October 17
Drone Sweet Drone
Simon Stålenhag is a Swedish visual artist renowned for his beautiful, unsettling works combining pastoral landscapes and neglected, nostalgic locales with the striking presence of massive retro-futuristic technology. While most of his works come in the form of concept art, vignette series like Tales From the Loop (adapted into an underrated Amazon Prime anthology), and the occasional music video [previously], his most narratively compelling title is surely The Electric State -- a melancholy, apocalyptic vision of an alternate-history 1990s California Pacifica littered with spaceship hulks and rotting androids, in which a young girl searching for her brother journeys with her mute robot across a rapidly disintegrating society consumed from within by an addictive neural-VR craze that's birthing a race of ominous Lovecraftian machines. The tale inspired video essays, animations, and even roleplaying games, and fans took note when Netflix optioned the book for a big-budget adaptation. But though the project nails the imagery and has a stacked cast, the first look and teaser trailer suggests the Russo-directed blockbuster may be more in the vein of "Fallout + Marvel with an endearing team of ragtag robots" than "unspeakable horrors slithering through your headset."
RIP Toni Vaz
You're right, we don't know anything. It's just a dot, below this
Constructed entirely of archival footage, the short documentary Balloon Boy tracks the news story via the breathless hours of coverage news channels across the world gave to the peculiar spectacle, both during the flight and long after the balloon had landed. Directed by the US filmmakers Arlin Golden and Brian Gersten, and produced by the US filmmaker Nathan Truesdell, who is known for tragicomic archival documentaries tackling institutional dysfunction, the work forms a withering criticism of profit-driven news media. And, in the process of gawking at the surreal spectacle all over again, viewers may even find themselves a tad implicated in the systems of ‘news coverage’ that are rewarded for entertaining rather than informing. [Aeon]
equal pay for equal work
“She sparked a movement and changed the face of pay equity forever” [ap] rest in peace Lilly Ledbetter
Student in Bristol, Britain finds scorpion crawling inside Shein parcel
Student in Bristol, Britain finds scorpion crawling inside Shein parcel. Sofia Alonso-Mossinger found the creature in a bag of boots which she had ordered online.
Pooping back and forth forever
Bots placed in chat room invent meme religion! (SL YouTube) Thank God they chose one of the more auspicious memes, and yes, I mean goatse.
Serious ethical, financial and efficacy considerations with the approach
New weight-loss jabs could be given to unemployed people to help them get back into work, Wes Streeting has suggested. The health secretary said “widening waistbands” were placing a burden on the NHS. The latest generation of weight-loss medications, involving drugs such as semaglutide or tirzepatide, could be administered to people in order to get them back into employment, and to ease costs to the health service, he added. from Unemployed could be given weight-loss jabs to get back to work, says Wes Streeting [Grauniad] [more inside]
October 16
Teach the Children Well.
The most efficient ways of improving education in developing countries. "We find that while many interventions are not cost-effective, some of the most cost-effective interventions can deliver the equivalent of over three years of high-quality education (i.e., three years of learning in a high-performing country such as Singapore) for as little as $100 per child. This suggests that despite the huge challenges children and schools face in low- and middle- income countries, from poor health and nutrition of children to weakly performing teachers, the right investments can deliver huge returns, even against the benchmark of the best-performing systems. Some of the most consistently cost-effective approaches include..." [more inside]
Dungeons & Dragons moves from the dining table to the Sydney Opera House
Dungeons & Dragons moves from the dining table to the Sydney Opera House. Dungeons & Dragons games are being played live to packed theatre audiences, including at the Sydney Opera House, as the pastime becomes mainstream.
Clogging Cargo Crime
Bedrock Sandals was about to launch their new Mountain Clog. The shipment arrived at US shores, but disappeared on its way to their Montana location. As they tried to find them, they discovered their little sandal company had become one of many targets of an international crime ring. A factual article that reads like a good mystery story.
well, you don't need sunscreen at the hospital
From Best of Redditor Updates, a heartwarming and strangely hilarious (if also bloody) story of a 19 year old looking after his teenage sister while their parents are away.
