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I want to end the cycle of managing my living space
I am a middle aged lady and for as long as I can remember, I have been in a cycle of endlessly cleaning and organizing my living space.
"Some cold metaphorical literal rain"
'Window'
is a new music video by Canadian singer/songwriter Tamara Lindeman's The Weather Station.
"You make me think of many men Once met, to be forgot again"
"In May 1915, Marianne Moore made her first appearance in Poetry. Then twenty-seven-years old...The second time Moore submitted poems to the magazine, Harriet Monroe rejected them. A rather aggrieved Moore fired back, "Printed slips are enigmatic things and I thank you for your criticism on my poems. I shall try to profit by it.""
.."the late nineteen-fifties, when she was in her seventies, Marianne Moore became a star. She went on the “Tonight Show” to talk about the Brooklyn Dodgers with Jack Paar. The elderly poet was profiled in Sports Illustrated and featured on the cover of Esquire, with Jimmy Durante, Joe Louis, and others.George Plimpton picked her up in a limousine at her home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and escorted her to a game at Yankee Stadium."
Digging Into PlantStudio, a Bit Late
The calm, serene life associated with gardening pairs suspiciously well with rose-tinted wistfulness for a simpler time in computing. I’m happy to be wrong though, because software doesn’t get more real than PlantStudio. Written by Kurtz-Fernhout Software, PlantStudio is a surprisingly deep botany simulator for creating and arranging 3D models of herbaceous plants based on how real plants grow, change, fruit, and flower, over their life cycles. The last release of the app was in 2002, and it was for Windows 95/98/2000/NT4, but a little bit of work gets it running on macOS.
A machine for inducing nostalgia for a brief period not too long ago.
IMG_0001:
"Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in "Send to YouTube" button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments from random lives. [...] I made a bot that crawled YouTube and found 5 million of these videos! Watch them below, ordered randomly."
Hovering between dimensions, occupying space without truly filling it
The Menger problem would be their first time moving beyond school workbooks with answer keys. “It was a little bit nerve-racking, because it was the first time I was doing something where truly nobody has the answer, not even Malors,” said Nazareth. Maybe there was no answer at all. from Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal [Quanta]
The Invisible Man
A first hand report on homelessness in the US by someone who can really fucken' write.
Scents and sensibility
The Art and Mathematics of Genji-Kō
“ There has never been a group of people in any time or place who were so keen to display their sophistication and refinement. It wouldn’t do to merely put out a few sticks of incense - no, you would have to prove that your taste was more exquisite, your judgement more refined, your etiquette more oblique. You could of course merely invite some other nobles over for an incense appreciation party, make a few cutting but plausibly deniable remarks about a rival, maybe drop a few lines of poetry linking the incense to the current season. But if you were really on the ball you’d be looking for a way to simultaneously humiliate your rivals, flirt with your love interest, and impress people in a position of power. They didn’t just perfect cultured refinement - they weaponized it.
Only under such conditions could something like Genji-kō (源氏香) arise. It is a parlor game played with incense” [via]
"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter."
The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time
...just what it says on the tin.
Giving up air travel and travel dreams
I love travel and can finally afford it and have people to travel with (spouse, kid). But with the climate emergency, traveling abroad once a year seems irresponsible.
Super-Saturn isn’t real, it can’t hurt you.
Why did everyone fall for the J1407b myth?
is 12 minute video essay that starts off as discussion about a cool astronomical mystery but becomes a measured, well-argued rant about knowledge in the age of Google and LLMs. It is by YouTuber Kyplanet who makes weekly videos about cool astronomical things, mostly exoplanets.
Einstein on the Bleach
“I had gone to install a dishwasher in a loft in SoHo. While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish.” from The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass by Ted Gioia
Faster, Better, Lighter
Samsung has announced its pilot solid-state EV battery production line is now fully operational. The solid state batteries can power electric vehicles with a 600-mile range [YMMV but the range is projected to double in the same volume with less mass], charge in 9 minutes [10%-80%], and have a lifespan of 20 years.
