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7 October, 1948: French automaker Citroën unveils a strange little car intended for rural farmers. Built to be cheap to buy, reliable, rugged, and easily maintained, its design spec was that it could carry up to four people wearing clogs and hats and 50kg of farm goods at speeds of at least 50kph, and be able to carry a basket of eggs across a plowed field without breaking any. 75 years later, the Citroën 2CV remains an enduring emblem of French culture and engineering. [more inside]
posted by sonascope at 1:56 PM PST - 51 comments

Sudbury, ON woman goes viral for scathing obit about her dead father. Original TikTok here. [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 1:54 PM PST - 36 comments

Underlying the sellers’ complaints is a kind of dismay, the feeling that what had previously been a safe haven for nerds to buy and sell $2 records is being threatened — that one more corner of the internet that wasn’t yet a glossy behemoth designed to subsume and capitalize on your personal information was about to collapse.

Natalie Weiner writes about the fears that record catalog site Discogs is starting to enshittify itself.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:16 PM PST - 30 comments

KOSA empowers state attorneys general — even those from the most rabidly red states — to take measures against internet and social media companies that platform supposedly “harmful” material
posted by bq at 11:54 AM PST - 30 comments

On the morning of October 7, 2023, the Palestinian fundamentalist organization Hamas orchestrated an unanticipated assault on Israeli soil, marking it as one of the most significant attacks in recent years​​. The operation was multifaceted, involving rocket barrages and ground infiltrations, as well as taking military and civilian hostages. [more inside]
posted by Anonymous at 10:04 AM PST - 1679 comments

Lester del Rey was a strange Minnesota farm kid with a wild imagination and a knack for business. He intuited that what millions wanted from a publishing industry urgently optimizing to keep up with capitalism was to escape the modern age into a world where capitalism and industry had never happened. There is magic in that. from The Man Who Invented Fantasy
posted by chavenet at 7:29 AM PST - 24 comments

Slow & Steady is a new hour-long stand-up comedy special where the star of Joe Pera Talks to You, Joe Pera, talks to you. He ends by attempting to put the audience to sleep, with a live edition of his sleep podcast, Drifting Off with Joe Pera. [Joe Pera previously]
posted by Kattullus at 12:51 AM PST - 10 comments