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Yestarday, I posted about some free writing simulator games, one of which was recently made free to aid those practicing social distancing. I've just discovered that multiple walking simulators - first-person adventure games with little or no need for puzzle-solving - have been made temporarily free. They're listed below the fold, but the offer that expires soonest (in a few days) is the four games in Colorfiction's catalog (permanent link to their store). [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 11:07 PM PST - 6 comments

Asteroid Could Cause Atmospheric Explosion If It Gets Too Close From the Department of OK, Sure, What's Next: "an asteroid following an Earth-intersecting orbit was approaching the planet, and data collected by NASA indicates it's big enough to create a violent explosion in the atmosphere should it come too close." [more inside]
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:56 PM PST - 68 comments

TheB1M is a YouTube channel for large scale construction projects.
Here are some sample videos: Building Dubai Creek Tower, the World's Tallest Structure
How To Dispose of a Skyscraper
Building The Golden Gate:
Many others inside. New videos every Wednesday
posted by growabrain at 2:18 PM PST - 4 comments

At the North Pole, it’s all ocean, visited only rarely by an occasional research vessel or a lonely supply ship that strayed from the Northwest Passage. Sea captains choose their own time in the central Arctic. They may maintain the time zones of bordering countries—or they may switch based on ship activities. Sitting here in my grounded office, it is baffling to think about a place where a single human can decide to create an entire time zone at any instant. Time Has No Meaning at the North Pole -- The utter lack of time zones, daylight and people creates a bizarre world (Katie Weeman for the Scientific American blog) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:10 PM PST - 15 comments

A well prepared cat. A failure. The process of music. Sand. Egg. More failure. Christmas. But feeling fine. [more inside]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:38 PM PST - 18 comments

Price gouging, while illegal, is common. There is no shortage of stories going around about people buying up mass quantities of items to resell at high prices. Including one about someone trying to buy up the potential vaccine wholesale, with the intent to provide it "for profit" only. In a country where people born with diabetes can die from lack of affordable medication, are we really so shocked that so much of the general populace sees this behavior as normal? Moreso, what does it say about us when we continue to only punish the poor for price gouging? Those "enterprising entrepreneurs" were making strikingly similar arguments for their price gouging as pharmaceutical companies do, namely, that they needed to recoup their investment.
posted by deadaluspark at 11:55 AM PST - 58 comments

"Watching this seven minutes and 45 seconds worth of old black & white footage is captivating. Stand-outs on the reel are the unloading of a ferry boat, pedestrians strolling near the Flatiron building, the activities of busy street corners, and two young men holding hands as they cross a bridge together. ¶ One subject, though, that has always caught our attention – as much due to their weaving in and out of Broadway traffic in Manhattan as to where they were headed – is an affluent-looking family being driven in an open touring sedan by a black chauffeur." Can We Identify These People? (1911) (The Brownstone Detectives) [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:46 AM PST - 19 comments

“ Last week, The Daily Beast published a report on “Protech Local 33”—a supposed union that claims to represent workers in California’s growing cannabis industry. According to The Daily Beast’s reporting, signs point toward Protech acting as a “company” or (in labor slang) “yellow” union: something banned under both international and national labor laws. .... But our investigation, conducted through extensive research through Department of Labor records, court records, IRS records, the Chicago Tribune newspaper archive, and interviews with Chicago labor activists shows that Protech is much more than a company union—and connects back to a long, troubling history of corruption in some segments of organized labor...” ‘I heard you grow marijuana’: Inside the organization behind Protech Local 33 (Strike Wave)
posted by The Whelk at 8:14 AM PST - 6 comments

Maarit Hänninen is a Finnish artist who makes linocut work, and sometimes creates short montage videos documenting the process:
- Tomorrow, Tomorrow
- Nymph
- Eden
posted by cortex at 7:43 AM PST - 11 comments

Live on YouTube, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra versus COVID-19. [more inside]
posted by Coaticass at 2:25 AM PST - 6 comments