Is it worth testing for black mold?
I'm concerned we may have some black mold in our house. Is it worth testing for it (money is a issue) or should we just go ahead and deal with it as best we can?
MetaFilter: a time capsule from another internet
Wired's Steven Levy writes about MF in his newsletter (archived): This month, the venerated site celebrates its 25th anniversary. It’s amazing it has lasted that long; it made it this far in great part thanks to West, who helped stabilize it after a near-death spiral. You could say it’s the site that time forgot—certainly I’d forgotten about it until I decided to mark its big birthday. Metafilter is a kind of digital Brigadoon; visiting it is like a form of time travel. To people who have been around a while, Metafilter seems to preserve in amber the spirit of what online used to be like. The feed is strictly chronological. It’s still text-only. Some members may be influential on Metafilter, but they don’t call themselves influencers, and they don’t sell personally branded cosmetics or garments. As founder Matt Haughey, who stepped down in 2017, says, "It's a weird throwback thing—like a cockroach that survived.”
Would you eat this granola?
A bird flew into my kitchen, pecked a hole in the bag of granola, then ate some granola. Would you eat the rest of the granola in the bag? This is a big bag of hippie granola that cost $19
The real life Lady Whistledown scandalised 18th-century society
The Guardian: Like the fictional pamphlet from Bridgerton, Eliza Haywood’s The Parrot, published in 1746 (here in archive.org) , has a distinctive, mocking voice that punches up and “speaks truth to power”. Now, a new book will republish Haywood’s funny, subversive periodical, which she wrote from the perspective of an angry green parrot, and seek to raise awareness of her groundbreaking work.
A prolific anti-racist, proto-feminist writer, Haywood used her transgressive newsletter to expose 18th-century hypocrisies about race and gender. It was published weekly over nine issues.
Step into the Closet
The Criterion Collection, a revered distributor of classic and arthouse cinema, built a vast library of 3,500+ films over the last 40 years. It can be overwhelming, even for cinephiles. Want a savvy friend to guide you? Enter Criterion's Closet Picks, a lo-fi YouTube series which invites top filmmakers, actors, musicians, and other artists into the vault to freely sample while musing about core influences, all-time favorites, and hidden gems. Highlights:
Willem Dafoe -
Maya + Ethan Hawke -
The Daniels (EEAAO) -
Richard Ayoade -
Comic Patton Oswalt -
Yo La Tengo -
Cinematographers Roger + James Deakins -
Charlie Day -
Nathan Lane -
John Waters -
VG designer Hideo Kojima -
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) -
Dan Levy (Schitt's Creek) -
Cauleen Smith (Drylongso) -
Animator Floyd Norman -
Jane Schoenbrun -
Paul Giamatti -
Marc Maron -
Wim Wenders -
Cate Blanchett + Todd Field -
Hari Nef -
Photographer Tyler Mitchell -
Molly Ringwald -
Peter Sarsgaard -
Udo Kier -
Gael García Bernal -
Pixar's Lee Unkrich -
Singer St. Vincent -
Critic Elvis Mitchell -
Anna Karina -
Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) -
Flying Lotus -
Agnès Varda -
Alfonso Cuarón + Paweł Pawlikowski -
Mary Harron -
Saul Williams + Anisia Uzeyman -
Carl Franklin -
Roger Corman -
Michael K. Williams -
SNL's Bill Hader
// Watch the full playlist, or see this cool database of picks (info), including the most popular.
The one person who’d know can’t tell me .
I’m sitting in hospice with my mom, who would know the answer to this question, but I can’t ask her.
"One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea"
When you often notice people "why-don't-they-just"-ing their way into a proposed solution to a gnarly problem, you might turn your criticisms into a checklist. "Your post advocates a [( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante] approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work." These templates often offer a summary of the problem space and a glimpse of experts' frustrations. Solution rejection checklists exist for fixing the housing crisis, beating the CAP Theorem, protecting against DDOS attacks, improving pharmaceutical drug discovery success rates, creating new programming languages and distributed social networks, and (MeFi comment!) saving journalism.
