May 2016 Archives

May 31

🎼♭ There's plenty of room in the blue, ♪ for your shop and for you ... ♬

Who was Ivor Cutler? A Glaswegian transplant living in London, creating surreal and playful music and poetry, sometimes accompanying himself on harmonium, from 1959 until his death in 2006. [BBC obit | Guardian obit | Telegraph obit ] By then, he'd also appeared on the John Peel Show more times than any other artist (not counting The Fall). [ A piece on him from the BBC's "In Search of the Great English Eccentric" | BBC piece and a Guardian piece on a biopic play about Ivor's life and times, The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor CutlerNational Theatre of Scotland's website for the play ]
posted by not_on_display at 9:45 PM PST - 14 comments

Disgruntled

Huhhhrh! [ponk] [doont] [ponk] [doont] Huhhhrh! [ponk] [doont] [ponk] [doont] Huhhhrh! [ponk] [doont] HRARGLBL [ponk] [doont] Huhhhrh?
posted by zippy at 9:20 PM PST - 20 comments

the best-educated low-wage workers in America

For the past month Gawker has been sharing true stories from behind the front lines of adjunct-dom: The Educated Underclass. [more inside]
posted by bq at 8:25 PM PST - 85 comments

"Something seems different, Herb." "Besides us being left out?" "Yeah."

Captain Disillusion (previously) has himself become disillusioned with his own show's format. Fortunately, a mentor from another era has returned to give him guidance.
posted by BiggerJ at 7:33 PM PST - 7 comments

Why do dancers marry welders?

This interactive chart of who marries whom may be a horrible example of data visualization, but it contains fascinating information about marriages by occupation for both heterosexual and homosexual couples. For example, actuaries mostly marry database administrators, though male actuaries in same-sex marriages prefer fitness instructors and female actuaries in same-sex marriages go for carpenters. High-earning women (doctors, lawyers) tend to pair up with their economic equals, and the most common marriage is between grade school teachers. Hints on how to read the chart inside, as you explore the more interesting parings (for example, proofreaders tend to marry optometrists) [more inside]
posted by blahblahblah at 5:25 PM PST - 100 comments

The Pizzle

Dennis Lee makes and eats garbage food
posted by clorox at 5:09 PM PST - 27 comments

No word on whether she heard the voice of Johnny Cash

Kim Gordon was not bitten by a coyote at Whole Foods.
posted by palindromic at 4:46 PM PST - 31 comments

“...in which he repeatedly referred to the penis area as “down there.”

The Many Ways The Media Gets Around Saying [Groin] By Kyle Wagner [FiveThirtyEight] It’s the oldest laugh in sports: Some poor schmoe takes a sports ball to the crotch, keels over and, once we’re reasonably sure no lasting damage has been done, the TV announcers deadpan some dad jokes while the camera pans around to giggling teammates. It’s as much a familiar sports yuk as other not-all-that-uncommon oddities, like a field player on the mound or the fat guy touchdown, only with funnier GIFs. At least, that’s how things work when the hit comes in a relatively low-stakes setting. But what happens when the stakes are raised? And just as important, when reporters are forced to write about sportsmen kicking each other in the nuts, what do they write? This week has provided some answers.
posted by Fizz at 3:35 PM PST - 45 comments

Wacky Town Names

America's a big country. From the easternmost reaches of Maine to the western Alaska islands in the Bering Sea, these United States include towns with every imaginable name. We've collected some of the more surprising examples. Because it's the last day of May and we wanna keep MeFi weird. Add your own examples, let's go wild!
posted by Bella Donna at 3:26 PM PST - 141 comments

Our goal is to change the way readers think about the history of movies

In order to expand the discussion of black cinema beyond #OscarsSoWhite, Slate put together a panel of cinema experts and historians to create The Black Film Canon - fifty important films by black directors, showcasing the black cinematic voice spanning over half a century. (SLSlate)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:11 PM PST - 10 comments

The Fire Next Time

Business of Disaster: Insurance firms profited 400 million after Sandy. An investigative report from Frontline and NPR. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 1:54 PM PST - 15 comments

I thought being a grown up would be different

"My other fruit bowl has a teapot in it." "Fruit, in my fruit bowl? Are you mad?" Readers share pictures of their fruit bowls with the Standard Issue
posted by Helga-woo at 1:29 PM PST - 126 comments

“I’m weirder now than I’ve ever been.”

Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at age 46 in 1988, social worker, artist, dancer, marathoner and activist Patricia Lay-Dorsey has documented much of her journey. [more inside]
posted by Occula at 12:53 PM PST - 1 comment

Presence

Using photogrammetry, Claire Hentschker has extracted the physical space of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining' from the first 30 minutes of the film and reassembled it in VR along the original camera path. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:53 PM PST - 18 comments

Morph Club

The Morph Club Podcast - Two comix illustrator friends revisit Katherine Applegate's popular 1990's YA book series Animorphs! Join them as they laugh and cry about sad morphing teens and the horrible aliens who hate them. [more inside]
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:40 AM PST - 12 comments

War of the Hashtaggers

How Toronto's craziest Twitter war ended up in court (slTorontoLife)
posted by Kitteh at 11:15 AM PST - 45 comments

Gender Pay Gap Among Doctors

A new survey released by Medscape (owned by WebMD) shows that female doctors are paid significantly less than male doctors. Some of this may be due to specialty choice, but not all; the pay gap is $33,000 even among primary care physicians. A 2012 study also found that, among a study group of highly ambitious physician-researchers, women MDs make $12,000 less than men, after controlling for myriad factors other than gender (full paper).
posted by zug at 10:59 AM PST - 52 comments

Oh, no, it's distinctive; as a matter of fact I wish I had one!

Goiter-Ridden Creche Figures — Disease-ridden pilgrims bring a whole new level of realism to the manger scene. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:13 AM PST - 3 comments

Things he learnt

I was a stock photography model.
posted by infini at 10:02 AM PST - 43 comments

A bookstore filled with mirrors

In Hangzhou, China, a new bookstore designed by XL-Muse contains mirrored ceilings as well unique designs around mirrors that provide amazing illusions, as well as a very unique "book playground".
posted by numaner at 9:27 AM PST - 11 comments

Typhoons! Hurricanes! Earthquakes! SMOG!

"Many of the people involved in the Washington National Opera’s production of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle say their first exposure to opera came from the same source—Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd cartoons." [SLWSJ]
posted by moonmilk at 8:55 AM PST - 15 comments

“They were two close friends, sitting alone together.”

“Frog and Toad”: An Amphibious Celebration of Same-Sex Love
posted by nadawi at 8:49 AM PST - 33 comments

Google's 2016 Food Trends Report

Google has crunched the data on all those food-related searches you made and released a 75-page report, Food Trends 2016 [pdf]. Spoiler: bacon isn't going anywhere.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:41 AM PST - 30 comments

"incredibly unethical and creepy"

A Boston advertiser's technology, when deployed by anti-choice groups, allows those groups to send propaganda directly to a woman’s phone while she is in a clinic waiting room.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 8:12 AM PST - 38 comments

Me and Magdalena

Me and Magdalena is the latest single by the Monkees. This is the first single from the Monkees' 12th album, 'Good Times!', written by Ben Gibbard from 'Death Cab For Cutie'. [more inside]
posted by h00py at 8:02 AM PST - 35 comments

Combat Juggling. No, really.

Dan Lewis's Now I Know newsletter brings us the story of Combat Juggling, and I bring it to you just because it's weird.
posted by Etrigan at 6:59 AM PST - 15 comments

“Let me tell you about this business. Every truck has a bat inside.”

“You will never see a Mister Softee truck in Midtown,” he continued. “If you do, there will be problems, and you won’t see him there very long.” [SLNYT]
posted by Chrysostom at 6:53 AM PST - 54 comments

SAVE JEANIE

"Jeanie is actually 100 percent correct in her assessment that Ferris has been cut way too many breaks in life and should be held to a higher standard. In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, she’s not just a petty, jealous sibling, she’s a female voice of reason raging against a society that demeans her and disregards her opinions." - On the 30th anniversary of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a reflection on the overlooked Jeanie Bueller.
posted by The Whelk at 6:08 AM PST - 169 comments

Shocking!

Lightning strikes at 7000 frames per second. [SLYT]
posted by Mitheral at 4:12 AM PST - 16 comments

Citizen Khan

Behind a Muslim community in northern Wyoming lies one enterprising man—and countless tamales.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:48 AM PST - 16 comments

Who'd have thought the invigorating face-slapper could be misused?

Inventions of Mine That Have Been Misused for Evil Purposes by veteran silly-person Jack Handey from The New Yorker's Shouts and Murmurs department
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:30 AM PST - 24 comments

May 30

Skepticism Refocused

When "Rationalism" makes you dumber: Scientific American writer John Horgan's recent talk to a large skeptic conference was cut short when he called for turning skepticism towards "hard targets" such as psychiatric drugs, medical overtesting and militarism, and away from "preaching to the choir" rants against the paranormal and superstitious. [more inside]
posted by blankdawn at 11:06 PM PST - 102 comments

The kids call it

Weird Skateboarding: Ritchie Jackson, Almir Jusovic, Jason Park, Kilian Martin, Gou Miyagi, William Spencer, no but seriously Willy Spencer.... Is This Skateboarding?
posted by carsonb at 11:00 PM PST - 15 comments

Anyone would do it.

Chinese students gaming entry into and passage through Western universities The advertisements were tailored for Chinese college students far from home, struggling with the English language and an unfamiliar culture. Coaching services peppered the students with emails and chat messages in Chinese, offering to help foreign students at U.S. colleges do much of the work necessary for a university degree. The companies would author essays for clients. Handle their homework. Even take their exams. All for about a $1,000 a course.
posted by modernnomad at 9:31 PM PST - 48 comments

Feral Aeroplanes

Norway's Virus make weirdness and dissonance surprisingly catchy and groovy, an uneasy truce between jazz and metal resembling a mixture of Talking Heads and Voivod. Stereogum offers a couple of looks at upcoming new record Memento Collider. "There’s Crzal's [of Ved Buens Ende, Aura Noir, Satyricon, and more] cool, controlled vocal, sometimes backed by a wistful maybe-theremin. There's clean-ish guitar that’s fringed with the fry of radiation. There’s the equally hooky and knotty basswork provided by Plenum, a returning member whose other gig, Manimalism, is one of the more interesting projects to surface lately. There’s Einar Sjursø’s subtly massive drumming, perfectly providing the right snap to every rise and fall. There are nearly eight minutes of grooves patiently fighting over the title of 'that groove.'" [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 8:35 PM PST - 6 comments

Getting Intense With Indigo Girls

If you only know Indigo Girls from their few hits from decades ago, you might not be aware that they get pretty intense on every album. Let's look at their deeper tracks from each of the Girls and how they evolve across time, starting with the beginning of their label recording career in 1989, Indigo Girls and the tracks Blood And Fire [Amy] and Love's Recovery [Emily]. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 6:34 PM PST - 45 comments

<3 <3 <3 Tormund and Brienne forever <3 <3 <3

Tormund thinks Brienne is beautiful (possible spoilers for the Game of Thrones HBO series)
posted by deathpanels at 6:09 PM PST - 47 comments

Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time! With Fred Savage! And clay!

Imagine it's the Fall of 1987 and you recently saw The Princess Bride (trailer). Then you heard that Fred Savage was back, in an oddly familiar setting with another story, this time about dinosaurs. You might be thrilled to see Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back In Time! (full film), even if you've already seen Will Vinton's clayanimation that was used as part of a dream sequence of sorts. Flash forward to the present day and you might do a bit of research on the "prehistoric monsters" featured in the short film and find some of the details less than accurate. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:48 PM PST - 6 comments

"I'll have what she's having" - Music-induced "skin orgasms"

Frisson (Wikipedia), dubbed "skin orgasms" by some researchers, is the sensation of shivers, often accompanied by the physical manifestation of goosebumps, which some listeners experience in response to particularly emotional or unexpected passages in music. Writing in The Conversation, Ph.D. candidate Mitchell Colver explores "Why do only some people get 'skin orgasms' from listening to music?" [more inside]
posted by rekrap at 4:34 PM PST - 107 comments

Slamina: a graphic designer takes on phobias

How can design techniques encourage animal phobics in opening up to a positive perspective on the feared animal?

Does not contain pictures of animals.
Trigger warning for tone: in parts, comes across as minimizing.
posted by wonton endangerment at 9:31 AM PST - 16 comments

"I truly believe sunscreen is the No. 1 anti-aging ingredient"

You Know You Should Use Sunscreen. But Are You Using It Right? [SLNYT] [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:28 AM PST - 176 comments

The Descent of Snowman

Here in the northern hemisphere the days are getting warm enough to start wishing for some cool air. Let's dream together of snowy mountains and fun ways to get down them. Sure, we could alpine ski or snowboard, some of us may telemark, and lots of us go sledding, but we're dreaming here so let's make things more unusual. [more inside]
posted by Songdog at 8:39 AM PST - 12 comments

It’s so much safer in the world of Alexander Hamilton.

"This is all hilarious, of course — a 14-year-old girl utterly fanatical about the Founding Fathers — that is until you realize that it isn’t going away." Joe Posnanski of NBC Sports on taking his 14 year old daughter, Elizabeth, to see Hamilton.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:25 AM PST - 66 comments

In Defense of Voodoo Doughnut

Portland isn’t the biggest city, the most historical city, or the best weather city. If it isn’t quirky donuts that we promote, what’s it gonna be? You think Seattle people actually like the Space Needle? Hell no. It looks like a giant alien dick. But you’ve got to hand it to them, they put that alien dick on t-shirts, aprons, and frisbees and sell it year round. Voodoo has become a Portland institution, and it’s time to accept it. What is civic pride if not the ability to look out-of-towners directly in the eye and say “you should buy this stupid bullshit.”
posted by Bella Donna at 8:24 AM PST - 132 comments

Yo mama's so vast, she contains multitudes

25 Literary Yo Mama Jokes
posted by Daily Alice at 8:22 AM PST - 36 comments

Quitting Your Job to Pursue Your Passion is Bulls***

We praise people that are “courageous” enough to quit their 9-to-5 and dive into the deep end of the exciting unknown. We idealize and romanticize the idea of being our own boss and being in charge of our own schedule. To take a risk and reap the bountiful benefits. Yet no one talks about the real sustainability or self-sufficiency of this formula when the playing field is never even.
posted by Kitteh at 7:42 AM PST - 80 comments

Bisexual Buccaneers from Both-Ways Bay

How Tumblr Users Transformed a Homophobic Post Into a Dystopian Science Fiction Lovefest [more inside]
posted by moody cow at 6:31 AM PST - 24 comments

irl pong

that's what it is!
posted by Sebmojo at 6:13 AM PST - 7 comments

“...not more communism but more public-spirited pigs.””

TS Eliot's rejection of Orwell's Animal Farm [The Guardian] Digitised for the first time by the British Library, Eliot’s rejection is now available to read alongside others including Virginia Woolf’s to James Joyce. Eliot’s letter is one of more than 300 items which have been digitised by the British Library, a mixture of drafts, diaries, letters and notebooks by authors ranging from Virginia Woolf to Angela Carter and Ted Hughes. The literary archive reveals that Orwell was not the only major writer to suffer a series of rejections: the British Library has also digitised a host of rejections for James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, showing how his patron Harriet Shaw Weaver attempted to find a printer for the novel she had published in serialised form in The Egoist. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:16 AM PST - 18 comments

What? No Pepperoni?

The Guinness World Record for Worlds Longest Pizza has been broken. (not to be confused with the record for World's Largest Pizza) After a mile-long pizza was created at Expo Milano last year, pizza-makers in Naples (recognized by most as the place modern pizza was invented) upped their game, building a 1.15-mile coast-hugging track and five motorized wood-fired ovens on wheels, and in 11 hours, 250 pizza chefs turned "2.2 tons of flour, 2.2 tons of mozzarella cheese, 3,527 pounds of tomato sauce, 200 liters of olive oil, and 66 pounds of fresh basil" into a continuous pizza that Guinness approved of. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:36 AM PST - 34 comments

May 29

Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them

The 100 Greatest X-Men Of All Time - as determined (at length) by the Comics Alliance staff.
posted by Artw at 10:41 PM PST - 57 comments

America's War On Teens Out At Night

Between truancy and curfew laws teens can only legally be outside a few hours a day. In the US, the only country with teen curfew laws, millions have been arrested since the 90s for simply walking outside at night, with no strong evidence pointing to a reduction in crime.
posted by blankdawn at 10:33 PM PST - 53 comments

Teach The Controversy

The Verge Review of Animals: Spiders

This column is part of a series where Verge staffers post highly subjective reviews of animals. Up until now, we’ve written about animals without telling you whether they suck or rule. We are now rectifying this oversight. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:11 PM PST - 73 comments

Leyla McCalla: from classical cello to Langston Hughes and Haitian folk

Leyla McCalla is a classically trained cellist who grew up in New York with her Haitian parents. She moved to New Orleans where she performed on Royal Street and learned about the Haitian history of the community. McCalla also joined the Carolina Chocolate Drops and diversified her style and sound. With the combined influence of place and company, she started performing Haitian folk music, which she paired that music with poetry of Langston Hughes for her first solo album, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes (Soundcloud album stream). That was two years ago, and now she has her second album, A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey (YT, official video for the title track; YT playlist), where she sings in Haitian Creole, French, and English. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:49 AM PST - 7 comments

40 or so studies about human perception in 25-30 minutes. Maybe 35.

Kennedy Elliott, graphics editor at The Washington Post presents a broad, graphics-filled overview of how humans perceive data graphics. [Links to Medium, not WaPo.]
posted by Room 641-A at 10:27 AM PST - 9 comments

The Dark Night Begins

The Dark Night Begins. Adam West hosts Hollywood Palace in October 1966. With Joey Heatherton, a French ventriloquist, Roy and Dale headed to Vietnam, George Carlin with an establishment-friendly set, the Charleston on top of an 80 foot pole, laxatives, cigarettes, cigars, cigarettes, cling peaches. Special telephone appearance from the Riddler. (SLYT)
posted by bendybendy at 8:59 AM PST - 25 comments

Stradivarius also made guitars

Five of them still exist, albeit chiefly as artifacts and inspiration for luthiers. In 2011, luthiers Daniel Sinier & Françoise de Ridder got the job of restoring one of them, a process they describe in some detail. End result, the Sabionari can go back on stage. Here's Rolf Lislevand (and others) making it work. [more inside]
posted by BWA at 8:58 AM PST - 21 comments

Pickpocket scanners

No PIN needed They enter an amount less than $50 and touch their phone to your pocket; money transfers immediately from your account. [more inside]
posted by naight at 8:53 AM PST - 56 comments

The Graves of the Marines I Lost

"In the early hours of Jan. 26, 2005, one of two large Marine helicopters transporting troops for this expanded and therefore riskier mission crashed, killing all onboard: 30 Marines and a Navy corpsman....I promised myself that night that I would visit all 31 grave sites. I needed to get a sense of where these military service members came from: the schools and churches they attended; the streets where they learned to drive; the neighborhoods where many of their families still lived."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:09 AM PST - 8 comments

A rolling blob gathers Omoss

Albert Omoss is an artist who uses computers to explore bodies as rubbery, entangled forms (all likely NSFW) and to make ads and data visualizations. Among other tools, he uses Processing to make hypnotic animations.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 2:56 AM PST - 13 comments

May 28

Two Great Things That Go Great Together!

What's better than Squirrel Girl? Squirrel Girl Talking About Tree Lobsters! [more inside]
posted by bq at 9:12 PM PST - 30 comments

We'll have funn funn funn 'til your daddy takes the Funn Pack™ away

Artist Dan Das Mann* has created a wearable Full Party System (and instant Performance Art device) called the Funn Pack™ with loudspeakers, smoke machines, a bubble machine, mirror balls AND FREAKING LAZERS, all battery-powered, self contained and wearable. (yep, this Halloween, I'm dressing up as HIM)
*of L.A.'s BIG ART LABS, LLC so you know he's a professional. Also, absolutely NOT related to Dat Boi
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:08 PM PST - 19 comments

“...they’re really into capitalism.”

Don’t Know What To Read? Let Goldman Sachs Tell You. [Melville House] "Goldman Sachs: financial giant, hotbed of enthusiasm for subprime mortgages, and hapless recipient of your hard-earned money. Who better to tell you what to read? Well, now they are telling you what to read, in the form of a recently-published recommended book list [PDF]. We’re talking about people who incurred $550 million in fines for schemes to turn a profit on the civilization-threatening financial crisis they themselves had helped create, and the line between genius and chutzpah is notoriously hard to draw, so, yeah, I’d like to know what’s on these folks’ bedside tables."
posted by Fizz at 6:10 PM PST - 50 comments

Chlorine probably saved your life today

We don't know for certain if the Gas! GAS! in Wilfred Owen's devastating poem was chlorine, but we do know that it can kill and maim in the way he described. But when his poem was written, chlorine had already begun to play a completely different, quietly heroic role, going on to save hundreds of millions of lives over the course of the 20th century. The battle to get chlorine accepted for water treatment was understandably dramatic given its known killing power. In 1908, John Leal, in almost complete secrecy, without any permission from government authorities (and no notice to the general public)... decided to add chlorine to the Jersey City reservoirs. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 5:51 PM PST - 40 comments

Nothing but net.

Chef Quah Swee Then shows us how to catch a rabbit. More videos at his Facebook page.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:39 PM PST - 39 comments

I'd rather crank than switch

De-dimension, the graduation project of Design Academy Eindhoven student Jongha Choi, is a different take on flat-pack furniture. It's a bit more practical than his Cigarette Chair.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:18 PM PST - 11 comments

Sanctuary

"Sanctuary is the world I imagine when I play the piano–a fantasy forest that grows around me and my music. In this virtual world, I can create an intimate and secluded stage where I can overcome my anxiety by minimizing my awareness of the audience." Yurika Mulase is a pianist and an Interactive Telecommunications student at NYU.
posted by there's no crying in espionage at 1:14 PM PST - 2 comments

The cars drive in, the cars drive out. Over and over and over.

Using data compiled from the U.S. Census American Community Survey, Mark Evans has compiled hypnotic visualizations of commutes around the U.S. There are more in-depth details at his blog, I Like Big Bytes. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 10:14 AM PST - 25 comments

Reagan tells Soviet jokes

Everything makes him think of a story.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:12 AM PST - 37 comments

The kind of music that makes you say, "Holy Fuck!"

After a six-year absence, Toronto DIY-electro-rockers Holy Fuck return with a new album, Congrats. The video for the lead single, "Tom Tom," directed by Michael Leblanc, was filmed and cast on location in the Romanian village of Zarnesti. Congrats (released yesterday) can be streamed in its entirety on the band's Bandcamp page. [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:29 AM PST - 4 comments

Space X nails it again

The latest video of a Falcon 9 rocket returning from the upper atmosphere. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:27 AM PST - 24 comments

What happened to Google Maps?

Justin O'Beirne compares the 2010 and 2016 editions of Google Maps and finds a lack of balance — especially after looking at a map printed in the 1960s. [more inside]
posted by metaquarry at 7:59 AM PST - 129 comments

Det skal godt gjøres å spise bare en

Veggen ("The Wall") is the first in a series of eight Norwegian advertisements that show us the tragic consequences of a miraculous discovery. [more inside]
posted by knapah at 7:19 AM PST - 27 comments

Mapping Decline in Regional Diversity of English Dialects

Professor David Britain from the University of Bern added: “People in Bristol speak much more similarly to those in Colchester now than they did fifty years ago. Regional differences are disappearing, some quite quickly. However, while many pockets of resistance to this levelling are shrinking, there is still a stark north-south divide in the pronunciation of certain key words.”
posted by veedubya at 2:46 AM PST - 24 comments

May 27

Scaling the Heights in China

To attend class, backpack-carrying pupils from Atuler village in Sichuan province must take on an 800-metre [2,600-foot] rock face, scrambling down rickety ladders and clawing their way over bare rocks as they go. (SLGuardian with internal link to original reporting in Chinese)
posted by bryon at 11:39 PM PST - 10 comments

Football anthems and soccer songs, including one by Pop Will Eat Itself

There are a ton of football (soccer, for the US hooligans) songs and chants (Wiki category), enough to warrant a 4 CD compilation of "hit anthems" back in 2010, with such notables as Come On England and Goldenballs, which got both 4-4-2 and Bell and Spurling on Top of the Pops for their respective songs. But what about those lads who petitioned (but failed) to have FIFA get the Italian pornstar-turned-MP Ilona ‘Cicciolina’ Staller to present the 1990 World Cup trophy, Pop Will Eat Itself? They had their turn on TOTP with their unofficial World Cup anthem, Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina (SFW music video).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:46 PM PST - 18 comments

When you grow up hearing," Yeah, but you're one of the good ones"...

You don't choose to be the Cleverman. You get chosen. The similarities in Australian politics, literature, cinema and television to the United States are striking at times. One man's erasure has become inspiration for a tv show with the first ever Australian Indigenous superhero on the national broadcaster. Youtube link
posted by taff at 9:21 PM PST - 17 comments

Treasure Hunt

“I still think you could do something that no one has ever done before.” - the story of Kit Williams and Masquerade, a children's book of illustrations that also served as clue to the location of a golden hare, and, despite an ignoble end to the competition, kicked off a crazy off treasure hunting books and videogames in 1980s Britain.
posted by Artw at 8:16 PM PST - 22 comments

I root for Yellow

The free physics simulator Algodoo is used to create (among many other things) soothing marble race videos. But once you've got colored balls racing each other, why not take things to the next level? Introducing the Algodecathlon and the Algicosathlon
posted by bq at 7:13 PM PST - 21 comments

“Its been the same ol’ thang, I swear the game don’t change”

“Safe”- MC Dumbfounded [NSFW Lyrics] [YouTube] Rapper Dumbfoundead Tackles Hollywood Racism in Amazing New Video [via: New York Magazine]
posted by Fizz at 5:54 PM PST - 9 comments

Average Roman worker died at 30 with bad bones

Almost 2,000 working-class Roman skeletons excavated over the past 15 years show high rates of broken bones, arthritis, and bone cancer, even though the average age of death was only 30. They probably mostly ate stale bread and rotting grains, unlike the "the rich inhabitants in Pompeii - a city of expensive villas and plush domuses" who "generally avoided hard labour and ate a varied diet." The full study is available as Bones: Orthopaedic Pathologies in Roman Imperial Age. "A multidisciplinary team including orthopaedists, paleopathologists, radiologists and medical historians has evaluated the major groups of bone disease in the population finding out incredible cases and picture of ortho-traumatologic pathologies in a pre-surgical era." [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 5:14 PM PST - 44 comments

Free State of Jones

The True Story of the 'Free State of Jones': A new Hollywood movie looks at the tale of the Mississippi farmer who led a revolt against the Confederacy (Smithsonian Mag). Newton Knight has always been a controversial figure. "This controversy was fueled in part by Knight's postwar marriage to a formerly enslaved black woman, which effectively established a small mixed-race community in southeastern Mississippi."(Jones County, Mississippi) [more inside]
posted by cwest at 3:17 PM PST - 26 comments

Nuts about doughnuts

Recipes for Leftover Doughnuts.
posted by storybored at 3:09 PM PST - 32 comments

Officer Edith

“I told Pierre that hedgehogs love baths but he said no, People love hedgehogs having baths. There is a difference.” Officer Edith is: a) a green parrot, b) the office bird and mascot of San Francisco Animal Care & Control, and c) the persona behind what may be the best account on twitter dot com. [more inside]
posted by karayel at 2:24 PM PST - 20 comments

When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter...

On July 22, 2013, Geraldine Largay stepped into the Maine woods and disappeared without a trace. The 66-year-old had been hiking the Appalachian Trail alone, and failed to make a scheduled meet-up with her husband. Her body was found over two years later, on October 16, 2015, just a 10 minute walk from a trail that turns into a dirt road. On Thursday, the Maine Warden Service released its files on her disappearance, revealing that she had survived for nearly four weeks before succumbing to starvation and exposure.
posted by apricot at 1:15 PM PST - 131 comments

Momma!

RIP cartoonist Mell Lazarus, who wrote Miss Peach and Momma. NY Times obit. He also wrote two books, including The Boss is Crazy, Too. [more inside]
posted by Melismata at 1:04 PM PST - 12 comments

#BamForHam

The New York Times reports on the one Hamilton performance people might not be aware of - on the softball field as part of the Broadway Show League. (SLNYT)
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:43 PM PST - 8 comments

"And the survey says... MY WEENIE"

Steve Harvey Doesn't Want to Host Family Feud Anymore (SLYT)
by Vic Berger IV (previously)
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:33 PM PST - 23 comments

World’s Deepest Flying Insect Lives in Darkness with No Food or Sex

Exactly what the tiny insect does in the cave, besides flying, is still unclear. Insects, amirite?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:11 PM PST - 17 comments

Ursine Hammock Hijinks

Three young bears play on a hammock while their mom looks on. (SLYT)
posted by usonian at 11:04 AM PST - 21 comments

A Progressive’s Style Guide

"Every day I experience how language can bring people together and build power. But language can also be divisive, dangerous, and exclusionary... I got to work on a Progressive Style Guide, (pdf) that would help guide fellow campaigners and writers in the progressive movement on using inclusive language."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:02 AM PST - 60 comments

Tabarnak! Tabarnak!

The Delightful Perversity of Quebec's Catholic Swears (SLAO)
posted by Navelgazer at 11:01 AM PST - 52 comments

Don't Choke.

On Monday, Dr. Heimlich, at 96 years of age, finally used his maneuver to rescue a choking victim.
posted by schmod at 10:01 AM PST - 49 comments

Bergoglio really should have gone for Lando II

You thought the numbering of English monarchs was bad? The papacy is even worse.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:56 AM PST - 6 comments

The Brexit threat to Spain's little Britain

In one of Spain’s biggest British enclaves, the EU referendum looms large over an expat Shangri-La based on bowls, beaches and high-quality free healthcare. But is there any real love for Europe there? (slTheGrauniad)
posted by Kitteh at 9:38 AM PST - 35 comments

'Cause hydration is so ill

Sarah Silverman - Perfect Night (feat. Will.i.am) (SLYT)
posted by numaner at 8:52 AM PST - 9 comments

Making The Grades

How one California university faked students’ scores, skated by immigration authorities — and made a fortune in the process. Buzzfeed News covers allegations of grade faking (and more) at Northwestern Polytechnic University.
posted by zabuni at 8:27 AM PST - 19 comments

here to bury Salon, not praise it

POLITICO eulogizes Salon [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:33 AM PST - 70 comments

The Curious History of “Tribal” Prints

How the Dutch peddle Indonesian-inspired designs to West Africa. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 6:14 AM PST - 10 comments

simultaneous pursuit of wisdom and motherhood

Hungarian philosopher Zsófia Zvolenszky details her experiences of giving talks at philosophy conferences with a small child, starting when said daughter was 5 months old. [more inside]
posted by kmt at 5:27 AM PST - 10 comments

May 26

Hussam and the Death Way

Refugees are not a swarm, or a flood, but people. Cartoonist Toby Morris reports the story of 16 year old Hussam and his flight from Syria. Previously
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:49 PM PST - 12 comments

It's all junk!

When Jen (of Cake Wrecks fame) and her husband John learned DragonCon was planning a Labyrinth Ball, they decided to get to work on a costume -- to re-create the junk lady from Labyrinth. Finished costume. [more inside]
posted by fings at 7:27 PM PST - 29 comments

Belief in the unlikely: John Keely's schemes for free energy and more

John Ernst Worrell Keely was an inventor from Philadelphia who claimed to developed a machine that was motivated by a new and hitherto unknown force, based on the musical vibrations of tuning forks and that music could resonate with atoms or with the aether. His demonstrations were good enough to garner significant financial support and public interest, but he was debunked by Scientific American after his death in 1898. That hasn't stopped people from believing in sympathetic vibratory physics (Straight Dope forum discussion) and discussing Keely's other claims (on Pure Energy Systems Wiki). One of the most ardent supporters of Keely's theories is Jerry Decker, operator of KeelyNet, a long-running collection of articles and research on (free) energy, gravity control and other alternative sciences, with a section devoted to Keely.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:20 PM PST - 27 comments

Is it Ghostbusters Trailer 2?

The Trailers for Ghostbusters (2016) and the Art of Editing Comedy
posted by Artw at 6:11 PM PST - 73 comments

Steady hand

INSANE Domino Tricks! [more inside]
posted by bq at 5:54 PM PST - 17 comments

Seeing the Music

How the Toronto Symphony Orchestra uses graphic design to guide its audiences though its music [more inside]
posted by damayanti at 5:52 PM PST - 9 comments

“With Dropbox Infinite, we’re going deeper: into the kernel—”

Dropbox Wants More Access to Your Computer, and People Are Freaking Out [Motherboard] [Vice] On Tuesday, Dropbox published more details about upcoming changes to the company's desktop client that will allow users to access all of the content in their account as if it is stored on their own machine, no matter how small the hard-disk on their computer. In other words, you can browse through your own file system and have direct access to your cloud storage, without having to go and open a web browser nor worry about filling up your hard-drive. Sounds great, but experts and critics have quickly pointed out that Dropbox Infinite, as the technology is called, may open up your computer to more serious vulnerabilities, because it works in a particularly sensitive part of the operating system.
posted by Fizz at 5:49 PM PST - 56 comments

Rediscovery of the 2nd known African-American woman novelist in 19th C.

Sarah E. Farro, an African-American woman, published a novel calledTrue Love in 1891. "The reason for 'True Love’s' disappearance might be simple: it takes place in England, a place Farro probably never visited, and all of its characters are white." It's been digitized and is available here and here.
posted by wendyfairy at 5:11 PM PST - 2 comments

Crime scene corvid

A winged thief tries to make off with evidence
posted by sardonyx at 5:01 PM PST - 21 comments

It's a Boy Thing

Couples who have sons are more likely to stay together. But why?
posted by R.F.Simpson at 4:44 PM PST - 75 comments

All together now ...

This week at a show in Paris, Radiohead performed a live version of Creep for the first time since 2009. Cameraphones were there. [more inside]
posted by carter at 4:29 PM PST - 13 comments

Aristotle's Tomb

Is this Greek hilltop the 2,400-year-old burial place of Aristotle? "Greek archaeologists at Ancient Stagira, Central Macedonia, say they have found Aristotle’s tomb. Addressing the Aristotle 2400 Years World Congress, they point to the 2,400-year-old tomb as the most important finding from the 20-year excavation."
posted by homunculus at 4:09 PM PST - 22 comments

An API is like a menu

Google prevails over Oracle: APIs are copyrightable but Android is fair use, jury says
posted by Monochrome at 2:17 PM PST - 72 comments

The Crucible needs your prowess!

