 at 7:11 AM PST - 46 comments

A Beijing-based tour company commissioned a moving time-lapse video of Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
posted by rhombus at 6:57 AM PST - 33 comments

Zack "Danger" Brown has never made potato salad before. So he decided to ask for ten dollars on Kickstarter to get him started. . [more inside]
posted by magstheaxe at 5:50 AM PST - 58 comments

Menahem Golan has died at the age of 85. The name may mean very little to you at first glance, but for those of us who lived through the 1980's, he was a very big part of it. Here's an interview with the late producer and a bit more about his legacy.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:49 AM PST - 39 comments

Today marks Tove Jansson’s 100th birthday. She was a free spirited artist, painter, political cartoonist, illustrator and author who defied the conventions of her time. Earlier this year, a postage stamp and a 2-Euro coin depicting Tove Jansson have been released in celebration of her birthday. She is probably best known for creating the Moomins, a beloved children's book series that was translated in over 40 languages. Unsurprisingly, some call her the queen of the Moomins. A current London exhibition [Tales from the Nordic Archipelago] allows a glimpse into her life and shows unseen photographs from her private island in the archipelago of Finland, where she spent over 30 summers. The English translation of a new biography is due later this year. [more inside]
posted by travelwithcats at 5:23 AM PST - 12 comments

Best birthday gift ever: the secret treasure room.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:15 AM PST - 37 comments

How Willy Wonka is the Final Incarnation of Doctor Who. [via]
posted by quin at 9:50 PM PST - 25 comments

100 Ways to Attack the Groin [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:16 PM PST - 30 comments

… we should be big enough to look at it." From The Atlantic, The War Photo No One Would Publish
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:05 PM PST - 93 comments

On a visit to Smithville, Texas, in 2012, the blogger behind My Big Gay Ears found himself talking with a local artist about paper dolls. The artist turned out to be Tom Tierney, a major force in reviving the tradition of drawing famous people in their skivvies (or swimsuits) and providing them with a 2-D wardrobe. He died last month at his home in Smithville (NYT obituary), leaving behind a memorable and varied body of work. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:32 PM PST - 20 comments

While Peter Capaldi has begun his promotional world tour as the Twelfth Doctor—with Youtube streaming upcoming appearances live on its official channel—artist and fan Stephen Byrne has imagined the very much unofficial Twelfth Doctor's Animated Adventures. [more inside]
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:24 PM PST - 16 comments

BigApps (previously) "is a competition that empowers the sharpest minds in tech, design, and business to solve NYC's toughest challenges." One of the finalists is the recently-launched SketchFactor, which aims to help users avoid "sketchy" neighborhoods by posting notes about crime, racial profiling, harassment, and desolation. Not surprisingly, the creators have faced racism accusations. The developers have responded to the charges on their website.
posted by girlmightlive at 5:22 PM PST - 20 comments

Violent upheaval in the Middle East has recently spawned all manner of maps purporting to explain how the region got this way. Here, instead, are 15 maps that don’t claim as much. Or rather, they do not seek, like many other maps, to capture some fixed set of core facts about the region. Instead, these maps provide a more fluid perspective on the Middle East, often by showing what didn’t happen as opposed to what did. But for all these maps don’t show, they do illustrate one thing: the sobering fact that no one map—or even set of maps—can ever explain the region’s complex history and politics.
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 5:09 PM PST - 13 comments

In the early 2000s four people in the UK answered their phones to hear the unmistakable voice of Doctor Who, specifically the Fourth Doctor, asking for their help with an urgent problem. Only one thing linked these four individuals: they were all actors who had played Doctor Who. Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor); Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor); Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor); and gloriously, Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor. [more inside]
posted by Hogshead at 4:24 PM PST - 11 comments

Remember You (ukulele cover) (YT) Click Finn and Jake if you want to try the chords yourself. | (• ◡•)| (❍ᴥ❍ʋ)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:50 PM PST - 7 comments

Ring Around the Rosie: Metafolklore, Rhyme and Reason "After all, the story [of Ring Around the Rosie's plague origins] is itself folklore: a tale that was passed on by word of mouth first, then in writing and online media. And because it is also about folklore, folklorists classify it as 'metafolklore': folklore about folklore."
posted by Thomas Tallis is my Homeboy at 3:38 PM PST - 9 comments

