Bookmarks (941)

Wikipedia portraits are famously bad, so much so that there's an Instagram page dedicated to them. They're amateurish. They're old. Sometimes, like in the case of English footballer Kyle Bartley, they're just weird. (Is that a referee's finger in his mouth?) WikiPortraits, a group of volunteer photographers, has been covering festivals and shooting celebrities specifically to improve images in the public domain. (404Media)

The office of London design studio DUDE was vandalized... so they turned the graffiti into a free* typeface for everyone to use.*The studio requests that if you download it, that you please donate £5 to Bow Arts Center.

the letter S is never included — the editor Sam Ezersky said that using an S would make the puzzle way too easy Today's (March 12, 2025) New York Times Spelling Bee Puzzle is #2,500. It has an "S."In 2022, Ezersky said: I love the letter S — it's my favorite besides Z. But if every other word is a plural, it can make...

Terrifying reporting from ProPublica about the SSA describes a meeting held by acting head of the Social Security Administration Leland Dudek in which he seems to admit that the "DOGE kids" may very well actually break the social security payments process and tries to disavow all responsibility because he is clearly alarmed by what he is being asked to do.Apparently, the social security IT...

Canadian Geographic explores Canada's national symbol. The noble beaver will show up in your Canadian citizenship study manual but to your eternal disappointment, you will not be asked about it.

elodieunderglass (previously quoted on MeFi) and derinthescarletpescatarian wrote a moving, funny composite narrative about human biology: "Wait a minute," you say a couple of generations later, because you're not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post... That link won't work well unless you're logged into Tumblr, so...

Plans are underway to create "Freedom Cities" around the United States on large open tracts of protected federal lands, following in the footsteps of California Forever, Próspera, Yatai New City and other law and regulation free Special Economic Zone safe-havens for anarcho-capitalists, libertarians and criminals.'Startup Nation' Groups Say They're Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated 'Freedom Cities' The architects of projects like Próspera...

Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on an ICC warrant for crimes against humanity in Manila. According to his daughter, who is currently the country's vice president, "As I write this, he is being forcibly taken to The Hague tonight. This is not justice – this is oppression and persecution." Internal Philippine politics made the arrest possible, as a former power-sharing agreement between...

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Addresses General Assembly, 78th Session (pdf) - "Terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons." I welcome all who stand for common efforts! And I promise – being really united we can guarantee fair peace for all nations. What's more, unity can prevent wars. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Secretary General! Fellow leaders! This hall saw many wars but not as...

A Message of Love is a long interview with Danish photographer/activist Jakob Holdt. Long haired hippy Jakob Holdt hitchhiked in the US for 5 years in the early 70's, documenting the lives of the most marginalized people, as well as some of the most affluent. His "adventures" resulted in an output of 15,000 harrowing photographs, which he later published as the book "American Pictures"....

Don't pick up wild baby wombats. Picking them up can injure them; can cause their mother to abandon them (a death sentence if they are still breastfeeding); and could cause you to get seriously injured by an angry mother wombat (wombat claws can disembowel a person if the wombat gets angry.) US influencer criticised for temporarily taking joey wombat from mother. A US influencer...

"Not many people come out in the rain," says Goody, with a smile. "But we just batter on. You never know, we could pull out Rob Roy's sword, fingers crossed". They fish "for the history," he adds. A lot of this history seems to be embodied by weaponry, judging from the list Goody reels off. Unexploded ordnances are a particular pain. "We're a bit...

The Roland TR-808 had a larger impact on commercial music than any other branded musical instrument except perhaps the Fender Stratocaster. So someone made a documentary about it.There's an in-browser emulator if you want to drop a def beat. (previously)

Kevin Drum, one of the earliest left wing political bloggers, has passed away after a long battle with cancer.Throughout his career, Drum had been a fixture in the left wing "blogosphere", both under his own shingle as well as the auspices of larger outlets with a considerable tenure at Mother Jones. Beyond his blog punditry, he was best known for championing the environmental lead...

If there's one thing McDonald's is known for among its American customers, it's its uniformity. Almost all McDonald's from Maine to California look the same and have the same offerings. And when McDonald's began to open restaurants outside the States over the course of the later 20th century, the standard menu of the United States McDonald's held an exotic appeal for non-Americans. McDonald's was...

