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If we can go out on any high note for 2024, this is a good option
Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!
The haka is a Māori ceremonial dance best known internationally as the pre-game ritual of Aotearoa/New Zealand's All Blacks rugby team, but that association can sometimes obscure its true power as a symbol of formidable indigenous opposition, never better demonstrated than in Parliament yesterday when MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke led colleagues and members of the public gallery in one of the best examples in years. [more inside]
And ya know getting them out will be a bloody story
Content Warning: Incredibly ugly upcoming U.S. Politics.
Stephen Miller and Donald Trump's public promise for a "bloody story" - plans for sweeping raids and mass deportations of 10 to 20 million people living in America are expected to start when Trump assumes office and begins on day one. [more inside]
My mom was happy with the display right away
Jan Miksovsky's mom can't make new long-term memories, and gets anxious about her family. So he created a simple e-ink display for her: MomBoard. [more inside]
A line
Rhythmical Lines "When he was eighty-five, Wacław Szpakowski wrote a treatise for a lifetime project that no one had known about. Titled “Rhythmical Lines,” it describes a series of labyrinthine geometrical abstractions, each one produced from a single continuous line." [via]
Homebrew LLMs and Open Source Models
With a decent local GPU and some free open source software like ollama and open-webui you can try "open source" LLM models like Meta's llama, Mistral AI's mistral, or Alibaba's qwen entirely offline. [more inside]
Globally great guitar
Forget about Hendrix, Beck, Clapton, Page and Van Halen; we want to highlight the guitarists who have made an impact outside of the usual rock’n’roll axis of axes. It’s a list full of invention, customs passed down through generations and a focus on rhythm as much as volume. These are the musicians who defined soukous, bossa nova and Touareg desert blues, who soundtracked revolutions and revelations, and made their traditions that little more recognisable to a global audience. These are our guitar heroes... from 50 Global Guitar Greats [Songlines]
A Narcissist's Prayer. The Trauma Survivor Mantra.
Letters from an American 11-13-24
In this time of madness, Heather Cox Richardson shares wisdom and small seeds of hope* regarding the days to come. "The rift between the pre-2016 leaders of the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans is still obvious, and Trump’s reliance on Elon Musk and his stated goal of deconstructing the American government could make it wider." [more inside]
Elon Musk's Perfect Disinformation Machine
Hidden changes are warping the already broken ecosystem that determines how many citizens—particularly in America—construct their sense of reality. (slSubstack) [more inside]
This morning for no obvious reason, I remembered the Fuel Rats.
"I find it reassuring that in a game that is in some ways a libertarian power fantasy (you and your spaceship, go anywhere do whatever you want), and a PvP universe, one of the first things people did was create a volunteer ambulance service."
Over on Mastodon, Dave Anderson walks us through the story of the Fuel Rats, the emergency refueling service of Elite:Dangerous.
Which Contemporary Film Snob Director Are You? a handy flowchart
It's dark, it's late, you're drunk, and you're ready to admit to MetaFilter that you're really a famous cult filmmaker. But if you're not sure, follow this handy flowchart by Adam Fromm: Which Contemporary Film Snob Director Are You? It's funny, it's clever, it's easy to navigate, it's a giant JPG image. [more inside]
My-co-lor-ology
The Mushroom Color Atlas is a resource and reference for everyone curious about mushrooms and the beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms. But it is also the start of a journey and a point of departure, introducing you to the kaleidoscopic fungi kingdom and our connection to it. My hope is that through this Atlas everyone will be inspired to learn more about the mycological world, and begin to understand the importance of the networks, connections and symbiotic relationships that live in our forests. Most importantly, understanding our impact on these delicate networks and our role as stewards of the land, bringing positive change to our local environments and our planet. [via The Morning News]
Free Ebooks for Getting Free (Not the Free Thread)
Haymarket Books is offering 10 free ebooks on a range of topics relating to anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist thought and action, alongside an 80% off sale, making all of their other ebooks only $2 each. The free bundle features Angela Davis and Rebecca Solnit, along with others (list in the readmore). While the sale ends on November 15th, the free ebooks should be available until November 22nd. [more inside]
Baba Yaga: Action Ficture Edition
An enterprising MFA student at East Tennessee State University created a Baba Yaga "collectible figurine" as a thesis project. Ariel Adams' project involved designing the character, building it, and painting it, using a variety of analogue and digital tools. Her style and interpretation of the figure are interesting, not a 1:1 with the conventional depictions we most often see of Baba Yaga, and her thesis is absolutely worth a read, if you are interested in Baba Yaga, action figures, and/or character design. [more inside]
Take a sip
As part of its open ethos, BlueSky provides access to "the Firehose" -- a real-time feed of all updates from across the entire network, an increasingly rare feature as more and more of the web gets walled off. The code for it looks pretty complicated, but it enables some really neat visualizations: there's the Firesky infinite scroll, with messages firing too fast to read -- Nightsky, a charming page that imagines the network as stars twinkling in the heavens -- and coolest of all, Firehose 3D, which converts the BlueSky feed into a three-dimensional dungeon crawl in the style of old Windows screensavers. Discover more projects built on the API via the Community Showcase, or check out the growing list of MeFites that are active on the platform, now that it no longer requires an invite.
"Central Casting"
“Is that an icicle in your pocket or...”
[CW: implied fornication, mortality, death] Starring Lacey Chabert and Dustin Milligan, Hot Frosty is a Netflix rom-com. Stylist: Hot Frosty might look like fun festive fluff, but it deals with a complex female fantasy. Forbes: Hot Frosty currently has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, which is not exactly what you’d expect about a magically hot snowman seducing a widow. The Wrap: It’s because this movie is, unlike the rest of the overwhelmingly chaste films in this subgenre, incredibly horny. There’s a scene where Lauren Holly (“Dumb and Dumber”) gets her car stuck in the snow and the shirtless sleetcake asks questions like “You want me to get behind you and push?” and “Are you ready for me?” before she revs her engine and moans with satisfaction. Hallmark would never. Roger Ebert review.
“We have enough. We can take care of people. We just choose not to.”
Infiltrating a Bay Area anti-trans meeting is hardly standard fare for a restaurant critic, but Soleil Ho isn’t your average food writer.
How Writer Soleil Ho Reimagined Restaurant Criticism [more inside]
Deflock the Surveillance State
DeFlock is a crowd-sourced map of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) around the world. Want to post an ALPR in your town? Logon to Open Street Map and follow these handy instructions! (via 404 Media)