The internet and Metafilter are abuzz over Maddie & Tae, the teenage country duo whose first single strikes back against the pervasive and much-maligned trend of "bro country" sweeping the country charts. But Maddie & Tae are hardly the first female country singers to bring a decidedly feminist message to the genre. Here are some highlights, in chronological order, for your listening pleasure. [more inside]
posted by zeusianfog at 3:36 PM PST - 51 comments

What Men Are Really Saying When Catcalling Women
posted by nadawi at 2:04 PM PST - 116 comments

FiveThirtyEight's Ben Casselman has crunched the economic numbers and determined: Corporate America Has NOT Been Disrupted. "By a wide range of measures, the advantages of incumbency in corporate America have never been greater." There are fewer startups hiring fewer people and failing more often. Considering that "entrepreneurship is a critical source of jobs in the economy (and) a major driver of productivity growth", a more accurate 'd-word' may be Derangement.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:55 PM PST - 27 comments

Fresh off his 6 1/2 hour stint as head coach of the Tottenham Hotspurs (previously), Ted Lasso returns to Premier League television as a pundit and to the world of soccer football as coach of the St. Catherine Fighting Owls (WHOO?). Guest starring Tim Howard and Mini Bradley Cooper.
posted by Errant at 1:47 PM PST - 13 comments

Danube Revisited: Starting in 1958, Inge Morath dedicated years of her career to photographing daily life along the Danube River, which flows from Southern Germany to the edge of the Black Sea in Eastern Romania.... In early July, eight female photographers set out to follow Morath’s path along the Danube for five weeks.
posted by scody at 1:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Photographer Vivienne Gucwa attended the first ever adult sleepover at New York's American Museum of Natural History. (Photo set)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:40 PM PST - 16 comments

Economist Robert Solow reviews Angus Burgin's history of laissez-faire thought The Great Persuasion [Amazon], and discusses the differing views and goals of the movement's two saints Hayek and Friedman. [more inside]
posted by shothotbot at 1:36 PM PST - 11 comments

The Brazilian Bus Magnate Who's Buying Up All the World's Vinyl Records. By age 30, he had about 30,000 records. About 10 years later, his bus company expanded, making him rich. Not long after that, he split up with his wife, and the pace of his buying exploded. "Maybe it’s because I was alone," Freitas said. "I don't know." He soon had a collection in the six figures; his best guess at a current total is several million albums.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:32 PM PST - 14 comments

Are There Internet Dialects?
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:09 PM PST - 47 comments

Hanging on to every smell, smoke, and sound before my son heads off to college and everything changes.
posted by beisny at 11:51 AM PST - 20 comments

The Wonder Years. An Oral History.
posted by zarq at 11:24 AM PST - 21 comments

On July 18, the only Morgentaler Clinic in New Brunswick closed. Its closure has an interesting backstory and has sparked a fight. [more inside]
posted by Lemurrhea at 11:00 AM PST - 7 comments

The Formula For An Episode Of Murder, She Wrote
posted by rollick at 10:35 AM PST - 55 comments

Revolutionary Hope: A Conversation Between James Baldwin and Audre Lorde [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:19 AM PST - 3 comments

No Wawa in the Hood by Donuts n' Puddin', a new online variety show. A short, catchy song about the superiority of Wawa over corner stores and 7-11.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:57 AM PST - 37 comments

" After more than four years, 1,800+ bolg posts, and countless silly indulgences surrendered to in the name of "being ZWR" … I’m incredibly proud to say that at approximately 10:00 a.m. this morning I went to the zoo with Roy Halladay!" [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 9:42 AM PST - 8 comments

Idris Elba is an accomplished actor who has several talents you may not know of.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:40 AM PST - 51 comments

uBeam - the wireless charging platform that uses ultrasound to send electricity to devices through the air.
posted by ellieBOA at 9:29 AM PST - 45 comments

Abandoned Republic: Before its current incarnation as the Gap's dressier cousin, Banana Republic sold military surplus and safari-style clothing. [more inside]
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:03 AM PST - 74 comments

Some days, you just want to gaze at pictures of scissors, from ancient Korea to a pair that was used on the Moon.
posted by Etrigan at 7:52 AM PST - 26 comments

His name is Grayson and he's not very good at it.
posted by Legomancer at 7:24 AM PST - 48 comments

The Actors School is a (fake) docu-soap about an acting school, featuring an interesting interpretation of a scene from Friends.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:00 AM PST - 3 comments

"The mammal mother works hard to stop her children from taking more than she is willing to give. The children fight back with manipulation, blackmail and violence. Their ferocity is nowhere more evident than in the womb [...] Pregnancy is a lot more like war than we might care to admit."
posted by daniel_charms at 6:56 AM PST - 28 comments

