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Massive protests last year in Hong Kong (previously, previously, previously, previously) succeeded in getting an extradition bill scrapped. But now the Beijing government has passed a sweeping security law for Hong Kong which has led to immediate arrests, the purging of social media accounts and disbanding of protest groups, support from businesses including British banking giant HSBC, and fears that the new law covers everyone on earth. If you've been critical of Chinese or Hong Kong authorities, some legal experts are saying, don't board a Cathay Pacific flight or travel to countries which have an extradition treaty with Hong Kong. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 10:34 PM PST - 64 comments

The international foot is exactly 0.3048 of a meter, whereas the U.S. survey foot, 1200/3937 of a meter, has an unending decimal. This means that anyone working in multiple U.S. locations or with different agencies must keep careful track of which foot is in use.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:41 PM PST - 127 comments

Musician/ sculptor Bichopalo builds complex music machines from unusual objects. The machines feature plants where possible as well as other natural elements like sticks and water. They also include small spherical elements that double as bird houses to host Bichopalo’s two pet birds, Pico and Verdi. (Designboom) (Instagram) (short videos re-posted to Imgur)
posted by filthy light thief at 8:33 PM PST - 5 comments

Happy (Belated) Pollinator Week! US Forest Service's Pollinator of the Month includes Bats, Bees, Beetles, Birds, Butterflies, Flies, Moths, Mosquitos, and Wasps. What what? Yes, snow pool mosquitos, flower flies, and pollen wasps are all important pollinators (Pollen wasps look like yellow jackets but "are more like Ferdinand the Bull, who was more interested in smelling flowers.") And don't forget the cacao pollinator, the chocolate midge. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:12 PM PST - 10 comments

Optical Arts conceived this video as a “live action musical animation” of cups, plates, and glasses smashing and un-smashing accompanied by the toccata section of Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous organ piece, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. I thought it was fully CGI at first (as The Morning News reported), but then I found the making of video on the project page and it’s not — they filmed all the glasses and dished smashing at extremely high speeds between 1000 and 5000 frames/second on Phantom cameras.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:39 AM PST - 16 comments

MetaFilter favorite Cyriak (previously) is back, and teaming up with legendary band Sparks for their newest music video: "The Existential Threat".
posted by SansPoint at 11:16 AM PST - 27 comments

How is Duran Duran's Simon LeBon staying busy during the pandemic lockdown? In late April he started up a podcast WHOOOSH!. It's available to listen to online. So far there are 11 episodes, and they are full of interesting music and discussion. No RSS feed, but here's a YouTube playlist (audio only) of the episodes thus far, I assume it will continue to be updated.
posted by hippybear at 10:13 AM PST - 5 comments

On rewriting the terms of engagement with images of Black suffering. Images of Black suffering, death, and protest have widely circulated on the internet before: for example in 2012 after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s murder by George Zimmerman, or in 2014 after Michael Brown was shot in the back by Ferguson police officers. One difference this time is that it’s not just that people who already saw themselves as activists who have called their online followers to take to the streets and participate, but formerly nonactivist users have become politicized and seized upon the feed as a politicized space to engage in an activism of their own.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 9:30 AM PST - 4 comments

An Impossible Poison is a seven minute long horror film by Bidisha.
posted by Kattullus at 5:45 AM PST - 17 comments

Islamic history and medicine in trans Muslim lives. A post by Shireen Hamza on the Journal of the History of Ideas blog, on uncovering sex and gender in pre-modern Islamic law, medicine and society. [more inside]
posted by tavegyl at 4:13 AM PST - 4 comments

Elin Thomas makes corals, petri dishes, and moldy stuff using embroidery and crochet, along with other art.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:39 AM PST - 5 comments