Redditor asks r/AskDocs if he should take his younger sister to the ER for her period due to the excessive bleeding and clotting she's experiencing. (Spoiler alert: everyone is fine.) The good redditors of r/AskDocs tell him absolutely yes, and walk him through getting her to the ER, and he keeps everyone updated through the whole process, which includes such gems as the following: [more inside]
It's time to learn Geography (𝗡𝗢𝗪)
On October 15th, 2014, budding Korean-American YouTuber Paul "Barbs" Barbato uploaded a 6-minute guide to the country of Afghanistan. A longtime geography geek disappointed by the lack of country-by-country educational content on the platform, his Geography Now! series set the ambitious goal of making one in-depth episode for all 193 UN-recognized sovereign nations. Following a basic four-part structure (Physical and Political Geography, Demographics, and "The Friendzone" for foreign relations), these initially amateurish episodes slowly expanded in size and scope over time, incorporating motion graphics, increasingly absurd vexillological running gags, myriad side topics, faux-country April Fools, fan content from "Geograpeeps", special correspondents and history skits from eclectic friends from around the world, and even on-location specials in select countries -- deep dives into culture whose breezy humor revealed a deep love for the world and all the people in it. Now, ten years after it started, Barbs has released the final episode in the series: Zimbabwe. While he's implied the channel may evolve into a travel-focused one (perhaps modeled on his moving "Letter to..." series of travelogues), for now you can check out the completed A-Z playlist on YouTube to experience the impressive journey for yourself.
Your 4th weekly dose of female fronted metal:
This is kind of cheating: fan made remix of Aespa - Drama with a Djent backing, but the best K-Pop acts have always felt kind of metal, so it's cool. [more inside]
And for the next 11 months, it worked!
A 30-year-old carpenter from Vancouver approaches the Royal Bank of Canada and says, “I want to buy a house. Can I take a loan against my portfolio?” A representative from RBC’s Private Bank raises an eyebrow as he reviews a portfolio consisting of millions in Tesla call options, before shaking his hand, saying, “Of course!” and setting him up with a financial advisor. A few months later, this carpenter is calling his RBC-appointed financial advisor, instructing him to buy C$75 million in weekly Tesla call options. Of course the advisor complies: it’s the client’s money, after all! And those call options represent trading fees. Then Tesla tanked, and DeVocht took a C$20 million personal loan from his own LLC to try to “recoup the losses” by trading his personal account, which went about as well as you’d expect. from How a Canadian carpenter became an options trader, made $300 million, and then went bust [Sherwood]
a nested tale of gifts and repair
"I guess we were both hungry for company, what with the physical distancing and all, because she lingered and I lingered too." "The Fake Birdhouses of Springville" by Amy Johnson, published March 2024, is a short, sweet piece of fantasy fiction that starts "on a warm summer day of 2020.... a third of the way through my route delivering supplies to the elderly and other pandemic-homebound for our local mutual aid society". Worm, a woman who's "always had an affinity for small creatures", finds her kindness unexpectedly repaid.
Harvey Awards Winners to be Announced this Friday - Let's Speculate
"The Harvey Awards are an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the best & brightest, helping new readers, current fans, booksellers, retailers and librarians distinguish the best comics of the year as voted on by their peers.” And the nominees are... [more inside]
The Encampment Wars
Rather than migrants displaced by war or natural disaster, she likens Canada’s encampment residents to economic refugees, internally displaced by an acute cost-of-living crisis and a housing shortage. She also notes that refugee camps are supposed to be temporary. But of course they can last for years, as long as the emergency that creates them, and Canada’s affordability problems appear only to be worsening. [more inside]
Sharks smash sea urchins in discovery that could help
Sharks smash sea urchins in discovery that could help in battle with invasive pest. Researchers uncover unexpected findings after sharks munch far more voraciously on the spiky sea creatures left out "on a platter" for the invasive creature's known predators, lobsters.
Compliance and resilience
“There’s not going to be a fair (shoe), no one product that affects everyone the same,” says Yong. “Everyone’s biomechanics are different. Unfortunately, this is a part of the sport. If you really wanted to be fair, everyone should be running naked in bare feet. You don’t have any expensive clothes or shoes, but that’s obviously not where we’re at.” from How ‘shoe doping’ changed marathon times forever – in ways we still don’t fully understand [The Athletic; ungated] [more inside]
October 15
Fly Like an Eagle
Via Allan Rose Hill at boingboing.net and r/vintageobscura, the following musical performance
submitted for your approval... [more inside]
Photographers looking for Aurora Australis capture mysterious phenomenon
Photographers looking for Aurora Australis capture mysterious phenomenon Steve instead. People looking for the Aurora Australis have been surprised to see another phenomenon lighting up the night sky — and it goes by the name Steve.
"Look at the thing"
Talking about something completely different, Cabel Sasser wants you to look at this thing. Look at it I did, and I am still having the warm and fuzzy feelings. [more inside]
Choose Your Own Adornment
Choose your flourish carefully. For this band of material shall bind your fate. A fun little Halloween game from the delightful webcomic Crow Time by secondlina.