A time lapse of a Rose of Jericho (Selaginella lepidophylla). After being exposed to water, the plant turns from a dried tumbleweed to a green fern over the course of several hours.
posted by OmieWise at 6:37 AM PST - 17 comments

Editor’s note: We don’t publish many anonymous pieces on Forbes.com, but this compelling first-person account of sexism in the startup world merits an exception. I met the author several months ago and was floored by the stories she had to tell about her dealings with mostly male investors. Like many men (as she writes), I knew women in tech faced a certain degree of chauvinism and harassment, but I’d had no idea it was so barefaced and routine, in an industry that thinks of itself as egalitarian and forward-looking. After much persuading, she agreed to write about her experiences but asked that I omit her name, for several reasons. First (again, as she writes), the startup community is a small one, and founders rely heavily on social capital and goodwill to navigate it. Speaking up carries big risks. But fear of retribution wasn’t her only concern. While putting an individual human face on an issue, it can also be a way for critics to short circuit the discussion by engaging in ad hominem attacks. ”I don’t want it to be about me, but about the issue at hand,” the author says. “When we get into a witch hunt around particular personalities, we lose sight of the problem we should be tackling.”

Read on to learn more about that problem.

posted by Blasdelb at 3:42 AM PST - 71 comments

A short film for Paolo Nutini's song "Iron Sky." Somewhat nsfw. Vimeo YouTube [more inside]
posted by cwest at 12:07 AM PST - 2 comments

And, if a lot of people make a lot of money and there are a lot of accolades being thrown about, then a lot of credit is going to go to a lot of people, from whoever cut those winning trailers to the designers and animators who got Rocket's fur to look just so to Gunn himself. If comic book people get any credit, chances are it's going to be as a collective (i.e. "Marvel") or under a "Special Thanks" near the end of the end-credit scrawl (IMDb has comics writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lannning receiving writing credit; if that's on the screen near the "written by" credit, then that's awesome).

Just before going to see the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, J. Caleb Mozzocco put together a small guide to the featured characters and their creators. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 11:53 PM PST - 72 comments

808 State is an English electronic group that formed in 1987, and take their name from the Roland TR-808 drum machine and their shared state of mind. As a trio, they produced their iconic track, Pacific, which fused influences of house music, jazz fusion and exotica. The group changed membership a bit over the years, but one way or another 808 State have released six albums* to date, and a number of singles, EPs, and promotional discs. 808state.com has a ton of information, including an extensive visual discography, a list of other productions and remixes, and over a gig of demos, live tracks, and other non-album audio to download. Given the group's 27 year-long history, there's a lot more to see and hear. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:03 PM PST - 29 comments

"Though red big barns and big red barns are semantically identical, the second kind pleases our ears more." The Secret Rules of Adjective Order. [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:58 PM PST - 63 comments

"These probationers aren’t just paying a court-ordered fine; they’re typically paying an ever-growing share of the court’s administrative expenses, as well as a separate fee to the for-profit company that supervises their probation and enforces a payment schedule—a consolidated weekly or monthly set of charges divided between the court and the company. The system is known as 'offender-funded' justice. But legal challenges to it are mounting, amid concerns about abuse, corruption, and the use of state penalties to collect private profits. In a wide range of cases, offender-funded justice may not result in justice at all." Get Out of Jail, Inc.
posted by supermassive at 6:29 PM PST - 20 comments

“Republicans always saw libertarians as nice to have around in case they wanted to score some weed, and we always knew where there was a party. And for a while it made sense to bunk up with them. But after a while, it would be like, ‘So if we agree on limited government, how about opening the borders?’ No, that’s crazy. ‘How about legalizing drugs? How about giving gays equal rights?’ No, come on, be serious. And so I thought, There’s nothing in this for me.”

