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The History Behind London's Green Cabmen's Shelters. As you walk around London you may come across one of these green huts by the side of the road. They are Cabmen’s shelters and they are amazing relics of Victorian London, but also a fantastic example of living history, as many of them are still in use today.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 5:54 PM PST - 20 comments

Six years ago, white supremacists marched (ostensibly) to defend a statue of Robert E Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today, two Washington Post reporters documented the process of cutting that statue up and melting the pieces down into ingots. (gift link) [more inside]
posted by firechicago at 4:23 PM PST - 30 comments

Hasan replies in his best medium. Many will make their own decisions. [more inside]
posted by skepticallypleased at 4:13 PM PST - 175 comments

Love in an Orchard, as Written by the Trees. Donating Kittens to the Goddess Bastet. Parental Grief. Same-Sex Love Spells. A Runaway Child Bride. A Bachelor Wishes to Marry. A Spell to Attract Women. His Mind is Shrouded in Darkness. I am Dying of a Broken Heart.

These and more vignettes of ancient Middle Eastern life at the Papyrus Stories Group Blog (click on language tab or hover on topic tab for best navigation).
posted by Rumple at 4:11 PM PST - 7 comments

Space settlement advocates frequently argue that we will soon be able to settle humans in space. Surviving on Mars is clearly a pre-requisite to settlement, and much work has been done examining the engineering aspects of this endeavor. Much less work has been done, however, on questions related to how to arrange a society in space. Early settlements will be dangerous, isolated, and cramped, and picking a social arrangement that is likely to result in a vibrant and productive society will be critical. To Each According to Their Space-Need: Communes in Outer Space [more inside]
posted by ockmockbock at 1:30 PM PST - 80 comments

Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department. (Sarah Mervosh, New York Times, Oct. 10, 2023; archive.org version)
posted by Gerald Bostock at 12:40 PM PST - 33 comments

Please enjoy Edison Motor's first demonstration of their electric semi running under load, silently hauling over 100,000 pounds of weird Sherman-Tank/Chevy thing, and 45 minutes explaining the design and engineering decisions around it.
posted by mhoye at 11:25 AM PST - 49 comments

Internet Artifacts: a thoroughly interactive multimedia timeline of the documents, technologies, and phenomena that defined the Internet in the pre-smartphone era. Come for the First Smiley (1983) and the First MP3 (1987), stay for the AOL Dial-Up handshake (1991) and the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (2006). [Via Neal.fun]
posted by Rhaomi at 11:19 AM PST - 15 comments

Over the last two decades, US colleges and universities have emphasized policies to protect students. But some within academia are now calling on institutions to do more to defend professors and other staff, who are also commonly targeted. Today’s academics have become public figures online and in the media in a climate of rising political polarization, racism and misogyny, and attacks on intellectualism. from The Lurker: It didn’t matter if she knew you — if you were a professor and Asian American, you were a potential target. [CW: stalking, racism, academics]
posted by chavenet at 12:21 AM PST - 48 comments