"Who me? But I can only dance! And throw trip mines..." (SLYT.) [more inside]
posted by lonefrontranger at 2:00 PM PST - 4 comments

Heart Like a Wheel

Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney "was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a Top Fuel dragster. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980, and 1982, becoming the first person to win two and three Top Fuel titles. She won a total of 18 NHRA national events." She is ranked fifth on the NHRA top 50 drivers of all time. [more inside]
posted by cwest at 12:46 PM PST - 23 comments

Idle Hands Do The Factory's Work

Kill some time building a production line with factoryidle, an idle game about factories.
posted by cortex at 12:37 PM PST - 231 comments

Season 4, episode 14: Rory finally accepts her Yale fate.

Every single terrible hat Rory and Lorelai wore on "Gilmore Girls" (note: is in fact every hat, terrible or no)
posted by Etrigan at 12:19 PM PST - 25 comments

I Can Do All Things

This NBA season was overtaken by Stephen "Steph" Curry. After winning it all last season, this year he led the Golden State Warriors to the best regular-season record in the history of the league. Rising from relative obscurity in his early years, Curry won a second MVP award on the strength of his otherworldly play, and as he began to regularly surpass superstar Lebron James, his team seemed easily headed for more glory. But tonight Steph's team faces elimination from the NBA playoffs, brought on by an Oklahoma City Thunder team few thought would compete for a championship with a first-year coach and a star player possibly leaving the team after this year. Here is how it is happening.
posted by cashman at 11:27 AM PST - 74 comments

I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.

I miss my mom and dad and brother, my friends, my dog and cat, my giant redwood trees, and tacos.
Tor developer isis agora lovecruft is the latest developer to seek self exile and tells her story of FBI harrassment.
[more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 11:12 AM PST - 28 comments

Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results

In the continued fallout of the Wall Street Journal's expose on Theranos' struggles to deliver accurate medical test (previously), it has now been reported that Theranos is throwing out all Edison results from 2014 and 2015 (WSJ [paywalled], Reuters). The company reported completing about 890,000 tests per year, and "...has told the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that it has issued tens of thousands of corrected blood-test reports to doctors and patients, voiding some results and revising others, according to the person familiar with the matter." [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 11:08 AM PST - 61 comments

At Baylor, More Than A Falling Starr

Baylor University has fired football coach Art Briles and demoted university president Kenneth Starr upon receipt of an independent report detailing how the football program concealed rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence accusations against Baylor football players. The announcement has come as a shock, as it had seemed that Starr would be the scapegoat for the scandal, with his demotion used to protect Briles, the most successful coach in the school's history. However, increased media scrutiny due to the 2016 campaign season bringing up Starr's role in the Whitewater investigation, drawing greater attention to what happened at Baylor.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:58 AM PST - 69 comments

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm almost ready for my close-up."

Unflattering animal pictures. Yup.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:53 AM PST - 22 comments

Rhymes with Hug

Take a breath, make a sound, keep going | The wandering haunting music of Doug Koyama
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:35 AM PST - 1 comment

Neanderthal Speleofacts

Neanderthals built mysterious cave structures 175,000 years ago which have been recently discovered in southwestern France. Walls were fashioned from stalagmites, and the area lit up with fireplaces. The French National Scientific Research Centre has released photos and a video about the site.
posted by Kattullus at 10:30 AM PST - 48 comments

quack squad

At 9.45 a.m. each day, more than 1,000 Indian Runner ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa’s Vergenoegd vineyard in Stellenbosch. [more inside]
posted by fight or flight at 10:07 AM PST - 26 comments

Article 3: All Players in a team’s line-up shall be visually impaired.

In Beep Baseball (length 4:48), there are two bases, the pitcher is with the hitting team, batters are allowed 4 strikes, and the ball beeps. Oh, and all of the hitters are visually impaired. [more inside]
posted by nicodine at 9:59 AM PST - 2 comments

Jawsome!

Everything you think you know about Street Sharks is a lie.
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:02 AM PST - 43 comments

It makes you sound weak!

"More than 38 million American women have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. Many of these women develop coping mechanisms to placate their abusers and protect themselves." How about we stop policing women's language?
posted by xarnop at 8:33 AM PST - 71 comments

1958 - ∞

Combine the thrill of old-school formation dancing videos e.g. Janet Jackson with tap dancing, add in a Purple Salute, and you get Syncopated Ladies Salute A Legend.
posted by hippybear at 8:31 AM PST - 12 comments

Either - Or

Fair Warning [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:29 AM PST - 18 comments

Duty, Honor, Country

As 2nd Lt. Alix Schoelcher Idrache stood at attention during his West Point commencement on Saturday, he was overwhelmed with emotion. [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 7:28 AM PST - 7 comments

Rent: An Oral History

Twenty years after Jonathan Larson’s posthumous triumph arrived on Broadway, the cast and creative team relive the rise of a musical that changed theater.
posted by trillian at 7:20 AM PST - 10 comments

Ghostbusters, Frozen, and the strange entitlement of fan culture.

Fans don’t need to get what they want, and much of the time, they probably shouldn’t. Sometimes, they will; it’s unrealistic to expect that every piece of art or pop culture with any kind of dedicated following can find a way to satisfyingly sidestep or subvert the expectations of every person in that following. (slAVClub)
posted by Kitteh at 7:09 AM PST - 133 comments

Understanding the Spectrum

Rebecca Burgess' Comic Redesigns the Autism Spectrum to Crush Stereotypes : “I want people to understand that autistic people don’t all fit a stereotype, and show people the consequences of stereotyping,” Burgess, from the U.K., told The Mighty in an email. “[Stereotyping leads to] underestimating the skills of autistic people or not believing someone [who is on the spectrum].”
posted by jillithd at 6:57 AM PST - 13 comments

The Enduring Whiteness of American Journalism

What three decades in journalism has taught me about the persistence of racism in the US [slGuardianLongRead]. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 4:21 AM PST - 12 comments

Volunteers, orphanages, and good intentions

"I was asked recently by a friend to meet some people from her church in the US who were visiting Uganda on a mission trip. The aim of the meeting was to convince them that supporting and visiting orphanages was doing more harm than good." [more inside]
posted by Catseye at 2:54 AM PST - 68 comments

May 25

"We are here to make coffee metal."

Brendon Small confirms there will be no Metalocalypse series finale. [more inside]
posted by My Dad at 9:15 PM PST - 27 comments

But what will Bucky think?

A day after #GiveSteveRogersABoyfriend trended worldwide on twitter, readers of Captain America were treated to a much different surprise. (spoilers for Captain America: Steve Rogers #1) [more inside]
posted by Windigo at 7:53 PM PST - 160 comments

Cat Watching a Horror Movie

Just what it says. A cat. Watching a movie. Belonging to the horror film genre. [SLYT]
posted by bologna on wry at 7:37 PM PST - 43 comments

Creative Limitations in Intoxicants

Salt Lake Spirit: How Utah's Liquor Laws Foster Creativity Behind the Bar (Serious Eats) "Let's take the classic Manhattan. It's actually perfect for Utah's liquor laws. The typical Manhattan would have two ounces of whiskey to one ounce sweet vermouth. But a three-ounce cocktail is illegal here, right? So now you have to get your base liquor back to one and a half ounces and then bring everything else in line to match," Walton explains, noting that the sweet vermouth would now be cut to three-quarters of an ounce. [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 6:59 PM PST - 26 comments

Stop me if you've seen this one before

T-Pain rides to the Salford Lads Club “Whatever I Want.” is a shot-for-shot remake of the Smiths’ 1987 video for “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before.”
posted by vespabelle at 6:57 PM PST - 16 comments

Norfolk Southern, What's your Function

The Norfolk Southern Railroad in 2013 premiered a pretty radical television commercial for a railroad in these times. Riffed from a possibly recognizable song and directed by cinematographer Samuel Bayer, who has produced music videos for rock bands including The Rolling Stones, Metallica, Nirvana, Aerosmith, The Cranberries, Smashing Pumpkins, & Justin Timberlake, it drew heavily on the skills of working railroaders and the precise maneuvering of tens of thousands of tons of heavy equipment. Making Of.
posted by pjern at 6:49 PM PST - 21 comments

The upside of Tourette syndrome

CBC radio interview with Jess Thom of "Backstage in Biscuit Land"
posted by HuronBob at 5:41 PM PST - 5 comments

Never Mind The Bollocks - The Making of a Classic Album

Documentary about the making of the Sex Pistols seminal album. Also discusses how the band came together, signing to EMI/A&M/Virgin, the Grundy Scandal and resultant publicity, and some footage shot by their tour manager of them in Berlin by the wall. Warning: contains Malcolm McLaren. [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 5:25 PM PST - 18 comments

“This case will move forward,”

Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Trial Can Proceed, Judge Rules [The New York Times] Prosecutors in Pennsylvania on Tuesday crossed their final hurdle to bring Bill Cosby to trial on charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman he once mentored, with a judge ruling that enough evidence existed for the case to move forward. While Mr. Cosby is fighting numerous civil cases involving similar accusations, the ruling, by Judge Elizabeth A. McHugh, means that the once popular entertainer must face at least one of his accusers in a criminal proceeding, likely to take place here this year. [Previously.] [Previously.] [Previously.]
posted by Fizz at 5:22 PM PST - 40 comments

VHS Head: filthy musical menagerie of mangled plunderphonics from VHS

Ade Blacow is inspired by b-movies, particularly those captured on VHS. You could probably tell that from his moniker of choice. He also cites early Autecre, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, old prog rock, as well as 70s horror and 80s sci-fi films (YT, interview). To make his music, he samples from his vast collection of old movies on VHS, and thus VHS Head was born. You could call vapor wave IDM, if you're looking for short-hand. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:15 PM PST - 5 comments

A weirdly degenerate corner of the internet

How the Racial Politics of Dat Boi Ripped Apart a Popular Facebook Group [more inside]
posted by naju at 4:05 PM PST - 78 comments

Take out your heaphones.

What is a LinkedIn, I don't need a LinkedIn, Beyoncé knows who I am!! [more inside]
posted by pseudostrabismus at 3:05 PM PST - 17 comments

giant roach motel development experiment

Earth Chemical have initiated new research to develop countermeasures for the future, for when cockroaches have evolved and mutated into giants. [more inside]
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 2:59 PM PST - 8 comments

Dinner is shipped.

The most unsexy, onerous, absurdly challenging task I face on a daily basis is figuring out how to put food in my body.... I’m eating, but I’m not deluded enough to think I’m eating well. It’s a problem most working people I know struggle with. How do you possibly come up with the many hours per week it takes to plan, shop for, and execute meals that are actually good for you? In recent years, meal-subscription services have been offered up as a new solution for this outwardly unimpressive problem. So I decided to embark on a six-week mission to find the one service that rules them all.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:37 PM PST - 212 comments

Bottle Flip For the Ages

Mike Senatore is a high school senior with a hidden talent. He can flip a water bottle. So he did. In front of his whole school. History was made and the world went crazy.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:51 PM PST - 70 comments

(Oh yeah!) I heard there was a secret chord

Did you ever realize that the word "Hallelujah" has the same syllable count and stress pattern as "Waluigi?"
SO!: It's a Cold and a Broken Waluigi - And here, with adjusted lyrics (but without the voice) [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 1:34 PM PST - 28 comments

Pirates in Shanghai

After watching the on-ride video of POTC, your first thought may have been the same as mine: “How did they do that?”
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:00 PM PST - 14 comments

Bee '16

The 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee is on. After ties in 2014 and 2015 because the judges ran out of words, the Bee is getting harder -- the opener was "abecedarius". [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 12:15 PM PST - 39 comments

"...onore agli angeli del fango."

Florence and the Mud Angels. As a sinkhole 200m long and 7m wide opened up along the Arno River embankment around 6.15 am this morning after a major water main broke during the night, the spectre of the Arno flood of November 4th, 1966* looms in the not so distant past. [more inside]
posted by romakimmy at 11:55 AM PST - 8 comments

A quarter of this generation of young adults might never marry

Millennials’ Roommates Now More Likely to Be Parents Than Partners. "Millennials, who have been slower than previous generations to marry and set up their own households, reached that milestone in 2014, when 32.1 percent lived in a parent’s home, compared with 31.6 percent who lived with a spouse or a partner, the report found." [more inside]
posted by crazy with stars at 11:48 AM PST - 102 comments

Bees?

Swarm of 20,000 bees follow car for over 24 hours attempting to rescue their queen
posted by almostmanda at 11:19 AM PST - 54 comments

Lesson well learned

Adam After Being Poisoned By A Manchineel Tree In Antigua , in which the amazingly upbeat Adam kills time on the trip to the doctor by documenting for posterity the effects of touching his face after picking up one of the fruits.

Manchineel trees and other spurges previously
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:47 AM PST - 5 comments

boosting safety, convenience, & feasibility of walking, biking, transit

Reducing car dependence in the heart of Europe: lessons from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (pdf)
posted by aniola at 10:28 AM PST - 2 comments

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe

Autoencoding Blade Runner — Artist and researcher Terence Broad shows off his results “getting artificial neural networks to reconstruct films — by training them to reconstruct individual frames from films, and then getting them to reconstruct every frame in a given film and resequencing it.” [more inside]
posted by neckro23 at 9:25 AM PST - 32 comments

The Norwegian Katzenjammer Kids

The second most impressive thing about Katzenjammer is that the band members take turns playing nearly all the shared instruments -- including drums, accordion, guitar, keyboard, mandolin and contrabass balalaika. But even more impressive is that this never feels gimmicky or distracts from the songcraft, and no doubt these switchups help contribute to an amazingly varied repertoire. While their albums are great, they can't match the live shows for pure entertainment value. Fortunately, several are on YouTube including this one from 2012. [more inside]
posted by Slothrup at 8:51 AM PST - 7 comments

Tree Law is a Gnarly, Twisted Branch of the Legal System

“I thought, as most lawyers do when they get their first tree case: ‘How hard can it be?’” [more inside]
posted by bq at 8:37 AM PST - 37 comments

Bigger than bathrooms: on non-binary erasure and exclusion.

Why We Must Stop Calling Menstruation A ‘Women’s Issue’
The problems come when I’m told I can’t be a part of [discussions about menstruation]. This is part of why calling it a 'women’s issue' is harmful not only to me, but to trans men and nonbinary trans people as well. It equates womanhood with a single biological process and is simply a scientifically inaccurate understanding. It has the effect of othering anyone who doesn’t fit that narrow criteria. It contributes to a mindset that there are tests one must pass to determine your womanhood."
[more inside]
posted by zebra at 8:18 AM PST - 79 comments

Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan

"We will again open this container of wisdom that has been left in our care" part 1, part 2.
posted by curious nu at 7:21 AM PST - 2 comments

Terrapattern

Terrapattern, currently in alpha, is a visual search tool for satellite imagery. [more inside]
posted by zamboni at 7:20 AM PST - 3 comments

Batten down the hatches!

A most succinct expression of a child's imagination. Get in the Boat! (imgur gif) (via reddit) (keepmefiweird)
posted by cwest at 7:04 AM PST - 7 comments

“Theme for atoms”

Sahara Hotnight’s Josephine Forsman teams up with the grande dame of Swedish folk groove Merit Hemmingson and a music professor to produce a tune that’s scientifically guaranteed to give you extra energy (at least if you live in the 50 Hz parts of the world, so ymmv) (full song (WAV), Spotify). But enough about power company marketing stunts, let’s talk a bit about the legendary "Queen of Swedish folk groove" Merit Hemmingson instead. [more inside]
posted by effbot at 6:37 AM PST - 7 comments

If they don't own the press, they will destroy it.

Billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel is the formerly anonymous money-man behind Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:56 AM PST - 207 comments

May 24

why you keep having the same fight every time: a text game

BECAUSE YOU REFUSE TO ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL ANGER AND INSTEAD SEARCH FOR A NEARBY REPLACEMENT EMOTION YOU DO NOT ACTUALLY FEEL BUT WOULD PREFER TO EXPERIENCE INSTEAD (Single Link The-Toast.net / Mallory Ortberg why are you spying on my unconscious)
posted by zingiberene at 11:33 PM PST - 36 comments

Why Are There Violent Rabbits In The Margins Of Medieval Manuscripts?

Why Are There Violent Rabbits In The Margins Of Medieval Manuscripts?
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:32 PM PST - 40 comments

Do not throw away your Chance

It’s around 9 a.m. on a brisk New York Friday when Chance the Rapper and Lin-Manuel Miranda meet at a photo studio in Chelsea. Within the hour, they’re dressed in dingy overalls and covered in oil, faces smeared with dirt.
posted by rtha at 8:20 PM PST - 3 comments

Farewell, Mr. Bunting

Farewell, Mr. Bunting (SLYT) From the season finale of SNL
posted by dabug at 7:31 PM PST - 80 comments

Three views of poverty.

The Precaritat was only a brief pause on the way down. Slate Star Codex takes a look at three articles on the economic "recovery" and all those it leaves behind.
posted by bitmage at 7:06 PM PST - 76 comments

Nothing is straightforward in the cancer world.

More Men With Early Prostate Cancer Choosing to Avoid Treatment [Gina Kolata, New York Times] [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:16 PM PST - 28 comments

Tails? Yep. Clothes? About half.

The Pitch Meeting for Animaniacs [The Toast]
posted by hopeless romantique at 6:12 PM PST - 77 comments

“— ah, that first whiff of the West!”

On the Trail of Nabokov in the American West [The New York Times] On his cross-country trips chasing butterflies and researching “Lolita,” the Russian-born novelist saw more of the United States than did Fitzgerald, Kerouac or Steinbeck. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 3:37 PM PST - 6 comments

tfw yr coffee game too strong

Lebanese coffee commercial. That's all I got.
posted by drlith at 2:08 PM PST - 63 comments

A very complex machine that’s doing nothing very special

Jller is a rock sorting robot built by Prokop Bartoníček & Benjamin Maus. Via Wired Design.
posted by slogger at 12:08 PM PST - 30 comments

"All the World Loves a Baby" read a sign above the entrance.

For years doctors in the US made little attempt to save the lives of premature babies, but there was one place distressed parents could turn for help - a sideshow on Coney Island. In the 1870s, the French obstetrician Tarnier went to the zoo and noticed an incubator for the raising of chicks. He asked its producer to build one capable of holding premature infants, and by the 1890s incubator exhibitions had spread across Europe and the United States. But the most famous one in America was Dr. Couney's exhibition at Coney Island, which ran from 1903 to 1943.
posted by Hypatia at 11:48 AM PST - 27 comments

Craig Baldwin: surf the wave of obsolescence, redeeming trash(ed) videos

Craig Baldwin creates "collage essay" films, redeeming or taking revenge on the trash(ed) videos of the past, and making movies on the cheap (YT interview). The work of this culture jammer, media appropriator, director and documentarian (Sonic Outlaws, Archive.org) stretches back to his short student films in the 1970s, and often includes political commentary, usually concerning the exploitation of countries and people under imperialism, capitalist or otherwise. But you might have to look beyond the chaos on the surface, as found in the ultimate conspiracy theory film, Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (1991 - 48 minutes, Vimeo). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:00 AM PST - 14 comments

All these worlds etc etc

Europa's Ocean May Have An Earthlike Chemical Balance. A new NASA study modeling conditions in the ocean of Jupiter's moon Europa suggests that the necessary balance of chemical energy for life could exist there, even if the moon lacks volcanic hydrothermal activity.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:59 AM PST - 7 comments

"Fly you sonuvabitch. Goddamit go up."

Titan: Freefall, a one-shot superhero comic by Dan Tozek.
posted by Etrigan at 10:29 AM PST - 12 comments

I Was Ready to Go to Prison for My Anti-War Beliefs.

To protest the Vietnam War, I broke into a federal building. Half a century later, I finally got the chance to ask the judge why he made the shocking decision to let me walk.
posted by goatdog at 9:59 AM PST - 21 comments

Come for the handmade dollhouse miniatures, stay for the ninja hamster.

Japanese YouTube user HMS2 creates meticulous handmade dollhouse miniatures: DIY Fake Food, DIY Dollhouse Items. There are also hundreds of kit-making videos, from food replicas to complete villages. Yes, there are Re-Ment unboxings! And oh yeah, he also built a ninja mansion for his hamster. h/t [Alert: Ninja mansion link has auto-hamster music.]
posted by Room 641-A at 9:11 AM PST - 10 comments

most of these could still have Wolverine slapped on to them just cause

"Nerd pandering at its finest! Got an idea for a shirt! How about combining Doctor Who and Mega Man? That doesn't make sense, you say? Doesn't matter! It's just two things! Put it on a shirt!"
posted by Krom Tatman at 8:50 AM PST - 2052 comments

" like arguing over who gets to fistfight a possum inside a dumpster"

an open letter to my nieces, who are currently fighting over a dude.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:43 AM PST - 46 comments

Sapiens 2.0: Homo Deus?

In his follow-up to Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari envisions what a 'useless class' of humans might look like as AI advances and spreads - "I'm aware that these kinds of forecasts have been around for at least 200 years, from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and they never came true so far. It's basically the boy who cried wolf, but in the original story of the boy who cried wolf, in the end, the wolf actually comes, and I think that is true this time." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:42 AM PST - 23 comments

“When he moves, am I supposed to ask for my $3 back?"

Venmo is turning our friends into petty jerks
posted by griphus at 8:42 AM PST - 134 comments

How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Fall in Love with Subaru

"While gay and lesbian consumers loved the shout outs in the license plates, straight people would only notice features like a bike rack. Paul Poux, who helped come up with the license plate idea, says he held focus groups with straight audiences where he’d show ads featuring gay couples. Even after an hour of talking about gay issues, they’d think a man was shopping with his uncle." (See also: pinkwashing, pink money.)
posted by zebra at 7:47 AM PST - 114 comments

Sweeping, physically demanding movements of the animators' whole body

BAFTA Scholarship winner Daisy Jacobs has graduate film recognised as 2016 Next Director winner for The Bigger Picture (making of, interview). She also won the BAFTA for Best Short Animation in 2015 (interview) and had an Oscar nomination. [more inside]
posted by asok at 7:45 AM PST - 2 comments

Still alive: Judy Blume opens a book store

At 78 years of age, legendary author Judy Blume has made an interesting career choice - in February she opened a book store in Key West, FL. [more inside]
posted by kimberussell at 6:22 AM PST - 17 comments

bourgeois capitalist eats too much ice cream and freezes to death

Out with bourgeois crocodiles! How the Soviets rewrote children's books (Guardian). A new exhibition, A New Childhood: Picture Books from Soviet Russia, will be at the House of Illustration. [more inside]
posted by cwest at 6:15 AM PST - 13 comments

Here Be Dragons... and existential despair.

Last year saw the release of Raven's Cry, an action-adventure pirate game that promised an immersive open world and historical accuracy. What people got was an incredibly buggy game with poor voice acting and glitches aplenty that would eventually earn a 1/10 "Abysmal" review on Gamespot. The creators addressed the concerns by attempting to fix all the bugs and re-releasing it in November of 2015 under the title Vendetta: Curse of Raven's Cry. Alas, it was eventually removed from Steam two months later after it received some very suspicious positive reviews. If you'd like to see what all the fuss is about, video game aficionado and YouTuber Jerma985 has some great examples of gameplay from both the original and the re-release. (Both NSFW audio)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:14 AM PST - 24 comments

The new wave of student activism: the case of Oberlin

"On or about December, 2014, student character changed” The New Yorker looks at millennial politics. Nathan Heller talks to many students.
posted by doctornemo at 4:55 AM PST - 96 comments

But he won't travel long alone/No, not in Fiddler's Green

The Tragically Hip are the most Canadian rock band. They have a new album coming out next month. They're going on tour. And today they announced lead singer Gord Downie has terminal brain cancer.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 3:56 AM PST - 90 comments

Tiny faces are his canvas

Noel Cruz is an artist who purchases Barbies and official franchise dolls, strips all of their factory paint, and remakes them into faithful portraits of iconic celebrities and beloved characters using acrylic paints and tiny brushes. His dedication to detail extends to hair styling and commissioning custom clothing to bring a doll to life. [more inside]
posted by xyzzy at 1:16 AM PST - 17 comments

May 23

English Profanity in Hong Kong Movies Vol. 02 - 香港電影 英文粗口

English Profanity in Hong Kong Movies Vol. 02 - 香港電影 英文粗口 . (Someone made a .gif of the best scene.) Also: Vol. 01. [NSFW]
posted by milquetoast at 11:04 PM PST - 5 comments

How the rich got richer

Vox cartoon breakdown of rise in US economic inequality.
posted by MoonOrb at 10:07 PM PST - 19 comments

Let's not talk about color vs. colour

Lynne Murphy's blog is 'Separated By A Common Language'. It turns out being polite is different in the UK and the US and there are specific differences in the way each culture (and subcultures thereto) use please. [more inside]
posted by bq at 9:45 PM PST - 130 comments

Cholo Goth

Rafael Reyes is a former gang member, author, restauranteur, and founder of Diamond Dogs, an art and music collective for retired gangsters. Together with Tijuana electronic artist Dave Parley, he is also San Diego's Prayers, a self-described Cholo Goth (or killwave or occultwave) project combining 80s synths and electronic loops with autobiographical accounts of street life in Sherman Heights and occult themes. They've toured with The Cult and collaborated with the Pet Shop Boys (h/t to hippybear's recent post) on the strength of songs like Young Gods and their cover of Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls. [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 9:35 PM PST - 11 comments

The country is never as bad as conservatives think it is

"You probably haven’t heard of the Constitution Party. They have no seats in the House or the Senate, and probably never will. They don’t have any spokespeople telegenic enough for Fox News. They’ve only been around since 1991, and they’ve only been called the Constitution Party since 1999. (They were the Taxpayers’ Party before that.) Basically, it’s a party for conservatives who think Republicans are too secular." - GOD AND COUNTRY, Kaleb Horton spends 36 hours with the dying embers of The Consitution Party
posted by The Whelk at 9:22 PM PST - 20 comments

A pun generator

A pun generator [via mefi projects]
posted by aniola at 9:12 PM PST - 53 comments

Herein lies the dreaded entrance to “The Developer’s Valley of Death"

In this day where closing studios is the established and accepted norm, we want to do our part to combat the norm. "We want to challenge how success is measured and point out that money shouldn’t be the only applied metric. In an industry that is smack full of impostor syndrome, depression, anxiety, and other things that are sometimes associated with the emotional work that goes into creativity, it is also important to think about how we measure success and failure. Of course money is important, as an enabler, but sometimes you need help creating something that doesn’t only serve commercial value, but an artistic need. Not acknowledging that is to miss the point of making games." [more inside]
posted by Sebmojo at 7:07 PM PST - 4 comments

Sand Marble Rally - 33 competitors!

Sand Marble Rally - 33 competitors! A thrilling race that benefits from excellent camera work and superb play-by-play to keep you on the edge of your seat! If you'd like more - here's the Sand Marble World Rally Championship, the exciting 750 Sand Race, the unpredictable mixed-marble Oddball Race complete with a bonus rally, and finally the Street and Forest on/off-road spectacular. [more inside]
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:51 PM PST - 7 comments

"The Watergate burglars look good compared to these guys"

James O'Keefe accidentally stings himself
posted by Artw at 6:18 PM PST - 42 comments

'High time is no time for deciding if I should find a helping hand'

A theory about what Duran Duran's song, "The Reflex", is about—isn't that bizarre? [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:36 PM PST - 45 comments

The Museum of Obsolete Media

Your guide to nearly every audio, video, film, and data media format that's ever existed. Or, browse formats in order of the decade they became "obsolete" - arguably, anyway. [more inside]
posted by nightrecordings at 4:56 PM PST - 20 comments

City Readers

The New York Society Library maintains an elegant online database of its circulation records from 1789 to 1805, a period that includes its stint as the first library of the United States Congress. To help you get a handle on the data trove (assembled from 100,000 records tracking every book that every patron checked out), the Library offers visualization tools and two curated lists of interesting readers: 57 representative women and 40 Founding Fathers.
posted by Iridic at 3:21 PM PST - 10 comments

This Was San Francisco, by Albert Tolf (1956)

Remarkable comic book work published in The San Francisco News. Scanned by Ron Henggeler from a book found in the UC Berkeley Library. (Previously!)
posted by azazello at 2:32 PM PST - 17 comments

Who will watch the dark money amalgamators?

In 2010, Citizens United paved the way for an influx of "dark money" (previously)--funds given to politically active nonprofits and limited liability companies that aren't required to disclose donors' names--into American elections. How to keep tabs on such groups? Dark Money Watch is one place to start.
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:19 PM PST - 5 comments

The future is so bright

Aleut eyewear was worn by those in the frozen north for hundreds of years before the concept was re-introduced as fashion in the 1930’s, the 1950’s, the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and into the 2000’s. [more inside]
posted by maggieb at 2:17 PM PST - 21 comments

The symbolic value of rock is conflict-based:

Which Rock Star Will Historians of the Future Remember? by Chuck Klosterman [The New York Times] The most important musical form of the 20th century will be nearly forgotten one day. People will probably learn about the genre through one figure — so who might that be? [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 1:28 PM PST - 173 comments

“What is this, the Dark Ages?”

The human-scale pleasures of Star Trek IV. Nimoy later explained the core concept: “No dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical bad guy.” His previous Star Trek film had all those things, and outer space, and aliens, and sets. Nimoy wanted to make a movie about Earth, right now, shot on location, with human people.
posted by merriment at 12:09 PM PST - 74 comments

Penis snake is neither penis nor snake - discuss

With such headlines as Man-aconda — the snake that looks like a penis (The Sun, natch), and references to it as a "trouser snake" or "floppy snake" might make you think the large, eyeless and limbless creature might actually be a snake. But it is not, it's a Ceacilian, a group of limbless amphibians with no or tiny eyes. But what's really impressive about this large creature is that is is lungless, despite residing in environments like muddy mangrove pools. A paper by Marinus Hoogmoed et al. (PDF, 22 pages, 2011) from Bol. Mus. Para. Emílio Goeldi. Cienc. Nat., Belém, describes several then-new specimens of Atretochoana eiselti from Brazil, which were compared to older preserved specimens that were kept with scant information. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:44 AM PST - 26 comments

Draw Two.

If UNO Was an Anime (slyt)
posted by fings at 8:52 AM PST - 19 comments

“Eat fat to get slim. Don’t fear fat. Fat is your friend. "

Official advice on low-fat diet and cholesterol is wrong, says health charity Dr Aseem Malhotra, consultant cardiologist and founding member of the Public Health Collaboration, a group of medics, said dietary guidelines promoting low-fat foods were “perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history, resulting in devastating consequences for public health”.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 8:50 AM PST - 149 comments

XXxTP

Xiu Xiu have released a video off their new album Xiu Xiu Plays the Music of Twin Peaks. The video is titled "Into The Night"; it is a cover of Julee Cruise's song of the same name and opens with a 7-minute cover of Angelo Badalamenti's "Nightsea Wind."
posted by griphus at 8:25 AM PST - 16 comments

'The vigour of our Ancestors,/ Whose shiting far exceeded ours’

Everybody Is Constipated, Nobody Is Constipated. It's Gut Science Week on 538.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:09 AM PST - 32 comments

Sourcing for serving raw pork is extremely important...

The Case for Pink Pork (SLSeriousEats)
posted by Huck500 at 8:04 AM PST - 32 comments

Two energy sources with Oklahoman subsidies battle each other

Oil blames wind for Oklahoma's budget woes This story does a good job digging into the specifics of oil's access to powerful people in Oklahoma, the budget troubles there and the larger political fight around renewables on the Great Plains.
posted by BradyDale at 7:56 AM PST - 10 comments

New Nancy Drew TV series cancelled, except not, and not really

When CBS announced it was developing a grown-up Nancy Drew series and that the titular heroine would not be Caucasian, people's ears perked up. When Sarah Shahi (born Aahoo Jahansouz Shahi, to an Iranian father and Persian-Spanish mother) was announced as the new Nancy, the buzz grew. But then CBS didn't order the pilot to series, allegedly because it "skewed too female for CBS’ schedule" (CBS Television Studios hasn't killed the show yet, though, and is shopping it to other outlets). The AV Club's Myles McNutt takes a look at why it feels like Drew was cancelled, despite never actually being a TV series in a look at how the Internet has made television development into a narrative of its own.
posted by Etrigan at 7:46 AM PST - 39 comments

Foster v. Chatman

The Supreme Court today overruled the Superior Court of Georgia. In 1987, Timothy Foster – a low-income, intellectually disabled, black teenager was charged with the murder of a white woman and was tried by an all-white jury after Georgia prosecutors used their peremptory strikes to exclude all black prospective jurors from jury service. He was sentenced to death, and has been appealing this sentence for almost thirty years. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:34 AM PST - 25 comments

Gloriously wrong

Patrick Iber reviews Adam Hochschild's account of the Spanish Civil War in The Spain Orwell Never Saw
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:25 AM PST - 27 comments

Ah. You elect the person with the most worms.

A young man sits on a large blob of slowly undulating plastic. This is DAVE. Each time that he shifts his weight, the whitish mass beneath him adjusts itself slightly, forcing him to move in a constant search for comfort. [slreddit, beware!]
posted by katrielalex at 12:56 AM PST - 10 comments

May 22

WHY'D THEY MAKE THEM INTO SQUARES

As far as I can tell, Da mother fuckin share z0ne is basically what you get when you add a lot of skulls and pretty rad, metal-ass fonts to Laughapalooza.
posted by cortex at 10:57 PM PST - 28 comments

These shots lived, died, and live again!