From Silicon Valley technologists to NYU postgrads, the ‘Libertarian Moment’ may have finally arrived.
posted by four panels at 4:51 PM PST - 323 comments

On the Scientific-Marvelous Novel and Its Influence on the Understanding of Progress, written by Maurice Renard in 1909. Via.
posted by brundlefly at 3:49 PM PST - 5 comments

"Is this a definitive list of beers everyone should try? Dear Lord, no. If you truly love beer, you should try them all. Even the bad ones. At least once. But this list will get you started."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:48 PM PST - 132 comments

On 28 June, Santa Cruz typographer Adam Lewis Greene submitted his Bible-as-literature project Bibliotheca to Kickstarter for one month of crowdfunding. Within 27 hours, the project had attained its $37,000 funding goal. People kept pledging support. By 26 July, following publication of a Verge article about the project, backing passed the $1 million mark. Two days later, when the fundraising period closed, the project had raised $1,440,345 from 14,884 backers. "No notes, no chapter numbers, no scripture verses. Just the text." What the Success of Bibliotheca Tells Us About the Future of Publishing. [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:29 PM PST - 55 comments

The history of soccer in the First World War — which began in earnest 100 years ago this month — is a history of two worlds in unresolvable tension. It’s the story of a failed metaphor. Soccer in Oblivion.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:21 PM PST - 2 comments

poverty linked to diabetic amputations in california [more inside]
posted by yeoz at 3:17 PM PST - 8 comments

The Voith Schneider propeller is a unique marine propulsion system that uses vertical rotating blades to allow for high maneuverability. If you can't stomach the full promotional video (skip to here to see how it works), watch it in action underwater, or give it a test drive with an interactive VSP simulator.
posted by dephlogisticated at 2:03 PM PST - 20 comments

"Johnnie Phelps, a woman sergeant in the army, thought, “There was a tolerance for lesbianism if they needed you. The battalion I was in was probably about ninety-seven percent lesbian.” Sergeant Phelps worked for General Eisenhower. Four decades after Eisenhower had defeated the Axis powers, Phelps recalled an extraordinary event. One day, the general told her, “I’m giving you an order to ferret those lesbians out. We’re going to get rid of them.”" [via (via TheWhelk)] [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 1:29 PM PST - 20 comments

Timelines for sexual slang: oral sex and beyond + orgasm, bodily fluids and contraception. Previously.
posted by NoraReed at 12:46 PM PST - 6 comments

Two tourists from Denmark spent five weeks travelling around Canada and, disappointed by the car-centric lifestyle, urban sprawl, lack of human-scale infrastructure and related obesity and unfulfilment, wrote an open letter to the powers that be, lamenting this and urging them to take radical steps to make Canada healthy, happy and sustainable. [more inside]
posted by acb at 10:58 AM PST - 236 comments

Just who IS Justine Tunney? Is she a "far-left socialist" or a "far-right monarchist"? Or is she just a very talented troll?
posted by josher71 at 10:35 AM PST - 145 comments

data.gov.in : the Indian counterpart of the US data.gov, features 10280 resources in 3215 catalogs for public perusal. There's a visualization gallery charting developments like village electrification or domestic air traffic or sales of automobiles. And also a community section featuring apps offering mobile access to some of the data.
posted by Gyan at 10:23 AM PST - 2 comments

Ultimate Close Call Compilation
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:51 AM PST - 56 comments

Sounds From a Fight Scene in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ Replaced With Old School 8-Bit Video Game Sounds [SLYT]
posted by Fizz at 8:46 AM PST - 62 comments

A.V. Club compiles a list of 30 foreign series that need immediate legal import to the U.S.
posted by travelwithcats at 8:31 AM PST - 130 comments

"There's something different about being told you’re dying when you’re 10 years old: You’re not a grown-up, but you’ve thought about what you’ll be like when you’re 30, when you’re old. You’re not a baby anymore — you know what cancer is. People start feeding you pills and poking you with needles. You make a bucket list your mother worries she won’t be able to help you complete. You want to get your ear pierced, but you can’t risk the infection. You know what sex is, but you’re told you’re not ready. You want to try new things, but you need permission first. You never lose hope for a miracle, because you’re still a kid, and kids aren’t supposed to die." Ethan Alexander Arbelo-Maldonado: Little Man and the Pursuit of Happiness [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:49 AM PST - 19 comments

Confronting Dragonforce about their racist, homophobic past. An interview by 'Grim' Kim Kelly. Prior to being famous for having the most difficult song on Guitar Hero, Dragonforce were members of a band called Demoniac, whose lyrics were often racist, homophobic, and generally bigoted. Kelly's confronts the band about their past.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:19 AM PST - 68 comments

Go Ahead, read my stuff.

I suppose, that if someone had predicted to me, in the directionless, drifting ennui right after my graduation from high school, that within two years, I would be trekking across Thailand by oxcart and having run-ins with groups of armed guerrillas, I’d have scoffed and asked for a bowl of whatever it was they were smoking.