Oh sure, there's always the usual mainstream things every article trots out, blah blah blah. But what unusual/surprising/interesting hobby, activity, or task do you find works as a creative outlet? Or talk about anything else - it's our weekly free thread!

The first season of Andor is now streaming on Hulu and Disney has uploaded first three-episode arc to YouTube. This is done to build momentum for the April 22nd premiere of the second, and last, season. A day which happens to be, as Damien Walter notes in a recent video essay, Lenin's birthday. This fits Walter's argument that Andor is a Marxist story. Others,...

Baroness Von Sketch was a sketch comedy show by women for women! Four Toronto-based comedians--Carolyn Taylor, Aurora Browne, Meredith MacNeill, and Jennifer Whalen--created BvS in 2016. The show aired for five seasons. Episodes are still available to watch on CBC Gem. Whalen and MacNeill have a new sitcom, Small Achievable Goals, airing on CBC. It focuses on when life hands you menopause...and you have...

Emily and Amelia Nagoski discuss how to cope when you've either lost your hope or never had any. Emily and Amelia made the Feminist Survival Project podcast in 2020. In 2025, they brought it back. In a recent episode, they discuss what to do when you don't have hope.Notes I took from the podcast: * Emily has to say that her hope is "broken"...

Is a bone a viable weapon when combating a Rancor? Estimating the bite force of an intergalactic mega-predator. S. Lautenschlager and T. Clements, Journal of Geek Studies, volume 12, issue 1, pages 25-36 (2025). The ability of the Rancor to snap the femur with apparent ease poses interesting questions: (1) how much dorso-lateral force is required to snap a femur of the size used...

Please enjoy this POV video of the winner of this year's Cerro Abajo Valparaiso race. 2km descent through the streets, sidewalks, stairs, rooftops, and houses of the hills of Valparaiso.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is ending. "It is with deep regrets that I announce the conclusion of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Being a year and a half older than Joseph Biden, I find the BLFC becoming increasingly burdensome and would like to put myself out to pasture while I still have some vim and vigor!" — English professor Scott E. Rice at San Jose...

Key to survival for one of the world's rarest creatures. Conservationists say the lessons learnt from the northern hairy-nosed wombat could help save other animals around the globe.

AOC responds to Trump's Congressional Address - "It's all about Medicaid. It's all about what they're not saying. Don't you find it interesting that Donald Trump, if you listen to that speech, Donald Trump said a lot of things, he said a lot of random things about studies and waste and all this other stuff. He did not talk about Medicaid. Not once. And...

The Elephant Graveyard delivers wry, witty, scathing critiques of wayward comedians like Joe Rogan and Jerry Seinfeld. Their newest piece, How Comedy Became a Dystopian Imperial Hell World, explores deep into the alt-right comedy podbro pipeline of the Roganverse. If you need a further palate cleanser, there's always Professional Joke Explainer Myles Anderson, who whimsically breaks down the "comedy" of right-wing comedians such as...

It is as if you were on your phone Look at you! On your phone! But you've got a secret! And you won't tell! You're not on your phone! It is only as if you were on your phone! You're just pretending to be on your phone! On your phone!

Corey Robin in n+1. Too wide-ranging for a single pull quote, here is a smattering of topics: the cruelty is not the point, McCarthyism compared to Musk, the role of institutions and elite resistance, fighting as the best solution to fear, the current assault on government as a continuation of the neoliberal project, virtue as a failure state of society.

Yo La Tengo are once again playing requests for pledges beginning at 3pm ET TODAY on WFMU (at 2000 UTC on Sat March 8th). Every year, Yo La Tengo perform requests live on-air in exchange for pledges, to help keep freeform noncommercial radio station WFMU (91.1 FM in Jersey City, NJ) on the air. They will play listener requests for three hours, and it...

Retired hens revitalise Cyprus olive groves. Organic farmers in Cyprus have recruited hundreds of retired hens to fertilize olive groves in a pilot project they say boosts yields, counters disease, and helps to manage food waste. Saved from slaughter after their egg-laying years, hens peck and poop to their hearts' content among olive trees at the organically certified Akaki Grove, on the green foothills...

"Though it may have felt as if it ended just as soon as it started, Definitive Jux remains relevant even in the modern context of hip-hop through its influence. ...Definitive Jux tried to keep it true to its roots while also developing an alternative lane for artists that is still flourishing today."Def Jux Records: life and death to backpackerism ... but what really matters:...