A comparison between Mad Max: Fury Road and the earlier trilogy [SLVimeo]
posted by coolname at 9:19 PM PST - 12 comments

These earbuds are like Instagram filters for sound

What if you could cut out the noise in your life? No more crying babies on planes. No city sirens. No rude people on cellphones in the subway. Silicon Valley startup Doppler Labs has created earbuds that will let you filter out some of the more migraine-inducing sounds in your life.
posted by neworder7 at 9:10 PM PST - 37 comments

Olivia de Havilland: still alive and in Vanity Fair

“I loved her so much as a child,” Olivia says wistfully. Ever the lady, she has steadfastly refused to discuss her sister or their relationship since the 1950s. Not so Joan. In a 1978 interview with People—a forceful blast of sua culpa meant to publicize No Bed of Roses—Joan flatly contradicted Olivia’s recollection of sibling tenderness, saying, “I regret that I remember not one act of kindness from Olivia all through my childhood.”--Olivia de Havilland and the Most Notorious Sibling Rivalry in Hollywood
posted by MoonOrb at 9:08 PM PST - 11 comments

Blue flash

The demonstration began on the afternoon of May 21, 1946, at a secret laboratory tucked into a canyon some three miles from Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atom bomb. Louis Slotin, a Canadian physicist, was showing his colleagues how to bring the exposed core of a nuclear weapon nearly to the point of criticality, a tricky operation known as “tickling the dragon’s tail.” - The Demon Core and the Strange Death of Louis Slotin
posted by Artw at 5:28 PM PST - 53 comments

Learning Chess at 40

What I learned trying to keep up with my 4-year-old daughter at the royal game. Although it scarcely occurred to me at the time, my daughter and I were embarking on a sort of cognitive experiment. We were two novices, attempting to learn a new skill, essentially beginning from the same point but separated by some four decades of life. I had been the expert to that point in her life—in knowing what words meant, or how to ride a bike—but now we were on curiously equal footing. Or so I thought. (Tom Vanderbilt, Nautilus)
posted by misterbee at 5:14 PM PST - 27 comments

Children of Heroin Crisis Find Refuge in Grandparents’ Arms

A NYT photo essay: "Not since the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, analysts say, have so many children been at risk because of parental drug addiction."
posted by DarlingBri at 4:09 PM PST - 33 comments

Winner Takes All Morality and the Movies

The Goblin's Dilemma: class soildarity, selfish families, and the working class heros of Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan and Spider-Man By Bud White and Tim Kreider (Spider-Man discussion begins here)
posted by The Whelk at 3:21 PM PST - 26 comments

Apple today for Milk tomorrow

Don't bring your feelings to prison, son... They'll only wind up getting hurt. (SLImgur)

5FrogMargin relates a month spent in the Baldwin Alabama County Jail.
posted by endotoxin at 2:59 PM PST - 6 comments

Juanald's Old-Fashioned Granolarrhea

The tenants at the Burbank Shopping Plaza change frequently. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:47 PM PST - 22 comments

It's getting hot in there.

Newsfilter: India just set a new all-time record high temperature — 123.8 degrees
posted by analogue at 1:38 PM PST - 64 comments

Taking it to a different level

LEGO Pop-up Himeji Castle. Himeji Castle, Japan. According to the creator, he used no adhesives. Several years ago he made a pop-up of the Buddhist temple of Kinkaku-ji (a previously).
posted by cwest at 1:31 PM PST - 9 comments

Feeding A Billion People

Turpan Yuanyang Xiapu (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 1:15 PM PST - 4 comments

Steve Lichman

Steve Lichman - a comic by Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren about a lich and his friends, hanging out in a dungeon and facing the challenges of life and un-death together.
posted by crocomancer at 11:11 AM PST - 19 comments

A/C: the problem began with paper, but the solution changed the world

The problem began with paper. Humidity wreaked havoc with the color register of fine, multicolor printing. Ink, applied one color at a time, would misalign with the expansion and contraction of the paper stock. A solution was designed in 1902 and patented in 1906 (as an Apparatus for Treating Air), starting the "air conditioning" industry, though it would be decades before air conditioning changed the American landscape and beyond, making hot, muggy climates more livable around the world. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:17 AM PST - 89 comments

How the Pentagon punished NSA whistleblowers

Long before Edward Snowden went public, John Crane was a top Pentagon official fighting to protect NSA whistleblowers. Instead their lives were ruined – and so was his. [more inside]
posted by cosmic.osmo at 10:08 AM PST - 15 comments

Twenty-something

Sometimes a music video completely recontextualizes the song. Pet Shop Boys' most recent single Twenty-something is one thing when you just hear the song, but the video makes it something else entirely.
posted by hippybear at 9:16 AM PST - 20 comments

Elderly BASIC programmer yells at moon debris

Bill Gates blogs his reading list at gatesnotes.com -- usually just a quick summary of what he found interesting. For Seveneves, he and author Neal Stephenson went for burgers and recorded their (admittedly brief) conversation in VR and in-browser 360 video. (Gatesnotes previously and previously)
posted by postcommunism at 8:50 AM PST - 35 comments

We are obsessed with you.

Miranda July (previously), Paul Ford (MeFi's own; previously) and Starlee Kine (previously) team up for a presentation with a twist at Rhizome's Seven on Seven 2016. (Spoilers below.) [more inside]
posted by progosk at 4:42 AM PST - 10 comments

A Rock Solid Ethos

The Babson Boulders of Dogtown were one man's endeavor to leave a mark... by carving brief mottos in the large boulders in a vacant field he owned.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:29 AM PST - 25 comments

“Questa piedra maladetta — this cursed rock”

The remote south Atlantic island of St. Helena has largely lived apart from the world. For decades travel to the tiny (roughly 10 x 5 miles) island and British territory of 4000 has been entirely dependent upon a monthly visit from the Royal Mail Ship - a week-long voyage from Cape Town that has kept the island on the margins of the global travel market. You have to be a very determined traveller to see where Napoleon died and have a visit with a the oldest living land animal - a 184 year old giant tortoise named Jonathan. That is until last week when the first commerical airplane flight landed at the island's brand new airport. After five years of construction, hundreds of millions of pounds, and 450,000 truckloads of dirt and rock, Saint Helena Airport (airport code: HLE) is open for business, but how will St. Helena (now branded "The Secret Of The South Atlantic") adjust to the end of its isolation? Will the island's culture itself survive? [more inside]
posted by quartzcity at 1:58 AM PST - 28 comments

@chevalier_cygne comes into her own

Ukip councillor attempts to blast BBC for 'historical inaccuracy', gets destroyed by actual historian [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:13 AM PST - 32 comments

May 21

A pencil and a dream

Paul A. Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum. "I now have over 3000 different sharpeners, with NO duplicates in here." [more inside]
posted by goofyfoot at 9:59 PM PST - 22 comments

Wide Awakes in America

Election season, 1860: "Stumping for the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, [a] strange movement electrified the presidential election. Young men from Bangor to San Francisco and from huge Philadelphia clubs to tiny Iowa troupes donned uniforms, lit torches, and “fell in” to pseudomilitary marching companies." The Wide Awakes, as they were known, began as escorts for Republican speakers, but as the campaign season continued, these "political police" became an intimidating presence throughout much of the nation--young, fervent brawlers and unapologetic supporters of an aggressive style of American political combat. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:31 PM PST - 17 comments

Hiroshima: The New Yorker, 1946

A year after the bomb was dropped, Miss Sasaki was a crippIe; Mrs. Nakamura was destitute; Father Kleinsorge was back in the hospital; Dr. Sasaki was not capable of the work he once could do; Dr. Fujii had lost the thirty-room hospital it took him many years to acquire, and had no prospects of rebuilding it; Mr. Tanimoto’s church had been ruined and he no longer had his exceptional vitality. The lives of these six people, who were among the luckiest in Hiroshima, would never be the same.--originally published in The New Yorker, August 31, 1946.
posted by MoonOrb at 6:30 PM PST - 29 comments

Because rent in SF isn't high enough already

"Rentberry is a new startup that turns the rental process into a quasi-auction. (I saw this on Tumblr and I thought no way, it can’t be real, but IT’S TOTALLY REAL.) Tenants register with Rentberry, look at available listings, and bid on how much they’d be willing to pay in rent. Landlords examine all of the potential tenants and their bids, and make a decision. If you’re all “bidding on rent is a terrible idea,” I absolutely agree with you—but according to San Francisco’s Curbed blog, some people are already making bids in order to secure apartments."
posted by Bella Donna at 6:23 PM PST - 121 comments

J-DAR

J-DAR, presented by the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, is a web app that analyzes the Jewishness of your favorite films.
posted by deathpanels at 5:47 PM PST - 33 comments

Reading and Art

People Reading Books
posted by bq at 5:27 PM PST - 2 comments

Do your parents know you're Ramones??

"Bloodlines make bonds irrefutable. You might hate your brother for what he's done, but you can't undo the blood; he's still your brother, you're his. A makeshift family, the kind many bands construct, may seem easier to leave behind. It's a musical partnership, a fraternity at best. But the bonds can be just as indelible, as sublime, as painful." -- The Curse of the Ramones by Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone
posted by Room 641-A at 4:53 PM PST - 6 comments

“...tapping and talking, browsing and clicking, scrolling and swiping.”

How Technology Is Changing Our Hands by Darian Leader [The Guardian] Doctors predict that our increasing use of computers and mobile phones will permanently alter our hands. What will this mean for the way we touch, feel and communicate? [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:16 PM PST - 34 comments

London's 2020 Tube trains unveiled

London takes stock for the New Tube. Revealed after three years of design work, here are the deep tube trains Londoners will be riding until the middle of the century. Although the designers are being coy over full automation - a politically sensitive area - with features like active displays replacing the internal advertising and route signage, the removal of internal car divisions, and new door designs for swifter passenger movements, the constraints of the capital's venerable tunnels and stations are being pushed as far as possible. Bonus info in article: what unique features China and New Zealand demand for their next-gen trains
posted by Devonian at 4:13 PM PST - 26 comments

So I watched Swingers many, many times

The past week was Weird 90's week at Stereogum, and they explored some of the strangest musical moments and trends of the decade. Highlights inside. [more inside]
posted by naju at 2:45 PM PST - 80 comments

The Replicator Can't Replicate This

Just about three years ago, Sir Patrick Stewart, hung over one morning, had his first true New York slice of pizza. Today, on Twitter: "OK - forget the pizza slice. I just ate and LOVED my very first PO' Boy. Ate it here - in LOUISIANA, what's more."
posted by Guy Smiley at 2:17 PM PST - 53 comments

Don't Drink and Dive

To raise the public's awareness on the risks of taking a dip when intoxicated, [Swedish insurance company] Trygg-Hansa invited Stockholm Men’s Synchronized Swimming Team to participate in a little experiment. All they asked was for the three-time world champions to perform their regular, winning routine — but with one small difference. They performed drunk. [via]
posted by not_on_display at 1:15 PM PST - 25 comments

Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe?

A New Empirical Constraint on the Prevalence of Technological Species in the Universe
Recent advances is exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake Equation...We find that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a technological species is larger than ~ 10-24, then humanity is not the only time technological intelligence has evolved.
(Paper published in Astrobiology [paywalled]; preprint available on arXiv) [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 1:12 PM PST - 57 comments

420

These days a smoker can order from an online head shop for his smoking paraphernalia needs. But how can you know the quality of any items you might purchase? YouTube can answer that. R3DBAND's Bong Reviews (he is a marijuana medical patient living in CO.): Some examples - DankStop Online Headshop Review w/ One12Glass, New Glass Gravity Bong, New Glass ThunderDome from SmokeCartel. [more inside]
posted by cwest at 12:45 PM PST - 11 comments

A view from outside the Goldfish bowl.

A world war has begun. Break the silence.
In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as "a world substantially made over in [America's] own image".
( John Pilger previously). [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 10:37 AM PST - 81 comments

"Of Albions glorious Ile the Wonders whilst I write"

Poly-Olbion is a cycle of 30 poems describing England and Wales, county by county, composed by Michael Drayton in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries. It was published in two parts, 1612 and 1622, along with sumptuous black and white maps engraved by William Hole meant to be colored in by its buyers. Now Poly-Olbion will be republished as a coloring book entitled Albions Glorious Ile. The Poly-Olbion Project website is worth exploring, as well as its blog and tumblr.
posted by Kattullus at 10:08 AM PST - 7 comments

@YouNeverDidThe

Internet artist Darius Kazemi has created a Twitter feed that tweets out sentences from an episode of Thomas Pynchon’s acclaimed novel Gravity’s Rainbow.
posted by chavenet at 9:35 AM PST - 10 comments

Work work work work work work ... something that you've never seen

Rihanna's "Work" (explicit video) with nose twerking (Instagram)... or something (FB, original source).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:20 AM PST - 3 comments

Meteor Showers On Demand

For the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, forget the fireworks for the opening show... How about an on-demand meteor shower instead? [more inside]
posted by erst at 8:31 AM PST - 26 comments

Student food == Animator food

Hayao Miyazaki Makes Ramen During Spirited Away Crunch Time (single-link noodles)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:21 AM PST - 28 comments

I'm keeping it weird, baby!

This year we've seen Batman vie with Superman (it's Just Us) and Captain America's civilized war against Iron Man, but for the greatest battle between superheroes ever captured to the screen you have to go back 20+ years to the classic-est episode of THE classic animated satirical superhero series: “The Tick vs. The Tick”. Explanation why is provided by Evan Narcisse. (hint: The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight)
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:59 AM PST - 72 comments

"This is the gay space comic of our dreams."

Lady of the Shard is a space goddess love story. [more inside]
posted by glass origami robot at 1:23 AM PST - 22 comments

Tonight I've watched / The moon and then / the Pleiades / go down...

Astronomers crack the secret of this gorgeous poem by Sappho
posted by brundlefly at 12:55 AM PST - 25 comments

May 20

I am the purgatorial flame of this rotting shit-hole... Inferno Cop!!

Thrill at the 2-4 minute long, extremely cheaply animated adventures of INFERNO COP, passionate, tireless, easily distracted crusader for justice in Jack Knife Edge Town, as he battles the sinister (and poorly motivated) secret society Southern Cross! (click the "CC" button to turn on English subtitles) [more inside]
posted by J.K. Seazer at 8:16 PM PST - 10 comments

Bangfit by Pornhub

"Welcome to the wonderful world of BangFit , an exercise platform created by Pornhub to fight against our sedentary lifestyle. Watch the video below and discover the fitness miracle gyms don’t want you to know about." [There is not actual real human nudity, it is a cartoon, but still a bit NSFW. Unless you work for Pornhub.]
posted by marienbad at 7:09 PM PST - 14 comments

Bless his bagpipes

Alan Young, who played Wilbur on the TV show Mr. Ed, and much more recently was the voice of Scrooge McDuck in recent productions, including the cartoon show DuckTales, has passed away at the age of 96. [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 6:30 PM PST - 32 comments

Why Shaky-Cam is Ruining Modern Action Movies

Captain America: Civil War is the latest in a long, long, long line of action movies that lean too hard on shaky-cam-heavy battles.... These films all owe an unpayable debt to none other than The Bourne Supremacy, the 2004 sequel to The Bourne Identity, directed by Paul Greengrass. Greengrass brought his jittery documentary-style filmmaking straight from socially conscious films like Bloody Sunday to two of the Bourne films, as well as Captain Phillips, United 93, and Green Zone. In the decade-plus since The Bourne Supremacy, so many filmmakers have adopted Greengrass’ style, less because it fits a story and more because it sufficiently caught audiences’ attention and studio heads felt it should be replicated ad hominem.
posted by MoonOrb at 6:09 PM PST - 83 comments

Cheese Ball Machine Gun

"If you need to ask why anyone would want a cheese ball machine gun, you should probably turn back now." [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Betteridge doesn't always apply

Is Metro on fire? [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:33 PM PST - 29 comments

"...Every room becomes a mouth."

(Content warning for pretty much the whole post: Body horror, bright flashes, and disturbing imagery abound.) Kitty Horrorshow (Itch, Twitter) is an independent game developer making fascinating, horrifying things. Minimalist horror games that go bold directions and are deeply uncomfortable experiences. Her biggest game by far, though, is ANATOMY, a game in which you explore a dark house, seeking out cassette tapes and studying the "physiology of domestic architecture". [more inside]
posted by brecc at 5:05 PM PST - 17 comments

Lisa Charlotte Rost Charts 12 Data Visualization Tools

In an effort to get to know as many options to visualize data as possible, Lisa Charlotte Rost took the same dataset and visualized it with 12 different tools and 12 different charting libraries. [more inside]
posted by cgc373 at 3:55 PM PST - 19 comments

They called you exotic. Which is just people talk for awesome.

Coyote Peterson, host of wildlife TV show Brave Wilderness, was hunting for spiders at night on a trail through Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula when he encountered a very different kind of creature.
posted by scalefree at 3:22 PM PST - 47 comments

The inside story of when Run‑DMC met Aerosmith...

And Changed Music Forever! It’s 1986. Rap music is explosive and on the rise but still misunderstood and barely represented in the mainstream. [more inside]
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:00 PM PST - 33 comments

“failed to uphold the standards of ethical behavior”

Ethics and the Eye of the Beholder by Katie J.M. Baker [Buzzfeed] Thomas Pogge, one of the world’s most prominent ethicists, stands accused of manipulating students to gain sexual advantage. Did the fierce champion of the world's disempowered abuse his own power? [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:38 PM PST - 44 comments

"I don't know about God, but I believe in Chris Jackson!"

He's done some things since, but In The Heights is what put Lin-Manuel Miranda on the map, winning 4 Tonys and running from 2008-2011 on Broadway. What is In The Heights? It's a musical about one summer weekend in the Latino community in Washington Heights, where personal relationships mingle with issues like education, gentrification, and legacy. Miranda started writing the show while in college at Wesleyan, and faced producers who didn't share his vision before finding the right team. The Tony performance gives a good sample of the flavor of the show. Below the cut, a lot more media about the show, almost all of it from an excellent roundup by tumblr user stickmarionette. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 2:28 PM PST - 26 comments

No one dies on the first boss

R-Type as you've never seen it before.
posted by tomcooke at 2:17 PM PST - 12 comments

Odd Swedish Habits

Swedes are an interesting bunch. They're efficient but they love a good coffee-break, they're humble but they hang flags on their front porches, and they can appear cold at a glance but are as warm as an Arctic sauna when you really, really get to know them. And to me, they're also quite odd. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 2:05 PM PST - 56 comments

Plug ‘n Play Part Phone Persists

David Pierce, writing for the hype factory that is Wired: “Project Ara Lives: Google’s Modular Phone Is Ready for You Now”
Developer edition shipping Fall 2016.
Previously, Preiviouslier.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:12 PM PST - 50 comments

Take on Me, one half-step out of key. Hungry Like the Wolf, one half-step out of key. Never Gonna Give You Up, one half-step out of key. Bohemian Rhapsody, one-half step out of key. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:51 PM PST - 125 comments

Just one race

Vice's David Hill spends the week of the Kentucky Derby with legendary sports bettor Alan Denkenson, AKA Dink,
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:10 PM PST - 2 comments

Uncharted 4: lessons on how to create the future of interactive cinema

While a technical analysis can show you why it looks so good, its storytelling ambitions are also innovative. It was strongly influenced by film, yet some feel that AAA games are already better than blockbuster films. Some find them so immersive, they don't want to finish. [more inside]
posted by heatvision at 11:52 AM PST - 48 comments

Happy Chewbacca

It's the simple joys.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:44 AM PST - 41 comments

New York City’s zoning code turns 100 this year.

40 Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan Could Not Be Built Today
posted by Michele in California at 11:37 AM PST - 12 comments

Where does technology exploit our minds weaknesses?

How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist (Medium, 12min) I learned to think this way when I was a magician. Magicians start by looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it. Once you know how to push people’s buttons, you can play them like a piano. [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 11:32 AM PST - 30 comments

They feel music left them behind, and Nickelback is all they have left

Nickelback won the 90s culture war
posted by acb at 11:08 AM PST - 86 comments

But does she like Huey Louis and the News?

I believe in taking care of myself. In a balanced diet. In a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll hold two cold spoons, dipped in Lapsang souchong, over my eyes. I like to meditate when I work on my core... even though I was born with a sixpack. [more inside]
posted by Evilspork at 9:48 AM PST - 24 comments

Odnarotoop, apparently

Portland is courting Japanese tourists with this absurd video (warning: earworm). [more inside]
posted by librarina at 8:58 AM PST - 65 comments

Cosmo’s Former Art Director

There is a radical feminist thrift store in Denmark run by the former art director of Cosmopolitan magazine. I learned this by accident. (Michelle Goldberg, Slate)
posted by Think_Long at 8:32 AM PST - 13 comments

Tunnel under the Temple of the Plumed Serpent

In 2003, a sinkhole opened up at the base of the Temple of the Plumed Serpent in the ruins of Teotihuacán. "In archaeology and anthropology circles—to say nothing of the popular press—Sergio Gómez’s discovery was greeted as a major turning point in Teotihuacán studies. The tunnel under the Temple of the Sun had been largely emptied by looters before archaeologists could get to it in the 1990s. But Gómez’s tunnel had been sealed off for some 1,800 years: Its treasures would be pristine." Here's an update on what they've found.
posted by goatdog at 8:27 AM PST - 13 comments

Two Big Shefs, One Funmeal, and some Americana

Burger Chef was a US fast food chain, created in the 1950's, that once rivaled McDonald's. In the early 1970's it had over 1000 locations nationwide. In the 1980's General Foods Corporation gradually divested itself of the chain by selling locations to Hardee's. Some people remember Burger Chef quite fondly. [more inside]
posted by cwest at 8:17 AM PST - 36 comments

Do Start-ups Have a Drinking Problem?

The problem is that when alcohol is your solution, you’re playing a dangerous game. It’s not a question of if a heavy drinking culture will result in HR violations or if capable, competent team members will feel ostracized, but when. To say nothing of the lost opportunity to create authentic, honest relationships amongst your team. (slMedium/Backchannel)
posted by Kitteh at 8:06 AM PST - 108 comments

Apologies to the hammock, the "old mother" who embraces and comforts

Chris Columbus "discovered" the hammock just as he "discovered" the Americas, being the first European to kick off the flood of "new world" explorers, a number of whom commented on the hanging woven net beds they saw. They brought the design back to Europe, as they took cotton, canvas and other cloths to the Americas, where they were quickly adopted by sailors and navies, with some innovative designs. Today there are a myriad of variations (slideshow) on the simple little sling that has survived for more than 1,000 years, used as a bed, birthing table, cradle, sofa -- even as a final resting place. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:01 AM PST - 32 comments

So why doesn’t anyone know her name?

The Most Successful Female Everest Climber of All Time Is a Housekeeper in Hartford, Connecticut . Lhakpa Sherpa breaks own record, scales Everest for seventh time
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:41 AM PST - 17 comments

M I N D W E B S

Mind Webs: semi-dramatized readings of classic science fiction stories by Le Guin, Ballard, Wolfe, Clarke, Dick, Bester, Bradbury, Sheckley, Lafferty, Leiber, Merril, Brunner, Russ, Davidson, Matheson, Vonnegut, deFord, Asimov, Counselman, Spinrad, Bloch, Niven, Clingerman, Harrison, Sturgeon, Aldiss, Knight, Saberhagen, Saxton, Pohl, Silverburg, Cheever, Zelazny, Farmer, Simak, Dybek, Dahl, Priest, and many others. Originally broadcast between the late 70s and early 90s by WHA (AM) of Madison, Wisconsin. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 7:32 AM PST - 10 comments

A basterd's selfie is never done

It's not quite replacing guns with dildos, but Guns replaced with Selfie Sticks is an enjoyable diversion on a Friday. See the Terminator posing for a motorcycle selfie, John Wayne getting the perfect selfie with a great cloud backdrop, or even Private Pyle taking a moment after prematurely finishing boot camp.
posted by Etrigan at 7:27 AM PST - 4 comments

On the Front Lines of the Abortion Wars

Marie Claire's two part series, "This Is What a World Without Reproductive Rights Would Be Like" and "On the Front Lines of the Abortion Wars" the state of women's rights in El Salvador, "where women are put in prison or risk death to avoid having a baby" and the Midwest United States, considered an "abortion desert." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:22 AM PST - 15 comments

Also a stealth documentary on young white people fashion in the 90s

It's 1996 and you've been hired as a game tester by Sega's Test Department. How will you get acquainted with the corporate culture? Lucky for you, Sega has commissioned a "trainumentary": This is SEGA TEST
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:28 AM PST - 20 comments

"The best. Of any sport. Anywhere."

It's time to sit back for two hours of non-stop cricket action, collected here for the first time on video: Classic ('80s) Test Finishes, hosted by Richie Benaud. [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:13 AM PST - 21 comments

Penguins and social justice

What social justice movements can learn from penguins. (article links to animation)
posted by jb at 5:31 AM PST - 5 comments

children turn on your radio and don't go out don't go out don't

Hop Along's Frances Quinlan Performs "Buddy in the Parade" 1 [more inside]
posted by eyeballkid at 2:38 AM PST - 9 comments

Sink Capitalism

If you can't make it to the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines (previously, previouslier), don't fret, you can experience it in the comfort of your own browser! [more inside]
posted by ckape at 1:18 AM PST - 11 comments

May 19

"Exquisite," he said, "on a triple word score."

How Nigeria has come to dominate the competitive Scrabble circuit. [SLWSJ]
posted by Chrysostom at 10:02 PM PST - 24 comments

The pinnacle of home entertainment: Cop Rock DVD set released

Your long wait is over. Public service announcement: as of Tuesday, you can finally own Cop Rock on a triple DVD box. NYT: Sometimes “worst” is a misnomer for “ahead of its time.” On Tuesday Shout! Factory releases “Cop Rock: The Complete Series,” a three-disc package that provides a chance to revisit this TV curiosity. Watching the 11 episodes — the original 16-episode order was truncated when the show didn’t generate ratings — is fascinating, and not always in a train wreck way. When “Cop Rock” worked, though that was only intermittently, it worked quite well. Previously.
posted by porn in the woods at 7:27 PM PST - 23 comments

Shame!

Today, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives took to the floor, shouting "Shame!" at their Republican colleagues, after the Republican members of Congress used an unusual method to defeat a bill that appeared to have passed and would have protected LGBT workers from discrimination by government contractors. [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 6:44 PM PST - 91 comments

Let us palaver a bit

Some of you may already be aware that the looooooong gestating miniseries based on Stephen King's "Dark Tower" books has finally begun filming (previously) with MeFi favorite Idris Elba in the lead role of Roland (Pictures have already been taken of him on set). As with any beloved piece of literature, fans have their reservations about what changes may occur from the original text. But as any Dark Tower fan will tell you, this is no ordinary book series. And it looks like Stephen King is hinting that the miniseries will follow in kind (Spoilers ahoy).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:48 PM PST - 90 comments

Project Earth is leaving beta

The beta test of Project Earth is finally over. First, the bad news: this update comes with a server wipe. Yes, we know you've poured time and effort into your 'lives' on Earth, and it's disappointing to lose your progress. Unfortunately, this can't be helped. We experimented with methods of porting existing avatars into the new version, but it brings a host of compatibility issues with our new character-creation system (more on that later). As a consolation, we're planning another exciting in-game 'End of the World' event, so you can go out with a bang.
posted by pjern at 5:40 PM PST - 25 comments

Women Have More Drive than Men

Women, literally, have more drive than men. Nowadays, only 16% of car trips are for commuting. The majority of the remainder are spent running errands, and it's women who account for the lion's share of those hours behind the wheel. The same holds true in cities where more trips away from home involve travel by public transportation. Yet most transit plans aimed at easing traffic congestion target work commuters through options such as telecommuting and hub-and-spoke public transit designs. [more inside]
posted by drlith at 5:34 PM PST - 11 comments

SO WHO NEEDS A MOVIE?

Need to hire a video production company? You're in luck! Fred and Sharon make movies. Or, if Fred and Sharon are all booked up, Eyetech Video Productions might be available.
posted by bologna on wry at 4:46 PM PST - 11 comments

Are my points safe?

Hyper-Reality presents a provocative and kaleidoscopic new vision of the future, where physical and virtual realities have merged, and the city is saturated in media.
posted by brundlefly at 3:22 PM PST - 25 comments

BAHmbi? (Oh deer!)

Last fall's entire BAHfest* East is up on YouTube (finally), including the keynote address, "The Negative Repercussions of the Repopulation of Deer Species". [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:16 PM PST - 2 comments

Art by crayon stacking

Christian Faur has been on the blue before, but here you get to see his process. He also details how he cleans his art.
posted by numaner at 3:09 PM PST - 2 comments

No longer ticking: Morley Safer, 1931-2016

NY Times obituary. On May 11, he retired from 60 Minutes after 46 years. "His Canadian sensibility grounded his work," said fellow journalists. 1998 profile: "He never played it safe." He famously reported on the horrors of Vietnam in Cam Ne: When President Lyndon Baines Johnson was outraged, he wanted to know if Safer was a Communist. "When he was told that Morley was 'not a communist, but just a Canadian', LBJ apparently said `Oh well, I knew he wasn’t an American'."
posted by Melismata at 2:06 PM PST - 44 comments

Why dating is drudgery

[Mora] Weigel had a revelation: she was always turning to a man to tell her what she was after, and the institution of dating was to blame. It trained women “in how to be if we wanted to be wanted.” Hence “Labor of Love,” an exploration of that training, in which Weigel reaches two main conclusions. The first is that though dating is passed off as a leisure activity, it really is a lot of work, particularly for women. It requires physical effort—all that primping, exercising, shopping, and grooming—as well as sizable investments of time, money, and emotion. In our consumer society, love is perpetually for sale; dating is what it takes to close the deal.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:56 PM PST - 36 comments

Nothing is certain, except death and taxes and a US election campaign.

Though we've come a long way since Bernie, Donald and Hillary formally launched their campaigns, there's still a while to go before polling stations open. Recently, Barack enjoyed a Nordic State Dinner , delivered a commencement speech of our time, and pushed through rules including extending overtime pay to more than four million Americans. On the campaign trail, Hillary takes Kentucky while Bernie takes Oregon. Meanwhile, Donald clarifies that there's no VP for Marco with him, but Marco wants people to leave him alone anyway, people make wild speculations about Bernie's possible VP pick, Ted pretends Donald does not exist, Reince pleads "come together", and in coal country Hillary mentions a Bill role as a potential running mate is a bit coy. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 1:40 PM PST - 2977 comments

Driving in Great Britain on a non-GB licence

Use this tool to see if you can drive in Great Britain with your non-GB driving licence. Great Britain is England, Wales and Scotland. [more inside]
posted by gregglind at 1:39 PM PST - 43 comments

Oyasumi nasai (sleep well!, おやすみなさい!, お休みなさい!)

The history of the wafuton goes back to ancient times more than three centuries before the Common Era. Considered to be good for the health, yet convenient to roll, store, and air, the Japanese futon is rather a different beast from that more familiar convertible futon common in the West. William Brouwer is credited with the original concept and industrial design of the wooden structure, while in Japan, it is master craftsmen like Hisayoshi Nohara, Grand Champion of Futon Making, who are revered for their work. You can try one out in a ryokan.
posted by infini at 12:48 PM PST - 36 comments

It’s 2016 and I put nothing past anyone.

Come on, you know you’ve thought to yourself, “I wonder if there’s a way to lick my cat and groom him or her at the same time?
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:42 PM PST - 49 comments

Ghetto Swirl

How street kids in the Bronx taught me it’s OK to be biracial and gay - As a “nerdy, Mexican, gay, Mormon child of the ’80s and ’90s,” cartoonist Terry Blas had trouble figuring out his identity… until an experience in New York taught him a valuable lesson. [more inside]
posted by jillithd at 11:42 AM PST - 20 comments

Xavier's is Totally Rad!

Xavier's is no ordinary school, but let's face it: you're no ordinary student.
posted by griphus at 11:40 AM PST - 36 comments

“of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings”

Kafkaesque: A Word So Overused It Has Lost All Meaning? by Alison Flood [The Guardian] On Monday night, Han Kang’s strange, disturbing, brilliant novel The Vegetarian won the Man Booker International prize. Shortly afterwards, dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster announced that searches for the word “Kafkaesque” had “spiked dramatically” in the wake of her win, because the novel “has been described by its British publishers (and by a number of reviewers) as Kafkaesque”.
posted by Fizz at 11:21 AM PST - 37 comments

"You find out they made mistakes, thus proving that they are human.”

In 1938, as the Great Depression was winding down, a Texas radio station began airing “Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls,” a variety show broadcast every Wednesday night from the state prison in Huntsville. The show featured male and female prisoners singing, strumming, dancing, and acting. At one point, it had five million listeners, who sent in as many as a 100,000 fan letters each year. Executions were stayed so that they would not conflict with the show, which was performed in an auditorium 50 yards from Old Sparky, the state’s electric chair.
A Peek at the Golden Age of Prison RadioThe Marshall Project: Nonprofit journalism about criminal justice [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:16 AM PST - 6 comments

Speculation and the City

Property speculators own nearly 20 percent of all property in Detroit. Though their practices vary, speculation often changes the role and use of property in neighborhoods and communities. At its most extreme, speculation generates vacancy and abandonment. It is often a practice with minimal investment that hastening the deterioration of houses, commercial, and industrial buildings.

What you see here are the owners of multiple parcels of land in the city of Detroit.
posted by latkes at 11:02 AM PST - 17 comments

Movies With Mikey

Movies With Mikey is a YouTube series by video game voice actor and writer Mikey Neumann. In every episode, Mikey anaylizes an often misunderstood, under-rated, or critically panned movie (or sometimes just a movie he really, really likes), blending humor and a blustery narrative with thoughtful insight. (MLYT) [more inside]
posted by gc at 11:02 AM PST - 11 comments

Have we hit peak mattress?

Need a new mattress? Come on down to Mattress Firm! Or try the one at the other end of the strip mall. And if that doesn't grab you, why not try the one at the end of the block? Maybe the one across the street from that one is more to your liking. Why are there so many mattress stores in the US? [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:59 AM PST - 113 comments

The life of a pizza man is intense

The Secret Order of the Slice: photographer Chris Gampat captures the magical moment of opening a pizza box. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:03 AM PST - 27 comments

The 0-113 Racehorse Who Charmed a Country

In 2003, the small Kochi Racetrack in southern Japan was in trouble. The Lost Decade hit the provincial raceway hard, and the staff was scrambling to find some way to stave off bankruptcy. One day, they found an unlikely savior. This is the story of Haru Urara, the losingest racehorse in Japan, and how she gave hope to millions.
posted by Small Dollar at 9:47 AM PST - 9 comments

BOOP BEEP BOOP

Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 8:55 AM PST - 158 comments

"You’re giving the fruit pleasure."