[via mefi projects]
posted by jillithd at 7:18 AM PST - 6 comments

Spooky Black is (probably) a white 15-year-old from St. Paul, Minnesota conspicuously rocking a variety of gold chains, du-rags and FUBU and who on first sight may come off as a joke (or worse). Listen to his music, however, and you'll see why he's been referred to as "a motherfucking Internet monster with the voice of an angel." You can listen to his first album (released as "Lil Spook") Black Silk and a second release, Leaving, is dropping on 8.11.14.
posted by griphus at 6:40 AM PST - 25 comments

You are a particle physics researcher. Particle Clicker is a resource accumulation game in the same mould as Cookie Clicker - but this time with particle physics research, academics, and funding. Click repeatedly on the Collider to generate data. Turn data into research to gain funding and increase your reputation. Spend your funding on Human Resources and Upgrades - don't forget to buy beer to keep your research students happy, and coffee to keep them awake! [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 5:48 AM PST - 33 comments

After several days in legal limbo, the world's most notorious whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has been granted a three-year stay in Russia. This is amid breaking news of Russia's issuing of a menu of its own sanctions against U.S./E.U. countries, et al. The former NSA employee has been stranded in Russia for more than a year. Recently, new leaks by other, as yet unknown whistle-blower(s) other than Snowden have surfaced, according to U.S. authorities. The leaks detail certain "rules" for targeting of people for surveillance (including merely searching for privacy software), as well as details on the kind of activity or relationships which may put innocent people on terrorist watch lists.
posted by fantodstic at 5:14 AM PST - 53 comments

Dennis Wojtkiewicz paints large, hyperrealistic paintings, mostly of fruit. (via)
posted by frimble at 4:09 AM PST - 6 comments

Andrev Vltchek offers a different perspective on Cambodia's Khmer Rouge period There is actually only one thing that I want to know: how Communist was the Khmer Rouge, and was it the ideology, the Marxist ideology, that drew farmers to the ranks of the movement? San Reoung thinks for a while, then replies, weighing each word: “It was really not about the ideology… We did not know much about it. I was, for instance, very angry with the Americans. I became a soldier at the age of 17. And my friends were very angry, too. They joined Khmer Rouge to fight Americans, and especially the corruption of their puppet dictator Lon Nol, in Phnom Penh.”
posted by Vibrissae at 12:27 AM PST - 37 comments

My project today is replacing all the dialogue spoken by Antiguan characters in Of Noble Family with dialogue rewritten by Antiguan and Barbudan author Joanne Hillhouse.

Let me explain why I’m doing this.

Mary Robinette Kowal talks about why she hired somebody else to help her with the Caribbean dialects for her next novel.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:51 PM PST - 38 comments

A Buddhist monk confronts Japan’s suicide culture. A profile of a monk who provides therapy to suicidal and depressed people in Japan, but is not himself suicidal.
posted by viggorlijah at 10:45 PM PST - 26 comments

ProPublica reports: Pro-Troop Charity Misleads Donors While Lining Political Consultants' Pockets. [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 10:28 PM PST - 45 comments

[T]his is what we were dealing with: We were located in two places, and between us there were three laptops and one stenography machine. We were working in two languages (English and American Sign Language, or ASL) and across three communication channels (voice, sign, and text). They were sitting at a rectangular table, all on the same side: first Hilaria, then Kate, then Lynn, then Rabin´. That made five of us, four of whom brought constraints to the situation, ranging from the permanent to the temporary: Lynn is deaf, Hilaria is a non-native speaker of English, Rabin´ is supposed to be silent and invisible, and I couldn’t see, because I had no video on my Skype.

A factchecking session for "young sign languages" turns into an exploration on communication across barriers and needs of accessibility, language, and technology.
posted by divabat at 9:52 PM PST - 6 comments

A Finnish band named Steve 'N' Seagulls (site in Finnish) plays bluegrass covers (in English) of Iron Maiden's 'The Trooper', DIO's 'Holy Diver' and AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck'. Because... why not? [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:23 PM PST - 28 comments

Changing the Face of Medicine is an online exhibition from the National Library of Medicine, first published in 2003 but continuously updated, that honors the lives and achievements of American women in medicine. It is divided into sections (see the "more inside"), but you can also browse the biographies of the physicians alphabetically or by other criteria. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 7:17 PM PST - 4 comments

On July 2, 2014, Hannah Richell's husband Matt was killed in a surfing accident at Bronte beach. [more inside]
posted by chris88 at 5:59 PM PST - 16 comments

