April 25
One man's solitary life with the cassowaries
The house that Yasi built: One man's solitary life with the cassowaries.
A devastating cyclone helped Kenn Parker build his rainforest home, and now his favourite neighbours are the cassowaries who come to visit with their chicks.
"...a rotating cohort of formerly incarcerated people."
"The overarching goal of All Square is to offer a true second chance at life post-incarceration that is otherwise systematically denied through near insurmountable restrictions to necessities like housing and jobs."
A Shred Of Hope To Cling To
In case the news cycle has anyone wondering when the side of the angels will win - George Santos has been sentenced to over seven years in prison. [more inside]
"They all agreed that twelve weeks was the acceptable standard."
The Fable of Complexity A video in which a .... medieval?... office worker gets overloaded, asks for help, gets help, and then things get worse and worse and more and more complicated. [more inside]
so i guess we're arresting judges now.
"I think I write toward the feeling of a door held ajar."
Lena Moses-Schmitt and Martha Park (LitHub, 04/25/2025), "Art and Craft: An Illustrated Conversation": "How does it feel to move between writing and art, for you? Do they overlap?" Lena Moses-Schmitt's website links to more of her work, e.g. "The Matrilineal Pleasures of 'A Life of One's Own'," "Drawing Cars," "Indoor Feeling," "Skating Costumes I Have Known," and "Blue Mountain." Martha Park's website links to more of her work too, e.g. "Natural Ends," "Cast in Concrete," and "The Ark at the End of the World."
An eddy of calm before the meteor storm
Maybe you’d meet somebody out, remotely checking the answering machine plugged into your landline for messages. Maybe you’d go home to make dinner and catch the news on TV or NPR. Then, if you were into computers, you might turn on the one you had at home and dial in to the baby internet via modem and read funny things or post on message boards, waiting, always waiting, for the pages to load, line by line. Did we have more time to read books then, or does it just seem that way? from From ‘Infinite Jest’ to Oprah’s Book Club, 1996 changed the (literary) world [LA Times; ungated] [more inside]
‘Why do they dislike me so much?’
For Charlotte Proudman, only one opinion matters: that of the women and children she defends in the family courts. [more inside]
A Dog's Way Home
After 529 days on the loose in Australia's Kangaroo Island, Valerie has been found! Previously on the blue: Well sometimes I go out by myself.
“What in the Maple MAGA, harmful stuff is going on here?”
How JD Vance Became a Flashpoint in An Election in Durham, Ontario (TheLocal - support independent Canadian media!)
Love means never having to say "Sorry about flopping on your head."
The common belief about cats, ferals in particular, is that tomcats are not fond of kittens (being obstacles in the way of mating again) and that raising them is the mother's burden. But, as is often the case, Shelly Roche's TinyKittens is both educational and full of surprises. [more inside]
Like walking through crumbling shelves of old notebooks
When people ask me why I shoot Polaroids, I lie to them
Give me the boxy, modest Polaroid, if only for its defiance, even of its creator. While poor Edwin Land was fixated on creating “the realization of an impulse,” something that could be “an adjunct to your memory,” what he couldn’t know, as the future unfolded beyond him, was that his creation’s enduring value would prove to be its relationship to every time but the present. from Polaroid Death Machine [The Georgia Review]
April 24
Coffin weavers create a loving last goodbye using invasive vine
Coffin weavers create a loving last goodbye using invasive vine.
Coffin weaving workshops teach people how to make an alternative to traditional wooden caskets to suit their loved ones while helping the environment at the same time.
Generally speaking a tileset should let you tell one tile from another
Mahjong Solitaire (also known as Shanghai) has been popular on computers since the 1980s, and it was particularly popular in the 90s when a version by Microsoft was released.