An interview about pleasure, ownership, censorship, and harassment with artist Stephanie Sarley. "Keep MeFi Weird May" continues with some videos that are decidedly NSFW despite containing only hands and fruit.
posted by hollyholly at 8:25 AM PST - 5 comments

Long Form Laurie

Laurie Anderson - Empty Places March 12, 1990, Iowa City [1h30m] (a fairly watchable VHS audience bootleg) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 8:06 AM PST - 11 comments

North Carolina folklore - tales and songs and beliefs and wisdom

Frank Clyde Brown always planned to publish a collection of North Carolina folklore, but it seems he was never able to stop collecting long enough to actually assemble his material. After his death, some of Brown's colleagues intervened, and a collection was eventually published under their editorship. The seven-volume Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore was released between 1952 and 1964 by the Duke University Press.
And you can find the complete collection online thanks to Archive.org and Hathi Trust. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:55 AM PST - 9 comments

Disco 2000

The Y2K aesthetic: who knew the look of the year 2000 would endure?
posted by Artw at 7:48 AM PST - 62 comments

"Some rappers can't ride bikes 'cause they can't handle bars."

How some of the greatest rappers make rhymes is an impressive video from Vox that explains how the best artists manipulate rhymes, beats, and motifs in exciting ways.
posted by blahblahblah at 7:38 AM PST - 44 comments

the theory and practice of the book

(vo)codex to co(in)dex
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:06 AM PST - 4 comments

The preferred term is "flotation" bed

What Ever Happened to Waterbeds?
posted by Etrigan at 5:46 AM PST - 157 comments

Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration

A data visualization of Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration by MeFi member, Max Galka. His latest project foiamapper (freedom of information act mapper). You can "Search for government information by keyword or see what other people and news organizations are requesting." Or you can "Browse by Government Agency: FOIA logs, record systems, and contact information for making a Freedom of Information request." foiamapper faq. Previously from mgalka, MeFi Projects 1 & 2.
posted by cwest at 1:49 AM PST - 19 comments

May 18

Girl Power

What does it mean when we call women "girls"? - by Robin Wasserman [more inside]
posted by hellopanda at 11:08 PM PST - 112 comments

“Contact resident film archivist Alex Cherian if you have any questions”

Established in 1982, the [San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive] preserves 6000 hours of newsfilm, documentaries and other TV footage produced in the Bay Area and Northern California from the Twentieth Century. We are a part of the J. Paul Leonard Library’s Department of Special Collections and oversee material owned by local TV stations KPIX-TV, KRON-TV, KQED and KTVU. All 1,659 items in the collections can be streamed. A few notable inclusions within. [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 10:32 PM PST - 5 comments

It tastes like shiny!

Olga Noskova bakes cakes. Really, really shiny cakes. And she makes it look easy.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:26 PM PST - 34 comments

Corgi Orgy

Words fail me.
posted by MoonOrb at 8:54 PM PST - 26 comments

love, death, spirituality, baseball

"Serotonin is the drug that puts you in the situation where you feel safe and comfortable. The drug that gives you the awe is the dopamine. And the adrenaline is the thing that keeps you going." Paul Simon’s Ambition, and Inspiration, Never Gets Old [SLNYT, Jon Pareles]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:41 PM PST - 20 comments

It all started with the word “Hi"

Creative companies in buildings facing other in Manhattan engaged in Post-It window art competition to impressive levels. [more inside]
posted by raider at 6:46 PM PST - 15 comments

Possibly The Most Enthusiastic Rendition of Smoke On The Water Ever.

There is just something to be said about watching a person with talent and enthusiasm lose himself in an incredibly joy-filled 4 minute accordion rendition of Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water. (I dare say that it just keeps getting better and better with each subsequent viewing.)
posted by VioletU at 5:31 PM PST - 35 comments

Duel Meaning

Want to See ‘Hamilton’ in a City Near You? Buy a Subscription and Wait Two Years.
posted by plexi at 3:59 PM PST - 61 comments

New Crews New Villians New Heroes New Worlds

A teaser trailer (and logo first look) for the upcoming Star Trek TV reboot. [previously] [slYouTubeWillLeaveYouWantingMore]
posted by sparklemotion at 3:53 PM PST - 170 comments

Kate Compton introduces computational generative methods

This is a beginner-level advice essay for people just getting started with building generators. It’s also for practiced experts who want a way to organize their knowledge. The advice is meant for any kind of generators: humorous twitterbots, fanciful art-making bots, level generators, planet builders, makers of music, architecture, poetry, and cocktails. (edit: it turned out to be 4000 words long, so enjoy the ride!) [more inside]
posted by cgc373 at 3:05 PM PST - 12 comments

Abridged Too Far

The World's Greatest Books series (published 1910) was an attempt "to effect a compendium of the world's best literature in a form that shall be at once accessible to every one and still faithful to its originals; or, in other words, it has been sought to allow the original author to tell his own story over again in his own language, but in the shortest possible space." In other other words, this is where you'll find such ludicrous feats of deletion as a David Copperfield running 4,645 words (cooked down from 382,964) or a Clarissa condensed to 0.4% of its original mass. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 2:53 PM PST - 30 comments

Let's hope they're friendly

Bruce Leonard Cathie (1930–2013) [Wikipedia; obituary] was a pilot for the New Zealand National Airways Corporation. After a mysterious aerial encounter in 1952, he spent decades plotting UFO sightings, scrutinising ham radio operators, and developing an esoteric theory of reality involving UFOs, a regular worldwide grid system, anti-gravity [content advisory: gratuitous use of Matrix soundtrack], complex mathematics, and the geometric properties of atomic bomb detonations. [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:15 PM PST - 17 comments

about time

Magic Mushroom Drug Lifts Depression in Human Trial - "The findings show that more research in this field is now needed. 'This is the first time that psilocybin has been investigated as a potential treatment for major depression', says lead author Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, Imperial College London."
posted by kliuless at 1:23 PM PST - 50 comments

Construct and Maintain Teleporter Systems / Defend Them From Rogue AI

Official Site for the President of Virtual Reality
posted by bigbigdog at 1:07 PM PST - 10 comments

It is becoming the witch in the forest, powerful and watchful and silent

Helena Fitzgerald writes on loneliness and living alone as a woman.
posted by VeritableSaintOfBrevity at 11:49 AM PST - 97 comments

Defining Trauma on Twitter: An Autoethnographic Sketch

The article - Defining Trauma on Twitter: An Autoethnographic Sketch is a recently published peer reviewed journal article that is under 140 characters long. Making it probably the first tweet to be published in an academic journal (and perhaps?) the first article whose abstract is longer than its contents.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 11:24 AM PST - 41 comments

My chow mein beats your chop suey anyday

Chandrima S. Bhattacharya traces the journey of the ubiquitous Calcutta chowmin [more inside]
posted by infini at 11:20 AM PST - 10 comments

Revenge for Eurovision: Will Russia invade the Baltics?

As Putin continues to probe, and another commentator predicts Russia will invade Estonia, Latvia and/or Lithuania within a year (also, Independent), it's useful to revisit Article 5 of Nato. Recently, the BBC simulation ended in a result of nuclear weapon use, which did not go down well, while another study also indicated results of either a Russian victory or nuclear war. Earlier in the year, Newsweek analysed this scenario; the Chicago Tribune blames NATO, as does The Nation, while The Master Plan considers ongoing Russian shenanigans.
posted by Wordshore at 10:02 AM PST - 107 comments

All about that bass, that baritone, and maybe a little 'bout that tenor

New Zealand doo-wop trio The Koi Boys (Nuz Ngatai, Kevin Keepa, and Danny Faifai ) turned all the chairs with "Sh-Boom" in their audition for The Voice Australia. But it's last year's studio recording session of Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass that may turn all the heads as it brings the boom boom to the room room.
posted by drlith at 9:57 AM PST - 14 comments

The Six Million Pound Man

James Young has been equipped with a bionic arm which includes a laser beam, a flashlight, a USB port, and a drone held inside a hatch on the shoulder. It was consciously patterned after Snake in the computer game Action Gear Solid. (No word on whether he can pick up cars with it..)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:54 AM PST - 59 comments

"The real value in the apology lies in a re-examination"

On July 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru and its passsengers were turned back from Canada and returned to India. Nineteen passengers would be killed as they disembarked there. On May 18, 2016, Canada's Prime Minister will rise in the House of Commons to deliver an apology, over 100 years in the making, for the Komagata Maru incident. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:45 AM PST - 12 comments

"History shows us that minorities do not count until they are counted."

What is it like to be queer in China? UNDP has just launched Being LGBTI in China – A National Survey on Social Attitudes towards Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression. With 30,000 respondents, the survey is the largest to date on the topic in China. [more inside]
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:40 AM PST - 2 comments

The racial divide of the perception of cyclists

Most Cyclists Are Working-Class Immigrants, Not Hipsters [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 8:19 AM PST - 55 comments

Blonde on Blonde turned 50 on Monday...

...the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face
Blonde on Blonde turned 50 on Monday... [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 8:16 AM PST - 39 comments

The Queen's Speech - BBC at-a-glance Summary

"The Queen has announced the government's legislation for the year ahead, at the state opening of Parliament. Here is a bill-by-bill guide to what is in the 2016 Queen's Speech."
posted by marienbad at 7:56 AM PST - 15 comments

White House Increases Overtime Eligibility by Millions

The Obama administration, in a far-reaching effort to improve the lot of workers that has ignited criticism from business groups, announced on Tuesday that it was making millions more employees eligible for overtime pay. - NY Times [more inside]
posted by sharp pointy objects at 7:41 AM PST - 108 comments

Letters make nice buildings

Buildings used to be designed less as big blocks and more as complex shapes, even shaped like letters, to minimize the distance to an exterior wall and maximize natural light and ventilation. In fact, in 1773, Johann David Steingruber (Google auto-translation) published Architectonisches Alphabet, or Architectural Alphabet (Archive.org), providing an alphabet (more or less) worth of floor plans. It's in German, so you'll probably skip ahead and start with A. Of course, you can still find plenty of letter-shaped buildings (and write geo-greetings), thanks to the ubiquity of aerial photography.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:27 AM PST - 10 comments

"We didn’t just get unlucky: We made a big mistake..."

How I Acted Like A Pundit And Screwed Up On Donald Trump, by Nate Silver "...along with a couple of marginal ones." Data journalist Nate Silver soul-searches and course-corrects while defending data journalism. "Basically, my view is that putting Trump’s chances at 2 percent or 5 percent was too low, but having him at (for instance) 10 percent or 15 percent, where we might have wound up if we’d developed a model or thought about the problem more rigorously, would have been entirely appropriate. If you care about that sort of distinction, you’ve come to the right website!" [more inside]
posted by Kybard at 6:34 AM PST - 91 comments

The best basket in China

A brave woman valiantly attempts to prevent panda bears from climbing into a basket of leaves while she rakes.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:26 AM PST - 56 comments

"[T]he fixed stars... are the visible Armies of God"

Christopher M. Graney on the problem of what to do in 1629 if you're a Copernican and the data suggests that most stars are larger than the span of Earth's orbit. [more inside]
posted by metaquarry at 5:32 AM PST - 4 comments

Remaking 'Roots'

Remaking 'Roots' In this version, accuracy is at the forefront, Mr. Wolper said one day last fall, in his production office in New Orleans, where the walls were covered with images of slave ships, plantation houses and African beads. “I’m not being modest here,” he said. “We have to make it better than the first ‘Roots.’ Otherwise, why bother?”
posted by modernnomad at 4:17 AM PST - 31 comments

...Which is something you can't do.

Tressy has hair that grows. Crissy's hair grows down to her toes. Tuesday Taylor has convertible outfits (and hair) (plus bonus Brooke Shields). Changing hair not enough? Meet Growing Up (and out) Skipper! [more inside]
posted by Mchelly at 3:47 AM PST - 11 comments

The connected vagina

The first rule of menstruation etiquette is you don’t talk about menstruation, particularly to men. If you must discuss your period you do so quietly and euphemistically. When you’re surfing the crimson wave and have to go to the bathroom, you make sure your period paraphernalia is carefully concealed so people remain clueless about your condition. The biggest breach of menstrual etiquette, however, is leaking in public. [more inside]
posted by moody cow at 3:05 AM PST - 81 comments

Together...

They Fight Crime (.net) Reviving* one of the greatest random generators in the history of the web with funky fresh font-ography and customization (add your name and that of your crimefighting partner, oh yeah!) - also on Twitter because, why not?
*previously mefi'd at a long-dead link. And yes, you can get the code to create your own teams - or other cliches.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:49 AM PST - 6 comments

The Praetorian Barracks? Sure! Take Line C and get out at Amba Aradam.

Between the Baths of Caracalla and the Basilica of St John in Lateran , 10 metres beneath Via Ipponio. It measures 900 square metres and 39 rooms, and apparently it's apparently one of at least four Praetorian barracks in the area. Ancient cities and modern excavatations often collide
posted by Autumn Leaf at 12:47 AM PST - 2 comments

May 17

That's a lot of poo

The making of me and you Just input your date of birth, sex at birth, height and weight, and choose the metric or imperial units that make most sense to you. And instantly find out: The chemical ingredients that make up you, and what your body is worth; How many atoms you are made of, and what can be made with them; How much wee, poo, sperm or eggs you have produced so far; And so much more.
posted by joedan at 9:05 PM PST - 43 comments

Pretend to be cool

12 hours of air conditioner sound [SLYT].
posted by MoonOrb at 8:29 PM PST - 20 comments

No, it's not Cthulhu

Giant octopus kite. That is all.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:36 PM PST - 24 comments

They're all honestly way better than me

Birds demonstrate how to dance to different types of electronic music, and part 2, featuring more of the same.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:00 PM PST - 29 comments

In the reign of Edmund Ironside

Pop quiz, hotshot. The last King of England who went by the name of Edward was Edward VIII (1936). So, how many King Edwards has England had?

Ha. Fooled you. It's eleven.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:38 PM PST - 39 comments

I Think Blac Chyna is a Ninja

"While no one and everyone was watching, Chyna was making calculated moves to close in on her own empire with a precision and finesse that not even the Kardashians saw coming. This wasn’t a PR breakthrough. It was a coup. And so the Kardashians, a family often accused of stealing black men, black features, and black culture, got beat at their own game by a black woman. And not just any black woman, but a video vixen who was never supposed to see the inside of the country clubs the Kardashians frequented growing up." [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 6:38 PM PST - 24 comments

Google Art Camera

No brush stroke, no accidental blotch of paint, no hidden nuance of a great painting by van Gogh or Monet can hide from the ultra-high resolution Google Art Camera.
posted by ColdChef at 6:35 PM PST - 12 comments

La bohème

What is actually happening with San Francisco rental prices?

From mefi's own urban planning, history, infrastructure, transit and walkability obsessed blogger, Eric Fischer. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 5:58 PM PST - 73 comments

How To Ruin My Life By Becoming a DJ

"Mercy VR is an interactive web based DJ set inspired by "virtual reality" which is a cutting edge torture technique used by the united states military. the music is based on our performance at that.party in march 2016" EXPERIENCE MERCY VR ON THE WEB [more inside]
posted by churl at 5:56 PM PST - 2 comments

Cute Overlord

Octopus eggs hatching [more inside]
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 5:42 PM PST - 14 comments

Designing Dementia-Friendly Websites

People living with dementia do not expect web designers to cure the symptoms, and many people recognize that it isn’t always possible to apply each dementia-friendly web design lesson when building a site. But the combined use of some of these lessons can help many people live well with their conditions. It is important to remember that dementia presents in many different forms, its symptoms are varied, and many of these symptoms are also common to other degenerative illnesses, in particular, conditions which hinder the social inclusion of the elderly.
[more inside]
posted by jenkinsEar at 3:48 PM PST - 23 comments

Problem + Problem = Solutions

In the Netherlands, Empty Prisons Become Homes for Refugees In an interesting take on reusing and recycling, a government agency in the Netherlands has opened empty prisons to accommodate the influx of migrants seeking asylum.
posted by Michele in California at 2:32 PM PST - 18 comments

Let's do the baby's room in "Edward Scissorhands"!

Cinema Palettes is a Twitter account that takes frames from films old, new and those to come and then breaks down the color palette of that frame.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:32 PM PST - 7 comments

Did you fill out the official fireball report?

The AMS has received 425 reports so far about a fireball event over Northeastern US on May 17th 2016 around 12:50am EDT (4:50 UT). The fireball was seen primarily from Maine but witnesses from Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Ontario (Canada) and Québec (Canada) also reported the event.
posted by rtha at 2:28 PM PST - 56 comments

Dicty

Dictyostelium discoideum - dicty to its friends - has long been recognized as the world's most fascinating slime mold. A (previously) has a good introduction from a decade ago. You might be fascinated by their life cycle, which goes from individual cells, to animal-like slug, to plant-like fruiting body. You might be fascinated by their starvation-prompted altruism, in which most cells give up their lives so that a few can reproduce, and cheaters are punished. You might be fascinated by the way they farm and protect their crops. (Or maybe the farmed bacteria are farming them; it's hard to tell.) Or you might be fascinated by a brand new study about the DNA nets they use to trap and kill pathogens.
posted by clawsoon at 12:51 PM PST - 17 comments

Demon in the Freezer

A brief exploration of the last remaining - and still potentially lethal - stockpiles of Variola vera a.k.a. the smallpox virus, from award-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. The last naturally occurring case was that of Ali Maow Maalin's in 1977 Somalia, two years before WHO certified its global eradication. The last recorded death due to the disease, however, occurred in 1978 Birmingham: University of Birmingham medical school photographer Janet Parker, whose death put the city in quarantined lockdown.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:41 PM PST - 16 comments

Koch Brothers, where art thou?

In case you were wondering about [a conspicuous lack of] the Koch Brothers' involvement in the 2016 US political elections, here is the inside scoop. [more inside]
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 12:12 PM PST - 40 comments

It's blowing peace and freedom, it's blowing you and me!

Mount Washington Observatory posts video of man being blown away by 109 mph wind [slyt]. "Weather Observers Mike Dorfman and Tom Padham took a brief break this morning to enjoy the windy and wintry conditions on the observation deck." [more inside]
posted by argonauta at 11:51 AM PST - 37 comments

You'll have an average lifespan. Don't be upset. Pray instead.

You're a fortune teller living in the Roman Empire. People keep asking you the same damn questions day after day, and it's hard to always come up with new answers. So you invest in a copy of the Oracles of Astrampsychus, a dice-based prophecy kit, containing 92 common questions and over a thousand possible answers. And here they are.
posted by theodolite at 11:03 AM PST - 35 comments

Stupid names can't hurt good companies [?]

Seemingly bored with a staid but descriptive and well-recognized name, Siemens Healthcare has rebranded to Siemens Healthineers. The cringeworthy new name is "...intended to underline its pioneering spirit, Siemens said in a statement." The name was unveiled in a cheesy public event, complete with an anodyne theme-song led by spandex-clad dancers. [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 10:53 AM PST - 76 comments

¡Sí se pudo!

"To be young, brown, and woke...THIS is our future, they are the ones who will pave the way." Latina Rebels founder Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez is collecting photos of beautiful and inspirational graduation caps under the hashtag #LatinxGradCaps on Twitter and Instagram.
posted by amnesia and magnets at 9:37 AM PST - 6 comments

Because it's 2016

"I'm proud to say that moments ago, I introduced legislation, Bill C-16 ... that would ensure that Canadians will be free to identify themselves and to express their gender as they wish while being protected against discrimination and hate, because as Canadians, we should feel free and safe to be ourselves," said Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould in Ottawa. [more inside]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:48 AM PST - 45 comments

Eskimeaux

Eskimeaux is a music project started in 2009, led by Gabriel Smith, co-founder of The Epoch, a brooklyn-based community of creators. [more inside]
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:28 AM PST - 10 comments

The Curious Case of the Weapon That Didn't Exist

The flail (in particular, the one-handed version with a spiked head) is an iconic medieval weapon -- but it might not have ever been used in combat, despite the paintings and your old D&D rulebooks. Unlike most of the Internet, the discussion in the comments is worth reading.
posted by Etrigan at 7:56 AM PST - 101 comments

Skydivers playing Quidditch

What it says on the tin (SL Business Insider)
posted by lharmon at 7:35 AM PST - 5 comments

IM BACK AND SO ARE YOU

Since parenting is not a 9-5 job, Hey Kids service is available for you and your child 24 hours a day. Hey Kids features short programmes interlude by clips of favorite Children’s Songs and Finger Families. The schedule is active, engaging and fun, and geared to promote interaction. Hey Kids broadcasts soft music and gently moving visuals designed to help soothe waking babies and create a calm atmosphere in the home.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:34 AM PST - 8 comments

WELCOME TO THE NEW AGE

When he first started working with Imagine Dragons, music producer Alex da Kid was looking for some inspiration for the Broadway musical, "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."

"I thought they would be great to help me come up with ideas for U2," the Grammy-nominated English producer said.

There was just one problem: The demos they recorded were too good.
--The songs that became Imagine Dragons' Night Visions are probably about Spider-Man.
posted by almostmanda at 7:17 AM PST - 30 comments

Food Leaderboard

The Changing American Diet, 1970-2013, in infographic form.
posted by Miko at 6:24 AM PST - 63 comments

Kaleva's stories

Kullervo: Tolkien's fascination with Finland JRR Tolkien first discovered the tale [Kullervo's Tale] as a schoolboy in Birmingham. His father had died when he was a young child, and his mother passed away when he was 12, so he had been an orphan himself for some years when he came across the Finnish epic Kalevala - and within it the tale of Kullervo - during his final year at school. It had a huge impact.
The Finnish Epic Kalevala previously and previously.
posted by infini at 5:27 AM PST - 8 comments

What looks like a picture of the Grinch holding a gun

It’s easy to mistake the beta rebellion for a youthful, but otherwise undifferentiated, variation on the bad old tradition of patriarchy. Yet the phenomenon bears the unmistakable signs of a new, net-bred brand of misogyny. [...] But how, exactly, does "hegemonic masculinity" accurately sum up a scene explicitly identifying as beta male? [violence].
[more inside]
posted by postcommunism at 5:24 AM PST - 71 comments

Caramel sugar

Sugar can be caramelized without melting. It then substitutes for white sugar without otherwise changing recipes. SLSeriouseats
posted by daisyace at 3:41 AM PST - 142 comments

As American As Duct Tape, Brass Knuckles and Cole Slaw

From "American Mountains" to "American Conditions", language maven Arika Okrent (previously) looks at what some of what other countries, languages and cultures slap the label "American" onto.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:30 AM PST - 68 comments

Are we there yet?

In the summer of 1888 Bertha Benz, accompanied by her two teenage sons, was the first person to drive an automobile any significant distance. As a publicity stunt she drove her husband's experimental, three wheeled, benzene fueled, internal combustion powered, Benz Patent Motor Car Model III to visit her parents. The all day road trip took them 106 kilometres from the workshop in Mannheim to her families home in Pforzheim. And then a few days later back again by a different route so as to expose the automobile to as many people as possible. Along the way she filled up at apothecaries; the first of which bills itself as the world's first filling station and is still doing business today as a pharmacy.
posted by Mitheral at 12:10 AM PST - 6 comments

May 16

Beach Bully Bingo

"As The Encyclopedia of Surfing also points out: "Visiting surfers since the early 1970s have had rocks thrown at them while walking down the cliffside Lunada trail, and returned from the water to find their car windows broken and their tires slashed — the work of local surfers, the sons of millionaires, determined to keep their break free of outsiders." -- L.A. Weekly's Hillel Aron asks, Can a Cop, a Model and Two Lawyers Break a Surf Gang’s 45-Year Grip on Lunada Bay?
posted by Room 641-A at 10:33 PM PST - 38 comments

Art of the needle drop

Q-Tip is a Beast (SLYT)
posted by bigbigdog at 10:17 PM PST - 14 comments

Yass – The Jazz, the Filth and the Fury – Poland's musical rebels

"Polish jazz, which was celebrating its triumphs in the 1950s and 60s, gradually became bogged down under the power of omnipresent and omnipotent institutions" ... "The 1990s saw the birth of a musical trend that wanted nothing less than to turn the established order of things to ash by the most drastic of means. This new trend was called yass." Though the headiest and most experimental days are behind them, "yass" is still used to indicate Polish jazz that's more than traditional jazz, and has been used to describe Skalpel, Jazzpospolita, and Pink Freud, who have performed Autechre live for Boiler Room and RBMA.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:52 PM PST - 7 comments

A capybara with two ducklings on its back, in the bath

That's it basically.
posted by Sebmojo at 9:26 PM PST - 26 comments

All the Marbles

Longest sand marble run ever [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 8:15 PM PST - 33 comments

MACROPOD (KANGAROO AND WALLABY) REPRODUCTION IS TRULY FASCINATING

Did you know that kangaroos have a trifold vagina? And that as a result of this complex reproductive architecture, a kangaroo neonate emerges after only 28 days gestation, raw-looking, jellybean-sized, body essentially just a head, trunk, and forelimbs, from its mother's cloaca to climb up to her pouch? And that at this stage, the neonate can't suck, so when it finds one of her four nipples the nipple swells up inside its mouth so that it is stuck, remora-like, and can't disengage until its jaw develops further? (Post inspired by a fascinating conversation with mefite athanassiel)
posted by ocherdraco at 8:03 PM PST - 24 comments

K.K. Slider plays the hits

There are plenty of cover acts, but it's a rare talent that carries a crowd-pleasing repertoire, yet can still make each song their own. K.K. Slider pulls it off with simple acoustic stylings and howling vocals. He's covered them all: Adele. DJ Snake and Lil Jon. Lady Gaga. Outkast. Michael Jackson. Survivor. Bobby McFerrin. Celine Dion. Darude (yes, that song, and a vocal mix, natch). [more inside]
posted by brett at 6:48 PM PST - 17 comments

Assistant Deputy Provost for the Office of Dining Technology

University Title Generator. Includes estimated salaries.
posted by Cash4Lead at 3:01 PM PST - 50 comments

Your children, and grandchildren, and therapists.

Lin-Manuel Miranda delivers the University of Pennsylvania commencement to the class of 2016.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:04 AM PST - 43 comments

“I have three children & a husband who is prime minister. I need help.”

Criticism leveled at Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, wife of prime minister Justin Trudeau, dismissed as ‘sexist and spiteful’ after she says she needs more staff. [The Guardian] The wife of Canada’s prime minister has sparked a fierce national debate after saying she needs more help to expand her official role and take on more public duties. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau last week told a French-language newspaper that she wanted to do more, but struggled with just one staff member. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 10:54 AM PST - 226 comments

Let's go on with the show

Jane Little, assistant principal bass emeritus for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the world's longest-serving orchestra musician, collapsed and died Sunday during an encore of "There's No Business Like Show Business."
posted by Thomas Tallis is my Homeboy at 10:52 AM PST - 25 comments

Citizen Journalists start your engines.

The Intercept is broadening access to the Snowden documents. Here´s why.
We encourage other journalists, researchers, and interested parties to comb through these documents, along with future published batches, to find additional material of interest. Others may well find stories, or clues that lead to stories, that we did not. A primary objective of these batch releases is to make that kind of exploration possible.
The Intercept’s first SIDtoday release.
posted by adamvasco at 9:46 AM PST - 25 comments

"There was no support system for this shit."

"The obscurity of this music, that someone had found, catalogued and championed it pre-Internet, boggled my mind. It was an esoteric document in the sense that it was full of obscure knowledge intended for a small number of people. But it was also esoteric in the sense that there seemed to be something mystical about it. A sort of musical Nag Hammadi Library of hidden music, rare artifacts, treasures reverently compiled, to be listened to in a ritual way." The story of the Nurse With Wound List.
posted by Len at 9:41 AM PST - 35 comments

Shuffleboard At McMurdo

Coming around the top of Ross Island, the suspense is almost too much for me to bear. I want that goddamned lighter. - Maciej Cegłowski
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:44 AM PST - 39 comments

According to United States law, fetuses are not people.

"Indiana may not legally be able to declare fetuses human in life. But in death, apparently, it can." Among a host of other restrictions, Indiana House Bill 1337 makes it illegal to dispose of fetal remains as medical waste: As of July 1, whether aborted or miscarried, they must be transported to a funeral home and cremated or buried. [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 8:23 AM PST - 147 comments

death cafes: tea, cake, and a discussion about mortality

In 2000, shortly after the death of his first wife (anthropologist Yvonne Presswerk), Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz set up a series of cafés mortels, or death cafes--informal gatherings where ordinary people could talk openly about death and dying. Crettaz inspired Jon Underwood and his mother, Sue Barsky Reid, to begin hosting death cafes in the UK ; eventually they put together a guide [pdf] for those wanting to host their own. Death cafes have now been held in 35 countries. They are not meant to be grief or bereavement support groups; instead, Underwood says, their purpose is “to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives." [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:10 AM PST - 6 comments

how could you have not seen this coming?

As new revelations come to light that claim that not only was there widespread and elaborate cheating at the Sochi Olympics, but that Olympic officials may have been involved as well, Russia's Sports Minister says that they are very sorry "that athletes who tried to deceive us, and the world, were not caught sooner", and hoped that they would be cleared of wrongdoing in time for this summer's Games in Rio. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:39 AM PST - 82 comments

Monstrous vasectomy bludgeon penis

Is there marketing potential for this game? It's difficult to say. (Sorry- a single link YouTube post.)
posted by taff at 6:29 AM PST - 28 comments

Notify Police - Murder!

npm-expansions is a git repository, currently holding 250+ pending pulls requests of what NPM (Node Package Manager) might stand for*: Notify Police - Murder!, Neurosis Prevention Mechanism, Narcissistically Plush Moostache and to quote a specific commit - "the very first Portuguese extension" - Não posso mais ("I can't take it anymore"). [more inside]
posted by lipsum at 2:48 AM PST - 14 comments

May 15

"Hyperbolic" but not in the literary device sense

I know that you've gotten bored of roguelikes because they're so easy to wrap your head around and master, so here's one that takes place in hyperbolic space
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:11 PM PST - 19 comments

A cat-shaped hole in your life.

The appropriate weight of grief. Author Michael Zadoorian on the loss of a beloved cat.
posted by bitmage at 8:00 PM PST - 52 comments

Kung Fu Maintenance

How To Replace Blade For Little Metal Cutting Handheld Hack Saw Spring Style Maintenance Repair Vide
posted by The Minotaur at 7:43 PM PST - 16 comments

Open-plan offices are mandatory for all.

In 1944, the CIA’s predecessor created the Simple Sabotage Field Manual (previously), detailing subtle and hard-to-trace ways for a sympathetic insider to subvert an enemy’s total war effort, from industry to transportation to communication. Charlie Stross and contributors in his comments section have brought Simple Sabotage into the 21st century.
posted by reluctant early bird at 6:35 PM PST - 63 comments

"These are children who don't have a safe place anywhere."

Dieter Wolke has been studying the effects of sibling bullying. He was recently interviewed by CBC Radio (transcript). He and colleagues have been published in The Lancet (pre-publication free access version) and Pediatrics. What they found "is that those who were regularly bullied by their siblings were twice as likely to have developed clinically significant depression and anxiety disorder by 18 years of age." Wolke was interviewed by the BBC a couple of years ago, in a segment which drew over a thousand letters. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 6:22 PM PST - 31 comments

Odd and Satisfying

Oddly Satisfying Video Compilation
posted by klausman at 6:18 PM PST - 35 comments

Christopher Hitchens interviews White Separatists

Filling as host on an episode of CNBC's Talk Live in 1991, Christopher Hitchens interviews white separatists Tom and John Metzger.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 3:48 PM PST - 19 comments

What's the deal with that drop?

What if there were a dubstep song but instead of the drop there was just the Seinfeld Theme Song? [slSoundCloud]
posted by sparklemotion at 1:43 PM PST - 46 comments

Whatever it is, the music is fucking annoying

Art or junk?
posted by MoonOrb at 1:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Ex-Agent Says CIA Tip-off Led To Nelson Mandela's 1962 Arrest

BBC: "The revelations, made in the [UK] Sunday Times newspaper, are based on an interview with ex-CIA agent Donald Rickard shortly before he died. Mr Mandela served 27 years in jail for resisting white minority rule before being released in 1990. He was subsequently elected as South Africa's first black president."
posted by marienbad at 12:13 PM PST - 15 comments

'Getaway vehicle' was NOT in the job description.

Ever have a hankering for an m/m webcomic about centaurs in the American Old West? If so, Hotblood! might just be your thing. [more inside]
posted by anthy at 11:19 AM PST - 8 comments

Beyond Typewriters

How Literature Became Word Perfect First encounters: writers and word processors and processing words.
posted by kingless at 11:05 AM PST - 18 comments

Emily Dickinson's Cannabis Plant

...is but one of over 400 plants held in the poet's digitally-accessible herbaria [NYT slideshow] "Her first assembled collection was not, as one might expect, a collection of writing, but a collection of [pressed] plant specimens." The collection is available for digital access through Harvard's Houghton Library: "The digital edition also notes corrected identifications when Dickinson got the plants' names wrong. That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Fair enough—she was only 14." Cannabis Culture has its own set of opinions about 14 year old Emily's herbaria: "It’s quite possible that she was content with her life of seclusion because she was having daily mystical experiences, aided by psychotropic plants she grew in her garden, or found in the woods."
posted by nightrecordings at 10:36 AM PST - 20 comments

New York's Mass Graves

"Over a million people are buried in the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island. A New York Times investigation uncovers some of their stories and the failings of the system that put them there." (SL NYTimes)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:58 AM PST - 19 comments

“City squares seem to be waiting for a crowd to fill them up—”

How Public Squares Disrupt City Life and Why That’s a Good Thing by George Packer [The Daily Beast] They can break up the monotony of the grid, provide the backdrop for social protest and change, spook you and mystify you—hard to define, city squares are indispensable. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:50 AM PST - 14 comments

Statement shapes in red

Nudibranchia or other opisthobranchia compared to the various looks of David Bowie.
posted by kenko at 9:19 AM PST - 25 comments

Cornellàmation

You know this guy? Yeah, him, with the art and the comics. Well, he successfully crowdfunded at least thirty cartoons, to be released weekly. Welcome (back) to the disquieting world of Joan Cornellà. (Warning: the various media contain nudity, violence, drug use and Jimbo the Jam.)
posted by BiggerJ at 6:20 AM PST - 4 comments

BREXIT the Movie

BREXIT the Movie full length (1:10) a crowdfunded film making the case for Britain to leave the EU. Some short extracts: Fish, Gravy train, German miracle, Living regulated lives, Life outside the EU, Trading regulations.
posted by Lanark at 3:08 AM PST - 62 comments

Mega-City One or bust

A robot will soon be asking you if you want fries with that. In response to the rising minimum wage, the fast-food chain Wendy's is following through with threats to to start automating all of its 6000 restaurants because of plans to raise the minimum wage in some US states. Carl's Jnr is also looking at the idea. Robots also might soon take over parts of the education system. [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 2:31 AM PST - 164 comments

May 14

Ineluctably Masculine

The winners of the 2016 Nebula awards, given by the Science Fiction Writers of America, are all women. Among them: Naomi Novik, for the novel Uprooted, and Nnedi Okorafor, for the novella Bindi. And Mad Max: Fury Road won Outstanding Dramatic Presentation.
posted by suelac at 8:22 PM PST - 97 comments

Drums! There has to be drums!