"Surprisingly, Black Books has no affliction with the BBC whatsoever; created by Dylan Moran (who also plays the lead) and Graham Linehan, the show was filmed at Teddington Studios and broadcast on Channel 4. It centers around Bernard Black (Dylan Moran), the careless, grumpy, wine-inhaling owner of Black Books, his friend Fran (Tamsin Greig) and his assistant shop keeper Manny (Bill Bailey). Specked with a few fun cameos by people not yet famous at the time, this show is a hilarious roller coaster ride that will make you laugh until you cry." Black Books: 4 Reasons the British Sitcom Remains a Classic [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:45 PM PST - 88 comments

The Spanish housing boom goes bust. "Some 65km from Madrid, in the quintessentially Spanish heart of a country riven by competing regional identities, Valdeluz – the notorious ciudad fantasma (ghost town) of the crisis – was conceived at the height of what is sometimes called Spain’s economic miracle. In a Catholic nation, whose faith has declined substantially during its three decades of democracy, there is an increasing reluctance to believe in miracles of any kind."
posted by Occam's Aftershave at 2:59 PM PST - 37 comments

For the past several months, Allergan has been fighting a take over by its competitor Valeant. While mergers and acquisitions are far from unusual in the pharma world, this may be the first time that a public corporation has combined efforts with an activist investor (Bill Ackman of Herbalife fame) in a bid to buy another company. Last week, Allergan sued both Valeant and Ackman, claiming their actions go beyond regulatory arbitrage and enter the realm of insider trading. At risk is Allergan's R&D operation- while Allergan spends roughly 17% or revenues on research (in line with the industry), Valeant, run by McKinsey alum Mike Pearson, spends under 3%. [more inside]
posted by exit at 2:15 PM PST - 36 comments

Featured in the Australian literary journal Meanjin, Restless Indigenous Remains is a Paul Daley essay on how the Australian government's National Museum handles the remains of Indigenous people accumulated during Australia's colonial period. An engaging, thoughtful and sobering piece, it covers the history of 'remains collection' in Australia, as well as the current debate concerning whether the Indigenous defenders against colonial expansion should be recognized by the Australian War Memorial.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 2:11 PM PST - 6 comments

“My skin is black,” the first woman’s story begins, “my arms are long.” And, to a slow and steady beat, “my hair is woolly, my back is strong.” Singing in a club in Holland, in 1965, Nina Simone introduced a song she had written about what she called “four Negro women” to a young, homogeneously white, and transfixed crowd. “And one of the women’s hair,” she instructed, brushing her hand lightly across her own woolly Afro, “is like mine.”
posted by ChuraChura at 1:11 PM PST - 23 comments

Cats Knocking Shit Over. [slyt | via]
posted by quin at 1:06 PM PST - 57 comments

Robot Hugs: a comic on harassment
Leigh Alexander: But what can be done? to combat online sexism [more inside]
posted by flex at 12:30 PM PST - 115 comments

Self-described collector of sounds and artist John Kannenberg records the sounds that echo through museums (usually thought of as spaces where silence is enforced) and creating works that "investigate the psychogeography of museums and archives, the processes of making and observing art, the psychology of collection, and the human experience of time." [more inside]
posted by PussKillian at 12:30 PM PST - 3 comments

The shortening leash on American children: We heard a lot about sneaking out, petty theft, amateur arson, drugs, and sexual experimentation from our older respondents. But as time passes, the picture of childhood looks a lot less wild and reckless and a lot more monitored. We asked parents how they would react if they caught their kids doing what they had done as kids. A typical response: "I'd probably freak out and turn my home into a prison."
posted by scody at 12:26 PM PST - 165 comments

The CIA Must Tell the Truth About My Rendition At 12 Years Old. [more inside]
posted by grobstein at 12:21 PM PST - 34 comments

"What You Don't Know About Migrant Children May Kill Them." You may be aware of the overwhelming numbers of underage migrants from Central America now in the U.S. immigration system. You may not know so much about why they've arrived, why they've left, nor how they actually got here. [more inside]
posted by migrantology at 11:58 AM PST - 5 comments

A young boy named Owen who has a very rare muscle condition called Schwartz Jampel Syndrome, as well as agoraphobia, had his life changed when his parents rescued a young Anatolian Shepherd named Haatchi who lost a leg after being deliberately tied to a railroad line in North London and hit by a train.
posted by gman at 11:31 AM PST - 19 comments

