On July 25th Japanese owned MV Wakashio, 203,000 GT went aground off Mauritius and the island now races to prevent an ecological disaster.
Frustrated by the government's inaction locals flock to help in every way possible. An initiative led by David Sauvage of ''Rezistans ek Alternativ'' has peple making bagasse based oil prevention booms. “Low-cost, low-tech, readily available materials that soak up oil''. Other people are cutting off their hair to assist the effort.
It is the worst environmental crisis in a generation. @Ariel_Saramandi is a local journalist worth following on twitter
Here's some news for you: the crew members were questioned by the police yesterday. They said that they steered the boat closer to the coast...to get an internet connection. They were celebrating a birthday party.
Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, has said the country should “prepare for a worst-case scenario” as as the vessel is likely to “fall apart” as the crack in the hull widens.
Mauritius is a Tax haven.
posted to MetaFilter by adamvasco at 7:48 AM on August 11, 2020 (20 comments)

"How China Controlled the Coronavirus" , a New Yorker article by Peter Hessler, details his experience as a journalism professor at Sichuan University. Hessler is a long-time writer at the magazine and he's considered by many Chinese to be their favorite writer on China.
posted to MetaFilter by of strange foe at 8:35 AM on August 11, 2020 (21 comments)

The coronavirus pandemic has now pushed Iraq to the brink of an existential crisis. The global collapse of demand for oil has brought prices to historic lows, delivering a terrible shock to a country whose economy depends almost entirely on oil revenue. But it could also offer the new Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, an extraordinary opportunity to face his country’s most intractable problem. Corruption can now be framed as a life-or-death issue: Iraq must choose between feeding its people and enriching its kleptocrats. Kadhimi has promised to take up this challenge. He is not likely to succeed unless the United States seizes this chance to undo some of the damage it has done in Iraq, and to make common cause with the protesters who are hoping to re-establish their country on a new footing.
posted to MetaFilter by blue shadows at 6:48 PM on August 7, 2020 (21 comments)

This afternoon, the District Court of Southern Mississippi confirmed the qualified immunity for Police Officers in the case of Jamison v. McClendon, where the black plaintiff suffered an hours-long roadside ordeal at the hands of a white officer who had pulled him over for the temporary tag on his newly-purchased Mercedes being too hard to read. But the opinion itself is a thing of tragic, righteous beauty.
posted to MetaFilter by Navelgazer at 4:59 PM on August 4, 2020 (70 comments)

Hello Metafilter! Welcome to the first of many regularly-scheduled updates on the state of the site. Comments will be turned off for these, as they’ll cover far too many topics for an unthreaded conversation to manage, but we’re happy to hear from you via the Contact Form. If you want to discuss a particular subject with the community, you’re welcome to open a separate MetaTalk thread for it.
posted to MetaTalk by restless_nomad at 11:39 AM on July 31, 2020

Economics is a disgrace - "The indignities are astounding..." Claudia Sahm -- macromom -- a former Fed economist (with her own rule and automatic stabilizer) rips the economics priesthood a new one.[1,2]
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 12:00 AM on July 30, 2020 (48 comments)

Hi. I'm back.

I'm not gonna be modding. I'm going to be handling the administrative work behind the scenes, managing policy discussions, and processing user feedback. For those of you who don't know or remember, this is my professional background - I've done community management for companies large and small, and I'm excited to be putting those skills to use more directly than I did when I was concentrating on moderation.
posted to MetaTalk by restless_nomad at 9:03 AM on July 23, 2020 (137 comments)

"Caste prejudice and discrimination is rife within the Indian communities in the United States and other countries. Its chains are even turning the work culture within multibillion-dollar American tech companies, and beyond."
posted to MetaFilter by MiraK at 7:35 AM on July 17, 2020 (37 comments)

African twitter is aflutter with @sugabelly's creation - the Ńdébé Script: "a writing system that addresses the tonal peculiarities of Nigerian languages, pleasing to the eye, which might carry the burden of our literary and academic aspirations".
posted to MetaFilter by infini at 8:28 AM on July 14, 2020 (23 comments)

