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There's no sign that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes will let up anytime soon, as Hollywood creatives ratchet up the rhetoric by calling for the breakup of the studios on antitrust grounds. As Matt Stoller reports, this makes strange bedfellows: "Most of the public noise during this period of chaos is coming from the more labor oriented activist-types, but behind the scenes, the serious financiers and producers are worried as well, because the ability to actually make money by making and distributing films and TV shows is falling apart."
posted by rhymedirective at 1:38 PM PST - 50 comments

It makes sense to be wary of scams: you should not reply to your spam emails, no matter how much you’d like to help a prince retrieve millions from his trust fund. But there are costs to excessive scepticism, too, for both the self and the social order. A diverse body of evidence from psychology and behavioural economics can help us understand those costs. On a personal level, the fear of being suckered can encourage someone to be risk averse, to avoid the kind of cooperation that is essential to any new venture. At the systemic level, the stakes of distrust are even higher. from ‘Wait, am I the fool here?’ [Grauniad; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 1:05 PM PST - 42 comments

Could weathered rock be the magic dust that vaults us towards our climate goals? "Previous research has looked at the huge potential of rock weathering—the process through which rain that captures CO2 from the atmosphere as it falls, reacts with rock to form carbonates which capture the carbon. ... ‘Enhanced’ rock weathering is a process that relies on first grinding the rock up to increase the available surface area for the weathering action to occur. Vast tracts of farmland provide the ideal real estate where this technology can be applied at scale—and farmers benefit, as weathered basalt enriches the soil with crop-boosting minerals over time." [more inside]
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:51 PM PST - 52 comments

Bayt Al Fann ("Art House") is a website featuring Islamic art, architecture, food and history, including detailed artist interviews. They have a very active Twitter presence and archive many of those threads, including beautiful Hajj certificates, Kufic script, Ismail al-Jazari, the "father of robotics", paper quilling and Islamic art, ancient manuscripts of Mali and Timbuktu, Turkish ebru marbling, the Middle Eastern roots of the samosa, and mosques in Malaysia, the Philippines, China and ancient Africa as well as mosque ceilings from around the world. [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 11:57 AM PST - 5 comments

You know the scene in Ghostbusters where the power's been shut down, the ghosts have broken containment, and they start to run amok in New York? The distinctive, eerie song- "Magic" by Mick Smiley- that accompanies it exists only in the film and on the soundtrack; it was never released as a single and Smiley never released it himself. But who even is Mick Smiley? In 2016, Josie Riesman tracked him down and got his story.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:29 AM PST - 49 comments

The history of television is a vast wasteland of terrible decisions. For every groundbreaking show like Breaking Bad, Star Trek, and All in the Family that got on the air, there are 50 duds like Capitol Critters, Homeboys in Outer Space, and Joanie Loves Chachi. For every brilliant network idea, like NBC allowing Jerry Seinfeld to make a “show about nothing,” there are 100 insane ones, like ABC allowing Jim Belushi to create 182 episodes of According to Jim across eight seasons. (archive,today link) [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 6:25 AM PST - 170 comments

Here's why Americans can't stop living paycheck to paycheck - "The typical worker takes home $3,308 per month after taxes and benefits, based on the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But when you take a look at the cost of some of the most essential expenses today, it's easy to see why consumers feel strained." [link-heavy FPP! :] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:19 AM PST - 49 comments

Mschf, those merry pranksters of the internet, have invented a new take on collaborative reanimations (not listed there is one of the newest: the excellent Popeye: Barbecue for Two): The Free Movie, a collaborative redrawing of Bee Movie that anyone could collaborate to. It's bee-n completed already, and you can watch it in full (complete with MSDCHF-suppoied voices and sound effects), but they're currently making a second one: John Wick 4 Free. Draw as many or as few frames as you like, or as much or as little detail as you like, with only a single-pixel brush, an eraser, an undo button and a preview button. If you don't think you can draw your assigned frame, just reload for another. (Contains violence, inevitable drawings of dicks, and Bee Movie.)
posted by BiggerJ at 5:34 AM PST - 3 comments

YouTube link to a Guns N' Roses song called "Perhaps."
posted by cgc373 at 12:46 AM PST - 36 comments