May 30
Not an accurate depiction of the fur trade
Hundreds of Beavers is an indie film made in six weeks for $150,000. It's like a modern combination of 20s and 30s slapstick films and live-action Looney Tunes. It's currently available on Apple and Amazon streaming platforms. A 19th century trapper battles nature and wildlife (depicted by people wearing mascot costumes) to win the hand of a furrier's daughter. It's filled with hundreds of gags. Here's the trailer, the opening, and a clip showing the costumes.
Trump Verdict Thread
The jury has reached a verdict and is currently filling out paperwork until about 5:15 Eastern. Trump was looking cheerful and relaxed, sharing smiles and laughs with his lawyers, as they prepared to leave for the day. As soon as the judge announced that instead we had a verdict, his demeanor changes dramatically. He crossed his arms and knitted his brows. He continued to whisper with attorney Todd Blanche, but no longer cheerfully. [more inside]
disquieting images that just feel 'off'
If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.So stated an anonymous 2019 thread on 4chan's /x/ imageboard -- a potent encapsulation of liminal-space horror that gave rise to a complex mythos, exploratory video games, and an acclaimed web series (previously; soon to become a major motion picture from A24!). In the five years since, the evolving "Backrooms" fandom has canonized a number of other dreamlike settings, from CGI creations like The Poolrooms and a darkened suburb with wrong stars to real places like the interior atrium of Heathrow's Terminal 4 Holliday Inn and a shuttered Borders bookstore. But the image that inspired the founding text -- an anonymous photo of a vaguely unnerving yellow room -- remained a mystery... until now. [more inside]
naked intimidation with plausible deniability attached to it
Atlanta police surveil people opposing Cop City. Police have been carrying out continuous surveillance and harassment of protestors, their families, and neighborhoods for months now.
Free tax filing, now and forever. (Actual taxes still not free)
The IRS announces that "Direct File will be a permanent, free tax filing option." Despite years of lobbying from the likes of Intuit and H&R Block, the IRS ran a successful pilot program of its Direct File program with 12 states. Today, they announced that the program will be permanent and invited all states to participate.
How do you do, fellow script kiddies?
The FBI and Interpol announce Operation Endgame, the "largest ever operation against botnets". And they made some animated videos to go with it!
Regional property owners turning unusable land into money through solar
Regional property owners turning unusable land into money through solar energy leases.
With upheavals in the agriculture industry making some farms unviable, a landowner in South Australia is encouraging others to consider repurposing their properties for renewable energy projects.
The 180 year rematch: USA vs Canada opens the cricket Men's T20 world cup
The 20 country, 55 match tournament is hosted through June 2024 by the West Indies and the USA. Guardian: “Khan’s first delivery back bowled Shakib off his inside edge. His fourth was a yorker, which pinned the new batsman lbw. His 10th, delivered in the final over, was edged and caught by the wicketkeeper. The three wickets cost 11 runs and USA won the game by six. “It was a big achievement to take down a top ten T20 side,” Khan says, two days later. But he believes there are even bigger ones ahead. The T20 World Cup starts with their [USA] opening match against Canada in Grand Prairie, Texas, this Saturday.” Official World Cup website, Wikipedia page. Scorecard for USA vs Canada from 23rd September 1844.
Making knowledge public
The Bobcat Comics series features collaborations between artists and UC Merced scholars. The comics explore research on colonial Alta California, how Latinas use "journey" rather than "war" metaphors when talking about breast cancer, unruly patriarchs and failed women and more. One stand-out is How to Read an Aztec "Comic": Indigenous Knowledge, Mothers' Bodies, and Tamales in the Pot, a collaboration by artist Jordan Collver and Chicana Studies scholar Felicia Rhapsody Lopez about women's representation in the ancient Mesoamerican text, Codex Borgia/Yoalli Ehēcatl. [more inside]
If You're Not Having Fun, You're Doing It Wrong!
James loves working on vehicles but hates spending money. Watch him repair, resurrect, and reimagine old vehicles and machinery with a delightful combination of dry wit, patience, and an impressive collection of junk. Welcome to Low-Buck Garage.
My Spirit Animal is White Guilt
(2014) WaPo (archive) article about Gregg Deal's performance art piece in which he dresses up in stereotypical costume in public. Last spring, Deal came up with his own performance concept in which he’d dress up in a brash getup to physically embody what he believes many non-indigenous people envision when they think of a Native American. The mostly prefabricated outfit is a costume, not authentic regalia; is intentionally over-the-top; and holds no personal significance for Deal. (...) Suspicion is (...) displayed by a security officer at Potomac Mills mall who demands to know what Deal is doing (Deal’s response of “Shopping” irking the officer all the more). [more inside]
You're Expired!