A couple of days ago, Harper's Magazine published an open letter - A Letter on Justice and Open Debate - it had had in the works for a few weeks, signed by 153 authors and academics. The ensuing reaction and commentary and has been swift and intense.
posted to MetaFilter by progosk at 7:13 AM on July 9, 2020 (204 comments)

Hey Singaporean Mefites, is anybody working on an FPP for the elections? If not, maybe I'll try to whip something up, but I've been kind of busy lately so it would be something simple. It would be great to have a nice lengthy post full of useful links and background information though! (mods I kind of recall it is okay to ask questions like this on MeTa, but if it isn't do let me know what's a better way!)
posted to MetaTalk by destrius at 9:26 AM on June 30, 2020 (4 comments)

Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, reviews Spike Lee's new movie about the Vietnam War, "Da 5 Bloods", from a perspective rarely heard in America: a Vietnamese one.
posted to MetaFilter by Ouverture at 9:28 AM on June 29, 2020 (20 comments)

An overview of evolution and atmospheric changes. Why birds have great lungs and mammals don't.
posted to MetaFilter by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:32 AM on June 29, 2020 (14 comments)

"In the midst of one of the darkest moments in the history of independent Bangladesh, we have lost a guardian and a beacon of hope, Professor Anisuzzaman. The Dhaka University Professor Emeritus, a public intellectual, historian, writer, activist, teacher and researcher, passed away on May 14. From his participation as an activist in the Language Movement in 1952 to his role as a member of the planning commission of the government-in-exile in 1971 as well as a member of the committee drafting the Constitution in Bangla in 1971; from his contribution during the movement for restoration of democracy in Bangladesh in the 1980s to his commitment to the trial of war criminals, he was a moral compass who led the nation through its most challenging transitions for over six decades." (The Daily Star)
posted to MetaFilter by Not A Thing at 12:17 PM on June 29, 2020 (5 comments)

Scientists working with Facebook to fact-check articles issued a warning last August about an op-ed in a US newspaper that attempted to undermine the climate science consensus by using misleading data. Facebook’s policy is to pass along fact-check warnings to users when they share such articles. But due to the intervention of an as-yet-unidentified employee, the scientists were overruled in this particular instance and Facebook stopped telling users that the article was false. As a result of these actions Facebook has quietly opened a loophole in its policy, allowing disinformation to be shared as ‘opinion' immune to fact-checking. Meanwhile, the group that was behind the op-ed — a well-funded climate science denial advocacy organization with deep ties to conservative activists, policy makers, and US government officials— plans to exploit this exemption to reach a larger audience. One of its primary messages is that additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually good for the Earth, a message that it has previously targeted to children through cartoons on Facebook.
posted to MetaFilter by theory at 6:14 AM on June 25, 2020 (92 comments)

‘We have long suffered and today we want to breathe the air of freedom. The Creator has given us this share of the earth that goes by the name of the African continent; it belongs to us and we are its only masters. It is our right to make this continent a continent of justice, law, and peace. All of Africa is irrevocably engaged in a merciless struggle against colonialism and imperialism. We wish to bid farewell to the rule of slavery and bastardization that has so severely wronged us. Any people that oppresses another people is neither civilized nor Christian. The West must free Africa as soon as possible.’

‘Westerners must understand that friendship is not possible when the relationship between us is one of subjugation and subordination.’
posted to MetaFilter by Mrs Potato at 12:48 PM on June 22, 2020 (12 comments)

Labour Together Election Review - The UK Labour Party has just published a review, with data and analysis, of their disastrous 2019 defeat.
posted to MetaFilter by Caractacus at 4:17 AM on June 19, 2020 (36 comments)

US attorneys have charged six former eBay workers in association with an outrageous cyberstalking campaign. “If we are ever going to take her down..now is the time,” the first message read, according to a screengrab of the thread. Later, the executive emphasized, “I want her DONE.” What followed was a campaign of harassment so strange and outrageous, its hard to believe.
posted to MetaFilter by Toddles at 8:05 PM on June 16, 2020 (65 comments)