For those that don't know, it is a tile matching game that (typically) uses Mahjong tiles; aside from these tiles it shares nothing with Mahjong. Even then, the tiles are mostly an aesthetic choice; when I played on my Palm m500 I used a tileset made of punctuation characters, as they were much easier to see at that resolution. Generally speaking, a tileset should let you tell one tile from another. Today floppy disk enthusiast Foone Turing has located a tileset that is the exact opposite of that. [more inside]
Now add the Thoms
Half an hour of fascinating rhythmical nerdery: Analyzing RADIOHEAD's Rhythms - A Deep Dive into their Electronic Beats. (SLYT) From Captain Pikant, wherein you will find similar dives into Bjork, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Daft Punk and many others.
Never too old to thrash
Grinning mischievously, Juanjo Albizu dons a baseball cap, tucks his T-shirt neatly into his sweatpants and adjusts the velcro straps on his elbow pads before positioning his skateboard on the bowl's edge, ready for the "drop". Albizu's attempt at a gnarly trick draws stares because the athlete is a sight to behold, wheeling around the unassuming skate park in northern Spain having just turned 88. [Reuters; ungated]
Wizards of the Coast gets its comeuppance
"Wizards of the Coast has released the System Reference Document, the heart of the three core rule books that constitute Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 gameplay, under a Creative Commons license. This means the company cannot alter the deal further, like it almost did in early 2023, leading to considerable pushback and, eventually, a retreat. It was a long quest, but the lawful good party has earned some long-term rewards, including a new, similarly licensed reference book." [more inside]
LGBTQIA+ News: April 24 Edition
And now, news for, of, and about the LGBTQIA+ community. A lot of it is transgender-centric right now, but that's because of things going on in politics. I do promise more when it happens.
In this week's post: More fallout from the UK Supreme Court, the (Un)Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, crabs and cinnamon rolls
("Dog on Fire", the Daily Show theme, plays.) [more inside]
Will the real McSweeney please stand up?
Twenty-five years ago, the still-nascent Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency planned a cute little April Fool's Day prank (previously) with a family from Massachusetts (remember, dear reader, these were simpler times!). Then things swerved. (previously) [more inside]
Called it.
“Nobody knows about Howard.”
The story of Howard Smith is about boundaries and a figure who continually transgressed them. It’s also a story about life and art being inextricable. Smith loved fashion and dancing and Mozart. “The happiness and also the sadness in his music,” says Aaltonen, “[Howard] just loved.” He was also an inveterate collector of objects that he liked to arrange in his living spaces: African masks, vintage farming tools, Korean ceramics, and modernist pottery. Amid all of this, you’d find his own work. from The CIA and the Collagist [Alta]
April 23
How to support your friend who lives with ME/CFS or long COVID
That's pretty much all there is to say
0:03 ━━━🎂━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:19
Me at the zoo
jawed ☑
5.34M subscribers 【Subscribe】
355,641,639 views - 20 years ago - SAN DIEGO ZOO [more inside]
Me at the zoo
jawed ☑
5.34M subscribers 【Subscribe】
355,641,639 views - 20 years ago - SAN DIEGO ZOO [more inside]
Trump's Loss, Toronto's Gain
Current and future leaders in science, medicine, academia, law, tech and the arts are choosing Toronto as their destination, drawn to its stability, diversity and freedom of discourse. For many of these expats, our city is a perfect perch from which to combat the spread of fascism. What they all share is a deep desire to work in a country that values their contributions. We’re lucky to have them. (slTOLife) [more inside]
Darwin and Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace's Unrealized Last Book: Insights from the Plan for Darwin and Wallace "Wallace's planned book provides insight into how the co-founder of modern evolutionary biology saw his legacy in relation to Darwin's, and his role as fierce and eloquent defender of his and Darwin's theory during a fascinating period in the history of evolutionary biology. "
In New York, the call for “More!” rang out and was soon answered
I spent much of February exploring the rabbit-hole of the brief-lived phenomenon of books inspired by (or simply exploiting) the success and notoriety of Ursula Parrott’s 1929 novel, Ex-Wife. Recently reissued and featured in the title of Marsha Gordon’s biography of Parrott, Becoming the Ex-Wife, Ex-Wife is no longer a neglected book. But what most readers don’t know — even Gordon mentions it only in passing — is the extent to which Ex-Wife led to a whole series of Ex-titled books, most of them drawing upon or taking off from Parrott’s book. from The Ex- Files: Ex-Wife, Ex-Husband, Ex-Mistress, Ex-Racketeer, etc.