Bill Pruitt's NDA, that is, from his time 20 years ago creating the entertainment show featuring Donald Trump, known as The Apprentice. Pruitt explains what he saw and what he let happen in a piece for Slate.
MEOWdulator
B's Music Shop has announced the Meowdulator ($199.99) which is a guitar effects pedal that meows and purrs (0:24 Instagram video). [more inside]
The Deliberation
After days of testimony and a marathon closing argument from the prosecution, the jury for the Trump hush-money trial begins its second day of deliberations. They have requested a replay of not only some of the crucial testimony, but at least a portion of the hour-long instructions Justice Merchan provided. The specific crime Trump is charged with turns out to be fairly complex, and Lawfare has an explainer.
Native American restaurants across the U.S.
Dictatorships depend on the willing
The Stasi files offer an astonishingly granular picture of life in a dictatorship—how ordinary people act under suspicious eyes. Nearly three hundred thousand East Germans were working for the Stasi by the time the Wall fell, in 1989, including some two hundred thousand inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, or unofficial collaborators, like Genin. In a population of sixteen million, that was one spy for every fifty to sixty people. In the years since the files were made public, their revelations have derailed political campaigns, tarnished artistic legacies, and exonerated countless citizens who were wrongly accused or imprisoned. Yet some of the files that the Stasi most wanted to hide were never released. In the weeks before the Wall fell, agents destroyed as many documents as they could. Many were pulped, shredded, or burned, and lost forever. But between forty and fifty-five million pages were just torn up, and later stuffed in paper sacks. from Piecing Together the Secrets of the Stasi [The New Yorker; ungated]
May 29
Live long and...nevermind
'Notes Torwards A Supreme Fiction'
"In the life of a poet, of course, there is no Election Day to distinguish the visionaries from the also-rans. So Stevens’s response, when it came, trickled down in dribs and drabs. Scholars argue over this: some see him as returning, defensively, to conservatism, particularly since in a 1940 letter he declared that “Communism is just the new romanticism,” and referred to “my rightism.”"
'What Mitt Romney Might Learn From Wallace Stevens' [archive link]
Good Samaritans joined by green sea turtle for unexpected road trip
Good Samaritans joined by green sea turtle for unexpected outback road trip.
After spotting a request for help on social media, Emily and Callum helped Squirt the turtle make the 600-kilometre (372.8 miles) journey from Port Hedland to Broome.
Topic 30: talk, anything, work, need, let, better, day, help, ever
Eruption has happened again on Icelandic peninsula
As reported previously on the Blue, the the Reykjanes peninsula had an eruption in the proximity of the town of Grindavík several months back, however the emergence had settled down after about a week of activity...until a new emergence opened up in the Sundhnuk crater. (SLYT live feed)
SH-to-the-R-to-the-I-M-P. You can't phase me, I'm crustazy!
The Town of McClellanville, South Carolina revolves around seafood: Shrimp, Fish, Oysters, Crabs, and Clams. Shrimp are the bread-and-butter of the industry. Each year they celebrate the Blessing of the Fleet, with it's own underground anthem referenced in the post title ([4m14s], Some NFSW Lyrics) Vimeo or YT.
The industry is threatened by more than imported shrimp (previously, previously): the owner of the fish house is ready to retire, with no one in line to take over. [more inside]
"The radical, ravishing rebirth of Tracey Emin"
Interview with Tracey Emin in the Guardian. Emin talks about art, social class, cancer, her philanthropy, love, her film Why I never became a dancer (previously), politics, her stoma and urostomy, the establishment's unacceptable treatment of her as a younger woman, her exhibition at the Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, her cat Teacup, her work being dismissed as "moaning", the different phases of her life ...
“We're going to need a bigger beaker”
[CW: So much penis] The Cut: As Bustamante injects five vials first into the sides of the shaft, then six more around the glans (if you’re picturing a mushroom as the head of a penis, that’s the glans, and he is injecting around the base rim of the dome), he sweeps the needle slightly from side to side, then uses his thumbs to massage out any filler lumps, sculpting through what he calls “transitional zones” like a potter smoothing an edge of clay. “It goes beyond just filling up a penis,” Bustamante says. “I really do think that there is an artistry to it, to making it look good: aesthetically pleasing, no lumps, smooth, consistent, looks natural, feels natural - all those things.” [Previously: post title] [more inside]
A dying empire led by bad people.
Young voters despairing over US politics "49% agreed to some extent that elections in the country don’t represent people like them; 51% agreed to some extent that the political system in the US “doesn’t work for people like me;” and 64% backed the statement that “America is in decline.” A whopping 65% agreed either strongly or somewhat that “nearly all politicians are corrupt, and make money from their political power” — only 7% disagreed."