Just a short clip of Mrs. Hawkins the K-8 dance teacher leading the students down a hallway at the Birney School in Southfield, Michigan to Michael Jackson's Thriller (SLYT, pre-COVID-19)
posted to MetaFilter by Harald74 at 12:55 AM on June 11, 2020 (16 comments)

Anansi, the trickster god of the Ashanti of West Africa, takes the shape of a spider who goes to the sky god to buy his stories to share with the world. He once enjoyed his life as a man. Nyame (N'-ya-mae), his father, changed his mischievous son into a spider. As a spider-man, Anansi continued his pranks.
posted to MetaFilter by Mrs Potato at 12:17 PM on June 11, 2020 (17 comments)

Comedy duo Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz turn small ideas into epically funny stories in this series of completely improvised comedy specials.
posted to FanFare by Carillon at 11:18 AM on June 1, 2020 (5 comments)

Hi everybody. Yesterday* I posted this question, asking about sending my son to preschool. And today...
posted to MetaTalk by bondcliff at 8:07 AM on June 1, 2020 (49 comments)

Please give a hearty hello to our newly-hired members of the MetaFilter moderation team: travelingthyme and loup! I'll let them introduce themselves a bit below, but I wanted to let folks know that they'll both be working part-time as of now so you can expect to see their names around the site.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2020 (212 comments)

America's Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms - "Inside the U.S. and Panama's long-running collaboration to rid an entire continent of a deadly disease." (thread/reader: "Screwworms were eradicated from the U.S. decades ago. But how? In the 1950s, the U.S. began growing millions of screwworms in a factory, sterilizing them with radiation, and dropping them out of planes. And this still happens today! Everyday!"; the USDA's screwworm eradication collection; merch/stickers; via)
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 9:06 AM on May 30, 2020 (16 comments)

According to a 2015 profile in Venture Beat, Star Stable Entertainment broke a lot of rules when it launched (in 2011, according to various sources other than Venture Beat). "It created an online horse game, Star Stable, for girls and young women. It charged a subscription fee and built its own game engine. And it stayed online rather than diving into mobile with a million other competitors."
posted to MetaFilter by Bella Donna at 7:27 AM on May 25, 2020 (23 comments)

In backyards around the world, a vicious resource war is being fought between the avians and the rodents. Are you tired of standing idly by? Do you prefer the lilt of birdsong to the screech and chatter of tree-rats? Then perhaps you should look at the latest in birdfeeder anti-squirrel technology: an extensive, squirrel-scale backyard obstacle course created by YouTube science guy Mark Rober (previously). The results may surprise you. They definitely won't.
posted to MetaFilter by ZaphodB at 8:32 AM on May 25, 2020 (35 comments)

The Unexpected Solace in Learning to Play the Piano During Quarantine (illustrated) "Playing the piano is the opposite. I know I will never produce anything at the level of a talented 8-year-old on Youtube. But when I stumble into a moment of unexpected beauty, I have no choice but to enjoy it...because it disappears the moment it is created."
posted to MetaFilter by storybored at 7:42 AM on May 22, 2020 (7 comments)

What won’t we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine—yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison—was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices. Ranging from the merely weird to the outright dangerous, here are dozens of outlandish, morbidly hilarious “treatments”—conceived by doctors and scientists, by spiritualists and snake oil salesmen (yes, they literally tried to sell snake oil)—that were predicated on a range of cluelessness, trial and error, and straight-up scams. With vintage illustrations, photographs, and advertisements throughout, Quackery seamlessly combines macabre humor with science and storytelling to reveal an important and disturbing side of the ever-evolving field of medicine.
posted to FanFare by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:53 PM on May 19, 2020 (1 comment)

I've noticed more and more posts that make use of Unicode characters to simulate fancy fonts in FPPs. This breaks screen readers, often in very annoying ways. For example, “𝒎” is read out by my screen reader as "mathematical bold italic small m". So whole words or sentences of this makes a post impossible to understand. Please avoid.
posted to MetaTalk by Space Coyote at 8:08 AM on May 19, 2020 (39 comments)