Marie Sharp’s Habanero Pepper Sauce
“In Belizean Kriol, the habanero pepper, rated 100,000 to 350,000 on the Scoville scale, is popularly described by the phrase, “Ih bun, but ih nice.” (Translation: It burns, but it’s nice.) Whether you’re enjoying a traditional coconut fish stew or everyday rice and beans, no meal is complete without a good dousing of a hot sauce loaded with the fruity yet fiery native pepper. And, you’ll find that more often than not, that sauce goes by the name of Marie Sharp’s.” [more inside]
"I know what cicadas are: little creatures that shriek in the evenings"
You Can't Smash an Egg With a Teaspoon
Googling a made-up phrase and appending "meaning" delivers confident wrongness from Google AI [Bluesky thread]. You can't lick a badger twice, but if you stare at the sea you'll eat your beans. [more inside]
Elon Musk is now effectively in charge of America’s public lands
DOGE Just Took Over National Parks Elon Musk and his evil minions just achieved a coup at the Department of the Interior, taking over control of National Parks, and other public lands [more inside]
Side eye
If you use language at all, you belong in what we might call the Lethem Sea (in the spirit of the idea of the Dirac Sea in physics). Your “original” thoughts, ideas, and creations, in a very deep sense, aren’t, in the sense that copyright-obsessed industrial modernity understands originality, attribution, provenance, and credit. They are original in the sense that you bring something of your individual lived uniqueness to how you transform what you suck up from the Lethem sea, and regurgitate into it. You’re “original” in the sense a drop of water thrown up waves on the surface of the sea is “original.” from The Ecstasy of Deep Influence by Venkatesh Rao
April 22
"It's basically like magic at this point"
How Do Graphics Cards Work? (SLYT).
Repair cafes don't just fix broken items, they foster connections
Repair cafes don't just fix broken items, they foster connections. Repair cafes extend the life of everyday items, but there are deeper benefits for all involved.
Willy Ley's Space Journey is Not Over Yet
Willy Ley was the face of science and space travel for many young people growing up in the forties, fifties, and sixties.He was omnipresent in books, television and movie scripts [more inside]
Audiences simply were not ready
Patrick (H) Willems explains why The Wachowskis’ Speed Racer (2008) is The Most Important Movie of the 21st Century [more inside]
They do it over there but we don’t do it here (in the US, that is)
Sunshine Coast Carjacking Chaos Sunshine Coast Carjacking Chaos
A history of the Big Dig
There is a strange irony behind the Big Dig: the most expensive highway project ever built in America began with a man who hated highways.
From WGBH, a nine-part audio history of one of the biggest infrastructure projects in U.S. history, starting with its roots in neighborhood activism, through its many controversies and several major leadership changes, to its aftermath for Boston in particular and large public works projects in the U.S. in general. Listen directly at the WBGH website, which also has links to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.
BBC French Cooking in Ten Minutes
Many of us are familiar with Edouard de Pomiane and his book French Cooking in Ten Minutes. You may not know that in 1995, the BBC made it into a six part TV series starring Christopher Rozycki as de Pomiane and Marilyn Taylerson as the mysterious Madame X. You can watch them all here. [more inside]
contamination is the companion of categorization
"One consequence of this series of coinages and definitional shifts is that the cisgender/transgender binary has a gaping hole in its middle. If, in the past, gender variance—epitomized by the queen—was the definitional center of homosexuality, now, in a historically shocking reversal, homosexuality has become gender-typical by default. [...] So what has happened to all the gender variants who do not desire transition? Put differently, what are the contemporary fates of those who would have been fairies, queens, and butches in the past?" Kadji Amin with a deliciously complex argument on how we get to our current moment, We Are All Non-Binary: A Brief History of Accidents. [more inside]
Startup to Overhaul $700 Billion Government Payments Program?