So Listener Discretion is Advised
The mountains of Appalachia, in an alternative timeline, were never meant to be inhabited, but served as the prison for eldritch horrors from a time before memory. However, as stone gives way to eons and elements, darkness leaks, and a conflict resumes between the Old Gods of Appalachia, with humanity caught in the middle. [more inside]
Arguably the finest and most beautiful American forestry work
Hough’s first step was technological: he patented a machine capable of cutting razor-thin wood veneers in three directions: transverse, radial, and tangential. His initial impulse was commercial. The wooden cards were so thin that they could be used as projection slides in Magic Lanterns. (One imagines that this was the height of at-home entertainment at the time.) Moreover, the tranverse sections were so strong that they could also be used as business and greeting cards. For just 10 cents ($1.00 today), customers could buy individual wooden cards to use for whatever purpose they wished. Hough’s innovation in veneer-cutting proved a massive commercial success. Fortunately for the world of book collecting, Hough was not prepared to stop there. from Romeyn Hough’s American Woods [Bauman Rare Books] [more inside]
Best of the Web
Concerns Over SpaceX as a Credible Launch Provider
The successful launch and recovery of the Heavy Booster (with a subsequent planned water landing of Starship) has provided SpaceX with very positive press and enthusiasm from the public. What remains, however, are significant issues that undermine the credibility of not just the Heavy Booster development program but SpaceX as a credible launch provider more widely.
Last month, the FAA, the controlling authority on commercial spaceflight, recently hit SpaceX with a potential fine, focusing on improper control room procedures, and perhaps more concerning, insufficient handling of explosives (note that the Super Heavy is the largest spacecraft launched to date with twice the thrust of a Saturn V. [more inside]
A sanctuary for one of Australia's rarest birds was a 98yo farmer's gift
A sanctuary for one of Australia's rarest birds was a 98yo farmer's last gift. When George Cullinan discovered the plains-wanderer, a small, shy and critically endangered bird with a moo-like call, on his farm in Victoria's Mallee he went about creating a sanctuary to protect it.
“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music.”
"Still, it gave her something useful to do."
Two short speculative stories in which characters deal with medical gatekeeping. “This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center” by Lauren Ring (published June 2024): "Brigitte Cole presents with lower abdominal pain, nausea, and a long-sleeved black leotard." Bitter satire that "draws upon my own experiences as a disabled woman navigating the US healthcare system." "It’s in the Blood" by Susan Kaye Quinn (published July 2024): "Full disclosure. More than you’d get in a clinical trial, which this was, only the illegal kind." A rebel activist struggles with disability and with the promise she's created.
How not to run a sAAs company
Founder Mode. Somewhere someone said something and a meme was born. David Gerrells is a better developer than me. He flipped the switch on founder-mode /s and built a web-crawler-data-parser using Python(!) and SQLite(!!) to provide free* backlink analysis as an elaborate, yet philosophical middle finger to SEO marketing companies like Ahref and Semrush because "backlinks are the digital road signs for the public and they should be freely and EASILY searchable by anyone."
* You can "pay" to unlock AI generated analytics reports, Stripe is configured to auto-refund your payment. Clicking the payment button is enough to fake it out. It's for fun! not profit [more inside]
In the darkness there’s so much I wanna do
Once again (previously, previouslier, previousliest) the Spanish band Broken Peach has released a Halloween Video in their classic style.
Tomb filled with skeletons found underneath the Treasury in Petra
"While many tombs uncovered within Petra are found empty or disturbed, the chamber was filled with complete skeletal remains and grave goods made from bronze, iron and ceramic." [more inside]
American woman becomes World Champion while King accused of cheating
In the big contest of this autumn, Kelci Banschbach, originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, won all her matches to become both Queen Conker and overall winner of the World Conker Championships. Overseas competitors also took home the team title, as ‘The Skuumkoppers’ from the Netherlands won the trophy. However, one competitor thought it suspicious Mr Jakins had "obliterated opponents’ nuts in one hit". St John Burkett, a spokesperson for the World Conker Championships, said the cheating claims were being investigated. Elsewhere: footage from Peckham.
Laws often protect web giants while victims struggle for justice
Fifty-six agencies provided records in which adults alleged that sexually explicit photos and videos had been posted to OnlyFans without their consent. Fifty agencies declined to provide records, citing privacy laws, technical limitations and other factors. Others did not respond, said they had no relevant records or provided records that were not relevant to this story. Using the law enforcement files, along with some state and federal court cases, reporters identified 128 cases of women and men who complained to police that sexually explicit images or videos of themselves had been posted on OnlyFans without their permission. Reporters conducted detailed interviews with nine people who made those allegations. from Behind the OnlyFans porn boom: allegations of rape, abuse and betrayal [Reuters] [CW: Rape, CSA, sexual content, NSFW text] [more inside]
October 14
Holograms are Real-Life Magic.
