Bookmarks (1111)

"To be sure, the worry is not that the AMOC is on the verge of a complete stop. The fear is that it will cross a pivotal threshold, and then begin a decline that is unstoppable. ... It follows, then, that you'd wonder how close we humans are to that threshold. Perhaps you'd heard about the AMOC's frailty; the shutdown threat; maybe even the...

As the 2024 Paris Olympics opens (with sabotage by unknown actors), it's time to look back at one of the biggest marketing missteps of the Olympics - the McDonald's "When the US Wins, You Win" campaign of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.The premise was simple: Get a card with an event on it If the US won a medal - you get a...

The Tour Divide is an unsupported race of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, a 2,745 mile/4,418 km route with over 200,000 feet/61,000 metres of climbing stretching from Banff, Alberta to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. This year 15 year-old Edyn Teitge became the youngest finisher ever completing it in 19 days, 13 hours, and 14 minutes.This isn't a race like the Tour de France...

Like many other filetypes (Office, OpenDocument, EPUB, JAR), WinAmp skins (WSZ) are secretly just ZIP files with specific contents and their own file extension. Jordan Eldredge, the creator and maintainer of the WinAmp Skin Museum (previously, again), investigated a variety of corrupt skins, and from there found a wide variety of interesting stuff, including text and audio files, images, a simple game, and other...

Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Representatives Hank Johnson (GA-04), Jerry Nadler (NY-12), Cori Bush (MO-01), and Adam Schiff (CA-30) have cosponsored The Judiciary Act, not just calling for Supreme Court reform, but introducing (again and again, since 2021 if I'm reading this correctly) actual legislation to make it happen."The Judiciary Act would expand the United States...

In an interview with noted right wing figure and transphobe Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk attacked his estranged transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, proceeding to deadname her while calling her "dead" because she transitioned, and saying he was "tricked" into signing off on her gender affirming care. In response, Wilson has given an interview with NBC News in which she details how Musk was both...

In Japan, Turning the Tables on Rude Customers NYT: in Japan, there's a word, "kasuhara" that translates into "customer harassment." Customers harassing workers have gotten so extreme that now businesses are fighting back instead of kissing customer booty."Some employers have removed surnames from name tags to protect employees from doxxing on social media. SoftBank, the technology giant, is developing an "emotion canceling" voice alteration...

This short gen fic from a cat's point of view amused me: If Comfy, Warm, and My Size, Why No Sit: A Meta-analysis of Research into the Warm Flat Rectangle by Dr Fluffy Jones

Marsh Family Songs: "Didn't like the way this J.D. Vance bloke (newly picked as Trump's running mate) slagged off the UK lately. Looked into him. Not great. Made a parody song inspired by ABBA called "Vance VP""

Generating sudokus for fun and no profit – Once upon a time, I decided to create a complete Sudoku application as my grandma wanted to play some Sudokus on her computer, and I wasn't satisfied with the free offers available. The project went on for some years and finally led to sudoku.tn1ck.com - a free and open source Sudoku app without any tracking. While...

"France's easy-to-make yoghurt cake recipe relies on volume measures facilitated by the ubiquitous 125g terracotta yoghurt pot." Bringing Up Bébé's Yogurt Cake Recipe. Yogurt cakes seem to do well with citrus. Yogurt research continues[SLPDF], as does functional cake research. There is also cake research, of course, which is not to be confused with cake ingredient science.This post brought to you courtesy of Gateau: The...

Raising his paddles in every major auction, Philbrick became a constant presence at all of the stops in the "circus," as art collectors call it: the Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips auctions; Art Basel Miami and Switzerland; Frieze London; the New York art fairs; and beyond. He became the darling of what one observer calls "the new collecting class," to whom he offered something as...

The high court in the Buckeye State ruled 4-3 that bones are not a foreign substance and that the customer should have assumed a boneless chicken wing may still have bones. Justice Joseph Deters: "A diner reading 'boneless wings' on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were...

A (not-so) Quick and Dirty Guide for 4-Year Fans of Rhythmic Gymnastics Back in May, Reddit user freifraufischer posted a detailed look at the runup to the Olympics for rhythmic gymnastics, with dozens of links to gorgeous routines with the ball, hoops, ribbon and clubs, as well as info about RG's byzantine scoring system, recent judging scandal and years of domination by the horrifically...

