MetaFilter

The truth has got its boots on: an evidence-based response to James Damore's Google memo [via mefi projects]
Mefi's own sciatrix drops science on Damore's unlistening head. Long, dense, and (from where I'm sitting) pretty darn definitive.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:43 PM PST - 98 comments

2017 has been a good year for robots, at least: three new world records for most robots dancing, fastest Rubik's Cube solving and First Robot Table Tennis Tutor. Below the fold I list alternate musical accompaniment for each story, from MeFite gmm. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:40 PM PST - 2 comments

The USS Indianapolis has been found, 18000 feet below the surface -- CNN story [more inside]
posted by vrakatar at 5:57 PM PST - 34 comments

For families divided by the U.S./Mexico border, there is one place where they are allowed to come together - almost. [more inside]
posted by cynical pinnacle at 5:39 PM PST - 7 comments

This time of year everyone on youtube has a dumb back to school hack to sell you. Cristine of SimplyNailogical has responded.
posted by phunniemee at 4:58 PM PST - 7 comments

"For the past 96 years, the annual Santa Fe Indian Market has been the largest cultural event in the Southwest, bringing together upwards of 1,100 Indigenous artists from the U.S. and Canada, and 150,000 visitors from around the world, more than doubling the New Mexican town’s typical population. Indian Market takes place the third weekend in August, and it has long been considered the most prestigious arts show in the Native community." (Smithsonian)
posted by strelitzia at 3:17 PM PST - 5 comments

"A lie by omission may be a small one, but for a movement so vocally concerned with where things come from, the proprietors of craft culture often seem strangely uninterested in learning or conveying the stories of the people who first mastered those crafts." Lauren Michele Jackson examines The White Lies of Craft Culture. (slEater)
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 1:16 PM PST - 22 comments

The faded advertisements on old brick buildings often go unnoticed, and they’re disappearing fast. Ghost signs have a special place in any city. Hand-painted signs were a popular form of advertising between the 1880s and the 1950s, before ads could be inexpensively mass produced, installed, and replaced. Their remnants offer a lens into a neighborhood’s past, reminding viewers about elements of commerce and life at certain points in history.
posted by adamcarson at 12:10 PM PST - 32 comments

Discussing a new divide: those who walk because they can and those who walk because they must. Why people walk now and where they walk illustrates a cultural chasm. At the end of this article is a corollary article "The Walking Poor" you can click on to get the other side of the chasm.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:44 AM PST - 39 comments

The Moon in Her Doorway. (Saturday flash fiction) "She didn't know why the moon had smashed into her house, trapping her inside. After working a double shift, she had walked home on tired feet under a night sky. The moon had hung large and low on the horizon, like a silver dollar. It balanced on the hill above her neighborhood. She remembered thinking, "It looks like it could roll into my arms."And then it did. Or almost. It was larger than it looked."
posted by storybored at 8:28 AM PST - 6 comments

"A typical stolen base is over within four seconds; a typical single within eight; a typical triple within 12. The most elaborate and disorienting plays might get to 20 seconds. I have found a play that took 26 seconds, and one that took 29 seconds, but I have never seen a play that took longer." The Portsmouth High Patriots, though, once tried a trick play that ran two minutes and thirty two seconds.
posted by Literaryhero at 6:38 AM PST - 42 comments