Holograms are way more complex and fascinating than I ever realized. Not only are they capturing the 3D form of an object from multiple angles, but also the way that light reacts to objects, from reflection to distortion and refraction. A laser shines on a 2D image, and, as the viewer moves around it, the hologram gives the illusion of light bending and reflecting off of glass and metal and plastic that isn't there. [more inside]
'Patogena'
The Degradation Drug
“I had no brakes, no morals, no inhibitions. There was no Jiminy Cricket sitting on my shoulder saying, ‘Vicki, no, don’t do that.’ ” A medication prescribed for Parkinson’s and other diseases can transform a patient’s personality, unleashing heroic bouts of creativity or a torrent of shocking, even criminal behavior. A look at dopamine agonists.
AI retinal scanner can better and faster diagnose blindness
AI retinal scanner can better and faster diagnose blindness than eye specialists.
The Lions Eye Institute has won $5 million in state funding for an Australian-first invention to improve eye care in Western Australia's isolated and remote communities. (The Lions Eye Institute is a not-for-profit centre of excellence that combines an ophthalmic clinic with scientific discovery developing techniques for the prevention of blindness and the reduction of pain from blinding eye conditions.)
森林浴
When it comes to biological superlatives, we typically focus on individuals: The largest tree in a forest, the oldest organism on the planet. After visiting the Hoh Rainforest, however, I began to wonder about superlative communities. What are the oldest existing ecosystems on Earth, and what can we learn from them? [nautilis] (previously)
An online information oasis of last resort
For years, the typical story about governments, politicians, or public figures showing up on Reddit focused on the unlikeliness of that match. Reddit was rowdy, weird, or nerdy, and it was sort of interesting or fun or strange for people with big platforms to show up there. In recent years, Reddit has grown from a large cluster of online communities into a sort of last refuge semi-protected habitat for online communities in general — that is, spaces where actual people gather to discuss or find information about certain topics or interests, organized and moderated by other actual people. Now, nobody is deigning to post on Reddit. They’re just hoping it might add to their audience a bit. from Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Comms? [Intelligencer; ungated] [more inside]
Stream More Than 30,000 Movies for Free With This One Simple Item.
Hint: All you'll need is a public library card or an university email. Create a Kanopy account. Check out all the movies offered. Be happy. [more inside]
Whence are a few of my favorite things [Free Thread]
Most of us could name a favorite book, movie, or album and talk for ages about why we love them so much. But how did you come to find these things in the first place? Is there a special person who introduced you to your favorite band, or did you happen upon your favorite TV show through pure chance? Maybe a MetaFilter thread clued you into a favorite app or video game. And do you find it true that your favorites were mostly encountered during a formative, nostalgic period in life, or is your top tier more wide-ranging? (Or in other words, what's a more recent all-time fave you've discovered?) Discuss this and more in your weekly free thread!
A four-tonne machine just printed a house in the US
A four-tonne machine just printed a house in the US. Texas just opened its biggest 3D-printed neighbourhood as a solution to its acute housing problem.
Surviving Pompeii
Records of Pompeii’s survivors have been found—and archaeologists are starting to understand how they rebuilt their lives. [more inside]
"a detailed plan to shut you up, and shut you out"
"Hi. We’re a group of comic book writers & artists who are furious about Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s plan to consolidate power under authoritarian rule. So we made a bunch of comics to explain their agenda and move you to vote against it." stopproject2025comic.org (quote from Bluesky) 15 comics up now on Internet freedom, taxation, the environment, anti-trans legislation, and other issues; more coming soon. License: CC BY-ND. Transcripts included. Contributors include Matt Fraction, Greg Pak, and Greg Rucka.
Geeks Peek Freak Leak
Pokémon developer Game Freak suffered a server breach recently, leaking an enormous amount of unseen assets, including diagrams of the universe's pantheon, frightening concept art (YT 15:02) and some quite unusual lore.
'Shine your light on the world'
Zendesk fumbles software vulnerability
Tell me if you've heard this one before: a curious young bug hunter discovers a major software vulnerability, tries to report it, and is ignored and gaslit. Today's villain is Zendesk, which you've probably used if you've interacted with customer support tickets.
VFX Artists Expose AI Scams
Visual Effects channel the Corridor Crew (previously) look at AI scams and how to identify them (25 minutes)