In California's Central Valley, 2100 acres of farmland have been changed from farmland into rain-water catchment. It refills the aquifers and prevents floods. "In addition to these two functions, the restored swamp also sequesters an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to that produced by thousands of gas-powered vehicles. It also provides a haven for migratory birds and other species that have faced the threat...

The Sentinel project is completed. The French artist Marine, aka moonovermarine, has recently completed a beautiful series of 14 embroideries inspired by the video game "The Sentinel" (1986), previously mentioned in MetaFilter. This work of over two years looks fantastic, with a luminous atmosphere and a magnificent rendering of pixels. The color palette is faithful to the game's chromatic range of the ZX Spectrum...

It is with heavy hearts that we bear the news that John Mayall passed away peacefully in his California home yesterday, July 22, 2024, surrounded by loving family. Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world's greatest road warriors. John Mayall gave us ninety years of tireless efforts to educate, inspire...

My family and other Nazis. An edited version of the Krzysztof Michalski Memorial Lecture, given at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna in June 2024 by Austrian writer Martin Pollack, author of The Dead Man in the Bunker.

With advocates on both sides framing their positions in terms of absolute right and wrong, it has become nearly impossible to have a nuanced conversation. (slMacLeans)

Scientists discover high levels of cocaine in Brazilian sharpnose sharks. Sharks off the coast of Rio de Janerio have tested positive for cocaine, but it is not known how it affects their behaviour.

As abortion pills cross state and federal borders, they also cross conceptual boundaries, shifting in status between legal and illegal. Any drug can acquire the label of a fake or falsified product, not because of problems in manufacturing but because of irregularities in packaging, distribution, regulatory authority, and mobility. Depending on its geography and the logistics of its journey, the same medicine can be...

Will Quinn posts daily bunnies over on BlueSky, also posting them to his website, Instagram, and (not so much anymore on) Twitter. Quinn also does comics.I love seeing the daily bunny, and it always makes me smile. Note that a search for "daily bunny" on MetaFilter returns a previously, but it's a different daily bunny.

James C. Scott, noted anthropologist and author dies after "having suffered from heart and kidney failures, Maung Hmek had decided to pull the plug on himself, declining dialysis and other medical interventions, but he was still following Myanmar affairs" (Remembering Maung Hmek aka Shwe Yoe aka James C. Scott)Best known for his book Seeing Like a State, he was mentioned many times on Metafilter,...

The microlino [wiki] is a cute little electric bubble car from Micro Mobility Systems [wiki] of kickscooter [img] fame. But is it any good? Why not watch a YouTube review from Aging Wheels, Fully Charged (and again) or The Late Brake Show to see what they have to say about it?

Readers with an intimate experience of oppression and cruelty have often responded sympathetically to Fanon's insistence on the psychological value of violence for the colonized. In a 1969 essay, the philosopher Jean Améry, a veteran of the Belgian anti-fascist resistance and a Holocaust survivor, wrote that Fanon described a world that he knew very well from his time in Auschwitz. What Fanon understood, Améry...

St Wilfrid's Catholic School in Crawley have produced an end of year video featuring their headmaster - a faithful shot by shot remake of Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice. There's even a side-by side comparison.

Decapitated but still dangerous: How a dead snake can still cause a lethal bite. A snake doesn't have to be alive to bite and kill you. So how can this be, and how long can they remain dangerous after they've wriggled off this mortal coil?

'When they discovered oxygen 13,000 feet underwater, in areas so dark that photosynthesis would be impossible, they initially thought their equipment had malfunctioned. Eventually, they came to suspect the polymetallic nodules were a source of this "dark" oxygen.' [yale environment 360][nature geoscience:] 'The oxygen evolution reaction requires an input voltage of 1.23 V plus an overpotential of approximately 0.37 V to split seawater into H2 and...

No strangers to controversy (previously: sad puppies for a few years, self-censorship last year), the Hugo Awards have been hit again, this time by fraudulent voting. According to Glasgow 2024 Hugo Admin, nearly 10% of the votes cast were not by "natural persons." Read or listen to the full statement.