Eurovision host Petra Mede and 2015 winner Måns Zelmerlöw teach you how to design the ultimate Eurovision song with Love Love, Peace Peace [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:33 PM PST - 49 comments

The first rule of fecht club...

In New York this weekend women warriors are coming together for "Fecht Yeah" the first tournament for women who practice the art of Historical European Martial Arts.
posted by agatha_magatha at 6:20 PM PST - 11 comments

Keep away from Invasive Telepathy

Ever wonder what the Internet might look like in Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings? Wonder no more: THE REALM OF ROUGH TELEPATHY
posted by hobgadling at 5:56 PM PST - 4 comments

Elections, memory, and martial law

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte, running on a platform of tough measures on crime, corruption, and drug abuse, has just recently won the presidential election in the Philippines. [more inside]
posted by PussKillian at 5:16 PM PST - 16 comments

Implosion of a nation

Venezuela is falling apart. What our country is going through is monstrously unique: It’s nothing less than the collapse of a large, wealthy, seemingly modern, seemingly democratic nation just a few hours’ flight from the United States....In the last two years Venezuela has experienced the kind of implosion that hardly ever occurs in a middle-income country like it outside of war. Mortality rates are skyrocketing; one public service after another is collapsing; triple-digit inflation has left more than 70 percent of the population in poverty; an unmanageable crime wave keeps people locked indoors at night; shoppers have to stand in line for hours to buy food; babies die in large numbers for lack of simple, inexpensive medicines and equipment in hospitals, as do the elderly and those suffering from chronic illnesses. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 4:58 PM PST - 97 comments

Collecting Twain, Nabokov, and Pynchon

Robert Nelson collects books. This is his webpage. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 3:21 PM PST - 5 comments

Until I was a man, I had no idea how good men had it at work

Transgender man Thomas Page McBee reflects on how transitioning exposed sexist double standards in his work environment. Every day, I am rewarded for behavior that I did not previously exhibit, such as standing up for my ideals, pushing back, being fluent in complex power dynamics, and strategically—and visibly—taking credit. When I prove myself, just once, it tends to stick. [more inside]
posted by AFABulous at 2:30 PM PST - 38 comments

You don’t just move to Texas. It moves into you.

“My boyfriend (from N.Y.C.) says he’s never been in a state that prints pictures of itself on everything.”
Austin resident Allison wrote to the New York Times. The Times drew a massive reader response after it tried to figure out what Texas was last weekend. "Non-Texan readers seemed to be a mix of confused and outraged at the Texan way. They just don’t understand."
posted by zarq at 1:38 PM PST - 135 comments

STOP! Using the Internet!

Why a staggering number of Americans have stopped using the Internet the way they used to Nearly one in two Internet users say privacy and security concerns have now stopped them from doing basic things online — such as posting to social networks, expressing opinions in forums or even buying things from websites, according to a new government survey released Friday. This chilling effect, pulled out of a survey of 41,000 U.S. households who use the Internet, show the insecurity of the Web is beginning to have consequences that stretch beyond the direct fall-out of an individual losing personal data in breach. The research suggests some consumers are reaching a tipping point where they feel they can no longer trust using the Internet for everyday activities.
posted by robbyrobs at 1:17 PM PST - 74 comments

But then, in 1990, a hero emerges

Filmmaker Noah Sterling presents The History of Tentacle Porn Animated! (SFW) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:44 AM PST - 13 comments

Hard to see at sea

A visual history of the sometimes unbelievable camouflage used by ships during wartime. The most famous approach, Dazzle camouflage (sometimes Razzle Dazzle), was designed by an artist in Britain during World War I, and is designed to disguise apparent motion and direction, [video] at which it was effective, if controversial. During World War II, the US Navy used a variety of schemes to camouflage ships, including false bow waves that made it difficult for submarines to judge how fast a ship was traveling. Recently, the Navy revived dazzle techniques for the first time since WW II.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:29 AM PST - 25 comments

Can you hold Kamchatka?

Free land in Russia's Far Eastern Federal District [more inside]
posted by zinon at 9:17 AM PST - 24 comments

Gee, that's eatin'

Railway Paradise: How a Fine-Dining Empire Made the Southwest Palatable to Outsiders
posted by jjray at 7:43 AM PST - 7 comments

“Malware, phishing campaigns, DDoS attacks are all things I have seen,”

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About How ISIS Uses The Internet by Sheera Frenkel [Buzzfeed] They talk on Telegram and send viruses to their enemies. BuzzFeed News’ Sheera Frenkel looks at how ISIS members and sympathizers around the world use the internet to grow their global network. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:34 AM PST - 28 comments

Sakana

Sakana is a slice of life, romantic comedy (a sli-li-rom-com if you will) that takes place in a giant fish market in Tokyo, Japan. Our intrepid heroes must do battle with unruly seafood and THEMSELVES!!! in order to find love, inner peace, and a paycheck. By Madeline Rupert
posted by rebent at 6:40 AM PST - 5 comments

a celebration of heterogeneity and imperfection

In 2015, Ian Parton released his fourth album of hook-filled, hyper-melodic, genre-defying revivalist upbeat pop under the band name The Go! Team. It was called The Scene Between and it featured a whole host of excellent yet low-profile female vocalists who collaborated with Parton over the net. You could probably listen to the album over your favourite streaming service, but cool music videos were released for basically all the songs – let's check them, and their guest vocalists, out! [more inside]
posted by Panthalassa at 6:20 AM PST - 8 comments

IRL Stardew Valley

For only AUD$750,000 the entire town of Allies Creek, Queensland can be yours - featuring 16 houses, 3 sawmills, a phone depot, a schoolhall, a dam full of fish, and all the freedom to do whatever you want.
posted by divabat at 5:12 AM PST - 37 comments

May 13

o'er the land of the free (that is, the unconstrained by *pitch*)

Shoot the piano player? Hell no! The poor fellow is just doing his level best to follow the, um... creative modulations that the singer is exploring as she delivers her breathtakingly adventurous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at a recent rich asshole rally in Oregon. Matter of fact, buy that piano player a beer! [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:46 PM PST - 44 comments

And now for something completely different.

The Kipper Kids are Harry and Harry Kipper, one character played simultaneously by two people. He certainly are an entertaining people since 1971. 32-minute performance at The University Art Museum, 1979Kipper Kids channel on YoutubeExcerpts from "Your Turn to Roll It #54" (via their Facebook Page [NSFW]), which they also performed on Bette Midler's Mondo Beyondo [pbhffhhrthiously]
posted by not_on_display at 9:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Those 70s Shows

Every 70s Movie: The Best, The Worst, The Weirdest, and Everything in Between. A new review a day since October 2010.
posted by MoonOrb at 9:14 PM PST - 37 comments

Jeepney Journey on Manila's 'Avenue of Death'

"This is what rush hour in Manila looks like: a Mad Max-style ride down Fury Road aboard vehicles with names like "Cold Fusion" and "Soldier of Fortune." First hacked together more than 70 years ago and manufactured nowhere else outside the Philippines, the ageless, endlessly patched jeepney is both an icon of national ingenuity and testament to its utterly dysfunctional public transportation. Filipinos affectionately refer to them as the "Kings of the Road," with a mixture of pride and eye-rolling resignation."
posted by veedubya at 8:30 PM PST - 9 comments

Wins above replacement ozeki

538 crunches the numbers behind 255 years of professional sumo tournaments.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:28 PM PST - 8 comments

Women in flat shoes still able to do job shock!

Grauniad: Women share flat-shoe photos in solidarity with dismissed receptionist - Women at work on Friday were snapping pictures of their flat shoes in a show of solidarity with a receptionist sent home from her temp job after she did not wear high heels. The Twitter trend was initiated by the Fawcett Society following a backlash against sexist dress codes imposed by some employers.
posted by marienbad at 5:49 PM PST - 96 comments

"dangerous munitions"

So what are the chances of encryption technologies being viewed as a "bearable arm" under the Second Amendment?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:37 PM PST - 26 comments

An opera for children and those who like children

HILF! HILF! DIE GLOBOLINKS
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:19 PM PST - 8 comments

Mass Produced Death Penalty is Over

“With Pfizer’s announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose,” said Maya Foa, who tracks drug companies for Reprieve, a London-based human rights advocacy group. [more inside]
posted by Talez at 3:33 PM PST - 117 comments

Move Over, Sam

On Monday, President Obama signed HR 2908 into law, making the American Bison the National Mammal of the USA! (Bison bison bison and bison bison athabascae, as The New Yorker explains in its coverage.) At least some of the credit should go to the Vote Bison and Beards For Bison campaigns and affiliates.

Celebrate by reading up on Bison at the NWF, the WWF, the DOI, U of M, and Wikipedia, looking up some Bison on BISON, adopting a housebroken Bison, joining the NBA, visiting the Minnesota Zoo, or drinking a beer and having a burger.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:09 PM PST - 52 comments

Thomas the Tank Engine Like You've Never Seen Him Before! (NSFW, SLYT)

They were the stories that have charmed an entire generation. From the books, to the television series, people around the world have grown up with the Railway Stories. But the truth behind Thomas and his friends is no childrens story. It is a story that begins in wartime Germany, and ends with a discovery that would change Thomas, and his friends, lives forever.
posted by Small Dollar at 1:58 PM PST - 23 comments

We’re Like Groupies

Robert Caro takes Mark Rutte on a tour of Robert Moses' New York. [NYT] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 1:56 PM PST - 12 comments

Screw, spend, sleep: My battle with bipolar disorder

Mania goes like this: It’s 3 am and I’m wide awake and ready to conquer the world. The rest of the world is sleeping, but I just don’t seem to need sleep. Nope, too much to do, and here are the priorities: buy a $200 belly dancing costume online, break out my oil paints and finish a painting, put shelves up in my room, work on my book (I’ll get another idea for a different book and have to start that too), start an heirloom yogurt business, research farmer’s market permit laws for said yogurt business, go to a meeting and take on a new sponsee, buy a book on the ancient myths of Egypt, read the book on the ancient myths of Egypt, fuck my boyfriend twice, practice playing finger cymbals and practice my Spanish online. Right now I’m learning conditional future tenses. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 1:49 PM PST - 27 comments

Hand cranked candy

A restored Victorian rolling machine for making drop candy. So that's why it's called drop candy. More machines. [more inside]
posted by carter at 12:47 PM PST - 115 comments

GoldenIRL

We had a spare afternoon so naturally we decided to recreate Goldeneye on Alcatraz.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 12:28 PM PST - 3 comments

Friday Flamenco

Flamenco at 5:15, is a short, Oscar-winning documentary about students in their final year at the National Ballet School of Canada who are seen learning the flamenco from Susana and Antonio Robledo, in classes which are held after the day's regular schedule has ended.
posted by storybored at 12:13 PM PST - 9 comments

"You're not going to grab Rock Hudson's gusto on my show."

In 1980, Bea Arthur and Madame* sing "A Good Man is Hard to Find" after some banter about each other's respective styles and sexual innuendo about the puppet seducing Rock Hudson that has aged...let's just say....interestingly. [more inside]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:59 AM PST - 22 comments

Artem vs Predator

Heat vision. The ability to see heat was something I wanted for a while.
posted by michaelh at 11:51 AM PST - 5 comments

Products as far as the eye can scroll

Akvariums! Robot-Hund! Star Wars merchandise! A sort of mail-order Sharper Image kind of store, www.ARNGREN.net offers many, many products and rejects modern design sensibilities by putting quite a few of them on their front page in a vast, scroll-requiring field of boxes.
posted by ignignokt at 11:48 AM PST - 10 comments

The Unhealthy Truth Behind "Wellness" and "Clean Eating."

"Of course there are some people who can dedicate their lives to good health and still be mentally well, just as there will always be people who suffer from disordered eating, "healthily" or otherwise. But when wellness balloons beyond the individual, swelling from personal lifestyle choice to sweetheart of the diet industry bolstered by supermarkets who see kale, coconut oil and chia seeds as a great profit opportunity, that's a problem for all of us. When the pursuit of health becomes obsessive and fearful, that's not healthy. Still worse, it's becoming more and more clear that the wellness we chase might not even want us back." (slViceUK)
posted by Kitteh at 11:30 AM PST - 88 comments

My name is Jaimie and I've decided to build a giant robot...DAMMIT!

Jamie Mantzel (previously) has posted an condensed video about his Giant Spider Robot Project.
posted by bonobothegreat at 11:25 AM PST - 6 comments

Audubon Made Up At Least 28 Fake Species To Prank A Rival

Rafinesque (previously) was not known for his social graces; as John Jeremiah Sullivan writes, Audubon is the "only person on record" as actually liking him. During their visit, though, Audubon fed Rafinesque descriptions of American creatures, including 11 species of fish that never really existed. Rafinesque duly jotted them down in his notebook and later proffered those descriptions as evidence of new species. For 50 or so years, those 11 fish remained in the scientific record as real species, despite their very unusual features, including bulletproof (!) scales. Turns out we missed another 17 species that Audubon threw in there for fun.
posted by sciatrix at 10:33 AM PST - 34 comments

"if people are who they say they are"

Miss Marple and the Problem of Modern Identity, Alan Jacobs
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:10 AM PST - 28 comments

Friday the 13th, or 17th, or Tuesday the 13th - superstition history

What's so bad about Friday the 13th? Well, what's so unlucky about the number 13? It's largely a modern, Western superstition, merging suspicion about Fridays and the number 13, which once concocted, felt ancient. Some give credit to the Thirteen Club, formed in 1881 or 1882, who flaunted so-called cursed actions, breaking glasses with abandon. Meanwhile, Martes Trece, or Tuesday the 13th is bad luck in Spanish speaking countries, and it's an ominous date for Greek history as Constantinople fell on the specific date in 1204, while Friday the 17th is a national day of sfortuna, or bad luck, in Italy. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:59 AM PST - 19 comments

Be careful, the road of faith is rocky

Swinging with Absalom Sometimes I envy Absalom. He had recourse. He had power. He raised up an army in his rage. He did something. He turned his rage into an insurrection. All I’ve ever done is turn my anger into words. How can a sister avenge her sister? How can a brother mourn his loss? How can a child reconcile the sins of her parents? (TW: rape)
posted by jillithd at 8:46 AM PST - 8 comments

So one member of your band has transitioned.

How do you address the elephant in the room with a live audience?The Axis of Awesome shows us the way. [more inside]
posted by sparklemotion at 8:23 AM PST - 18 comments

fight on

Darwyn Cooke, author and illustrator of the Eisner award winning DC: New Frontier, is currently receiving palliative care for aggressive cancer. He is also well known for his work on Catwoman, The Spirit, animated series such as Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond as well as the odd miniseries for Marvel.
posted by fight or flight at 7:33 AM PST - 44 comments

Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students

This morning, the Obama administration sent a letter (PDF) to all public schools in the United States, signed by the Department of Justice and and Department of Education, issuing guidance (PDF) that discrimination against transgender students’ rights violates schools’ legal obligations under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. All students must be allowed to use the restroom and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity, and "schools are prohibited from publicly disclosing a transgender student's birth name or biological sex, and are required to change the gender on school records and directories when asked." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:33 AM PST - 175 comments

The Holy Trinity – Paddle, Ball and Blocks

"Although it will seem remedial to mention this, all Breakout-style games have at least three things in common – each contains paddles, balls, and target objects for the balls to hit." -- Lego Bricktopia level designer, Mark Nelson, shares his vast of knowledge of Breakout-style games (previously 1, 2) in Breaking Down Breakout: System And Level Design For Breakout-style Games. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 7:04 AM PST - 12 comments

Toasted

In a sea of imperfect options, this is the one I feel best about! We made something great for three years, and now we’re going to go do something else. The only regret I have is that Bustle will outlive us and I will never be able to icily reject a million-dollar check from Bryan Goldberg, but that’s pretty much it. - The Toast will be closing on July 1st. [more inside]
posted by Artw at 6:17 AM PST - 181 comments

YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD

One of the most infamously bad NES licensed games ever released, Friday the 13th is known for its obtuseness and difficulty. Still, there's many who see an interesting design buried beneath Pack-In Software's incompetence, even inspiring an action figure based on its odd Jason Voorhees sprite, and it's for those people that YouTube filmmakers TripleZeroFilms created a 50-page, full-color, illustrated strategy guide (with its own trailer video!) for this unpolished gem in the extremely rough. [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:09 AM PST - 10 comments

And he'll still grow up to be an asshole.

Mother goose leads officers to her entangled baby.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:32 AM PST - 23 comments

Check in with the velociraptor at the world’s first robot hotel

Japan has a national gift for holding in balance the stateliness of tradition and the marvel of novelty. So it ought to come as no surprise that on the western margin of the archipelago, on a serene bay in a remote area of the Nagasaki Prefecture, there is an enormous theme park dedicated to the splendors of imperial Holland. It follows with perfect logic that the historical theme park’s newest lodging place is the world’s first hotel staffed by robots.
posted by ellieBOA at 2:17 AM PST - 12 comments

With a name like that, of course he became a game maker.

Based originally on a description in a story by Andy Looney, the game of Icehouse was a board game without a board, played in real time without turns with a set of colored pyramids in three sizes. It still has its fans, and you can find some pretty detailed fan stuff out there on the internet regarding the game of Icehouse. Over the years, though, people found ways to use such enticingly generic game pieces for far, far more… [more inside]
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:16 AM PST - 10 comments

May 12

A Black Eye For Open Science

Recently, a dataset of 70,000 scraped OkCupid profiles from November 2014 to March 2015 was released on the Open Science Framework. The set, which was acquired without the consent of either OKCupid or the profile owners, had no anonymization performed on it, meaning that the profiles could be easily correlated to the people behind them, effectively doxing these individuals, a gross violation of research ethics on a number of grounds. Social computing expert Oliver Keyes described the release as "without a doubt one of the most grossly unprofessional, unethical and reprehensible data releases I have ever seen." [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:47 PM PST - 66 comments

Throw me in a haunted wheelbarrow and set me on fire

The Friday poem: 'Monica’, by Hera Lindsay Bird Monica Geller off popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S / Is one of the worst characters in the history of television / She makes me want to wash my hands with hand sanitizer / She makes me want to stand in an abandoned Ukrainian parking lot / And scream her name at a bunch of dead crows
posted by Sebmojo at 8:37 PM PST - 26 comments

"I Googled it, baby!"

TO THIS DAY, Caldwell isn't sure how authorities took down his drug cartel so swiftly. Perhaps it was the poorly stuffed shoebox-sized package wrapped in elaborate Chinese markings that sounded like a Molly-stuffed maraca moving down the post office's conveyor belt. "Good lord that boy was a bad criminal," says his mom, "and thank Jesus for that."
How Reche Caldwell Googled his way from the Patriots to prison.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:15 PM PST - 11 comments

Want to combat Hollywood gender discrimination? Watch movies by women.

Here’s a list of 245 movies directed by women, on Netflix right now. The list is compiled by Film Fatales.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:04 PM PST - 20 comments

Pathetic Motorways

If people ever do think of a motorway, they think of miles upon miles of tarmac, of great long roads that go from one end of the country to another. This isn't always the case, which is where Pathetic Motorways comes in. Here we look at the shorter, more unusual motorways in a tongue-in-cheek manner; and also examine motorway history - in other words what is, what was, and what might have been all based around those blue lines on maps.
posted by MoonOrb at 7:20 PM PST - 10 comments

“So I embarked on another round of testing.”

How Chris McCandless Died: An update to ‘Into the Wild’ by Jon Krakauer [Medium] The debate over what killed Chris McCandless, and the related question of whether he is worthy of admiration, has been smoldering and occasionally flaring for more than two decades now. Shortly after the first edition of Into the Wild was published in January 1996, University of Alaska chemists Edward Treadwell and Thomas Clausen shot down my theory that the cause of McCandless’s death was a toxic alkaloid contained in the seeds of the Eskimo potato plant, Hedysarum alpine, also known as wild potato. When Treadwell and Clausen completed chemical analyses of the Eskimo potato seeds I’d sent them, they found no trace of any poisonous compounds. “I tore that plant apart,” Dr. Clausen explained to Men’s Journal in 2007. “There were no toxins. No alkaloids. I’d eat it myself.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 6:52 PM PST - 82 comments

“A true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born.”

Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love, has passed away. Katherine Dunn, whose best-selling novel Geek Love was a National Book Award finalist in 1989 and became a cult classic, died at age 70 in her Portland home on May 11.
posted by Windigo at 6:08 PM PST - 40 comments

buff anthro pokemon

buff anthro pokemon
posted by clorox at 5:44 PM PST - 22 comments

Pyrex pleasures

Happy Vintage Pyrex Addiction / Rare Vintage Pyrex (Pinterest) | Vintage Pyrex Kitchenware (article, Collector's Weekly) | Pattern Reference and This Is NOT Pyrex (blog posts from Pyrex Love) | How to Tell Old Pyrex from Really Old Pyrex (blog post, Cara Corey) | 3 Reasons I Love (and Collect) Vintage Pyrex (The Kitchn) | Previously: now we're cooking with glass, American Pyrex Less Resistant to Thermal Shock
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:00 PM PST - 35 comments

Amadeus, visualized

Confutatis K.626 - Scrolling Score (Amadeus + musical notation)
posted by starman at 4:19 PM PST - 8 comments

“bureaucratized rape” in the coal fields

‘Rape Rooms’: How West Virginia Women Paid Off Coal Company Debts | What was the Esau scrip? [with audio included] | The Whipple Company Store | The Soul of a Company Store - The Haunted History of Whipple, WV [audio, story sharing]. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 4:07 PM PST - 16 comments

Welcome. Delicious friend.

Victorian London has Fallen... into the Earth. Or perhaps it was stolen? [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:41 PM PST - 36 comments

Mr. Barne's Steel Shod Players Beat a Nine of Amateurs

The Lost Sport of Ice Baseball that Originated in Brooklyn: First played in 1861. "The rules to ice baseball were essentially the same as for regular baseball but with certain concessions:" [more inside]
posted by ursus_comiter at 1:48 PM PST - 4 comments

I can haz bording pazz?

More than 80,000 people have been forced to flee the raging fire in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Now, two airlines have relaxed their rules about animals in aircraft cabins, offering a chance for all family members to stay together onboard.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 1:46 PM PST - 21 comments

"The Brontes had their moors, I have my marshes."

It's spring in Wisconsin, and the rivers are running. Time to think of Lorine Niedecker, Wisconsin's austere laborer poet, who lived her whole life in modest circumstances on the shores of Lake Koshkonong, sometimes working as a janitor. From her small home came some of the greatest American poetry , as she lived her complex, but simple, "Life by Water."
posted by SandCounty at 12:43 PM PST - 10 comments

To cut or not to cut

The Internet's gift to movie geeks that just keeps on giving is out with another video. Tony Zhou (so many previouslies) makes an examination of the editing process in film with some particular examinations of Hanna and Her Sisters, In the Mood for Love and The Empire Strikes Back. And if that isn't enough to wet your editing whistle, have a look at CineFix's Top Ten Most Effective Editing Moments of All Time (Warning: Un Chien Andalou. I learned my lesson from last time).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:31 PM PST - 16 comments

Making peace with missing out

For music fans, 2016 has quickly become the year of the insta-release. Are you overwhelmed? Excited? Numb and jaded? Checked out entirely? Have you tweeted out your hastily-formed opinion about the latest Big Event album before everyone moves on? Beyoncé, Radiohead and FOMO: How sustainable is the era of the “insta-release?” From March: The Music Critic in the Age of the Insta-Release
posted by naju at 11:59 AM PST - 19 comments

When you've got to mail a letter from Leningrad to Stalingrad

Want to send a letter, but also want to express your admiration for the glorious heroes of the revolution? Stamp Russia has got you covered. [more inside]
posted by Krom Tatman at 10:33 AM PST - 1 comment

They heavily influenced all other small-penised European sculptures.

Why do all old statues have such small penises? and other such pressing art history discussion at How To Talk About Art History. Previously, previously, previously.
posted by Evilspork at 10:14 AM PST - 53 comments

"I started with a box and some leg sticks."

ActualDog is making a game about rectangular pink dogs. This is the development log, which is six pages of amazing gifs of rectangular pink dogs doing rectangular pink dog stuff.
posted by cortex at 10:13 AM PST - 20 comments

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Free Basics: Facebook's Biggest Setback From Zuckerberg’s vantage point, high above the connected world he had helped create, India was a largely blank map. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 9:28 AM PST - 48 comments

Web 0.0

Civitacampomarano is a small village in the province of Campobasso, Italy, with just 400 souls, mainly elderly. In this village, rich in folk traditions, Internet is a partially unknown world: mobile phones have difficulty working and the data connection is practically nonexistent. [more inside]
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:25 AM PST - 12 comments

Like a sky full of stars

The Maya Map shows the plethora of known archaeological sites. From the Maya Research Project's Lars Kotthoff.
posted by Panjandrum at 9:00 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Crossover Comic, with Counseling

Comics artist Panic Volkushka imagines a present day scene [SLTumblr] between those Fox TV sons, Chris Griffin, Bobby Hill, and Bart Simpson (cw: discussion of abuse).
posted by coolname at 8:51 AM PST - 34 comments

Exxxtreme Baking (Circular Saw Required)

Misha Collins and his kids are back in the kitchen, and THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL. [more inside]
posted by Deeleybopper at 7:46 AM PST - 6 comments

Brazil’s Zika problem is inconveniently not ending.

Harvard Public Health Review: Why Public Health Concerns for Global Spread of Zika Virus Means That Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Olympic Games Must Not Proceed [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:24 AM PST - 89 comments

BBC Self Link? Charter Renewal and the Future of Auntie

The BBC must put "distinctive content" at its heart, Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has said. It is part of a major overhaul of how the BBC is run, which has been unveiled by the government. The licence fee will continue for at least 11 years and will be linked to inflation - and viewers will need to pay it to use BBC iPlayer. Mr Whittingdale made clear he was "emphatically not saying the BBC should not be popular". [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 7:22 AM PST - 21 comments

A taxpayer-paid private security source for Walmart

The Tampa Bay Times compared police visits to the number of calls at nearby Target stores, and even to an entire mall. There were four times as many calls to Walmart, on average, compared to Target. When it comes to calling the cops, Walmart is such an outlier compared with its competitors that experts criticized the corporate giant for shifting too much of its security burden onto taxpayers. “Law enforcement becomes in effect a taxpayer-paid private security source for Walmart,” said New York-based leading retail analyst Burt Flickinger. (via)
posted by cynical pinnacle at 7:15 AM PST - 47 comments

Playing By Pyongyang's Rules

The compromises North Korea’s most popular tour operator makes for access. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:04 AM PST - 10 comments

Unforgettable: Becoming an Amnesiac’s Memory

“Do you remember us,” I asked. I was conscious of my voice. It failed, just a bit, on that “us,” but I was trying to keep the terror to myself.
“Technically, yes,” he said.
Caitlin Myer writes for Electric Literature about her experience of her lover losing his memory. (Includes some fairly mild NSFW text, but Your Workplace May Vary.)
posted by Stacey at 7:00 AM PST - 8 comments

no YOUR car culture

I can think of nothing better for you to do than to watch this supercut of SUVs missing jumps
posted by beerperson at 6:52 AM PST - 33 comments

"We Must Go Forward"

In response to a question from one of the 900 woman religious gathered at the Vatican today on behalf of the International Union of Superiors General (representing nearly half a million Catholic women religious on five continents), Pope Francis said he would convene a commission to study the possibility of permitting female deacons in the Catholic Church, "signaling an historic openness to the possibility of ending the global institution’s practice of an all-male clergy." [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 6:19 AM PST - 39 comments

Yamanote Eki-Melo

The Yamanote Line is the most famous and well-travelled train line in Tokyo. Each station on the Yamanote plays a song (eki-melo, "train melody", 発車メロディ or "hassha melody") when trains are about to depart, differing by platform, direction and station. Click any post to listen to that station's eki-melo! (Links to sound clips can be tricky to discern - begin with the station list, find a station you like and then click on the title of song which follows the platform & station names.) [more inside]
posted by timshel at 5:59 AM PST - 11 comments

Short runway, terrain everywhere, rocks at either end and 40KT winds

Extreme airliner landings at Wellington International Airport, New Zealand, 13 January 2012. Extreme airliner landings at Wellington International Airport, New Zealand, 2 January 2013. Extreme airliner landings and takeoffs at Wellington International Airport, New Zealand, 8 September 2012. Extreme airliner landings and takeoffs at Wellington International Airport, New Zealand, 3 July 2013. [All videos via the Airside TV YouTube channel.] [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:57 AM PST - 51 comments

high wire cat

cat pls. cat wtf no
posted by Panthalassa at 1:19 AM PST - 35 comments

A “made in Italy” made by English

How Marsala Wine Became an Italian Typical Product: "It is not by chance that, when in the 1960s a “Protected Denomination of Origin” system was established, Marsala was the first Italian product to obtain such recognition. The history of this wine and the role that it plays in the international commerce since the end of the 19th c., is however strongly reliant on merchants and entrepreneurs that were not Italian, but English."
posted by Drinky Die at 1:07 AM PST - 7 comments

Yes. It's okay to feed them sugar water.

Instagram is awash in famous animals, from Marnie the Dog and Grumpy Cat to an adorable assortment of hedgehogs and prairie dogs and everything else you can think of, including a white fox. And then there is Tracy Johnson and her beautiful hummingbirds.

Wired Mag: Wildly beautiful slow-motion videos of hummingbirds up close.
Instagram: hummingbirdsxoxo
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:22 AM PST - 12 comments

May 11

Why are we here? Because we're here.

Perhaps you've heard of the recent release of the 120-sided die, which is certainly impressive in its way but not really that… weird. If you're really looking to stand out, why not order yourself some 34-sided dice?
posted by DoctorFedora at 9:25 PM PST - 57 comments

Moderat + Blond:ish = 4 essential hours of electronic and weird music

For your listening pleasure, double-dose of other/worldly Essential Mixes from the recent past: the German trio known as Moderat (Mixcloud/Soundcloud), and the globe-trotting psychedelic Canadian duo known as Blond:ish (YouTube/ Mixcloud/ Soundcloud). Blond:ish started releasing music together in 2010, while Moderat have a more than a decade of work together and more musical history as the separate parts of Modeselektor and Apparat. Which is to say, more music inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:57 PM PST - 4 comments

I have no idea how &c.

Catsoundboard. Does what it says on the tin.
posted by MoonOrb at 7:12 PM PST - 13 comments

Twittering from the Circus of the Dead

Twittering from the Circus of the Dead A short story from Joe Hill, from the May 2016 edition of Nightmare Magazine.
posted by jazon at 6:38 PM PST - 10 comments

Is This Rock Safe for Your Bush?

Is it safe to use a malachite stalactite as a dildo? The experts (no, seriously) weigh in.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:25 PM PST - 75 comments

I'll rise up, and I'll do it a thousand times again

"Rise Up" (Inspiration Version): The emotional new music video from Grammy-nominated soul singer Andra Day was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. No ghosts or twist endings, just a love story. [more inside]
posted by nicebookrack at 5:03 PM PST - 11 comments

“Scientology's strategy to use motorsports as a promotional tool...”

When Scientology Sponsored Race Cars [Road and Track] John Travolta​. ​Mario Andretti.​ The Pope. Aliens​. Germans. The Indy 500. Milwaukee. The Church of Scientology. Welcome to 1988's bizarre intersection between motorsports, religion, and sponsorship.​​ [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:58 PM PST - 14 comments

It's from The Economist, so they should know.

You are on an airplane. Ten ways to tell you might be sitting next to an economist.
posted by storybored at 4:56 PM PST - 32 comments

Press the Panic buttons

The Panic Sign - a brief story about a remote-controlled sign on top of a building in Portland, Oregon
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:25 PM PST - 22 comments

"From Turtle Bay to Broadway: The Power of Art in American Diplomacy"

Ambassador Samantha Power: "So let me just start by noting that I too am a musician. I sing in a band of other UN Ambassadors called 'UN Rocks.' [Laughter.] The Korean Ambassador plays the drumsthis is not a joke, it’s real life [Laughter.]; the Thai Ambassador plays the bass; the Serbian and Danish ambassadors play the electric guitars; and the ambassador from Tonga plays the keyboard. And I wanted to take this opportunity to announce that I have some availability for gigs starting around January 20th, 2017. [Laughter.] In case anybody is interested." [more inside]
posted by jrb223 at 2:21 PM PST - 13 comments

It's not the asshole lane.

The Zipper Merge is the secret to reducing traffic backups, increasing safety, and minimizing road rage. [more inside]
posted by sparklemotion at 1:14 PM PST - 179 comments

When in doubt, do the math.

"Happy Money lists five principles of happy spending:
1) Buy experiences
2) Make it a treat
3) Buy time
4) Pay now, consume later
5) Invest in others
Five principles are four too many for a lazy reductionist, let’s see if we can identify some common themes and combine these ideas into a single framework that would lose all nuance and intricacy but be expressible as an equation. (Spoiler: of course we can, duh)."
posted by zarq at 12:22 PM PST - 31 comments

A cult for women, run by... a man?

Superstar Machine is cleverly disguised as an exclusive, powerful and earth-shatteringly transformative group of like-minded, successful, up-and-coming women in their 20s and 30s. Jezebel takes a look Inside Superstar Machine, Which Ex-Members Say Is a Cult Preying on New York’s Creative Women.
In all its incarnations, Superstar Machine has fundamentally been about teaching women how to be successful in life and love. The path for these women is twofold: tapping into the Divine's plan for their lives, and learning to be subservient to their male romantic partners. In time, [International] Scherick [née Greg Scherick] would also create International Hot School, a weekly phone call where former members say he lectured women on how to tame their "inner crazy bitch," as he put it, and create a "good experience" for their husbands and boyfriends.
posted by bologna on wry at 11:54 AM PST - 60 comments

"I can’t say what their intent was"

The 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Company has been ruled as arson. After 3 years and more than 400 interviews, the ATF has ruled out accidental and natural causes. [more inside]
posted by LizBoBiz at 11:36 AM PST - 30 comments

“Hermione,” Ron said quietly, “what’s a tax shelter?”