Anti-American partnerships during WWII and the early Cold War
Confronting Another Axis? History, Humility, and Wishful Thinking. A long historical essay by Philip Zelikow, describing the perspectives of past and present US adversaries. "Zelikow warns that the United States faces an exceptionally volatile time in global politics and that the period of maximum danger might be in the next one to three years. Adversaries can miscalculate and recalculate, and it can be difficult to fully understand internal divisions within an adversary’s government, how rival states draw their own lessons from different interpretations of history, and how they might quickly react to a new event that appears to shift power dynamics." Via Noah Smith.
It makes for an interested digital archaeology story, though
In late 1987, Sierra On-line released Space Quest II: Chapter II: Vohaul's Revenge, sequel to the previous year's very popular Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter. Written using their Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine, SQ2 would go on to sell over 100,000 copies, earning an SPA Gold Medal and seating itself as 4th in Sierra's top 5 best sellers. [more inside]
Utopia Must Fall
Utopia Must Fall is a browser game (for mobile too) that evokes the days of 1970s and 80s vector scan arcade games. There are nods to Asteroids, Gravitar, Tac-Scan, Space Fury and other more modern titles like Geometry Wars, with gameplay reminiscent of Missile Command but with a research and upgrade upgrade system.
The password is CEASEFIRE if it asks.
Voices of (Lost) Generations
nothing, except everything. - "filmed throughout my last year of high school — to nothing and everything we feel."[1,2] [more inside]
So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time ...
The best music, the happiest families, the best fashion, movies, television, even the best cuisine--when did America peak? Whenever it was that you were a kid, a new poll shows.
The world's oldest culture is embracing high-tech vertical farming
The world's oldest culture is embracing high-tech vertical farming. Vertical farms grow plants quickly, using less water and land than traditional farming. One newcomer to the industry hopes it can put native herbs into supermarkets.
plantage to the moon
Alchemy, specifically the Paracelsian brand of alchemy-medicine, was prominent in the sixteenth and early years of the seventeenth century, not only in esoteric collections, but also in the “news” of the day. In 1600, the London College of Physicians examined a certain Frances Anthony who was suspected of prescribing and selling aurum portable (elixir). He was forbidden to continue his practice, a prohibition he repeatedly ignored in spite of fines and imprisonment. Three years later, in 1603, the controversy erupted between the Paracelsists and the medical faculty of Paris. Paul Kocher, historian, suggests that the theories of Paracelsus stirred up such a storm of controversy that, between 1590 and 1600, every educated person in England must have been aware of his works.[escholarshare, pdf] [more inside]
Satanic Paper Mills
One of those tools, the “Problematic Paper Screener,” run by Guillaume Cabanac, a computer-science researcher who studies scholarly publishing at the Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier in France, scans the breadth of the published literature, some 130 million papers, looking for a range of red flags including “tortured phrases.” Cabanac and his colleagues realized that researchers who wanted to avoid plagiarism detectors had swapped out key scientific terms for synonyms from automatic text generators, leading to comically misfit phrases. “Breast cancer” became “bosom peril”; “fluid dynamics” became “gooey stream”; “artificial intelligence” became “counterfeit consciousness.” from Flood of Fake Science Forces Multiple Journal Closures [WSJ; ungated]
May 28
Without You
Mark Gormley has passed away. Not many recognize the name. And because this is the internet, he was constantly mocked and ridiculed. But he wrote good songs, fine ones that stand on their own.
An overview from a couple years ago. [more inside]
"It has always been so"
Indian Shrimp: The True Price of a Cheap Appetizer. "IN JANUARY, Farinella finally decided to go public with what he knew about the plant and contacted a journalist. “I think it is likely that I was hired not to manage the facility, but to be the American face that provides the appearance of legitimacy,” he said. For a plant with so many problems, he added, “I’m afraid I can’t be that face.”"
Long form video
Biomedical Scientist Answers Pseudoscience Questions From Twitter
Immunologist Dr. Andrea Love does quick Q&A addressing a variety of pseudoscience claims as part of the Wired Tech Support series. [more inside]
“the disappointing love child of Frank Herbert and Ursula Le Guin”
Chapter One of The Mercy of Gods - the new space opera by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, AKA Expanse writer James S. A. Corey
The Problem with Darling 58
Saving the American Chestnut continues to be difficult. A breakthrough in genetic engineering was intended to bring them back and transform the science of species restoration while potentially netting its inventors millions of dollars and wide acclaim. Instead, a mix-up in the lab has sparked a veritable civil war in the niche conservation community.
The food mission to bring First Nations cuisine to all of Australia
"One deadly menu": The food mission to bring First Nations cuisine to all of Australia. At her local supermarket, Evelyn Billy looked around and saw food from all cultures — except hers. (Aboriginal Australian people use "Deadly" to mean excellent/amazing/really good.)
