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The first price is the cost of acquisition and then "in order to make use of the thing, you must also pay a second price. This is the effort and initiative required to gain its benefits."
posted by blue shadows at 9:20 PM PST - 41 comments

I hadn't heard of NANOGrav before today, but they've announced exciting findings. NPR puts it like this:

What they found is a pattern of deviations from the expected pulsar beam arrival timings that suggests gravitational waves are jiggling space-time as though it's a vast serving of Jell-O.

While the LIGO observaory on earth can measure gravitational waves with a wavelength comparable to its size (4km), NANOGrav's neutron star observations work on a scale of light years, so they see an entirely different "slice" of gravitational waves, much like the difference between visible light and radio waves.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 5:32 PM PST - 21 comments

Anthony Vincent recently wrote a lovely song about his cat. (SLYT)
posted by zaixfeep at 2:36 PM PST - 9 comments

The latest salvo in the internecine let-them-fight war between millennials and boomers comes from Fall Out Boy, who just covered Billy Joel’s headache-inducing earworm “We Didn’t Start the Fire” with an update of events that have transpired in the decades since the song’s release in 1989. Where Joel’s day-zero cringegasm (take it from me, folks — I was in high school at the time) at least makes its references chronologically, Fall Out Boy’s update is all over the map. John Wayne Bobbitt (1993) gets coupled with the Boston Marathon bombing that happened 20 years later. I can’t tell if “Keaton Batman/Bush v. Gore” means the 1989 Tim Burton movie or The Flash, but either way, they’re at least a decade apart. Even worse is the tastelessness in lyrics like “Shinzo Abe blown away,” then rhyming George Floyd with Metroid. Listening to this made me feel as unhappy as Hank Hill in the King of the Hill episode about religious rock: “You’re not making Christianity any better, you’re just making rock ’n’ roll worse!” Anyway, the single is available now. Listen if you dare; we really don’t recommend it. [via: Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 1:19 PM PST - 143 comments

The Scandalous History of Lady Jeans [Note: Twitter thread]
posted by chavenet at 12:18 PM PST - 24 comments

The palm that flowers underground "Some inches into the dirt however, structures start to emerge – an entire cluster of fruit, a stem and a crownshaft (the base of the leaves on palm plants), all buried in the soil. The entire reproductive structure existing below the surface means that the flowers are underground too. Highly unusual, even here in this place of great natural diversity."
posted by dhruva at 12:07 PM PST - 12 comments

Annette Dauphin Simon's book spine poetry is now a book with its own spine. Definition and examples from Marquette Law School staff.

Second place winner (ages 5-8 bracket) of the Saskatchewan Library Association's 2018 book spine poetry contest.
Fortunately the milk
Speechless
Cold as ice
Mmm, cookies!

And previously on MeFi. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:23 AM PST - 6 comments

White people food is the latest social media trend in China, with posters presenting minimalist lunches of raw veggies, crackers, slices to cheese, cold cuts and other staples, as Chinese young people discover the "lunch of suffering."
posted by chrchr at 10:18 AM PST - 95 comments

75 years ago, the New Yorker published a new story by Shirley Jackson. Stephen King, David Sedaris, Carmen Maria Machado and others on how “The Lottery” first got under their skin. [NYT gift link]. Haven’t read it yet? Here you go.
posted by Mchelly at 9:48 AM PST - 57 comments

This magazine started as a joke. Whenever a celebrity dies, especially a very old one, people online express surprise that he was still alive. Years ago, I posted on Twitter about a notional magazine where each issue would focus on "a person who it would surprise you to learn is still alive." Read about the remarkable lives of people like John Dean, Tippi Hedren, and Jonathan the tortoise, the oldest land animal on earth in Issue #1.
posted by jessamyn at 8:16 AM PST - 22 comments

Once, in 1987, a female orca wore a dead salmon on her head; weeks later, two other pods of orcas were all wearing salmon as hats! But it doesn’t matter. Not really. Because these orcas have captured the American cultural imagination. This is the summer of the whale. And popular sentiment favors the whales. In Slate, environmental historian Anna Guasco speculated about why this moment in whale violence feels different. “Part of what makes these boat-sinking whales into anti-capitalist allies is their choice of targets,” Guasco wrote. “Much of the coverage and response focuses on the whales’ attacking yachts in a popular European vacationing location. These yachts symbolize excesses of wealth under capitalism. This story simply wouldn’t have the same appeal or political resonance if the whales weren’t targeting symbols of wealth, waste, and opulence.” The Summer of the Whale from Lyz Lenz in Men Yell at Me. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 7:43 AM PST - 34 comments

Eid al-Adha (NYTimes gift link) Writer, Romaissaa Benzizoune, describes celebrating the Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, which has begun. [more inside]
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 7:19 AM PST - 10 comments

Twenty-five years ago today, The Undertaker damn near killed Mankind. Twice. It was one of the most memorable matches in the history of professional wrestling, and now Mark Calaway and Mick Foley are far enough removed to laugh at it as they rewatch the infamous Hell In A Cell match that redefined each of their careers in an instant. (CW: premeditated violence that resulted in real injury to both participants, blood, teeth, thumbtacks)
posted by Etrigan at 6:09 AM PST - 23 comments

Happy Pride Month! The 2019 film Stonewall Outloud [32m] is a documentary taken from the recordings of StoryCorps. Firsthand accounts are lip-synched and performed by current actors, interspersed with interviews and source material, bringing to life voices who witnessed the Stonewall Revolution and bridging the generations. I found it moving and affecting and I'm really happy to share it on this anniversary of the Revolution starting, 54 years ago. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 5:55 AM PST - 2 comments

Renewed push to save southern cassowary, called "Australia's own living dinosaur." (Not an actual dinosaur, except insomuch as all birds are dinosaurs.) The endangered southern cassowary looks akin to its prehistoric ancestors and there's a national push to save this beautiful giant bird from disappearing.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:23 AM PST - 20 comments