While the papers explore her motives, the blogs explore the papers motives, and reddit gives us a clear cross section of their motives, I'll just sit here hoping Mallory Ortberg keeps this going.
posted by avalonian at 11:35 AM PST - 66 comments

Hilariously Giant Goalie Pads

Molly Brooks loves hockey - like in a romantic comedy kind of way. She's a big fan of the Stanley Cup! But it seems like she's found her home on the fresh ice of the National Women's Hockey League. (previously)
posted by ChuraChura at 8:51 AM PST - 9 comments

At least there will be something VERY distracting come November

As if strategy gamers didn't have enough devouring their free time between Stellaris and XCOM 2, Firaxis have just announced Civilization 6. [more inside]
posted by selfnoise at 8:29 AM PST - 103 comments

A video feed from your house you'd never want to see

As the Fort McMurray fire burned down their house, they could watch it happen on their indoor security camera.
posted by ShooBoo at 8:01 AM PST - 60 comments

All Summer in a Frame

Jason Shulman takes single long-exposure photographs of entire films.
posted by cortex at 8:00 AM PST - 38 comments

How did the Neutral Milk Hotel legend get so out of hand?

There’s this attitude that In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is still holding something back. A belief that Neutral Milk Hotel is keeping secrets, and our grand unified theory about the twins, the potato, the singing saw, the piano full of flames, and the marching band, is missing a few crucial teeth. A cult needs something to work toward, a communal faith that someday, somehow, it’ll all come together... The AVClub tries to understand how Neutral Milk Hotel's legend has gotten so out of hand.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:34 AM PST - 107 comments

"This was an act of unity amongst sisters and a symbol of achievement."

Sixteen soon-to-be U.S. Army officers will face no formal sanction over raising their fists in an "inappropriate" but not political gesture during their Old Corps graduation photo shoot, the U.S. Military Academy has announced. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:26 AM PST - 60 comments

Department of European and American Philosophy

If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is "The vast majority of philosophy departments in the United States offer courses only on philosophy derived from Europe and the English-speaking world. [...]Indeed, of the top 50 philosophy doctoral programs in the English-speaking world, only 15 percent have any regular faculty members who teach any non-Western philosophy. [...] We therefore suggest that any department that regularly offers courses only on Western philosophy should rename itself “Department of European and American Philosophy.”"
posted by OmieWise at 6:26 AM PST - 103 comments

Apparently we're putting pierogies on sandwiches now

Planning a trip to a minor league baseball stadium? Looking to gawk at the delightful excesses of ballpark food? Just want to support your hometown team in a meaningless Internet poll? Whatever the reason, check out MiLB Food Fight and vote for Minor League Baseball's tastiest, or at least most bizarre, food. If you'd rather not vote, you can always just check out the leaderboard.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:49 AM PST - 44 comments

"This is a bullshit marketing stunt"

When is revenge porn (a scourge of the Internet age) not revenge porn? When it's a terrible marketing stunt that misfires and you get accused of exploiting actual victims of revenge porn.
posted by Mezentian at 4:45 AM PST - 64 comments

The Philosopher Who (Kinda) Outsmarted Einstein

Henri Bergson was one of the most celebrated philosophers of the early 20th century, and his very public conflict with Albert Einstein over "the nature of time" was considered the reason that Einstein's 1921 Nobel Prize was NOT awarded specifically for his Theory of Relativity. Ouch.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:28 AM PST - 24 comments

I can't possibly pick just one pullquote

David Axelrod talks to Jon Stewart [full transcript, 50 minute audio] (surfacing for the first time in quite a while) at the University Of Chicago Institute Of Politics about everything you might hope. Don't expect it to go where you want it to go. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 2:07 AM PST - 43 comments

Redefining Wealth and Prosperity in the 21st Century

Kennedy was right - "Much that is valuable is neither tangible nor tradable... Gross domestic product (GDP) is increasingly a poor measure of prosperity. It is not even a reliable gauge of production."* [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 1:01 AM PST - 9 comments

They struggled against all odds but one.

"When he was alive, Lonesome George was a captive reminder of biodiversity loss. One 2006 book called him 'the only one of his kind left on earth—a symbol of the devastation man has wrought to the natural world in the Galápagos and beyond.' After his death, Washington Tapia, a researcher with the Ecuador National Park Service, told the New York Times it was like losing his grandparents. But even for people less intimate with him did his life and demise serve as a reminder of the mass extinction of species currently underway—the sixth in earth’s history but the only one caused by humans." - Human Error: Survivor guilt in the Anthropocene
posted by brundlefly at 12:43 AM PST - 5 comments

May 10

His nipples are always erect for no fucking reason

Treatment for a gender-reversed James Bond film.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:42 PM PST - 20 comments

This is a rebellion, isn't it?

Rogue One: A LEGO Star Wars Story. (SLYT)
posted by tocts at 6:59 PM PST - 4 comments

Launch a rocket, now return it!

On April 2nd, 2016, Blue Origin launched The New Shepard rocket and it reached the planned altitude of 339,138 feet. After jettisoning the unmanned capsule, the rocket began a controlled descent and this is what the return looked like from a camera mounted on the outside. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:48 PM PST - 28 comments

The Black Conversation Was Really About Something Much Bigger

Larry Wilmore's ending comment to the President of the United States at the White House Correspondents' Dinner has sparked a lot of conversation. Rembert Browne explores and explains some of the implications and reactions. [more inside]
posted by Deoridhe at 5:39 PM PST - 31 comments

Happy Birthday Young Son...

He did it his way Sid Vicious was born John Simon Ritchie on May 10, 1957, in London. As a high school dropout, his "punk" look captured the eye of Malcom McLaren, creator of the Sex Pistols. After the band broke up in 1978, Vicious holed up in New York's Chelsea Hotel with his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. Their relationship was full of ups and downs, leading to the eventual mysterious murder of Spunger. Not long after, on February 2, 1979, Vicious was found dead in New York City. He was something else. [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 5:28 PM PST - 24 comments

It gives a whole new meaning to "belly up to the bar."

To offset the taste of belly buttons, the brewers also added some flavours such as orange zest and coriander, along with a lot of hops. The final result is a Belgian-ish Witbier with a very personalised twist to keep things interesting. -- Beer made from belly button fluff has a bit of the brewer in every glass
posted by Room 641-A at 4:15 PM PST - 68 comments

Goats

Trees in Prospect Park were felled by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. They're struggling to recover in the face of invasive species. Goats to the rescue. But if you're obsessed by ["a rampant pro-billy goat prejudice" on Metafilter??] goats, a cautionary tale or four may be in order. Or you can enjoy one of many goat cams. Relax as they climb a 160-foot near-vertical dam.
posted by clawsoon at 3:09 PM PST - 16 comments

Even better when you imagine it played by cows and poultry

Sandra Boynton and the Highly Irritating Orchestra present Bolero - Completely Unraveled [audio]. On kazoo. [more inside]
posted by Mchelly at 2:39 PM PST - 22 comments

“I’m drawn to writing about times and places on the cusp of transition,”

An Interview with Guy Gavriel Kay [io9] Guy Gavriel Kay has carved out a unique niche, writing fantasy novels that take real-life historical settings and transforming them into something new and different. His latest novel, Children of Earth and Sky, takes place in a version of 16th century Europe that’s under threat from a version of the Ottoman Empire, and includes a fictionalized version of real-life Croatian bandits called the Uskoks, who stole from the Venetians and the Ottomans for justice. We talked to Kay about just how he manages to turn real-life history into a world all his own. You can read an excerpt of Children of Earth and Sky, introducing the character of Danica, here. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:26 PM PST - 35 comments

It was not a good time for Canadian citizens

After nine years of censorship, Canadian scientists can speak about their work. Although it may take time for the policy changes to make their way through the bureaucracy. [more inside]
posted by ursus_comiter at 1:49 PM PST - 34 comments

Children make toys of it

Yak Dung: a documentary exploring an unexpectedly essential substance in the traditional life of Tibet (SLYT).
posted by Rumple at 1:06 PM PST - 5 comments

Howl (but not the poem)

I don’t get to the comic shop as often now as I used to. I still tell myself that I love comics, and superheroes, and I do, deeply. I just… don’t get to the comic shop as often now as I used to.
posted by Kitteh at 12:37 PM PST - 49 comments

Converge - Blood Moon

Influential metallic hardcore act Converge are known for melding fast, vicious riffs with more experimental tendencies, as evident on their breakout record Jane Doe. At this year's Roadburn festival, Converge unveiled Blood Moon (recording by Frank Huang), an exploration of some of their more brooding and elaborate tunes (Coral Blue, Wretched World, Cruel Bloom feat. Steve Von Till) with an expanded band featuring Steven Brodsky of Cave In, Chelsea Wolfe (previously), and Ben Chisholm. Invisible Oranges investigates.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:34 PM PST - 8 comments

"Antiques Roadshow" Mistakenly Values High School Art Project at $50,000

In the mid-1970s, Betsy Soule, an Oregonian high school student, sculpted a trippy jug out of clay. In 2015, it was mistaken for a 19th century "grotesque face jug." "It’s bizarre and wonderful," says the appraiser, Stephen L Fletcher. "You even see a little bit of, like, Pablo Picasso going on here. It’s a little difficult to identify precisely when this was made, but I think it’s probably late 19th or early 20th century."
posted by Miss T.Horn at 12:34 PM PST - 37 comments

Rita Moreno drops the mic

Rita Moreno rocked the house with her commencement address at Berklee College of Music, where she included some rap inspired by another famous Puerto Rican.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:44 AM PST - 13 comments

Sign Aloud

Gloves that Translate Sign Language into Text and Speech Award winning new tech. Make sure to watch the video.
posted by Michele in California at 10:07 AM PST - 42 comments

Vacillating mind inputs through text and video from Al Fry

Al Fry is an old-school eccentric, mostly from the pre-internet days. He lives (or lived) out in Idaho, which was his home-base for distributing Fry's Incredible Inquiry's Catalog, covering "technology, alchemy, weird science (PDF), Tesla, anti-gravity, occult, crystal power, and other fascinating fringy topics." And then there are his videos, including Hidden World History and Strange Beings 1, narrated by A. H. Fry himself. His videos have been collected a few times over on YouTube (1, 2). And he has written about making tipis.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:02 AM PST - 8 comments

A misunderstood art

In “ ‘Hamilton’ Aside, Where the Real Tony Competition Lies' ", one of your theater critics, Charles Isherwood, says of “Hamilton”: “I do find it slightly puzzling that it was nominated in the book of a musical category, since the show is almost sung-through.” [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:59 AM PST - 84 comments

Yahoo? “They haven’t bought stuff in a looong time”

Is the tech bubble popping? Ping pong offers an answer, and the tables are turning. (SLWSJ)
posted by BekahVee at 9:37 AM PST - 43 comments

[PLAINTIVE MEOWING INTENSIFIES]

I have no idea how these cats got wedged into these doors or why.
posted by phunniemee at 9:08 AM PST - 28 comments

Cones for days!

Every single monster on the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, ranked.
posted by numaner at 8:05 AM PST - 12 comments

Eat poop and live

Josiah Zayner’s gut was making his life hell — so he embarked on an extreme DIY fecal transplant (SL Verge) [Previously]
posted by motdiem2 at 7:30 AM PST - 31 comments

8,700 tons of radioactive barium sulfate

Deep inside a landfill, where it's wet and there is no oxygen, you wouldn't expect a fire. But they can happen. And they can happen a few hundred yards from buried radioactive waste.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:50 AM PST - 18 comments

Venti Verisimilitude

Myles McNutt is on a mission: Bringing greater attention to unrealistic acting with coffee cups on television.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:29 AM PST - 104 comments

Do you actually work with people, or do you give them morals?

Emily Bazelon writes for the New York Times about sex worker rights and decriminalization in the US and abroad (featuring photography of sex workers across the US).
posted by divabat at 6:28 AM PST - 3 comments

Cats have no amends to make

Pard, a cat who lives with Ursula K. Le Guin, tells the story of "My Life so Far" (Part I, Part II).
Life was often quite exciting in the first place, and we were happy together. I am hardly ever sad, but sometimes when I am going to sleep I hear purring around me that is not mine, and it seems that Mother and Sister and I are all curled up like one warm cat. And then I am happier than usual....
[more inside]
posted by oakroom at 5:30 AM PST - 12 comments

The foul reign of the biological clock

'We are raised to believe that female bodies are time bombs.' On the metaphor of the biological clock. SL Guardian.
posted by nerdfish at 4:11 AM PST - 49 comments

Hiding in plain sight.

How Kerry Washington Became A Publicity Magician. A fantastic article by Anne Helen Peterson at Buzzfeed, on celebrity, fame, privacy, race, motherhood, and feminism.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:35 AM PST - 6 comments

Still no idea how they work

If you only watch one Rube Goldberg machine today, make it this one: Magnets and Marbles!
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:27 AM PST - 34 comments

Skywalker. Luke Skywalker.

Here is the James Bond-style title sequence for The Empire Strikes Back that you did not know you needed.
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:49 AM PST - 42 comments

Concrete factory evolves into something more beautiful

La Fábrica is a former Barcelona concrete factory that was partly torn down, converted into an architecture firm, with an adjoining private residence, and inspired a neighbouring block of flats.
posted by reshet at 12:44 AM PST - 3 comments

May Ten is Mad Ape Den Day!

It's May Ten, the day of Mad Ape Den: a fun way to gab on the Web (and off the Web, too, if you can). The one law of Mad Ape Den: "Say it in an abc-set of one, two, or one-and-two, or do not say it at all." You can see a vid or two of a Mad Ape Den ode (YT URL set). Mad Ape Den is not as big now as it was in the era of the Web of old, but now, on Mad Ape Den day, we can aim to not let it die. (Ere now.) [more inside]
posted by NMcCoy at 12:08 AM PST - 89 comments

May 9

Solo la frunza de nuc

Romanian walnut-leaf singing [more inside]
posted by teponaztli at 9:33 PM PST - 20 comments

(Hip) Hop Gun

A fast-paced new Chinese recruiting video for the People’s Liberation Army “lures recruits with rap music.” The Marine Corps Times calls it “insane,” saying, “U.S. military recruiters take note: It's time to up your game.” [more inside]
posted by LeLiLo at 8:07 PM PST - 47 comments

Climate Change and the Future of Cities

Public Culture's special issue Climate Change and the Future of Cities is free to view (for a limited time). Articles highlight international research and collaboration on the impacts of climate change in cities, including a photo essay on fracking, "The Case for Retreat" as well as case studies on Bogota, Singapore , Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:33 PM PST - 30 comments

Weather Map Data Porn

The National Weather Service's Enhanced Data Display is in its experimental but still fun-to-play-with stage. It's a product of the Charleston, WV, NWS station's Weather Ready Nation Pilot Project. There are demos and tutorials on NWS Charleston's Youtube page. Mobile version
posted by not_on_display at 4:16 PM PST - 20 comments

Mayan constellations map to Mayan cities, helping find a new one

"During his research, Gadoury examined 22 Mayan constellations and discovered that if he projected those constellations onto a map, the shapes corresponded perfectly with the locations of 117 Mayan cities. Incredibly, the 15-year-old was the first person to establish this important correlation, reported the Journal de Montreal over the weekend. Then Gadoury took it one step further. He examined a twenty-third constellation which contained three stars, yet only two corresponded to known cities." [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 3:01 PM PST - 51 comments

“The focus of this series though is not on the crime...”

Inside Death Row: [New York Times] Between 2014 and 2015, the editorial cartoonist Patrick Chappatte and his wife, the journalist Anne-Frédérique Widmann, invited death-row inmates in the United States to draw their personal experiences in prison. Last year, the couple curated the drawings in an art and documentation exhibition in Los Angeles called “Windows on Death Row.” The prisoners’ stories became the basis of this five-part graphic journalism series. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 1:29 PM PST - 6 comments

Here’s What Happened When We Tried To Play Moneyball Without Any Money

In the summer of 2015, FiveThirtyEight's Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller, the editor in chief of Baseball Prospectus, took over the baseball operations department of an independent-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, putting their sabermetric beliefs to the test with actual professional players. As spring training approached, they compensated for their lack of connections, tight budget and even tighter time frame by using statistics to scour the country for overlooked talent. "If the [Moneyball] A’s were 'a collection of misfit toys,' as Michael Lewis wrote, then we’ll be building a team out of toys that got recalled because they were choke hazards." [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:54 PM PST - 23 comments

Meet the Woman Who Invented Cosplay

Myrtle "Morojo" Douglas was an early pioneer in the world of speculative fiction. She and Forrest Ackerman produced some of the biggest fanzines of the early SF era, advocated for Esperanto, and invented cosplay (or, as they called it, "futuristicostumes"). Along the way, she even gave a young Ray Harryhausen a start as one of her costume designers.
posted by Etrigan at 12:06 PM PST - 24 comments

“I thought, this is exactly what happened to me... He's still doing it.”

Private schools, painful secrets. More than 200 students have been victims of sexual abuse and harassment at New England private schools since the 1950’s. At least 90 students or their families have filed lawsuits or other legal claims. At least 67 private schools in New England have been affected by allegations of sexual abuse by employees disclosed over the past 25 years. The Boston Globe's Spotlight team investigates. CW: The link contains content regarding molestation and sexual abuse that is likely SFW for most but some may find disturbing.
posted by zarq at 11:55 AM PST - 22 comments

“Me gustaría un dato por favor - extra grande, con papeles.”

The BBC: “Panama Papers affair widens as database goes online”
The ICIJ has made the Panama Papers data available for download. It is a Neo4j database, but has been saved as CSV files so most anyone should be able to mess with it, provided they have enough disk space.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:36 AM PST - 21 comments

I WOULD certainly do it all over again

Creator of long-running soap opera Neighbours and widely considered "father of Australian TV" Reg Grundy dies aged 92. [more inside]
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 11:07 AM PST - 8 comments

Danger from Plura to Steinugleflaget

The cave divers who went back for their friends (BBC) In February 2014 two divers died at a depth of more than 100m in a huge cave system in Norway. Seven weeks later, their three friends went back to get their bodies.
posted by CrystalDave at 10:26 AM PST - 55 comments

The Five Continents of Emotion

The Atlas of Emotions. "This atlas was inspired by a series of conversations between the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman about the science of emotions. With the help of Stamen Design and Paul’s daughter, Dr. Eve Ekman, this tool was created to be a visual journey through the world of emotions."
posted by lazuli at 10:10 AM PST - 27 comments

I want to cook condom food for you

Japanese Condom Cookbook Raises Awareness For Protected Sex

(available as a Kindle edition)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:45 AM PST - 12 comments

Isao Tomita

Isao Tomita, early pioneer of electronic music, has died. In the 1970s, he made several albums of classical pieces played on Moog synthesizers, including Debussy's "Clair de Lune", and "Arabesque no. 1" (which for many years was used as the theme music for the PBS "Stargazer" program). He also recorded a full version of Holst's "The Planets." [more inside]
posted by dnash at 9:45 AM PST - 56 comments

The ‘perfect body’ is a lie.

As a child, Lindy West was told she was ‘off the charts’. In this exclusive extract from her new book, Shrill, she explains how society’s fixation on thinness warps women’s lives – and why she would rather be ‘fat’ than ‘big’ [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 9:04 AM PST - 39 comments

Oh, no. Mormons!

Why Heroquest is so Great [slyt]
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 8:59 AM PST - 29 comments

What variety of cheese would Donald be? The 2016 US election continues.

With only six months left in the all-too-brief election campaign, three candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties remain. In the red corner, Donald has vanquished Ben, Bobby, Carly, Chris, George, Jeb, Jim, John, Lindsey, Marco, Mike, Rand, Rick, the other Rick, Scott, and Ted. In the blue corner, Bernie and Hillary have vanquished Jim, Lawrence, Lincoln and Martin. However, there is pessimism about whether Donald can win the general, with bookmaker odds stabilizing and keeping Hillary as the clear favorite. Elsewhere, Sarah doesn't like Paul, Lindsey is glad he isn't in Area 51, Gary Johnson "could" become POTUS, and Jeb sort-of returns. Meanwhile, Bernie collects more delegates in Washington state, while Hillary wins the Guam caucus. And, on the island of his mother's birth, war has broken out between rival facebook groups for and against Donald. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 8:58 AM PST - 2557 comments

Et si?

After Etsy, Scratching an Itch [SLNYT, Penelope Green]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:42 AM PST - 3 comments

"as valuable as government bonds, and dangerous"

How America's First Supermodel Was Nearly Erased From History: The Sad Life of Audrey Munson - Miss Manhattan - Civic Fame - Queen Of The Artists' Studios - Descending Night[readme] who dies alone in an insane asylum. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:09 AM PST - 6 comments

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

Facebook workers say 'trending news' section is manipulated The revelations undermine any presumption of Facebook as a neutral pipeline for news, or the trending news module as an algorithmically-driven list of what people are actually talking about.
posted by modernnomad at 7:05 AM PST - 110 comments

Free Alabama

The Free Alabama Movement is an network of incarcerated men, spanning state prisons across Alabama; this May, many are participating in a labor strike, protesting the inhumane conditions and asking legislators to step in despite the governor's refusal to address the dire issues in Alabama prisons.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:01 AM PST - 8 comments

The Spiro Agnew Watch

In the early 70s, “the then-current campus joke, ‘Did you know that Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch?’” sparked a fad: the Spiro Agnew watch. A California physician and his wife founded the Dirty Time Watch Co. to market the watch, which became popular with, in addition to the masses, John Lennon, Elizabeth Taylor, Pierre Salinger, and Ethel Kennedy. Beware of knockoffs, but even originals aren’t worth very much.
posted by thursdaystoo at 6:51 AM PST - 21 comments

A Playlist From Another Dimension (Or Is That Demention?)

io9's Katharine Trendacosta has succeeded in creative crowdsourcing again (previously), by asking "What's Your Favorite Science Fiction Novelty Song?", and she got enough suggestions to assemble a 30-song Spotify playlist*
(Actually she got a couple hundred. There are more that didn't make the spotify list in the follow-up post; just scroll down** for things like The Doctor Who Time Warp, Captain Picard's Let It Snow/Make It So and the highlight of the Buffy Musical Episode [BUNNIES!]) [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:14 AM PST - 60 comments

Du luktar som en get!

How to play Skitgubbe, the "Swedish Goat Game"
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:07 AM PST - 8 comments

A People's History of the Cultural Revolution, 1962–1976

A New Look At China's Cultural Revolution - "Historian Frank Dikötter says newly opened archives offer fresh details about the chaos China experienced in the 1960s, when Chairman Mao urged students to take to the streets." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:12 AM PST - 19 comments

May 8

Democalypse 2016 - "Top Hats versus Hard Hats"

It's on - Australia is going to the polls in its second ever double dissolution election. [more inside]
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:50 PM PST - 103 comments

Really old poop

We don't know where exactly Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants. Scientists are trying to figure out, through DNA analysis of very old dung.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:53 PM PST - 18 comments

Film. Three words.

The Big Charade. Sounds like it's coming soon... from Jesse McKeown.
posted by Mchelly at 3:18 PM PST - 10 comments

Russian breakdancer tracks down participants from 1986 festival

30 years later - they've still got it! Proving again that once you are badass, you are always badass.
posted by youdontmakefriendswithsalad at 3:13 PM PST - 13 comments

Welcome to the Splinternet

Scott Malcomsen has a brand new book: Splinternet; How Geopolitics and Commerce Are Fragmenting the World Wide Web. [more inside]
posted by bukvich at 1:37 PM PST - 7 comments

Is that, is that me?

Galactic Warfighters [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:22 PM PST - 28 comments

H is for the hundred things she gave me

For those who celebrate today, a tribute from Madeleine Kahn. For those who want more schmaltz, Henry Burr's 1916 recording.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:42 PM PST - 10 comments

"If it wouldn't gross you out, I would eat right out of this shovel."

Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker wants to sell you buckets of bulk food for the End Times. And save those buckets, because after you eat, what are you going to do...with the doo-doo? [Gross food/eating alert.]
posted by Room 641-A at 11:40 AM PST - 74 comments

We must bear witness

They said it couldn't be done. But on May 7, 2016, the dreams of middle-aged fat guys throughout the Americas were fulfilled. Bartolo Colón has hit a home run (SL MLB Video), his first in 19 years of Major League Baseball.
posted by dirigibleman at 10:05 AM PST - 68 comments

Radiohead's new album hits the web

Five years after Radiohead's last album, myriad hints from the band marked May 1st -- Dawn Chorus Day -- as the date something big was gonna happen. The band ateased the web with rumours_of songs new and old, cryptic artwork, ominous mailers. But after years of waiting, nothing came... literally. Optimistic fans trying to pick up every last crumb_were left climbing up the walls_as they were shown how to disappear completely, with the band's official site and social media fading out again, slowly dissolving little by little, one by one, before their very eyes. It all came back Tuesday, as mysterious chirps and inkblots ushered in the sinister claymation music video for long-awaited track "Burn the Witch" [prev.], followed days later by an arresting P.T. Anderson-directed film for the somber elegy "Daydreaming." While Radiohead's ninth album is not here now physically till June, it's available for download come 8th May_(today!) at 2 PM EDT on Radiohead.com. It's gonna be a glorious day. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 10:04 AM PST - 78 comments

Trve Cvlt Summertime

At the intersection of country, surf rock, and black metal lies the one-of-a-kind genre mashup Desert Dances and Serpent Sermons (from the always interesting Black Twilight Circle collective [bandcamp]):
Track 1: Volahn - Chamalcan
Track 2: Shataan - Caminando del Destino / Desert Smoke / Wells Run Dry
Track 3: Arizmenda - Ropeburn mutilation on the outskirts of life
Track 4: Kallathon - Falling into the Horizon, Burning into the Black Twilight
(Full album on Bandcamp here.) [more inside]
posted by Frobenius Twist at 9:48 AM PST - 15 comments

Posh: a vision of Britain that sells

Britain has changed so quickly, the gains of 40 years of social progress undone in half a generation, that most of us are still struggling to compute it, but the evidence is right there in front of us, on our cinema and television screens. It’s not posh-bashing to say this is a problem.
Why Working-class Actors Are a Dying Breed, The Observer (8 May 2016).
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:00 AM PST - 35 comments

50 Garage Rock Tracks - A Youtube Playlist

Do you like garage bands? Then you might enjoy this Youtube playlist. Artists include The troggs, The Kinks, The Kingsmen, 13th Floor Elevators, The Stooges, MC5, The Sonics, Electric Prunes, King Khan, The Strokes, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Paul Revere and The Raiders, and many more. If you like any of these artists, this might be the Sunday afternoon playlist for you. [Warning - one or two of the videos contain sexual imagery, and one contains violence, and one contains the word mother******]
posted by marienbad at 7:50 AM PST - 26 comments

Victorians going large

In a world where electric lightbulbs were still uncommon, Victorian engineers were building steam engines of breathtaking size and power. Two that are still operational today are the beam engine at the Papplewick Pumping Station (beautiful pictures), and the River Don Engine (video) (recreated in Meccano).
posted by emilyw at 6:52 AM PST - 12 comments

The Evolution of the Petrol/Gas/Filling/Service Station

The Evolution of the Petrol/Gas/Filling/Service Station Gas stations might be boring or even ugly places, but for the most part, you can’t avoid stopping by one on a long trip. However, they have been so many more beyond the basic design of columns, roof and shop over their history. The following 60+1 filling stations encompass almost a century of architectural progression, showcasing some of the best Art Deco, Bauhaus, futurist, brutalist, minimalist, modernist, Googie building designs of the motorist history. Enjoy the ride!
posted by modernnomad at 4:51 AM PST - 35 comments

Superheroes and the armchair statistician

"The Hulk, an unstoppable force of nature, beats Falcon, a nice man who can fly, 98 percent of the time." FiveThirtyEight number crunches the odds of superhero match-ups.
posted by Gordion Knott at 4:43 AM PST - 68 comments

Honest Game Trailers

From the makers of Honest Movie Trailers, Honest Game Trailers. [more inside]
posted by clorox at 2:46 AM PST - 20 comments

Arcade Raid - Operation Lancaster

I couldn’t believe all these games had been here and then one day in 1983 the ship was shut not to be opened again due to legal issues. These games saw year after year of summers and winters through the port holes, the sun rising, the sun setting, FOR THIRTY YEARS. They were just sitting there, unsure of their fate, wondering if they would be rescued, wondering if they would ever be played again.
posted by veedubya at 12:33 AM PST - 16 comments

May 7

Never Mind the Bus Pass

Where are they now? The Guardian UK catches up with a few aging icons of the Punk Rock scene.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:26 PM PST - 37 comments

World Naked Gardening Day

Today, the first Saturday in May, was World Naked Gardening Day. In case you missed it, here's an interview with a participant. "Generally, naked gardening makes sense but naked farming sometimes is a little harder." The day is meant to be funny, lighthearted and non-political.
posted by clawsoon at 6:15 PM PST - 19 comments

Quiche and a milkshake

I was Prince's private chef - Margaret Wetzler talks about her experiences cooking for the late musician
posted by a lungful of dragon at 6:06 PM PST - 68 comments

Never laugh at live dragons?

Since no dragon remains have yet been identified, anatomy and physiology will be explored by way of comparative anatomy of living species as well as species that are extinct, such as dinosaurs--The Circle of the Dragon
posted by MoonOrb at 5:30 PM PST - 3 comments

“My name is Sadiq Khan and I’m the mayor of London!”

Sadiq Khan, “a Labour Party leader, a former human rights lawyer and a son of a bus driver from Pakistan” has been elected Mayor of London with “the largest personal mandate of any politician in UK history.”
Acceptance Speech. A March profile in The New Statesman.
His rival, Zac Goldsmith, “accused Khan of ‘pandering to extremists’.” In an op-ed in The Guardian on lessons learned during the campaign, Khan has referred to the Tories as ‘using tactics “straight out of the Donald Trump playbook.” They were also decried by the Tory-affiliated Conservative Muslim Forum.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:39 PM PST - 67 comments

"...we think a detachable penis is for the best.”

A French statue of Heracles, also known by his Roman name Hercules, has been suffering from a particularly invasive form of vandalism. But local authorities think they’ve come up with a solution: a prosthetic penis.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:35 PM PST - 33 comments

WORLD OF TOMORROW

World After Capital by Albert Wenger [Work in Progress; GitHub; GitBook; PDF; FAQ] - "Technological progress has shifted scarcity for humanity. When we were foragers, food was scarce. During the agrarian age, it was land. Following the industrial revolution, capital became scarce. With digital technologies scarcity is shifting from capital to attention. World After Capital suggests ways to expand economic, informational and psychological freedom to go from an industrial to a knowledge society." (previously)
posted by kliuless at 2:36 PM PST - 23 comments

Cola pen

A cola pen is a calligraphy pen with a nib curved so that line width can be varied with pressure or holding the pen differently. It's called a cola pen because you can make one yourself with a cola can! Be careful, though.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:20 PM PST - 10 comments

Entropic Time (Backwards Billy Joel Parody) by A Capella Science

Tim Blais, aka A Capella Science [of Rolling in the Higgs and Bohemian Gravity] sings in reverse about the physics of "Entropic Time." "Stars explode and leaves turn brown and fall /That's thermodynamics' second Law /But from a deep view /That doesn't need to be true /Time symmetry precludes entropic time." [more inside]
posted by McLir at 2:18 PM PST - 11 comments

He likes toast and jam

When Larry Henley starts singing in The Newbeats' "Bread and Butter," it is one of the most arresting entrances in all of popular music. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 2:09 PM PST - 19 comments

“I just point at things,”

Every Episode of David Attenborough’s Life Series, Ranked [The Atlantic] This Sunday, Sir David Attenborough, naturalist, maker of wildlife documentaries, snuggler of gorillas, wielder of That Voice, keeper of the blue shirt, and Most Trusted Man in Britain, turns 90. To mark the occasion, and celebrate his unbeatable oeuvre, I re-watched all 79 episodes of his Life Collection, and ranked them from worst to best—or, really, from least great to greatest.
posted by Fizz at 1:29 PM PST - 18 comments

Beef out.

The Beef and Dairy Network Podcast. The number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. [more inside]
posted by minsies at 1:02 PM PST - 13 comments

"We know this page is needed, but we can't force anyone to make it."

The Financial Times website has a 404 Not Found Error page with a difference. [more inside]
posted by Major Clanger at 12:41 PM PST - 25 comments

Is the globalization of football making English football stronger or just weirder?

This Premier League season has been insane. What the stories of other over-performing smaller clubs and failing giants telling us about English football now. [more inside]
posted by General Malaise at 12:27 PM PST - 16 comments

Hey... hey?

The original "pre-fab four*", The Monkees, are putting out an album for their 50th anniversary, and like they did way back when, they've gotten some songs by big name/cool name songwriters, starting with "She Makes Me Laugh" is by Weezer's Rivers Cuomo and "You Bring The Summer" is by Andy Partridge of XTC. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:36 AM PST - 45 comments

"I'm glad I beat Ghoma before I passed out"

YouTube user MonotoneTim defeats Ghoma in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time using notes played on a physical ocarina to control Link. [more inside]
posted by Copronymus at 10:02 AM PST - 11 comments

Did I mention free?