The School for Postmen is a 16 minute short film from 1947 by French director and physical comedian Jacques Tati. It's being shown on The Guardian's website and is introduced by their film critic Peter Bradshaw. The film is about a postman in rural southern France trying to finish his round on time.
posted by Kattullus at 10:17 AM PST - 8 comments

Today at approximately 08:45am GMT, the Rosetta spacecraft entered orbit of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko after a 10 year journey. Now in orbit 100km above the surface, Rosetta is already sending back amazing images of a rocky, rough rubber duck shaped comet. [more inside]
posted by nubs at 9:28 AM PST - 52 comments

The Museum Of Endangered Sounds [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:25 AM PST - 35 comments

Photographer David Slater is currently in a dispute with Wikipedia over this photo, taken in Indonesia in 2011. Wikipedia, Slater claims, has used his photo without permission. Wikipedia has so far refused, "claiming that because a monkey pressed the shutter button it should own the copyright." via
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:13 AM PST - 159 comments

Becky Hammon becomes first woman (assistant) coach in the NBA. With the San Antonio Spurs
posted by edgeways at 9:11 AM PST - 27 comments

Are you trying to write a period-correct Captain America story or just have questions about NYC in the 1930s-40s in general? The tumblr Steve Rogers Is Historically Accurate is here to help.
posted by The Whelk at 9:06 AM PST - 18 comments

The fraught business of making fake money for movies and TV.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:25 AM PST - 25 comments

Under the new “right to be forgotten” law Google is forced to remove search results for certain pages. Of the 328,000 links that Google has so far been coerced into removing, more than 50 were to Wikipedia (*nyt). The Wiki Media Foundation has created a dedicated page where they will be posting notices about attempts to remove links to Wikimedia. They include Gerry Hutch, Tom Carstairs in concert (image) and the rest Italian and Dutch articles. A new front in the Wikipedia deletion wars has opened. Wikipedia swears to fight 'censorship', and Wales calls the law 'deeply immoral'. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 8:18 AM PST - 83 comments

Sexy Keepers of Death is a blog which curates the paranormal and creepy whether it's fictional, debatable or real. Unsolved mysteries, antiquities, strange creatures, unbelievable events, historical hoaxes, urban legends, unnerving art and more!
posted by codacorolla at 7:32 AM PST - 16 comments

The Love App. Digital life and couples culture in South Korea.
posted by xowie at 6:55 AM PST - 5 comments

"Panama, a small nation of just three million, has the largest shipping fleet in the world, greater than those of the US and China combined. Aliyya Swaby investigates how this tiny Central American country came to rule the waves."
posted by travelwithcats at 6:43 AM PST - 23 comments

Gay Men Draw Vaginas! But why? "It's neat to tease out all this convoluted psycho-sexual-cultural stuff through drawing," plus "Sometimes they turn into heated arguments about gay men's disrespect for women's bodies and gay male social power blah blah blah. Awesome." (In case you couldn't tell, this is in no way work-safe.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:37 AM PST - 44 comments

“Hey,” I said to my boyfriend. “So I need to do something weird to your dick later.” I thought for a second and then added, “It’s for work,” as if that somehow made it better. My boyfriend nodded curiously. “It’s a grapefruit. I need to put a grapefruit on your dick. I’m sorry.”

Gabrielle Moss tries the grapefruit blowjob technique as recommended by Auntie Angel. NSFW. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 11:46 PM PST - 126 comments

Pokémon Zeta & Omicron are not ROM hacks. They are standalone fan-made Pokémon clones created with RPG Maker XP, featuring around 80 hours of gameplay, 2 regions with 12 gyms, a coherent storyline, "tons" of endgame content, Shadow Pokémon, Delta Pokémon, all 649 Pokémon through gen V, secret bases, mega evolutions, challenge modes (previously), and sometimes quirky dialogue. Though still in beta, it's a playable game [YT], patches to which have slowed. Each new version is posted to the sub-Reddit /r/pokemonzetaomicron.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:23 PM PST - 8 comments

Less than a year after 40 million credit and debit card records were stolen from Target's point of sale systems, the New York Times is reporting that "a Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses." (Ars Technica, too)
posted by Chutzler at 10:15 PM PST - 101 comments

Matthew Cox is a Philadelphia- based artist who embraces and joins a variety of media to produce several thematic series of work. Medical x-rays and embroidery, couture and crime, rubber stamps, short -story prose and paint all layer toward a darkly comic and anachronistic impression of the human condition in the twenty-first century. [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 9:05 PM PST - 3 comments