Drama On The Internets this weekend as Reddit's admins ousted the mods and top users of a popular satirical subreddit, /r/PresidentialRaceMemes. The wrinkle this time? Most of those banned are the same person. As outlined in this exhaustive report from /r/Digital_Manipulation [mirror], redditor /u/AlarmedScholar (best known for his "It Is Time" memes saluting the end of each Democratic campaign) was at the center of a web of literally dozens of alternate accounts, aggressively spamming his own subreddit networks into popularity and using questionable moderation tactics to steer PRM from cheeky fun to unceasing vitriol against presumptive nominee Joe Biden (alongside fervent support for Bernie Sanders Howie Hawkins Jesse Ventura Howie Hawkins again). Shades of Unidan, shades of Digg Patriots, shades of various the_donald purges... with 92 of the top 500 subreddits controlled by just four users, is Reddit the next battleground in the social media manipulation wars?
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:40 PM on May 18, 2020 (52 comments)

Cast members (including Kristin Chenoweth, Martin Short, Ricki Lake, Harvey Fierstein, Sean Hayes, Andrea Martin, Matthew Morrison, Michael Ball, Nikki Blonsky, Billy Eichner, Andrew Rannells, Alex Newell, Jenifer Lewis, Derek Hough, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, and Linda Hart) from various stage and screen versions of the musical adaptation of the John Waters movie-that-became-a-musical-that-became-a-movie-and-was-also performed-live-on-TV Hairspray were edited together from their homes to act, sing, and dance the show's finale number "You Can't Stop the Beat" as a fundraising celebration to support the Actors Fund, and frankly, the beat cannot be stopped, and the video is an editing triumph.
posted to MetaFilter by MCMikeNamara at 2:41 AM on May 16, 2020 (27 comments)

Solar's Future is Insanely Cheap (2020) [thread] - "This incredible pace of solar cost decline, with average prices in sunny parts of the world down to a penny or two by 2030 or 2035, is just remarkable. Building new solar would routinely be cheaper than operating already built fossil fuel plants, even in the world of ultra-cheap natural gas we live in now. This is what I've called the third phase of clean energy, where building new clean energy is cheaper than keeping fossil fuel plants running."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 1:23 AM on May 15, 2020 (86 comments)

Today I expressed some concerns to my partner regarding the uptick of racist attacks against asians in our city. He responded with a surprising degree of indifference. He is white, and I am asian. I'm not sure how to process this or if I overreacted.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 7:24 AM on May 14, 2020 (39 comments)

"Yet, this past January, that’s precisely what University of New Hampshire assistant philosophy professor Subrena Smith’s paper tried to do. 'Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?' describes a major issue with evolutionary psychology, called the matching problem." [Gizmodo]
posted to MetaFilter by Ouverture at 11:07 AM on May 13, 2020 (79 comments)

World renowned vulnerability expert Brené Brown chats with long-time psychologist and author Harriet Lerner about the subject of her latest book, on the latest episode of Brown’s new podcast, ‘Unlocking Us.’ Together they delve into, and sort through, the intricacies of a good apology, and the often misunderstood art of making one effectively.
posted to MetaFilter by TruthfulCalling at 5:29 AM on May 12, 2020 (2 comments)

DJ techno/trance mixes - good. Swiss train driver pov videos - good. Swiss train driver pov videos set to techno mixes - double plus good! From Thomas H.
posted to MetaFilter by carter at 5:19 PM on May 4, 2020 (19 comments)

“Malaysia” was shorthand for a gigantic fraud—possibly the largest in financial history—in which, beginning in 2009, billions of dollars were diverted from a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) into covert campaign-finance accounts, U.S. political campaigns, Hollywood movies, and the pockets of innumerable other recipients.
posted to MetaFilter by blue shadows at 12:12 AM on April 30, 2020 (9 comments)

A toxic legacy of poor-quality research, media hype, lax regulatory oversight, and vicious partisanship has come home to roost in the search for effective treatments for COVID-19.
posted to MetaFilter by latkes at 1:49 PM on April 28, 2020 (36 comments)