TerraCollage "Roman De Giuli is a German photographer and filmmaker, specialized in practical effects and experimental fluid art. His compositions mainly consist of fluids, powders and colors which are applied on paper to create vivid, three dimensional scenes" [via]

On March 8, 2022, I went to celebrate International Women's Day with my colleague. On the way back, I visited an acquaintance. If I hadn't stayed there, I would have died because there was an airstrike in our area. [g/truthhounds.org (content note: war inside)][looking at women looking at war]:On March 8, an airstrike destroyed the building where the Red Cross was located. the windows...

You're probably familiar with the tone accompanying these, of gentle incredulity and deep sighs: photos of (gasp) Karachiites drinking alcohol in bars, women in (OMG!) short skirts, hippies in hostels (wow) smoking weed; look, look at how we used to be, how we were so not what we are now. Smartphones no doubt ping similarly in Kabul or Tehran. The majority of the people...

An invasive species from South America is decimating California's crops. Nutria, rodents originally from South America, have been eating their way through Delta vegetation. The mammals can eat up to 25% of their body weight — between 15 and 20 pounds for full-grown nutria — in a single day... Federal wildlife authorities advised those in states with nutria populations to check local regulation for...

It begins as a shuffle but soon becomes an unstoppable march. What ska had imbibed from American jazz and R&B was a musical ESP about where to put the emphasis and where to leave some space. It called out for a new way of moving—picture someone strolling down a city street who suddenly breaks into an agitated, quasi-military trot. Reggae was a slow skank,...

ABC shuts down FiveThirtyEight and pulls the plug on its website. The last 15 or so employees of the once influential data aggregator are set to be laid off by Disney's ABC News Group, according to a Tuesday report by the Wall Street Journal. (Archive.ph) The main URL already redirects to ABC News.

Anosmia, or loss of the sense of smell, is a frequent consequence of COVID-19. Most people recover spontaneously in weeks. However, some do not, and for them anosmia has high impact on quality of life. For the latter there is now hope in a new treatment: Platelet-rich Plasma. Platelet-rich plasma treatment uses the patients own blood to accelerate healing and is used to treat...

BBC: Denmark's state-run postal service, PostNord, is to end all letter deliveries at the end of 2025, citing a 90% decline in letter volumes since the start of the century. The decision brings to an end 400 years of the company's letter service. Denmark's 1,500 post boxes will start to disappear from the start of June. Guardian: PostNord Denmark will deliver its last letter...

Saul Steinberg, as a figure in American art, is poised to evaporate. A specificity or worked out theory of admiration for Steinberg, from the rare few who even bother to profess admiration towards the work, is neglected, because not much is said beyond occasional measured and brief praise. Where is Steinberg in contemporary illustration, art or even culture itself? A stroll through visual America...

It is March 30, 1992. Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" has begun its descent from the pinnacle of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs sweeps the Academy Awards. And WordPerfect Corporation, producer of the industry-standard word processing software, fires its Chief Operating Officer.(He will go on to tell his side of the story in Almost Perfect: How...

The Humber estuary is a challenging place to navigate. At high tide, its wide expanse of open water conceals a constantly-shifting network of mudflats, through which ships must follow a uniquely twisting, meandering path marked by a series of floats, to avoid running aground. The mud shifts so rapidly that new charts are published every two weeks. The crew of the H&S Wisdom apparently...

Many people struggle to make tradeoffs between present wants and future wishes, resulting in the tendency to overly discount the value of future rewards. To explain such behavior, past work has pointed to future self-continuity or the perceived connection between a person's current and future selves. Yet, most of this past work has been conducted on small-to-medium size convenience samples, and as such, little...

When you've spent years watching how some tech bros break the rules in pursuit of personal and economic power at the expense of safety and user protections, all while wrapping themselves in the flag of "innovation," you get pretty good at spotting the pattern.

Endangered eastern quolls released into wild in Tasmanian conservation project. An ambitious conservation effort to boost declining eastern quoll populations in Tasmania is underway, with 24 of the animals released onto a 5000 hectare property. Eastern quolls are marsupial carnivores about the size of a small domestic cat, with adult males measuring 53 to 66 cm (21 to 26 in) in total length, including...

As they politely remind us here, ca 2017, I'm sure we remember why. As I run into things that might help us all I will try to keep them up here.