It's the 15th annual Free Comic Book Day! Today is the day for the comics-curious to visit a comic book store and get their very own free comic book. Over on the Monkey See blog, Glen Wheldon offers a roundup with reviews of all the free comic books available this year. [more inside]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:51 AM PST - 32 comments

I'm afraid of the dark without a chaingun close to me

I went out to the hellscape and caught
A hundred thousand revenants
As they ricochet round the stage
They remind me of your starry eyes
Someone else's might not have made me so sad
But this is the worst night I ever had

posted by griphus at 7:41 AM PST - 10 comments

News is something someone wants suppressed. All else is just advertizing

Voices in Danger is a platform for stories of journalists killed, kidnapped, jailed or threatened just for doing their jobs.
As Journalists in the line of fire shows it is not your every day Nine-to-Five.
Reporters without Borders says it's been a great year for censorship.
After Camilla Lepage was murdered, acclaimed National Geographic photographer Lynsey Addario reflected "the more I feel my odds of surviving are wearing thin."
The Committee to Protect Journalists gives some grim figures, 1189 have been killed since 1992.
posted by adamvasco at 7:31 AM PST - 5 comments

Guy in Your MFA Goes to Washington

David Samuels profiles the White House's deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes, and finds "an only slightly updated version of what Holden Caulfield might have been like if he grew up to work in the West Wing." Although the comparison, and the rest of the profile, seem intended to frame Rhodes as a serious thinker and decision-maker, Rhodes's derision toward the press corps ("They literally know nothing"), jaundiced candor about the "spin" used in selling the Iran deal, and statements like “I don’t know anymore where I begin and Obama ends" have set the media establishment afire with hot takes and critiques.
posted by sallybrown at 7:13 AM PST - 18 comments

Hangry science

When people get hungry thoughts of food can influence their work, especially in mathematics and related fields. Particularly influential foods (and related things) include cake, pie, pizza, ham sandwiches, more sandwiches, pancakes, spaghetti, cocktails, Chinese restaurants, Indian buffets, sausages, donuts, layer cake, blancmange pudding and potatoes. But in the end, there's no free lunch.
posted by bjrn at 3:23 AM PST - 13 comments

Radio discussion with Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer

Nguyen's book was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Literature and is about a Vietnamese spy who flees wartime Saigon Drawing upon his own experience as a refugee of that war who later settled in the United States, Nguyen tells the program host Michael Krasny: "I knew that in writing a novel about a communist spy that the easiest way for me to write this book would be for the spy to renounce communism and embrace American individualism. This is how one gets published in the American literary industry, and I refused to do that." [more inside]
posted by wallawallasweet at 12:18 AM PST - 6 comments

An Epigenetics Controversy

Siddhartha Mukherjee's latest New Yorker article "Same but different: How epigenetics can blur the line between nature and nurture" has attracted searing criticism from heavyweight researchers in the field. Mukherjee responds but doesn't retract...
posted by Rufus T. Firefly at 12:07 AM PST - 15 comments

May 6

Kenm explains his craft

Kenm (previously), "the rembrandt of Yahoo comment trolling" tells us why and how he does it.
posted by Obscure Reference at 4:48 PM PST - 44 comments

“[The Jaredites] did carry with them swarms of spelling bees…”

The Deseret Alphabet came about on January 19, 1854 when the Board of Regents of the University of Deseret, now the University of Utah, announced that they had adopted a new phonetic alphabet. The new alphabet consisted of 38 to 40 characters and was developed mostly by George D. Watt, who was on a committee called by President Brigham Young as part of a project to help simplify spelling in the English Language.
DeseretAlphabet.org has everything you need to know about this writing system, including a collection of external resources such as: XKCD rewritten in Deseret; Sans Serif and web fonts (though you could just use unicode); books rewritten in Deseret; and various news stories about the alphabet.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:35 PM PST - 20 comments

"I always enjoyed models as a boy."

HBO put an incredible amount of work into creating its 1983 opening sequence - A.V. Club article by Joe Blevins; documentary by Scott Morris [YouTube, 10 min.]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:02 PM PST - 27 comments

Lay my purple on the grass

Anohni's new album, Hopelessness , has a lot to say. She grapples with the surveillance state, ecocide, drone warfare, gender, and more in a more electronic setting than her previous work with Antony and the Johnsons. "A big part of [the album] is an examination of my own complicity and my own inability to truly extricate myself from the brokenness of the system that I'm a part of. It's that chasm, that denial that I wanted to model, an inquiry into and within myself." [more inside]
posted by hollyholly at 2:35 PM PST - 10 comments

I have no idea how these cats got wedged into a musical, or why

Cats, the popular musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber (based on the poetry of T.S. Eliot), will be adapted as a movie, to be directed by Tom Hooper. Noted for its longevity, Cats ran continuously on Broadway for 18 years, and on London's West End for 21 years. The show will return to Broadway in August, after a 16-year hiatus. Mee wow!
posted by schmod at 1:35 PM PST - 96 comments

Boris Godunov, Bolshoy Theatre. 1954.

Part 1. Part 2. Two hours and forty minutes of classic Russian opera, in over-the-top Soviet style, produced in the unsettled years between Stalin's death and Krushchev's Secret Speech. If you don't have the time, you can watch the eleven minute death scene (part 1 and part 2 - a truly operatic death), performed by Boris Christoff a couple of years later in London. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 1:29 PM PST - 3 comments

The guys who are still renting porn

If you don't live in the Midwest, you'd be forgiven for not knowing that brick and mortar video stores still exist. Family Video has over 700 stores in the US and Canada. And despite the word "family" being in their name, they still rent porn. The burning question is, to whom?
posted by Chrysostom at 1:11 PM PST - 79 comments

I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet

Emily Stoneking knits dissections. Frogs. Earthworms. Lab rats. And of course, aliens. [more inside]
posted by Mchelly at 1:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Search racism. Find truth.

"As of April 19, anyone in Germany searching for xenophobic videos on YouTube will first be shown clips featuring actual refugees who rebut prejudices; with facts, personal anecdotes, surprising revelations and even humor." Refugees Welcome. [more inside]
posted by xarnop at 12:52 PM PST - 17 comments

MondriPong

A Piet Mondrian-themed version of Pong you can play in your browser.
posted by Cash4Lead at 12:43 PM PST - 8 comments

"Trolls differ primarily in their for-the-sake-of-which."

Aristotle's "On Trolling" (pdf; html), translation by Rachel Barney: One might wonder whether there is an art of trolling and an excellence; and indeed some say that Socrates was a troll, and so that the good man also trolls. And this is in fact what the troll claims: that he is a gadfly and beneficial, and without him to ‘stir up’ the thread it would become dull and unintelligent. But this is incorrect. For Socrates was speaking frankly when he told the Athenians to care for their souls, rather than money and honors, and showed that they lacked knowledge. And this is not trolling but the contrary, exhortation and truth-telling—even if the citizens get very annoyed. (via)
posted by sapagan at 12:25 PM PST - 23 comments

Pepsi Brown. Or Yellow.

Pee & Poo [more inside]
posted by chococat at 12:02 PM PST - 13 comments

Oh, weep no more today! We will sing one song, for the old Kentucky Home

The Kentucky Derby, "America's Greatest Race," will take place at Churchill Downs this weekend. CNN international has answers to 11 general questions to get you started in the festivities, and NBC New York has a short history of the spectacle around the race, which is largely about fashion through the decades. And then there's the opening ceremony and song - My Old Kentucky Home (official "sing along" video). It sounds pretty somber, and it is, especially if you sing all of the original 1831 lyrics. The Forgotten Racial History Of Kentucky's State Song (NPR Codeswitch). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:00 PM PST - 22 comments

It's harder for us nonbelievers

An Illustrated Talk With Maurice Sendak
When Christoph Niemann stumbled on a 'Fresh Air' interview with Maurice Sendak, wild things started to transpire. [more inside]
posted by cjorgensen at 11:58 AM PST - 3 comments

Sand ...sand ...sand

Celebrate Orson Welles 101th birthday with this collection of his commercial work (and famous outakes), an episode of You Must Remember This on his relationship with Rita Hayworth and the Mercury Wonder show (original flyer) or listen to him narrate a bonkers documentary commissioned by the then Shah of Iran 'Eternal Light' .
posted by The Whelk at 11:56 AM PST - 4 comments

How many U.S. deaths result from medical error?

"A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine says medical errors should rank as the third-leading cause of death in the United States." - ProPublica [more inside]
posted by trillian at 11:03 AM PST - 43 comments

"Bruh, can you not?"

Are you an overly confident, underqualified white guy who wants to run for office? Jack Teter and Kyle Huelsman want you not to, and have set up the Can You Not PAC to discourage you and any other "handsome upwardly mobile upper-middle class white dude who is well intentioned and 'super progressive'". [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:48 AM PST - 111 comments

Well, a submarine is indeed a boat

The NERC has decided to name their new science vessel the RSS David Attenborough, in defiance of their online poll. The onboard submarine will be given the regal name "Boaty McBoatface." Though the NYT insists that the Internet is pouting about the decision, the Internet mostly seems pretty happy with the compromise. [previously]
posted by 256 at 10:19 AM PST - 55 comments

Superheated water is dangerous enough in a non-toxic form TBQH

Steam's turned toxic, and Valve doesn't care. A tale of community vs. technological moderation. [more inside]
posted by selfnoise at 10:14 AM PST - 57 comments

inspect element

CALVES CALVES CALVES "not sure why i rewrote the copy on the men’s clothing section of the uniqlo website, but i did it. the words are different now." [more inside]
posted by casarkos at 10:11 AM PST - 12 comments

"Iina doonti'da [Life does not end, it goes on]." - Headman Manuelito

The Bears Ears are 9,000ft twin buttes in southeastern Utah bordering Canyonlands National Park featuring canyons, rivers, over 100,000 archaeological sites, and the possible site of a new Bears Ears National Monument. The proposal comes from a local coalition of sovereign Native nations. "They belong to everyone, and everyone should take responsibility for protecting them." (Jim Enote, Pueblo of Zuni) However there is push back from others in the local community and state legislature. [more inside]
posted by Deflagro at 10:10 AM PST - 6 comments

Revolutions in the Grave

Many of history’s darkest figures were denied a formal burial place primarily to prevent their graves from becoming pilgrimage sites...... Such figures’ literal corporeal remains hold a persistent grip on our collective anxiety, their memories firmly planted in heritage discourses even as we attempt to efface their human remains from the landscape.
Paul Mullins, a historical archaeologist who has previously looked at humanizing Nazi everyday life, Eva Braun's underwear, the repugnant heritage of slavery, and selfies at Auschwitz, turns his attention to Dark Heritage and the Burial of Abhorrent Bodies.
posted by Rumple at 10:07 AM PST - 7 comments

I've been waiting 40 years for someone like you.

Edward Snowden: Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance
Whistleblowers are outliers of probability, and if they are to be effective as a political force, it’s critical that they maximize the amount of public good produced from scarce seed. [more inside]
posted by wonton endangerment at 9:49 AM PST - 5 comments

19.52 Megatons per Pound

A calculator for how much destructive force would be released by a given weight of antimatter.
posted by Copronymus at 9:02 AM PST - 25 comments

Changing the game at Harvard

This morning, Harvard University announced that beginning with the Class of 2021, members of single-gender private clubs and Greek organizations will be banned from holding athletic team captaincies or leadership positions in all student groups, and will be ineligible for College endorsement for top fellowships like the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:43 AM PST - 130 comments

Evidently Mom has the hots for weirdo weatherman

Mom is Dating Weird Wayne From the wonderful Awful Library Books blog (previously) comes this book by Mary Jane Auch, perhaps most famous for the "I Was a Third Grade ... " series of books [more inside]
posted by maxsparber at 7:45 AM PST - 13 comments

Old Bicycle Newsreels

British Pathe has a bunch of great old bike newsreels uploaded to YouTube: Birth of the Bike (1937); Historic Bikes (1953); Six Day Race (1937); Penny Farthing Bike (1928); Penny Farthing Race (1936); Cycling Tips (1936); Housewife Cyclist (1956); All about Bikes (1959)
posted by OmieWise at 6:43 AM PST - 12 comments

pet_sounds.avi

Gabe the dog sings Do the Hustle [more inside]
posted by postcommunism at 5:58 AM PST - 5 comments

How Are Things In Your Town?

When he saw a 538 article that claimed to define "normal America" as cities similar to the national average based on "race, education, and age", statistics freak Lyman Stone thought it needed much more detailed analysis. So he collected 20 sets of statistics (from % Married to % Households With No Phone) and made a big honking spreadsheet he called Lyman's Grand Scale of Urban Weirdness. So based on his 20-factor-analysis, which American Metro Areas are most "Normal" and which are most "Weird"? [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:11 AM PST - 70 comments

Think your city doesn’t like you? You’re right

Hostile architecture, also known as defensive architecture, exists on a spectrum. At one end are the overt design features that are obvious to anyone walking by—like spikes and fences. At the other end, says Petty, are the design elements in which “the hostile function is often embedded under a socially palatable function.”
posted by veedubya at 3:52 AM PST - 116 comments

Finger(nail) Licking Good

KFC in Hong Kong Has Released "Lickable" Nail Polish Would you really want it to remain on your fingers? Indefinitely? These are just two of the salient questions raised by the chicken chain’s new Hong Kong marketing campaign, in which it is offering lickable, edible fingernail polish in two flavors: Original, and Hot and Spicy.
posted by modernnomad at 3:00 AM PST - 18 comments

Lance-level creep, just not as good at it

Local Strava cycling legend is former racer, convicted doper, drug dealer, and clothing company owner.
posted by meowzilla at 12:14 AM PST - 27 comments

Beauty lies inside the eye of another youthful dream

Portuguese photographer Tomba Lobos uses "caucasian skin color play dough" to enhance portraits:

P H O T O G R A P H S / 1
P H O T O G R A P H S / 2
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:04 AM PST - 29 comments

May 5

Extorting inmates' families is big business

The End of Prison Visitation
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:53 PM PST - 35 comments

Notes from a burning room

KC Green, the artist behind the "this is fine" meme, talks about its origin and meaning.
posted by Artw at 8:19 PM PST - 51 comments

The Art of Spitting Tacks

"My training involves tongue techniques that were taught to me by older masters." Master Upholsterer Kevin Kennedy demonstrates the dangerous art of spitting tacks. [more inside]
posted by john hadron collider at 7:20 PM PST - 14 comments

The Summer of '66

Batman, remakes, TV spin-offs, comic adaptations — not much has changed in half a century. Here's what the summer movie schedule looked like in 1966. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:18 PM PST - 32 comments

I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body parts.

In / Visibility - "They have not been registered at birth.
Similarly, they do not die, rather, they 'vanish.' There are no graves of albinos in cemeteries — people would come and steal the bones."
.
In neighbouring Malawi, the UN warns Witchcraft Superstitions could lead to 'Total Extinction' for Albinos.
Last Year Tanzanian albino children mutilated for use in witchcraft received treatment in the US. Progress is slow combatting violence and discrimination.
(Previously 1; 2. and the quote - dated 1950)
posted by adamvasco at 5:21 PM PST - 12 comments

#LovePulses

Did you know that 2016 is the International Year of Pulses? Better not miss all the fun! [more inside]
posted by blnkfrnk at 5:13 PM PST - 26 comments

Weeeeeee!

HTML form Rube Goldberg machine, with some musical accompaniment.
posted by brundlefly at 5:04 PM PST - 9 comments

Aunt Mary's graduation class. She was kept home for fear of the typhoid.

"The Pot And How To Use It": Roger Ebert's long, slightly crazed love-letter to the humble rice cooker.
posted by Itaxpica at 4:46 PM PST - 19 comments

Anger and fear go together like rama-lama-lama ka-ding-a-da-ding-da-dong

Worse Things: Sandy and Rizzo and Me, an essay by Mara Wilson
posted by ActionPopulated at 4:45 PM PST - 6 comments

Short Attention Span Theatre: Cooking Edition

Tastemade, the food and travel video network, (previously) has an extensive collection of short (15-60 second) food and cooking videos (and photos) from around the world. Incredibly, many recipes are self-explanatory on their own, but most have the full recipe in the comments: Japan; Brasil; Español; Indonesia; Chile; UAE. The main Tastemade Instagram account includes English versions of at least some of the other videos. [Jaunty auto-playing music alert.]
posted by Room 641-A at 4:37 PM PST - 4 comments

all kinds of water in voxels

Water in voxels: a pleasant little collection of watery scenes hand-drawn in chunky 3D. (Voxels are the 3d equivalent of pixels, like the blocks that make up a minecraft world.) [more inside]
posted by moonmilk at 4:02 PM PST - 3 comments

"We understand what they're feeling"

Alberta's Syrian refugees jump at the chance to help Fort McMurray evacuees. Despite barely having a foothold in their new country, Syrian refugees in Calgary are contributing what little they have after seeing footage of the terrifying wildfire in Northern Alberta. Somebody tell Trump.
posted by MACTdaddy at 3:16 PM PST - 16 comments

“The software is functioning as intended,” said Amber.

"What Amber explained was exactly what I’d feared: through the Apple Music subscription, which I had, Apple now deletes files from its users’ computers. When I signed up for Apple Music, iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple’s database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn’t recognize—which came up often, since I’m a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself—it would then download it to Apple’s database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me when I wanted to listen, just like it would with my other music files it had deleted."
posted by Sebmojo at 2:51 PM PST - 138 comments

Friday Flash Fiction: Plot Elements used in Plot.

17 Amazing Plot Elements... When You See #11, You'll Be Astounded! [more inside]
posted by storybored at 2:36 PM PST - 9 comments

“A BED IS NO LONGER FURNITURE—IT’S A CONTENT PLATFORM”

Sleep is more than the sum of its socio-economic consequences. A new generation is planting sleep in a broader spectrum of consciousness. The poles aren’t asleep and awake–they’re omniscient and dead.😉
K-HOLE, the "internet trend forcasting group", has followed up its 2015 report on Chaos Magic with what appears to be a legit report on how Sillicon Valley is monitizing sleep. (if the actual article is too sleep inducing, Ars has a write up)
posted by rebent at 12:23 PM PST - 49 comments

When my anger is expressed through dance

When my anger is expressed through dance. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 12:01 PM PST - 6 comments

Polyrhythmics - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

In which the Seattle-based instrumental funk band Polyrhythmics perform a 35 minute live set in-studio for KEXP. Funky.
posted by hippybear at 11:32 AM PST - 4 comments

TZECHAR

Beyoncé - 1+1 (I Don't Give A Damn Remix) Taeyang - You're My (Poom Poom Remix) 2pm - l'll Be Back 아윌비백 (Video Remix) AA / GD&TOP / TZECHAR - I'm So Crazy High, Take Me Away p.s. LOL THX BILLy
posted by one teak forest at 11:23 AM PST - 3 comments

ars ex machina

I have been to the future and have brought back art.

"ReTech was born of a desire to translate discarded tech into artistic pieces."
The FAQ explains it better than I can.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:11 AM PST - 11 comments

'Seeing' around corners: DARPA research into holographic imaging

Announcing the Revolutionary Enhancement of Visibility by Exploiting Active Light-fields (REVEAL) project. Researchers from SMU's Lyle School of Engineering will lead a multi-university team funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to build a theoretical framework for creating a computer-generated image of an object hidden from sight around a corner or behind a wall. [more inside]
posted by smokysunday at 10:44 AM PST - 18 comments

Choose the ooze!

Weirdo Detroit art-punk troupe Child Bite team up with King Buzzo to infect local kids with Ancestral Ooze.

Link contains Raiders of the Lost Ark/Dead Alive-style splatter gore [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 10:31 AM PST - 7 comments

Think Retro: writings on vintage Macs

For the last year or so, Christopher Phin's Macworld column Think Retro has been a wonderful showcase of classic Apple hardware and software. While this column has come to a close after 73 installments, the archives are worthwhile reading for Mac enthusiasts. Some highlights: [more inside]
posted by porn in the woods at 10:25 AM PST - 26 comments

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month

Time to celebrate Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America! You can start here, a joint venture by several agencies, and continue below the fold. [more inside]
posted by numaner at 10:17 AM PST - 4 comments

it has to be seen at least once.

Do I Need Camouflage to Hunt? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:15 AM PST - 48 comments

Roots of Goa (Trance): a sound that was both accessible and otherworldly

... at the same time that Chicago was creating House and Detroit was forging ahead with what would become Techno, the roots of Trance were being sawn on the beaches of Anjuna and Vagator. And just as Chicago had Ron Hardy and Detroit had The Electrifying Mojo, Goa had a DJ called Laurent. If it wasn’t for him, it’s quite possible that the music played at parties in Goa would have been little more than a carbon copy of what was going on back in Europe and America. Unveiling The Secret: The Roots of Trance - before Goa was Goa, it was "new electronic music coming out of Europe and America," sliced and edited by Laurent to make one long, constantly morphing psychedelic groove. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:50 AM PST - 64 comments

IF I DIE I DIE

But I have two favorites. These two men are as different as a pair of massive weightlifters can be. Their contradictions as men, as avatars of their nations, and as exemplars of their sports run deep. They are polar opposite social-media physical specimens, but compliment each other perfectly, as most opposites do.
Youtube Bodybuilders Rich Piana And Dmitry Klokov Can Teach You How To Live
posted by griphus at 9:11 AM PST - 32 comments

"It's not really scary," Brad says. "None of this is scary."

"Safety Rope," an achingly beautiful essay by Garrard Conley: "No touching unless he touches you. No touching where people can see. No touching unless dared to touch. Brad makes the rules, but never says them aloud. One, two, three. Brad and I don't leave our hands down there for more than a few seconds. When I say my prayers at night, I pretend to be penitent, but I'm secretly happy for the betrayal." [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 9:10 AM PST - 5 comments

Graph Nerds, Meet Music Nerds

Polygraph presents a visualization of all the Billboard Top 5 songs as they rise and fall, with the songs playing as they reach #1.
posted by Etrigan at 8:46 AM PST - 17 comments

Even Beyonder Than That

HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast host Chris Lackey (previously 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) is celebrating his birthday today by releasing, along with co-creator Greig Johnson (previously), a new Lovecraftian comedy short: From Beyond the Beyond.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:37 AM PST - 4 comments

Cool Story, Bro

The NYTimes Style Section has identified a new trend: Men reading books! In clubs! Which obviously need ultra-manly names. Never fear, Twitter to the rescue with #ManlyBookClubNames. Whether you read with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Patriarchy or The Great Fratsby, Goodreads has some suggestions for your new ultra-manly reading life.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:10 AM PST - 139 comments

The XenoFeminist Manifesto

Laboriacuboniks is a feminist collective. Their XenoFeminist Manifesto was released in June 2015. [more inside]
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:04 AM PST - 14 comments

In the Year Two Thouuuusaaaaaaaannnnnd

In 1939, some American fashion designers got together and designed the clothes (1 minute, 14 seconds) they thought the well-dressed woman (and one man) would be wearing in 2000.
posted by julen at 7:51 AM PST - 33 comments

Gold for people who already have enough gold

The Semiotics of Rose Gold
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:44 AM PST - 18 comments

look at me

Relive the exciting world premiere of the 'State of Shock' video on Al TV in 1984.
posted by mintcake! at 7:26 AM PST - 7 comments

'You better bless my realness'

Video for Run The Jewels' “Love Again” featuring Gangsta Boo on Vimeo and YouTube. (NSFW: super-explicit lyrics but SFW visuals unless "....You Work With Entomologists.")
posted by zarq at 7:20 AM PST - 5 comments

The Perfect Recipe for Addiction

The drugmaker Purdue Pharma launched OxyContin two decades ago with a bold marketing claim: One dose relieves pain for 12 hours, more than twice as long as generic medications. OxyContin’s stunning success masked a fundamental problem: The drug wears off hours early in many people, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. OxyContin is a chemical cousin of heroin, and when it doesn’t last, patients can experience excruciating symptoms of withdrawal, including an intense craving for the drug. The problem offers new insight into why so many people have become addicted to OxyContin, one of the most abused pharmaceuticals in U.S. history.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:41 AM PST - 58 comments

The Peculiar Case of the Buried Nazi Gold Train

Ever since the end of World War II, there have been rumors in Poland that the Nazis hid a substantial part of the loot from their European conquests in hidden tunnels underneath the Owl Mountains near Książ Castle. A number of independent researchers have worked to discover the location of these tunnels, but in the end, they found nothing. ...or did they?
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:26 AM PST - 9 comments

Roadliners

Roadliners. A short documentary about a Glaswegian freehand painter of text and signs on roads.
posted by OmieWise at 6:19 AM PST - 5 comments

You should be consuming one gram of protein per line of code written

The software engineer’s guide to asserting dominance in the workplace
posted by acb at 5:32 AM PST - 30 comments

What has the European Convention on Human Rights ever done for us?

(WARNING: Contains strong language) In this Guardian video, Patrick Stewart, Adrian Scarborough and Sarah Solemani expose the problems in the Conservative plan for a UK bill of rights. This satirical take inspired by the classic Monty Python sketch asks ‘what has the European Convention on Human Rights ever done for us?’ Apart from the right to a fair trial, freedom from slavery, freedom from torture ... [more inside]
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:27 AM PST - 20 comments

I made my entrance in the Entry Ball

The Miley Cyrus Entrance. The Phil Collins entrance. The Venga Boys entrance. The Pokemon Entrance. The Foo Fighters entrance. The Queen Entrance. The Limp Bizkit entrance. Featuring The Local Hero, Joe Hendry. (All links YouTube, which has tons more.)
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:02 AM PST - 5 comments

With Paul Lynde as Admiral Motti

A very Donny and Marie Star Wars
posted by Mchelly at 4:18 AM PST - 18 comments

The DJ eclipsed by his own Shadow

DJ Shadow will release his first album in five years, "The Mountain Will Fall", on June 24. A month ago, he shared the title track on Soundcloud; it was not met with the warmest of welcomes at FACT. In an interview with Pitchfork, Shadow, however, stated that "Sometimes records are a struggle. This record I knew exactly what I wanted to get across." Now we have the opportunity to watch the fresh official video for "The Mountain Will Fall", directed by Territory Studios' Marti Romances. (via; DJ Shadow previously)
posted by sapagan at 2:49 AM PST - 26 comments

May 4

Ancient ink

Norwegian artist Esther van Hulsen draws a picture of an ancient octopus, using 95 million year old octopus ink (link to original article in Norwegian).
posted by Harald74 at 11:20 PM PST - 13 comments

"CARP-AGGEDON"

Australia plans to release a strain of herpes that targets invasive carp into the Murray River. "Suddenly, there will be literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tonnes of carp that will be dead in the River Murray."
This can't possibly go wrong, amirite?
posted by yeahlikethat at 10:21 PM PST - 59 comments

Chronic pain management, opioids and addiction

We should seek an understanding of the drugs of concern: how they work to relieve pain, how they kill in overdose, how deaths might be prevented & how we should respond as a society. A professor of pharmacology and therapeutics writes in Slate about the undertreatment of pain, discussing how to manage the conflicting risks of inadequate pain relief, physical dependency, overdose and addiction. (Written in response to Prince's suspected overdose before his death, but covers the known facts with respect.)
posted by ambrosen at 8:40 PM PST - 67 comments

“The business of being Britney Spears is booming.”

Is Britney Spears Ready To Stand On Her Own? by Serge F. Kovaleski and Joe Coscarelli [The New York Times] For years, the life of one of the world’s most successful pop stars has been controlled by a court-approved conservatorship, designed for people who cannot take care of themselves. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:29 PM PST - 23 comments

400 tons and 150 feet or so later...

they moved the lighthouse. The Gay Head lighthouse dates to 1796, has been the scene of horrific wrecks, and is in the major motion picture Jaws.
posted by vrakatar at 8:19 PM PST - 12 comments

Hello!

"There is no reason on earth why Prince Charming cannot walk through our front door!"
[more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 6:11 PM PST - 16 comments

S ~ P ~ L ~ O ~ S ~ H

Gore, Guts, & the Grotesque :: The Acid Trip Art of Alex Jenkins [Some links NSFW]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:58 PM PST - 1 comment

The time has come

Midnight Oil have today confirmed they will reform for a series of shows both in Australia and overseas in 2017. This will be the band's first shows since 2009 and their first tour since breaking up in 2002. A refresher: Beds Are Burning - Power and the Passion - The Dead Heart - Bus to Bondi - When the Generals Talk
posted by misterbee at 5:07 PM PST - 42 comments

One Fish Two Fish Catfish You Fish

I told her I didn’t want to continue our date because she had been dishonest, and given that honesty is the foundation of any meaningful relationship, this was clearly not a good start. After a pause, thick with the tension between us, I took some of the hostility out of my voice. “Look, humor is really important to me, and you’re funny,” I told her. “Be honest next time, and you will find you the right guy. It’s not me.” I told her I was going to leave and got up from the table.

That’s when the cameras came out. In front of them, a shiny-faced man dressed in a suit approached me with an extended microphone. It was John Quiñones, and he told me that I was on ABC’s What Would You Do?
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:25 PM PST - 134 comments

It's never too early to start thinking about your own death

It is never too early to start thinking about your own death and the deaths of those you love. I don't mean thinking about death in obsessive loops, fretting that your husband has been crushed in a horrific car accident, or that your plane will catch fire and plummet from the sky. But rational interaction, that ends with you realizing that you will survive the worst, whatever the worst may be. Accepting death doesn't mean that you won't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like "Why do people die?" and "Why is this happening to me?" Death isn't happening to you. Death is happening to us all.
It's never too early to start thinking about your own death
posted by y2karl at 4:22 PM PST - 46 comments

"Beautiful country burn again."

"This is not about Patricia Hearst. It is about me and the peculiar vacuum in which I grew up, a vacuum in which the Hearsts could be quite literally king of the hill." Joan Didion's notes for a never written story about the Patricia Hearst trial.
posted by Kattullus at 4:04 PM PST - 4 comments

Dubstep and animals pooping

Dubstep and animals pooping (SLYT)
posted by clorox at 3:50 PM PST - 22 comments

Consider The Wasp

***links contain pictures of wasps and bees*** "Despite the fear they sometimes evoke, wasps are extremely beneficial to humans. Nearly every pest insect on Earth is preyed upon by a wasp species, either for food or as a host for its parasitic larvae. Wasps are so adept at controlling pest populations that the agriculture industry now regularly deploys them to protect crops." [more inside]
posted by WalkerWestridge at 3:02 PM PST - 33 comments

Chicken Police?

Bad bun, bad bun, whatchoo gonna do?
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Tasting All These Years

For some people, the answer to "Should I eat that?" is always yes. [more inside]
posted by Kevin Street at 1:57 PM PST - 17 comments

The Beauty Of No Borders

The non-enforced borders between European nations are a feast for the eye and a testament of hope for a united, peaceful, border-free world.
posted by blankdawn at 1:46 PM PST - 23 comments

CRUNCH nom nom nom

Compilation of hippos eating whole watermelons
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:21 PM PST - 28 comments

Cyndi Lauper takes a Detour...into country music

Cyndi Lauper has gone country with her new album, Detour. "My main concern was not making things clinical,...I wanted the beat to be dirty and sexy. It was supposed to be a mix of R&B and country." [more inside]
posted by Beti at 12:54 PM PST - 11 comments

You can, of course, support it on Patreon

Graphtreon is a website that visualizes how much different creators are earning on Patreon.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:36 PM PST - 46 comments

The plural of series is series

I Love Serial Entertainment And So Can You - We don’t binge on television because we like it, we like television because we can binge on it.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 12:31 PM PST - 26 comments

Mount Shasta Octave Spa

Live at the Necropolis: Lords of Synth
posted by naju at 11:05 AM PST - 16 comments

Ok. Did you turn it off and then on again?

To the immense relief of technical support staff everywhere as well as your Aunt Helen, you can now buy a smartplug for power-cycling your internet router. It seems like router makers are aware you might need this.
posted by selfnoise at 10:04 AM PST - 77 comments

We're obviously open minded... obviously.

Unfortunately, this is not the type of space for about 80-90+% of the unnecessary human-animal population on the planet.
posted by jillithd at 9:59 AM PST - 57 comments

'Find lawmakers, votes and bills'

ProPublica has relaunched Represent, which " provides information on lawmakers, the bills they consider and the votes they take (and miss). You can browse the latest votes and bills, see how often lawmakers vote against their parties and compare voting records." This applies to federal representatives in the United States.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:18 AM PST - 2 comments

There’s a heart container and a 300 rupee chest up there

My hotel has a sitting area with no possible way to access it
posted by griphus at 9:09 AM PST - 55 comments

I like my frog well boiled

For centuries, Peruvian locals have talked about a river in the Amazon that burns so hot it can kill.
Peru’s mysterious ‘boiling river’ that burns animals to death.
Peruvian geoscientist Andres Ruzo found a river up to 25 metres wide and six metres deep, that runs burning hot for an incredible 6.24 km.
Legends of the Boiling River.
posted by adamvasco at 9:08 AM PST - 15 comments

Starter D'ough!

Back in March, Sam Sifton wrote an aspirational story about sourdough starters (previously) for The New York Times. On behalf of those of us who aspire, Sarah Jampel responds with "How My Soudough Starter Took Over My Life.".
posted by Room 641-A at 8:40 AM PST - 31 comments

He's holding a little kitten, and you almost said no.

Amy Schumer hijacks your tinder prof.
posted by phunniemee at 8:21 AM PST - 30 comments

bad flags

bad flags. bad flags previously. the worst (and best, I guess) city flags in the US. or also this one. THESE CITIES HAVE HAD IT WITH THEIR BAD FLAGS [more inside]
posted by beerperson at 8:16 AM PST - 38 comments

The Savior of the Great American City

If New York City were Middle Earth, Sauron would doubtless be portrayed by Robert Moses, destroying neighborhood after neighborhood in his own endless quest for greater power and a lifeless personal vision of the city that had no thoughts of its inhabitants. But when he set his eyes on leveling SoHo and Little Italy for a ten-lane expressway across Lower Manhattan, he ran up against an unlikely Frodo. Jane Jacobs would have been 100 years old today.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:56 AM PST - 9 comments

Why European Children Are So Much Quieter Than Yours

The playgrounds weren’t just beautiful. They were quiet. That was what struck me when I first moved to Vienna, Austria. Children there played and laughed, but rarely yelled across the park.
posted by veedubya at 6:50 AM PST - 136 comments

May today be with you

The Asteroid Field, covered by Evil Genius Orchestra. Appropriate for the date. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 2:37 AM PST - 9 comments

May 3

Moon Knights and Demon Bears

A celebration of Bill Sienkiewicz - the unique comics artist most famous for his work on Moon Knight, The New Mutants, Stray Toasters and of course Elektra: Assassin.
posted by Artw at 11:42 PM PST - 47 comments

This is the Dark Souls of “This is the Dark Souls of…” metacommentary

Dark Souls is a metaphor for the importance of bonfire night
posted by Sebmojo at 9:54 PM PST - 13 comments

It's the largest fire evacuation in Alberta history

Fort McMurray, a city of more than 80,000, has been ordered to evacuate after a massive wildfire breached the city limits today. The city wide evacuation order advised remaining residents to evacuate north to Noralta Lodge with the work camps that service the oil sands being pressed into service to house the evacuees. Earlier evacuations to the south producing some harrowing footage. Highway 63 has been closed south of the city, cutting off the main road connection between Ft. McMurray and the rest of Alberta.
posted by selenized at 8:44 PM PST - 96 comments

Natasha Romanoff hated pierogies — but more than that, she hated lies.

