~metafilter | Bookmarks (955)

When other bands cite us as an inspiration or an influence, [the theme of 2112 is] what they're talking about, more than anything. I've often read when we're mentioned as an influence for a band they'll say, 'We're big Rush fans, because they did it on their own, they did it their own way, and that told me that I could do the same...

Graham Greene: The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of this legendary, cultish short story collection. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbors into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In the darkly satiric, often mordantly hilarious sketches that make up Little Tales of Misogyny, Highsmith upsets our conventional...

Reported by Slate [archive.org]: "I remember r/LuigiMangione got banned, then r/LuigiMangione2, then r/LuigiMangione3, and I think it went up to r/LuigiMangione6 before people were like, 'We're not going to keep doing this,' " she told me in a phone conversation. "I'd made one called r/LuigiFever, which was just photos of him, and that got banned too."

The German musician der schaelm specializes in the art form of manualism—the art of squeezing air between one's hands to produce melodious sounds. But back when we (yes, I'm including you) were doing this at eight years old, we called it "hand farting." There's a lot that goes into hand farting. The musician must precisely arrange his or her hands and engage differing levels...

PBS American Masters Season 39, Ep 1 Learn about jazz virtuoso and screen superstar Hazel Scott, the first Black American to have their own television show. An early civil rights pioneer, she faced down the Red Scare at the risk of losing her career and was a champion for equality. The film features interviews with Mickey Guyton, Tracie Thoms, Amanda Seales, and Sheryl Lee...

Mediterranean monk seals make a remarkable comeback. Once on the brink of extinction, the rare marine mammal's populations are rising, thanks to conservation efforts.Once on the brink of extinction, rare Mediterranean monk seal populations are rising, thanks to conservation efforts. The Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk Seal, known as MOm, is a charity dedicated to the care and protection...

An unexpected discovery in the age of planned tech obsolesce: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) hardware appears to be running faster and faster as the devices age.

"Make no mistake, they're not doing these renovations out of the kindness of their hearts." The first entry in a multi-part investigative series by West End Phoenix, an independent local periodic newspaper started up by Rheostatics musician/writer, Dave Bidini.

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction have been acquired by Must Read Magazines, a division of a new publishing company, Must Read Books Publishing. All editorial staff from the magazines have been retained in the acquisitions."There are writers who have posted online asking if the magazines...

This sounds spectacularly self-centered: that you can only quit a thing, or modify your usage of it, when it fails to serve you. But if we think of our phones and social media as addictive products, which they certainly are, then the classic addiction model makes sense: you only consider quitting when the negative impacts (the dead feeling of the soft-brain scroll, the loss...

Most wombats are shy, gentle, and timid unless you make them angry, but they are very muscular and have sharp claws. A man in 2010 had the misfortune of accidentally startling a wombat that had sought shelter from a bushfire under his caravan: 20 minutes later, he was in a condition that resulted in him being admitted to hospital with significant injuries to his...

While it's self-proclaimed, it's easy to believe that this is the largest collection of links to free sites on the internet.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the Nebula Awards.All finalists for Novelette are available online: "The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video," Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld) "Katya Vasilievna and the Second Drowning of Baba Rechka," Christine Hanolsy (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) "Another Girl Under the Iron Bell," Angela Liu (Uncanny) "What Any Dead Thing Wants," Aimee Ogden (Psychopomp) "Negative Scholarship on...

Leonard Maltin's Animation Faborites from the National Film Board of Canada! The National Film Board of Canada is such an amazing wealth of riches! This movie has 9 short animations that start with a brief description by Leonard Maltin, and they are all amazing. Some of them have been staples of Canadian school curriculums for half a century and many Canadians will watch these,...

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...