Flower Beards. Fuck Yeah Flower Beards! Street Test: "I’m getting a lot more eye contact than I usually do." Will It Beard?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:49 PM PST - 45 comments

How Ronald Reagan Used An 'Invisible Bridge' To Win Over Americans - "Rick Perlstein's new book describes how Reagan emerged as the leader of a potent political movement during the turbulent mid-'70s. He says the soul of Reagan's appeal was how he made people feel good." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 5:05 PM PST - 80 comments

Coffee Science: How to Make the Best Pourover Coffee at Home

"Most of the roasted coffee bean, about two thirds of the bean's mass, is insoluble cellulose. The other third is dissolvable in water. Of that soluble third, most of it is the good stuff, particularly various organic acids and sugars. The rest are longer-chain molecules that we associate with astringent and bitter tastes. Where we find the happy balance is at the 19-20% point, that is, if you extract the first 19-20% of the mass of the coffee, we tend to find the best flavor balance. More than that and you'll find those astringent and bitter flavors start to dominate. Less than that and you'll find the resulting flavors thin and unbalanced, and with lighter roasted coffees, unusually sour. Timing really is what makes or breaks your coffee brew."

[more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:39 PM PST - 97 comments

Read DeWitt's account here. "E’s landlord: ‘You’re a very attractive woman. He can’t help himself. I’m sorry you can’t live on your property.’" [more inside]
posted by zeusianfog at 3:01 PM PST - 208 comments

Why Do So Many People Pretend to be Native American?
posted by box at 2:38 PM PST - 143 comments

Full Doc - 1:16:27 - slyt: "Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African American, Latino, gay and transgender communities involved in it. Many members of the ball culture community consider Paris Is Burning to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, as well as a thoughtful exploration of race, class, and gender in America."
posted by marienbad at 2:20 PM PST - 25 comments

What happens when a small town is bequeathed $150m?
posted by ellieBOA at 2:13 PM PST - 14 comments

what's with that guy? [more inside]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:10 PM PST - 131 comments

Long before Mad Men, Forrest Gump, and coast-to-coast classic rock FM stations completed the transubstantiation of the 1960s from reality to legend, something stranger than fiction was burning the midnight oil in an old firehouse: The Socrates of San Francisco, Howard Luck Gossage, would change advertising--and the way we think about communication--forever. [more inside]
posted by HowardLuckGossage at 1:43 PM PST - 8 comments

what I learned after taking a homeless mother grocery shopping
posted by yeoz at 12:51 PM PST - 63 comments

(A theoretical physicist explains why) Science Is Not About Certainty [more inside]
posted by flex at 12:00 PM PST - 33 comments

British comedian and actor James Corden, probably best known as co-creator and co-star of the sitcom "Gavin & Stacey," is taking the seat vacated by Craig Ferguson on "The Late Late Show" at the end of this year. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 11:51 AM PST - 89 comments

For an entire school year Hillsborough, New Jersey, educators undertook an experiment, asking: Is the iPad really the best device for interactive learning?
posted by exit at 11:48 AM PST - 50 comments

Recently I overheard a man say at a yoga class, "Yeah, well, you get two women together and it's like bitch central." I could have told him he only needed one, in fact, and that would be me, but it also made me realize how much people diminish and poo-poo the real power and strength of female friendship, especially between women, which is either supposed to descend into some kind of male lesbian love scene porn fantasy or be dismissed as meaningless or be re-written as a story of competition.

Here's the truth: friendships between women are often the deepest and most profound love stories, but they are often discussed as if they are ancillary, "bonus" relationships to the truly important ones. Women's friendships outlast jobs, parents, husbands, boyfriends, lovers, and sometimes children.

Transformation and Transcendence: The Power of Female Friendship, an essay by Emily Rapp (previously).
posted by divined by radio at 11:04 AM PST - 53 comments

The Worst Highways in America. "There are bad, bad roads in America. None have I-40's ability to warp time itself, and turn what should be a three-hour drive with traffic into a creeping space-time anomaly broken only by the words "hey, there's the exit for Bucksnort." I am convinced a person could extend their lifespan near infinitely and live to biblical ages provided they drove only on this stretch of I-40. No one will ever prove this, because no one would subject themselves to this even in the name of near-immortality. They would rather die, and wisely so."
posted by HumanComplex at 10:33 AM PST - 154 comments