"If that offends them, so be it."
"Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts" A letter from The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH) editor Chris Quinn
How to use cooked red cabbage?
I am a single person who cooks rarely. Despite that, last year I bought a 580 gram jar of Danish red cabbage. It contains cabbage, sugar, vinegar, plus apple and currant juice. The food expires (or goes past its "best by" date) in a few months.
Why did I buy this? No idea. But red cabbage is nutritious. So please suggest ways I can eat this, especially if they do not involve complicated recipes or long cooking times. Thanks, hive mind!
Recommendations for anime or Studio Ghibli-type films
I recently became interested in watching anime (mostly after stumbling upon Studio Ghibli films for the first time in my life and thinking they're kind of the best things I've ever seen). Would love some suggestions! More info in the description.
Here at the edge of things.
(The child has opened the book again)Evan Dahm just finished the first passage of his latest web comic, 3rd Voice. In his words: 3rd Voice is a long-format fantasy graphic novel updating with one scene or so a week. It concerns an invented world in a state of apocalyptic crisis, and the precarious lives of many people therein.
INDISS: Hark. (Closing the book with one enormous hand, scattering the dried flowers) Look not too closely, girl.
CHILD: I want to hear the voice, Indiss!
INDISS: (holding the book) I’m sorry. It isn’t fair. But we live beyond the end of such things. In the shadow of a great catastrophe. Or within its bleaching light.
Earthquake
Two true stories.
I'm highly likely to die within 5 years. How do I process this?
So, unfortunately, a followup CT scan I did recently revealed metastatic cancer (stage 4/spreading) and we're going to try immunotherapy, but I was warned by my oncologist that most people with metastatic cancer don't live much longer, so 5 years probably at most. I am so overwhelmed and grappling with guilt, too. Pointers on how to process and navigate this would be appreciated.
The Depths of the Sea on Metafilter
Looking for a website that was posted to the blue that showed the depths to which different marine animals dove. The website had a beautiful continuous-scroll design that took you deeper and deeper into the ocean. Anyone remember that link? I can't find it.
🔔MetaFilter Transitional Board Volunteers Wanted!🔔
📣📣🫱🏿👋🏽🖐🏼✋Hi everyone,✋🖐🏼👋🏽🫱🏿📣📣
MetaFilter is beginning the transition to becoming a non-profit (seee this thread ) and to begin that process, a temporary transitional board is needed. This board of volunteers would establish a basic framework for the future site, along with defining what to look for in an Executive Director
We have several volunteers already, but most are based in the United States and have similar backgrounds, so we’re casting our net wider to encourage a more globally diverse board.
Interested? Let us know in the October 18, 2023 MetaTalk thread about changing the site to nonprofit.
MetaFilter is beginning the transition to becoming a non-profit (seee this thread ) and to begin that process, a temporary transitional board is needed. This board of volunteers would establish a basic framework for the future site, along with defining what to look for in an Executive Director
We have several volunteers already, but most are based in the United States and have similar backgrounds, so we’re casting our net wider to encourage a more globally diverse board.
Interested? Let us know in the October 18, 2023 MetaTalk thread about changing the site to nonprofit.
Need some David Bowie? More than that, maybe?
Bowiesongs has every Bowie Song, ever, in order.
An absolutely monumental work of research that led to two books , Bowiesongs is a collection of links, song analysis, and content about David Bowie, starting with his earliest recorded material. Start here for the chronological beginning, or start with the magnificent Bring Me the Disco King, both a gorgeous song and a clever way to present the moment in Bowie's career, with a set of (spoiler: fictional) interviews in between the analysis.
Ukraine war, summer grinds on
In the war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is still going on, but with slower progress than many in the West had come to expect. Professor Phillips O'Brien tries to put it into perspective, and War on the Rocks has some musings on the future of offensive warfare. Respected analysts Micheal Kofman and Rob Lee have visited with the Ukrainian military, and the preliminary conclusion is that they have a number of challenges, including scaling up offensive operations. Their report is not ready, but you can hear some initial thoughts. Russian fortifications including minefields are holding up well to direct attack, and the focus is on reducing Russian combat power with artillery, now using the somewhat controversial cluster munitions provided by the USA. There have been a couple of deep strikes into Crimea, and the hit on a fuel depot caused the full closure of the already-damaged Kerch bridge.