COVID-19 responses in Africa: Ok, one size doesn’t fit all. Now what? Since the COVID-19 pandemic started spreading, it has been clear that the societies of the developing world face dreadful challenges. Even in wealthy countries, where health systems are relatively strong and foreign reserves are deep, the health and economic impacts of the crisis are daunting. How should governments of poorer, less industrialised countries respond?
posted to MetaFilter by Zumbador at 4:01 AM on April 28, 2020 (7 comments)

24/7 Bob Ross, 24/7 Food Shows, 24/7 Iron Chef Japan, 24/7 Anthony Bourdain, 24/7 MST3K, 24/7 Public Domain Copyright Free Films, 24/7 Most Extreme Elimination Challenge MXC!, CritterVision: deer, raccoons, geese, possums, foxes, squirrels, etc., 24/7 Eagle-cam, 24/7 Choppertown: chops, trucks, cars, etc., 24/7 PokerStars.
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 10:09 AM on April 26, 2020 (44 comments)

The Jackbox party games only require one player to purchase and run the game software. Other players interact by visiting a website on their phones, and entering a game code. This works great for remote play over Zoom. Are there other games that work similarly? (Either similar party/trivia games, or more board-game- / video-game-oriented things?)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by escape from the potato planet at 8:14 AM on April 26, 2020 (6 comments)

How will the coronavirus pandemic change Ramadan for Muslims?
posted to MetaFilter by Ahmad Khani at 7:45 PM on April 23, 2020 (5 comments)

I find myself increasingly obsessed with the rise of the so-called “COVID influencer” or armchair epidemiologist. These men — and they are, largely, men — are legitimate experts in other fields. They are lawyers, former reporters and thriller writers, Silicon Valley technologists, newspaper columnists, economists and doctors who specialize in different parts of medicine. Their utter belief in their own cognitive abilities gives them the false sense that their speculation, and predictive powers, are more informed than the rest of ours.
posted to MetaFilter by latkes at 9:07 AM on April 22, 2020 (156 comments)

In a second attempt at moving MetaFilter to a new AWS account, the site will be offline between 22:00 and 01:00 PDT Sunday evening.
posted to MetaTalk by frimble at 8:38 AM on April 19, 2020 (103 comments)

Samsung redesigned its TV boxes to be easily converted into cat houses.
posted to MetaFilter by Literaryhero at 3:43 AM on April 18, 2020 (29 comments)

The sharp increase in covid 19 cases in Singapore mainly among migrant workers in crammed dormitories is challenging the early gleaming image of the highly efficient healthcare system. New Naratif explains the reality of migrant workers in Singapore, widespread myths and facts about migrant workers, and the limits of a technocratic approach to healthcare (an indepth analysis of the system written just before the pandemic).
posted to MetaFilter by dorothyisunderwood at 5:11 AM on April 17, 2020 (12 comments)

(CW: Dark coronavirus/pandemic humour) Frankie Boyle on the pandemic: “Mistakes have been made in the handling of the crisis. Like flying the Buckingham Palace flag at half mast when the Queen’s not in, which is just an advert for burglars. In my local park, someone has tried to cheer people up by chalking 'You Got This!' on the ground. Literally the last thing you want to hear in a pandemic.” ... “The Prime Minister has written to every household in the UK. As that letter lands on the doormat, I won’t be the only one who’ll be picking it up with a couple of snooker cues, like a contestant on a Japanese game show.” Previous Frankie: [1][2][3]
posted to MetaFilter by Wordshore at 1:54 AM on April 5, 2020 (26 comments)

The effort to limit the effects of climate change may have already bourne fruit: The Guardian has reported on a paper that claims that the effects of the Montreal Protocol has slowed changes to the southern mid-latitude jet stream. (Nature SharedIt link, requires javascript)
posted to MetaFilter by Eleven at 9:37 AM on March 26, 2020 (3 comments)

Timelapse of the Future: A Journey To The End of Time A relaxing video where the speed of time doubles every few seconds. Favorite comment: "the video: all suns have died -- also the video: has more than 20 minutes left".
posted to MetaFilter by benzenedream at 10:13 AM on March 18, 2020 (19 comments)

Can Bob Mortimer break and apple in half with his bare hands?
posted to MetaFilter by bonobothegreat at 7:15 PM on March 15, 2020 (81 comments)