On April 17, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro of ProPublica reported that the administration is looking to replace the federal government’s $700 billion internal expense card program, known as SmartPay, with a contract awarded to the private company Ramp. Ramp is backed by investment firms tied to Trump and Musk. [more inside]
How the Hoover Dam was built
Another incredibly detailed 3D walkthrough from Animagraffs. From the description of the video: Explore the incredible Hoover Dam in 3D x-ray vision, including its construction and functionality, from overviews down to the fine details. [more inside]
Exhilarating day as library reopens after floods destroyed 29,000 books
Exhilarating day as library reopens after floods destroyed 29,000 books.
When floods decimated the Lismore City Library in 2022, photos of the damage sparked a national outpouring of donations. At last, the space has reopened to the public.
Three Fred
[WEEKLY FREE THREAD] Anyone else use this? I just wanted to hear the usual suspects check in.
*That* shot in Ryan Cooglers’ “Sinners”
Screen Rant looks at that shot in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners [SPOILER ALERT: Even the title of the article semi-spoils what was, experienced blind, one of the most amazing movie moments I’ve ever witnessed. So I urge you not to hover over the link or open the thread unless you’ve seen the movie]
UK cartoonist Rebecca Burke tells the full story of her ICE ordeal
"Rather than being readmitted to the U.S., she was instead turned over to U.S. border officials, who subsequently took Burke’s statement, classed her as an illegal alien, and informed her that she would be briefly detained before being returned home to the U.K. Fingerprinted, shackled, and placed on a bus to a detention facility, Burke would be incarcerated by immigration authorities for the next 19 days. [...] In her more than two weeks in that facility, Burke was kept in a single, large dormitory alongside 103 other detained women, given limited access to food, hygiene, and clean clothes, and unaware throughout the period when or whether she would be allowed to return home". [more inside]
"That took a lot longer than I thought it would"
Kari types in the code for "Frogger" (and other games) from a mid 80s computer magazine. Progress is...gradual. She shared her typed in code either the original scanned PDFs or the a working version - assuming you have an emulator.
Thousands in Salt Lake City chanted "AOC! AOC! AOC!"
AOC seizes the moment as Dems seek a new identity - "Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is drawing tens of thousands of people to her rallies with Sanders — even in red states. She's breaking her own fundraising records, and surging in early polling of potential 2028 presidential candidates. It feels to many top Democrats like she's grabbing Sanders' torch as a progressive leader — and that he's intentionally passing it to her. The two kindred spirits deny it... Ari Rabin-Havt, a deputy campaign manager for Sanders in 2020, said 'the movement will decide who leads it next, not Bernie.'"[1] [more inside]
What was once radical is now mundane
Part of the problem is that for most of Silicon Valley’s existence, its overarching monoculture privileged a certain type of “smart person.” It was the kind of smart person who campaigned for Barack Obama, marched for gay rights, and built a custom prayer stool to complement their priest fetish at the Folsom Street Fair. The subject of ethics was brought up frequently, but almost exclusively in the context of their nonmonogamous relationships. Black Lives Matter signs sprouted from their yards, and if they strayed beyond the strictures of atheism into spirituality, it was of the Eastern variety. Being Muslim was actually kind of cool, because if you were against that, you were probably xenophobic. And Judaism was all right too, because antisemitism was not yet in vogue. from Christianity Was “Borderline Illegal” in Silicon Valley. Now It’s the New Religion [Vanity Fair; ungated]