What streaming series will I enjoy based on one scene in Barry I liked?
Just finished the fourth season of Barry and was disappointed. Too dark and lacking in insights that meant anything to me or humor or drama that felt original. What got me hooked was some of the off-beat humor in earlier seasons--in particular a scene where a (lesbian) couple is breaking up as we see Henry Winkler out the window being attacked one by one by dozens of dogs (final reason given for break-up "you just have too many dogs.")
Anyhoo, based on that one positive and one negative pieces of evidence, would appreciate recommendations for other shows.
The sleeper has awakened
Dune 2 [Trailer][YouTube]
The saga continues as award-winning filmmaker Denis Villeneuve embarks on “Dune: Part Two,” the next chapter of Frank Herbert’s celebrated novel Dune.
Erich's Packing Center!
You want squares in triangles? Erich's got 'em! You want triangles in squares? Erich's got 'em! Squares in squares?? Erich's got those, too! How about L's in circles? Triangles in circles? Right triangles in squares? You know Erich's got 'em! Packing! Tiling! Covering! Come on down to Erich's Packing Center for all this and related problems!
The EU is about to tell us how to code
Bert Huber describes a new law working its way though the EU parliament that may have massive implications for how code is written and regulated.
There are potentially great things in the law (no more devices shipped with admin/admin default credentials!) and potentially terrible things in the law (open source maintainers slapped with 15 million euro minimum fines). (via @edwtjo
“I did not come to bury wuxia, but to praise it.”
The History and Politics of Wuxia by Jeannette Ng [Tor]
“These are stories, after all, that are about outlaws and outcasts, existing outside of the conventional hierarchies of power. And they certainly do have plenty to say about these big universal themes of freedom, loyalty and justice. But this is also a genre that has been banned by multiple governments within living memory. Its development continues to happen in the shadows of fickle Chinese censorship and at the heart of it remains a certain defiant cultural and national pride intermingled with nostalgia and diasporic yearning. The vast majority of the most iconic wuxia texts are not written by Chinese authors living comfortably in China, but by a dreaming diaspora amid or in the aftermath of vast political turmoil. Which is all to say that the world of wuxia is fundamentally bound up with those hierarchies of power it seeks to reject. Much like there is more to superheroes than dorky names, love triangles, and broad universal ideals of justice, wuxia is grounded in the specific time and place of its creation.” [Bonus: Wiki, 30 Essential Wuxia Films, An Introduction to Wuxia Novels]
CHP investigating several incidences of juveniles riding bicycles
It's 2023 and San Francisco still hasn't put in a bike path on their half of the Bay Bridge to Oakland. But the kids are alright.
Japanese Music Sirens
A lengthy post at airRaidSirens.net details the mechanical Yamaha Music Sirens of Japan. These can be played with a keyboard, but sadness: "some were being removed or are going to run until they die and will not be repaired." And if they're replaced, it will naturally be with something electronic. They play familiar old tunes which signal the start of a factory's working day, etc. There's a link to a playlist embedded in the article.
"Heartbreak In the Key of Roger Miller" - Joe Purdy & Friends
A friend sent me link to this vid and I just keep going back to it. My hope is that it'll catch you, too.
This young man (more and more men are young to me as the years stack, I'm guessing Jon to be in his early 40s) this young man often sends me good links. He's from West Virginia, I've told him for years that he's got dirt on him, in a good way, maybe it's more that the dirt is in him; West Virginia seems to get inside the people, I think mostly in a good way.
Bringing Humans into the water cycle
The USGS just announced a new version of the venerable, 20 year old USGS water cycle diagram after an 18 month redesign process.
Zoomable non-pdf version
EOS described it as "Not Your Childhood Water Cycle"