The 2016 Lyttle Lytton Awards have been announced [more inside]
posted by firechicago at 8:07 PM PST - 35 comments

“Watching them feels wicked meditative.”

Brian Feldman, Hopes&Fears: Why are people obsessed with Japanese miniature cooking videos?
There is an irreconcilable conflict at the heart of working with miniatures: “It’s about as far removed as you can get from the chaos of real life, but at the same time it requires you to be a very attentive observer of real life if you hope to capture that in your miniature art. It’s a cool paradox and one that’s really fun to play with as an artist.”
[more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:15 PM PST - 17 comments

Trump will be the Republican standard-bearer

Ted Cruz ends his campaign, handing the nomination to Donald Trump
posted by Jacob Knitig at 5:42 PM PST - 2361 comments

Philadelphia - Rainbow - Phoenix - Montauk

From Project Rainbow to the Montauk Project - a brief history of what might have happened.... From the Philadelphia Experiment to Project Montauk. [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 5:25 PM PST - 11 comments

Queer Theatre at La MaMa (1962-1980)

Queer Theatre at La MaMa (1962-1980): This exhibit, which was created by Pooja Desai, a student in NYU’s Program in Archives/Public history, looks at theatrical experiments from La MaMa’s early years (1962-1980) through a queer lens. Using objects from La MaMa’s Archives, Desai reconstructs a history of the plays, production companies, playwrights, and directors who presented work on La MaMa’s stages that either reflected a “queer sensibility” or were relevant to queer/trans/LGBTQA audiences.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:55 PM PST - 3 comments

The Racist History of the Word Caucasian

(Great video + summarizing text) In America, white people are referred to as Caucasians, but outside the U.S. the term refers to people from the Caucasus region, which includes the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, and Turkey. So why do Americans refer to people of European ancestry as Caucasians? In the video above, Franchesca Ramsey from MTV’s Decoded takes a look at the word’s history and it’s really racist. [more inside]
posted by Salamandrous at 3:26 PM PST - 27 comments

Episode 00084: The Biracle of Thanksgiving (Part 4)

Fullest House. We fed every Full House script into a artificial neural network machine learning algorithm. Each day, a new episode of Full House will be generated by a computer, forever.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:18 PM PST - 38 comments

RIP Bookslut

After 14 years, Bookslut has published its final issue. Vulture has an interview with Jessa Crispin, the site's founder and editor.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 2:10 PM PST - 25 comments

The Lobster

Q: Now have you thought of what animal you'd like to be if you end up alone?

A: Yes. A lobster.
posted by JPowers at 2:09 PM PST - 23 comments

The odd friendship of Harry the skeptic and Arthur the believer

Arthur Conan Doyle became interested in Spiritualism as early as 1886, inspired by the writing of the US High Courts Judge John Worth Edmonds, and confessing his belief in the supernatural in various publications, including The Coming of the Fairies, "a collection of facts" about the Cottingley Fairies, published a year after the start of an odd friendship. In 1920, Doyle received the book The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin from none other than Harry Houdini, the renowned magician turned resolute skeptic, yet the two became friends, discussing spiritualism in terms of faith and frauds, respectively. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:01 PM PST - 20 comments

The triumphant return of Canada's census

Canada's census has returned after a 10 year hiatus. And when the number-crunchers at Stats Can link this event to the Battle of Hogwarts [Stats Can Facebook], you've gotta know it feels like a new era to those who dwell in the world of evidence based policy. Canadians seem to agree with the statisticians' enthusiasm, crashing the census site with their nerdy rush to participate and end the data drought. Meanwhile the Beaverton covers the Tory response to this egregious end of privacy. Meanwhile, gender analysis has evolved since the last census, so here is your guide to answering binary gender questions in the census (stop gap until this can be reviewed).
posted by chapps at 1:38 PM PST - 40 comments

Build lots and lots (and lots) of new power plants

Here's what it would take for the US to run on 100% renewable energy. It is technically and economically feasible to run the US economy entirely on renewable energy, and to do so by 2050.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:34 PM PST - 111 comments

Drones will airlift soylent packets and water to members

A hermit colony ran as a decentralised autonomous organisation on the ethereum blockchain.
posted by boo_radley at 12:42 PM PST - 31 comments

Class warfare in the skies

It’s perhaps no surprise that air rage — instances in which passengers become unruly — appears to be on the rise. The logic is straightforward: When people are strapped to their seats with no escape for hours on end, when they’re hungry and tired and they lack control over their surroundings, that’s when they’re most likely to snap. Except new research suggests that the explanations most commonly offered for passenger outbursts don’t actually explain what’s going on. ... It turns out that what really upsets us in the sky is palpable inequality.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:52 AM PST - 137 comments

De-exoticizing the Design of Anthropology

A friend of mine pointed out how all anthropology textbooks have these "exotic" images of others on the covers and never an image of "white women eating salad". Me, being Dr. Smarty Pants, said, "Wouldn't it be great to replace those exotica images with those of middle class American/Australian Caucasians doing stuff, maybe even using stock photos?" Anthropologist Dori Tunstall and her students de-exoticize Anthropology.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:45 AM PST - 19 comments

Contact! Let's make contact!

"'Too many children think that scientists are all middle-aged white males in laboratory coats,' Edward Atkins, 3-2-1 Contact's director of content, told The New York Times in 1983." The Kids' Show That Taught Me to Ask "Why?", an ode to 3-2-1 Contact. [more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets at 11:43 AM PST - 41 comments

The Victim

A Marine's Convictions. "After a flawed sexual assault investigation, a Naval Academy instructor fights to prove he has done nothing wrong. But did he?" (content warning: rape) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:30 AM PST - 15 comments

You don't just stick it in your underwear!

Remember those period belts from Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? What did they feel like to wear? Did they actually work all that well? What did women use to catch blood, anyway, before adhesive pads and tampons became de rigueur? Turns out that keeping thick cotton pads in place was something of a problem, inspiring a parade of belts, "sanitary shields", and even suspenders. Of course, all of these were originally designed to work with the default style of women's underwear until the 1930s: crotchless. [more inside]
posted by sciatrix at 10:27 AM PST - 89 comments

I'm not a light switch, you can't just turn me on

Nightmare in the Morning, animator Yonatan Tal's 3rd year CalArts student film, takes us along on one alien tyrant's musical journey toward wakefulness. [more inside]
posted by Narrative Priorities at 10:05 AM PST - 5 comments

The Rock Clock

The Classic alarm has The Rock say, ‘beep, beep, beep … I could do this all day … beep, beep, beep.’
posted by Kitteh at 9:54 AM PST - 39 comments

Paper for Water

Katherine and Isabelle Adams are 9 and 11 years old. When they learned that girls in many places have to walk for miles to get to the nearest well (and clean drinking water), they decided they wanted to help. They started selling their origami ornaments to fund a single well in Ethiopia. When they overshot their goal, they just kept going. [more inside]
posted by colfax at 9:47 AM PST - 4 comments

CHOOSE FROM HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE HEADS

Most mascot costumes are boring. Facemakers creates custom costumes guaranteed to satisfy. Ten kinds of bugs! Natural and artificial sweeteners! Maalox and wart removal gel! Money! Female heads! Male heads! Nose heads! Worried about your budget? They have some clearance items, maybe only slightly used.
posted by jessamyn at 9:30 AM PST - 24 comments

Rankin-Bass Presents “The Wicker Man”

Radiohead have released a video for “Burn The Witch”, the lead single off of their upcoming album. It was directed by Chris Hopewell.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:25 AM PST - 88 comments

this is good

all i can picture is that horrible rendition of the jurassic park theme with the harmonica
posted by griphus at 8:58 AM PST - 29 comments

Louie gets his own Jurassic Park!

[SLYT] A guy built a mini version of Jurassic Park for his pet tortoise "I made a miniature Jurassic Park for my Leopard Tortoise Louie. It has grazing areas with seeds planted to grow as the weather gets better, a pool for him to drink/swim about in, visitors center and the Jurassic Park Gates. "
posted by Tarumba at 8:56 AM PST - 15 comments

A Sort of Gorilla Version of “om nom nom”

Gorillas appear to express their delight with good food by humming little songs. “They don’t sing the same song over and over,” says Luef. “It seems like they are composing their little food songs.” The sound clip here should definitely be played at your next dinner party. If you prefer more formal research and information, it's all here: Food-Associated Calling in Gorillas (Gorilla g. gorilla) in the Wild.
posted by VioletU at 8:44 AM PST - 12 comments

Virgil Brigman Back On The Air

From April 20 to July 10 [2016], a team of NOAA and external partners who are participating both at-sea and on shore will conduct the 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas expedition.
You can follow the expedition website's daily updates for such sights as this beautiful and chill jellyfish, or perhaps an ROV hanging about, among other things.
posted by tocts at 8:39 AM PST - 5 comments

Paging Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean to the courtesy phone.

On appeal, Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation has overturned the conviction for theft of Roman Ostriakov, a homeless man who stole a few Euros worth of sausages and cheese in 2011. The court ruled that "in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment" the theft was not a crime.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:06 AM PST - 22 comments

“Everybody wants to own the end of the world.”

Back to the Future by Tony Tulathimutte [The New Republic] For 45 years, Don DeLillo has been our high priest of the American apocalypse, having tackled just about every man-made disaster: nukes in End Zone, nukes and garbage in Underworld, toxic pollution in White Noise, financial busts in Cosmopolis, terrorism in Falling Man, terrorism and the death of the novel in Mao II, war in Point Omega. His latest novel, Zero K, clears out every end-times scenario left in the bag: climate change, droughts, pandemics, volcanoes, biological warfare, even meteor strikes and solar flares. But these only menace in the background as future probabilities, and the novel’s focus is not human extinction but its inverse: immortality through cryonics. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:06 AM PST - 6 comments

Growth in US incarceration has been fueled by criminal justice policies

Two weeks ago the White House released a report by the Council of Economic Advisors entitled, "Economic Perspectives on Incarceration and the Criminal Justice System." (pdf) The report is a wonkish bombshell, concluding among other things that "if prison admission rates and average time served in prison remained the same as they were in 1984, research suggests that State imprisonment rates would have actually declined by 7 percent by 2004, given falling crime rates. Instead, State prison rates increased by over 125 percent." The CEA also found that "given the total costs, some criminal justice policies, including increased incarceration, fail a cost-benefit test." But the goal is to explain and fix this chart.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:02 AM PST - 13 comments

Comedian W. Kamau Bell arranges a special meeting with the KKK

The United Shades of America is a new show on CNN. It's hosted by standup comic W. Kamau Bell, and he says the show is about "a black guy who goes where he shouldn't go or where you wouldn't expect him to go." And if you think that's hype, well, in the very first episode Bell hangs out with Ku Klux Klan members in Kentucky and Arkansas (45 minute Youtube link).
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:01 AM PST - 18 comments

.su

An excerpt from Ben Peter's How Not To Network A Nation [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:33 AM PST - 11 comments

How do I stay

In his documentary "the Drew", about a summer basketball league in South Central Los Angeles, 2-time NBA all star Baron Davis uses a basketball league to convey the compassion and the loyalty that allowed him to go from South Central to an exclusive Los Angeles high school to U.C.L.A. and the N.B.A. without leaving home.

“It is a ’hood story and it’s a positive ’hood story,” Davis said in a recent interview. “There’s good stuff in our neighborhood: good people, good leaders, good mentors. That was the beauty of the film.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:44 AM PST - 3 comments

Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge

On Saturday morning you're given a title, a line of dialogue, and a description of a prop. Exactly 48 hours later, your team hands in a completed 5-minute science fiction film. The shortlisted 5-minute films to win this year's challenge have just been announced, and are free to watch here. Plus, in a new twist for this year, the shortlisted flash fiction (<1500 words) entries based on the same time limit and randomised prompts. [more inside]
posted by metaBugs at 6:24 AM PST - 6 comments

In the realm of the ridiculous

Leicester City Football Club has won the UK's Premier League title, an event which bookies were giving 5,000 to 1 odds against at the beginning of the season. As a result, bookmakers will be paying out £25 million, the biggest loss in British history on a single sporting market, with some people winning £10,000 on £2 bets. Striker Jamie Vardy broke a league record for goals scored in consecutive games. The team's new manager, Claudio Ranieri, was initially viewed as an uninspired choice; in another betting market statistic, he was initially considered the most likely manager to be the first to lose his job this season. Ironically, the game that sealed Leicester City's victory was a drawn match between Tottenham City and Chelsea, a team that fired Ranieri in 2004.
posted by kyrademon at 5:41 AM PST - 62 comments

Take and eat, this is my body

Jesus Christ the Magic Mushroom (part 1)
posted by mosessis at 5:06 AM PST - 15 comments

Like Burning Man. But in Vegas. For the 1%. The 1% of the Tech Elite.

Picture Eric Schmidt wearing a leather Top hat and a waistcoat made of mirrors No really, the article contains a picture of Executive Chairman of Alphabet (previously one of the Google CEOs) Eric Schmitdt wearing a leather Top hat and a waistcoat adorned with mirrors [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 5:05 AM PST - 74 comments

James May - The Reassembler

James May reassembles things in his shed. Episode 1 - Lawnmower. Episode 2 - Telephone. Episode 3 - Electric Guitar.
posted by veedubya at 4:49 AM PST - 15 comments

Meet the Fugglers

Mrs McGettrick makes Fugglers from felt and discarded false teeth. Even stranger, some people buy them. "It was something I would do in the evening to unwind: cup of tea, episode of something trashy on TV, force some teeth into the gaping maw of a felt teddy bear... I was both bewildered and excited when I sold my first order. I purchased another bag of teeth."
posted by billiebee at 4:27 AM PST - 29 comments

contains the entire word Solar and rhymes with Polaris

33 COSMIC CAR NAMES / Car names -- past & present -- that reference or evoke the Universe.
A list by Neil deGrasse Tyson
posted by timshel at 3:31 AM PST - 15 comments

Creative People Say No.

"How much less will I create unless I say “no?” A sketch? A stanza? A paragraph? An experiment? Twenty lines of code? The answer is always the same: “yes” makes less. We do not have enough time as it is. There are groceries to buy, gas tanks to fill, families to love and day jobs to do."
posted by Fantods at 3:09 AM PST - 26 comments

Pogo, Plain or Peanut

Mix-mashmaster Makes M&Ms Medley (SLYT) Pogo (previously) who usually finely purees moments from movies, turns 75 years of candy commercials into 3 sweet minutes that melt in your eyes and ears. Contains chocolate, peanuts, cgi and ancient b&w.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:35 AM PST - 4 comments

Reviews say it's better than Batman vs Superman

17-year-old Nigerian student Joshua Umia is getting a lot of attention for his homemade action films with special effects, especially his remake of a Flash vs Zoom episode - which are all filmed on a Blackberry Bold 5.
posted by divabat at 1:17 AM PST - 6 comments

May 2

The Greatest & Most Enigmatic 2-Minute Horror Suspense Film of Our Time

Jewelry ad starring Gwyneth Paltrow, or the greatest and most enigmatic 2-minute horror suspense film of our time? Tumblr user rave sashayed thinks it's the latter. [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 11:10 PM PST - 70 comments

Manus x Machina

Met Ball 2016 - it's a bit technical.
posted by Artw at 11:08 PM PST - 16 comments

Non-Edible Use #235

Here on The Blue we're already familiar with one form of cheese racing. In another case the "fanny phenomenon" in which it is once again proven we are two nations separated by a common language, the rules of the sport are entirely different when that cheese is American. In these dark hours, when we are all called upon to correct the course of our floundering national cheese-based economy, isn't it about time you learned about that other, meltier, form of cheese racing? [more inside]
posted by drlith at 10:30 PM PST - 6 comments

Technology would be the rock and roll of the ’90s

Step Behind the Scenes of the Frantic, Madcap Birth of Wired Magazine: “We’re trying to make a magazine that feels as if it has been mailed back from the future.”
posted by Drinky Die at 9:57 PM PST - 13 comments

"That's insane terrain at its finest."

Dave Bachinsky landed a skateboard trick in 2009 that has still never been repeated: a kickflip over the massive El Toro gap. [more inside]
posted by joechip at 8:48 PM PST - 33 comments

Why is Westeros so hopelessly fucked up in the first place?

"We are told that recorded history goes back over 10,000 years, much longer than our own, and yet we find so little in the way of progress, innovation, new theories, or new philosophies. It’s a wonder Varys even considers an alternative to the status quo. What gives?" - Robert Repino, TOR [spoilers] [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:31 PM PST - 100 comments

That washing thing on a stick

Toilets of Roman Pompeii tells you most of the things you wanted to know about Roman habits [more inside]
posted by yarntheory at 7:37 PM PST - 16 comments

Touchdown Feis

The Seattle Seahawks picked up Arkansas running back Alex Collins in this year's draft - "the epitome of consistency, rushing for over 1,000 yards and at least 5.4 yards per carry in each of his three seasons. Vision and footwork are the catalysts for his elusiveness and he has flashed long speed." But where does he get his fancy footwork? Irish dance.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:30 PM PST - 7 comments

Light Plane System +Plu

shivinteger designs things [more inside]
posted by clorox at 7:03 PM PST - 2 comments

This is not a Drill People-Eurovision comes to the US

LogoTV is going to carry the Eurovision Song Contest! Head out to Ikea folks, and throw your Eurovision Party together, Logo TV is going to air the Grand Final live! [more inside]
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:31 PM PST - 61 comments

The Cure For Fear

Scientists have discovered a radical new way to treat our most traumatic memories.
posted by MythMaker at 3:30 PM PST - 66 comments

A cat name is Sashimi-san.Somebody tell me why she's got a anger.

Filmmaker SOEZIMAX (Shingo Soejima) visits his sister. Her cat really, really hates him. [more inside]
posted by J.K. Seazer at 3:18 PM PST - 26 comments

Immortality Begins at Forty

Not nearly as uplifting as it sounds Sad truths. My first top post.
posted by Chitownfats at 2:54 PM PST - 46 comments

Ida Keeling

At the Penn relays this past weekend, Ida Keeling ran a 1:17 in the 100-meter dash, a new world record. Ms. Keeling started running at the age of 67. Now, she's 100.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:05 PM PST - 9 comments

Louis Le Breton, illustrator of boats and demons

Maybe you first saw one of them in a video game or a heavy metal album cover: the 69 demons Louis Le Breton illustrated for Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal (previously). But who was the man who rendered these images, and brought the dukes and presidents of Hell to life in such specific detail? Would he want to be remembered for his drawings of composite monsters and naked men riding dragons, or did he perhaps leave another legacy entirely? [more inside]
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:35 PM PST - 13 comments

Mo-Cap Abstract Kung Fu

Motion capture Kung Fu data visualization. [more inside]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 1:07 PM PST - 5 comments

Maybe we need to find more non-edible uses for it

Consumerist: The U.S. has a giant cheese surplus and unfortunately, this is a bad thing. Bloomberg graph: Welcome to Cheese Mountain. (n.b. not a real, visitable, place) nymag: "Our great nation apparently had an inventory of 1.2 billion pounds at the end of March, the highest in 30 years." FoodDive: "Startups may see an opportunity to create marketable products out of inexpensive ingredients, and more cheese-based product startups could pop up and generate interest from investors and major manufacturers." Mashable: "Do your part. Eat more cheese."
posted by Wordshore at 12:58 PM PST - 135 comments

Usha Uthup: not your average playback singer

Celebrated Indian recording artist and playback singer Usha Uthup, AKA Usha Iyer, has performed many different musical styles during her 47-year career: smokey jazz and pop on the 1968 album Scotch and Soda, funk and disco on 1978's Usha in Nairobi (song: Fever), disco and new wave for numerous films, and across the spectrum in this scene from the 1972 comedy Bombay to Goa. (Yes, that's Amitabh Bachchan in his first leading role.) Uthup is also not afraid to embrace the unusual, as shown on her weirdly wonderful 1984 album, Blast-Off. [more inside]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:34 PM PST - 7 comments

EXEMPLARIS DÍGNITAS ("The Dealio")

This excerpt from the Lexicon Recentis Latinitas contains Vatican-approved Latin translations for 600 (comparatively) modern concepts. For example, the Latin term for "jazz" is iazensis música. "Laser" is instrumentum laséricum, "Scotch" is víschium Scóticum, "mini golf" is pilamálleus minūtus, and "blue jeans" are bracae línteae caerúleae. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 12:27 PM PST - 26 comments

How Bob Buckter Repainted San Francisco

Quick: imagine a colorful San Francisco Victorian. The way it looks in your mind's eye probably has something to do with Buckter's decades of steady influence.
posted by gyusan at 12:16 PM PST - 17 comments

Embroidery on Youtube

Embroider a Guanyin with the hair of the descendant of Rinpoches. Embroider with hooks and gold in India. Embroider with the techniques of European (late) renaissance and modern embroidery. Embroider (...eventually) a kimono. Embroider with horsetail. Embroider with designer Yohji Yamamoto. Embroider like a Ukrainian.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 12:09 PM PST - 5 comments

Today, we're going to get WEIRD.

The etymology of the word "Weird". By The Endless Knot.
posted by numaner at 11:59 AM PST - 12 comments

Restreint UE / EU Restricted

Greenpeace Netherlands have released for download what they claim to be the secret TTIP negotiation documents, which reveal that many of the worst fears of the trade agreement's opponents may be real. Activists are claiming it's a significant nail in the coffin for the controversial agreement.
posted by Grangousier at 11:59 AM PST - 15 comments

Wall Street Journal Guide to Parenting

How to Raise the Next Mark Zuckerberg, 5 Signs Your Child Has What it Takes to be a Tech Entrepreneur, featuring advice such as "Teach children to work like a startup" from the former, and "[Your child is] obsessed with money" from the latter. [more inside]
posted by tippiedog at 11:47 AM PST - 34 comments

Yes Yes Yes

The Creatures of Yes
I can't explain it, so I'm not going to. Puppets. That's all you really need to know…puppets. [more inside]
posted by cjorgensen at 11:41 AM PST - 17 comments

The Secret Scent-based Language of Plants

If you saw the Atlas Obscura "Invisible Worlds" video illustrating The unflinching warfare of the Lima Bean (warning: simplistic animation of wasp larvae infesting caterpillars), you might think that Phaseolus lunatus is unique in its scent-based communication in the plant world. In fact, most if not all plants can communicate with each-other, with insects and other animals through scent. Plants can also time the release of different signals to have different effects. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:38 AM PST - 6 comments

Leader 1, help!

What’s all this talk about Cybertronians? It’s the Gobotronians who need our attention! Maybe they need to be revamped in a fresher animated style. Or, how about this fresher animated style? Wait, we forgot about the Rock Lords! What do you mean “narlies?” Perhaps what the Gobots need is an edgy animated treatment! With Wolf Swords! Or, perhaps a much higher end toy treatment! #KeepMefiWeird Wait, what's Megatron doing in that last picture?
posted by Slothrop at 11:36 AM PST - 8 comments

Letting Stephen Colbert Be Stephen Colbert (Whoever That Is)

"CBS says it brought in a new executive producer for “The Late Show” so Stephen Colbert could focus on hosting. Now the network has to give him room to do what he does best." [more inside]
posted by crazy with stars at 11:19 AM PST - 20 comments

It's not about willpower

What happens when the winners of reality show The Biggest Loser go home? Researchers followed a set of contestants for 6 years and came to a disheartening conclusion: losing weight lowers your metabolism (possibly permanently) and increases the hormones that make you hungrier. (SLNYT) [more inside]
posted by snickerdoodle at 10:50 AM PST - 156 comments

oh my god i hope he only saw the sfw version

How did Superman even find my Deviantart? (SL Imgur album)
posted by Uncle Ira at 10:42 AM PST - 27 comments

There's no such thing as normal. Everybody's weird (SLYT)

Professor Elemental's 'All In Together' should be declared the official hymn for #KeepMeFiWeird May. [more inside]
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:32 AM PST - 7 comments

"This Louisiana Dance Studio Is Going Viral"

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, dance studio En Pointe is breaking out on Tumblr for its images of its young dancers: [more inside]
posted by sobell at 10:09 AM PST - 3 comments

Before Snowcrash, before Ghost in the Shell

There was 1990's Cyberpunk documentary (SLYT)
posted by I-baLL at 10:04 AM PST - 25 comments

How Uber conquered London

To understand how the $60bn company is taking over the world, you need to stop thinking about cars. (sllongreadTheGrauniad)
posted by Kitteh at 9:43 AM PST - 55 comments

64 slices of American cheese

"If it was too much cheese for Homer, that’s a lot of cheese" [more inside]
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 9:12 AM PST - 37 comments

Our top-heavy economy has come to this

"One man can move out of New Jersey and put the entire state budget at risk. Other states are facing similar situations as a greater share of income — and tax revenue — becomes concentrated in the hands of a few. New Jersey won’t say exactly how much the hedge-fund billionaire, David Tepper, paid in taxes. But according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha, he earned more than $6 billion from 2012 to 2015 ... [Tepper] is leaving for Florida at an especially opportune time for tax savings." (SLNYT) [more inside]
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:49 AM PST - 48 comments

The Secret Cosmic Music Of The East German Olympic Program 1972-83

The Secret Cosmic Music Of The East German Olympic Program 1972-83 [more inside]
posted by Evilspork at 8:29 AM PST - 7 comments

“Right now, we have a reed, not a stick,”

Texting and Driving? Watch Out for the Textalyzer [The New York Times] The most provocative idea, from lawmakers in New York, is to give police officers a new device that is the digital equivalent of the Breathalyzer — a roadside test called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of any drivers involved and use the Textalyzer to tap into the operating system to check for recent activity.
posted by Fizz at 7:32 AM PST - 163 comments

R2D2 vs BB8

Leaked clip from Star Wars Episode VIII
posted by beerperson at 6:01 AM PST - 10 comments

If Bigfoot is Real, Where are the Bodies? On the UFOs, obviously!

In 1979, scientist Kewaunee Lapseritis was first telepathically contacted by a Sasquatch and an ET simultaneously, which was the shock of his life! To further complicate matters, the contact changed him and he developed psychic ability overnight, which triggered a spiritual transformation. Psychic Sasquatch covers the intersection of hairy hominids, UFOs, and psychic ability. Lapseritis' first book, The Psychic Sasquatch and their UFO Connection was recently featured in The New Yorker. [more inside]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:08 AM PST - 40 comments

“The Cowboy Hávamál”

5. You ought to have
a damn sight of learnin’,
before you step outside that door.
It’s a lot easier to stay at home,
but no one’ll listen to you if you stay there. [more inside]
posted by aldurtregi at 4:45 AM PST - 6 comments

Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto

Mr Wright has provided technical proof to back up his claim using coins known to be owned by Bitcoin's creator. Prominent members of the Bitcoin community and its core development team have also confirmed Mr Wright's claim.
Previously.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:12 AM PST - 88 comments

Click TANE to continue

TANE          T
      T      A
T      A    N
A       N  E
N        E
E
      T A N E
[more inside]
posted by Spinda at 12:29 AM PST - 42 comments

May 1

Betty Boop's got more metamorphing going on than Ovid!

Whatever happened to the happy modernists?
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:24 PM PST - 11 comments

Turtle Torque & Tippe Tops

Tadashi Tokieda demonstrates discontinuities and phase changes with physics toys. (SLYT 58m)
posted by nom de poop at 10:38 PM PST - 5 comments

Totally NOT Off the Rails

Last week, Berlin hosted the 5th Annual TRAM-EM European TramDriver Chanpionship (in English) (in German), with the best drivers from 27 cities competing and Budapest becoming the first two-time winner. In addition to the main competition for smoothness in starting and stopping and precision in stopping, they ran a side contest: TRAM BOWLING (longer videos).
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:06 PM PST - 10 comments

home forever

The House Of Eternal Return is a ... place ... built and run by Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Retro Roadmap

With Retro Roadmap, Mod Betty makes it easy for you to find Cool Vintage Places - (grand)mom & (grand)pop places that have stood the test of time while still retaining their authentic charm.
posted by MoonOrb at 8:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Life finds a way...

Jurassic Parkour. Also American Ninja-Saurus. And T-Rex doesn't want to be fed; T-Rex wants to dance. Yes, T-Rex is a pretty ballerina. [more inside]
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:35 PM PST - 12 comments

On thin ice

Every winter in Russia's east, the rivers that vein the enormous open spaces of siberia freeze solid. Photographer Amos Chappel joins one group of men who make a living on these frozen highways.
posted by smoke at 7:23 PM PST - 37 comments

Welcome, iPad users, to Zombocom.

The only limit is yourself. [via mefi projects]
posted by not_on_display at 5:59 PM PST - 32 comments

We don't see the fairy tale from this side of the stage.

Dance of the Little Swans - auditions and the first years at the Vaganova Ballet Academy. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 5:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Their own personal Jesuses

In the northern Romanian region of Maramureș, roadside crucifixes are part of the countryside landscape and a symbol of people’s spiritual views. Traditionally, they were handcrafted locally and so they were also visual displays of local art. But local handcrafting skills are quickly disappearing and their preservation hardly encouraged. And so the locals switch to representations of Jesus mass produced somewhere in the world. The new plastic Jesus does not reflect the old spirit of the villages but a new trend instead, a mix of consumerist practicality and kitsch. In an ongoing series, photographer Vasile Dorolti tries to capture these People and Crosses, before they disappear. [more inside]
posted by Kabanos at 5:09 PM PST - 3 comments

Indistinguishable from magic

20+ drones; 16,500 LEDs; 3 shamisen players; 1 Mt. Fuji: Filmmaker Tsuyoshi Takashiro orchestrates a performance combining drones and the Oyamakai shamisen ensemble.
posted by wintersweet at 4:22 PM PST - 13 comments

An endless series of interchangeable party anthems and syrupy love songs

What Happened to Country Music? Lyrical themes of Billboard #1 Country hits, 1965-2015. [via mefi projects]
posted by not_the_water at 2:35 PM PST - 65 comments

A man and his botfly

Parasites Are Us: How biological invaders challenge our idea of self and other
The maggot was never invited into Coyne’s head. For those weeks it lived there, however, wasn’t the maggot in many ways literally Coyne? After all, other than the tip of its breathing tube, the maggot existed completely inside his body. Besides, the maggot was flesh-and-blood Coyne in the most literal sense: Almost the entirety of its physical bulk consisted of Coyne’s tissue. [more inside]
posted by wonton endangerment at 2:10 PM PST - 56 comments

Burnistoun, twinned with Quimper, Verona, R'lyeh

South Burnistoun Housing Association deals with a complaint (slyt)
posted by howfar at 11:51 AM PST - 12 comments

Bosch Work Memes: Typing bird-god words per minute

The feverish apocalyptic stylings of Hieronymous Bosch are detailed, and oddly fitting of various workplace. To better appreciate the individual characters in his pieces, and how they may provide a mirror to office life, gaze upon the Bosch work memes tumblr. Also available via Twitter and Facebook [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:18 AM PST - 14 comments

How are you, Sir?

Hello Hello Dinosaur
posted by dhruva at 10:08 AM PST - 12 comments

The Most Enthusiastic Dads

These male pufferfish want to be everybody’s baby daddy. [more inside]
posted by cynical pinnacle at 9:43 AM PST - 3 comments

The Increasing Problem With the Misinformed

“The rise of the misinformed is now the largest obstacle for success for journalists today (outside the concerns that relate to publishing). If people don't trust the news, you don't have a news business.” Thomas Baekdal writes a strategic analysis for media companies to earn their readers’ trust, looking at data from PolitiFact to understand how misinformation spreads and what journalists can do to stop it.
posted by Rangi at 9:06 AM PST - 53 comments

Obama Out

Obama gives his final, hilarious remarks to the 2016 White House Correspondant's Dinner (SLYT)
posted by rebent at 8:53 AM PST - 86 comments

Satan is an individualist

Every movement needs it's Magician and Surrealism had Kurt Seligmann, a painter who was heavily into the Occult.
Gallery owner Rowland Weinstein was surprised that Seligmann's works was largely forgotten or unknown.
Here you can explore his prints and his written Magnus opus is still available.
A Biography and the full title quote and a couple more.
posted by adamvasco at 8:47 AM PST - 4 comments

World Penguin Day Week

Did you observe World Penguin Day? Opus did, and then managed to stretch it to a full week*. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 8:31 AM PST - 13 comments

The robust tuberous begonia lends beauty and freshness to the carpet.

Every two years in Brussels, they build a huge carpet out of flower petals and sod grass in the main square. The Flower Carpet is 75 m long x 24 m wide and is typically made out of 600,000 flowers. Why do they do it? Why not! It's pretty. [more inside]
posted by colfax at 6:41 AM PST - 14 comments

Dance around a flowery pole, or topple the capitalist war machine!

"May Day: America's Traditional, Radical, Complicated Holiday," from the Smithsonian NMAH blog. Part One, Part Two.
posted by Miko at 6:30 AM PST - 16 comments

please enter your phone number in the most excruciating way

How NOT to ask people to key in their phone numbers on web forms.
posted by divabat at 6:24 AM PST - 84 comments

I have a story to tell.

Once there was a boy who had a large dog. The dog was called Xentrix. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by lmfsilva at 5:59 AM PST - 2 comments

Ron Mael at the Tropicana Motel

The definitive guide to paradise, Hollywood style.
posted by mintcake! at 5:25 AM PST - 13 comments

We got each other, and that's a lot

Fan Jeremy Fry dances to Bon Jovi at a 2009 Celtics game. Via this Aeon link: How being awesome became the currency of our time.
posted by Sebmojo at 3:13 AM PST - 16 comments

Why Spinoza still matters

At a time of religious zealotry, Spinoza’s fearless defence of intellectual freedom is more timely than ever Steven Adler, professor of Jewish Studies, in Aeon.
posted by joost de vries at 1:57 AM PST - 28 comments

Bitter Taste in My Mouth / Spit it Out With a Rhyme

Riz MC has just dropped his new mixtape Englistan. Released on St George's Day, it turns out that as a second generation immigrant he has some thoughts about identity and nationality. [more inside]
posted by sarcas at 1:27 AM PST - 6 comments

My potions aren't fit for a BEAST, let alone a MAN!

On September 22, 2011, Justin Kuritzkes posted a short video called Potion Seller, in which he takes advantage of a distortion filter on his camera to act out both roles of a dialogue between a magnificently coiffed knight and an impish potion seller. This video inspired a small but dedicated fandom that persists even today. [more inside]
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:31 AM PST - 25 comments