A tantalizing glimpse of a fully armed and operational weed scene
We walk into the smoking area next door, which is as peaceful and quiet as a library, if it was a library where you can borrow bongs, which you actually can. Most of the tables are full. A lot of people are on laptops. A TV above plays YouTube cat videos on a loop. Sure. We grab a booth and spark up. Immediately, I’m both thirsty and hungry, which provides irrefutable evidence that weed cafes are a good idea. from I got high in an SF weed lounge and these should be everywhere mannnnn by Drew Magary
Rich dude spends money building mini-sub to visit Titanic: 2024 edition
Independent: Mr. Connor recently announced plans to take a submersible to the Atlantic seabed in an effort to prove that safe, manned trips to the wreckage of the Titanic are possible. Metro: Connor told the Wall Street Journal: ‘I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way.’ Forbes: “Obviously he’s got a significant ego and really believes in his own abilities,” Roger Lipson, a longtime partner of Connor, told Forbes this year. @colorlessgrey.bsky.social: I don't know what about being a billionaire leads people to develop feelings about the Titanic that border on religiosity, but I do think taxation is the cure. [Previously]
"Music and humor are for the healing of the nations"
This post started as a single video of veteran musicmaker Leonard Solomon performing Skrillex's "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" on a homemade "Squijeeblion."
That led to discovering his YouTube channel @Bellowphone, full of similarly whimsical covers on a collection of bespoke instruments hand-built in his Wimmelbildian workshop, from the Emphatic Chromatic Callioforte to the Oomphalapompatronium to the original Majestic Bellowphone.
Searching for more videos led to his performance in the Lonesome Pine One-Man Band Extravaganza special from 1991, where he co-starred with whizbang vaudevillians like Hokum W. Jeebs and Professor Gizmo.
But what was Lonesome Pine? Just an extraordinary, award-winning concert series by the Kentucky Center for the Arts that ran for 16 years on public radio and television -- an "all things considered" showcase for "new artists, underappreciated veterans and those with unique new voices" featuring such luminaries as Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, k.d. lang, Koko Taylor, and hundreds more. You can get a broad overview of this televisual marvel from this excellent half-hour retrospective, see a supercut of director Clark Santee's favorite moments, browse the program directory from the Smithsonian exhibit, or watch select shows in their entirety: Lonesome Pine Blues - All-star Bluegrass Band - Nashville All-stars - Bass Instincts - Zydeco Rockers - Walter "Wolfman" Washington - Mark O'Connor - Alison Krauss & Union Station - Sam Bush & John Cowan - Maura O'Connell - Nanci Griffith - A Musical Visit from Africa [more inside]
Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC
“You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.” An investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call details an almost decade-long secret “war” against the International Criminal Court.
Microsoft WordPad: 1995-2024
Originally introduced as a feature of Windows 95, the RTF-compatabile word processor Microsoft WordPad will be removed in the version 24H2 release of Windows 11, due later this year. The app will be missed, along with AI agent Cortana and help directory Tips, but will be survived by its older sibling, Microsoft NotePad.
Like Lifting Up the Floorboards and Finding an Oil Well That’s Ready to
The Money In Menopause Supplements I created Dr. Jen's Menopause Taming Turmeric Supplements to find out just how much.
As influencers and podcasters all suddenly have their own menopause supplements, OBGYN Dr. Jen Gunter went through the steps of getting quotes to do the math on just how profitable selling a cheap turmeric pill with good marketing and no science can be. (Please note: She is not a crook. She is not selling anything. She just did the math.) [more inside]
Kado is one of only three speakers of Ngalia
Kado is one of only three speakers of Ngalia. He designed an app to pass down his knowledge to the next generation. The remote town of Leonora, more than 800 kilometres from Perth, is an unlikely technology hub, but its only school has been chosen to launch a new app aimed at preserving language and culture.
don't be evil
Once upon a time, Google would have encouraged users to verify its AI's claims with a quick Google search. Ironically, this now only works if users click through results to check information against primary sources—the exact practice Google is trying to shift users away from. [extremetech]
Let It Go
That all sounds scientific and careful. But is it really science or just applying scientific tools to a fantasy proposition? Is it possible to freeze the human body and revive it decades later? Currently, it’s not remotely plausible. Will it ever be? That’s probably an open question. As it stands now, cryonics is a bizarre intersection of scientific thinking and wishful thinking. from Horror stories of cryonics: The gruesome fates of futurists hoping for immortality [BigThink] [CW: Not Safe for Breakfast]
May 27
Jen and Dan chatting about work
Jen Psaki with Dan Pfeiffer: Lessons from the White House [1h6m, Commonwealth Club] is a great conversation about being White House Press Secretary between that Press Secretary and Obama's Communications Director. They're both really personable and full of anecdotes; it's a great talk.