When working on Buttplug applications, something that should be at the forefront of your design thinking is: Someone is going to fuck this. The context of this usage should influence all levels of design, from UI/UX to low level code decisions. Assuming the user will approach a piece of software that involves Buttplug in the same way they would, say, a word processor, will...

Just because the weather is unbearbly hot (in the Northern Hemisphere) doesn't mean you should go without dessert. Let's look at the magic of the "Icebox Cake" introduced to the US in the 1920's and a staple of summer time for decades to come. Skip the oven and eat your cake too.The classic concept: take hard biscuit cookies and layer with whipped cream. Allow...

Do you need to make some dovetails joints but aren't sure how many dovetails to use or what angle would look best? Do you want to make a stick chair but want to visualize your design first? layout.computer has what you need!Yeah, this is some fairly hardcore woodworking nerdery, but they're also fun widgets to play with, particularly the chair tool, which can produce...

YouTube User Lyn Johansen on her channel, "This Typewriter is Broken," takes us through her typewriter collection and discusses the authors who used the same model. Videos about twenty minutes longA small selection: Ray Bradbury Wheelwriter Erika Cyrillic Akhmatova Brodsky Underwood 319 and ee cummings

Yelp's Affect on Restaurants and Everything Else The sentence "It is now nearly impossible to get through a day without being asked to rate something" is RELATABLE.

A guide to the coming attacks on Kamala Harris. The frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination quickly raised over $50 million in small donations on her first day as a presidential candidate and has consolidated endorsements from many of the folks thought to be potential rivals for the nomination, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Illinois...

From C. E. McGill: "Both Victor and the monster die at the end of Frankenstein, fading tragically into the arctic sunset, but I couldn't bear to do the same to Mary. Perhaps (despite my love of tragic queer horror), it would have felt in this case too close to burying my gays; perhaps I simply felt that, after all her hard work, Mary deserved...

What would happen if Trent Reznor had been transported to 1979? Probably not this, but it's pretty amusing. SLYT.

How ABC Australia made two hours of TV about an ancient true crime mystery. From filming in some of the most remote and inhospitable areas of Australia, to working with an A-list Hollywood actor, this is how the ABC Science team investigated what killed our ancient megafauna.

Describe, recollect, or muse upon, a significant sound or voice in your life - heard regularly, or just once, or historically in some way. Perhaps the first time you heard your partner or child, a piece of music, birdsong, a TV theme, a sound from a movie, or a sound or voice on a memorable trip, anything which has stuck in your mind ......

What is today called "artificial intelligence" should be counted as a Copernican Trauma in the making. It reveals that intelligence, cognition, even mind (definitions of these historical terms are clearly up for debate) are not what they seem to be, not what they feel like, and not unique to the human condition. Obviously, the creative and technological sapience necessary to artificialize intelligence is a...

Never got around to reading Homo Sacer? Me either. So I watched this animatic. But consider, in the next election, when you pick a Sovereign, you're also picking who gets to be Bios, and who gets to be Zoë. Homo Sacer reviewed in a YouTube video essay, The link that started this post AGAMBEN HOMO SACER ANIMATIC, Homo Sacer slide deck [Triple Link YouTube]

Nickleback, "How You Remind Me," & the Slow Death of Grunge Surprisingly good video essay from Trash Theory that places Nickelback's early 2000s success in the context of CanCon, post-grunge, and the 9/11 release date of Nickelback's breakthrough album, Silver Side Up.

A recent paper on The Importance of Continents, Oceans, and Plate Tectonics for the Evolution of Complex Life (pdf) by Stern and Gerya, published in Nature, suggests that the rarity of planets with continents and plate tectonics might resolve the Fermi Paradox -- the problem of explaining why we haven't found intelligent, communicative, extraterrestrial life given that plausible models say such life should be...

In an artist statement, Sikander noted that "Witness" forcibly reinserts women as participants in and spectators of patriarchal law and morality, demanding agency and autonomy through natural elements in light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Justice Ginsburg's 2020 death. When it came time for the works to be installed at the University of Houston campus last February, Sikander and the school...

This superfood has been around for 60,000 years, so why don't we use it more? A group of First Nations Australians is leading the push to put native grains on the menu, foster an industry that stays in Indigenous hands, create employment, and improve health.