MetaFilter

I know people who're in the community of people who research supercentenarians. The documentary evidence for Jeanne Calment's age is very, very good. A friend once told me that the statistical unlikelyhood of how well she was documented is as much of an outlier as her age, which I guess just goes to show that for extraordinary claims you need extraordinary evidence.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:03 AM on January 17, 2024

What doubts? I'm honestly asking, becuase Jeanne Calment's life is incredibly well documented, with scores of documents through-out her life, and many photographs.

The countertheory is that her daughter who, based on photographs, wasn't close to being her doppelganger, pretended that she died instead of her mother, and then impersonated her for the rest of her natural life. And that everyone else in her family and community went along with it. That is a wiiiiild theory,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:49 AM on January 17, 2024

According to the latest information given by Icelandic geologists, the volcano seems to be settling down. It started with real force, and it’s already produced about three-quarters as much lava as the first eruption in this series produced over a six month period.

The ridge where this volcano erupted is known as Sundhnúkagígar (which translates to Strait Peak Craters) was a site that had worried geologists for a while, because of its proximity to Grindavík. When the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:19 PM on December 20, 2023

Geologists flew over the eruption site this morning and couldn’t see any signs that the eruption was still going, but it’s possible that there’s still some lava flowing, but that it is within lavatubes.

Hopefully this turns out to be the end, but selfishly I can’t but be a bit disappointed, as I’m flying to Iceland on Saturday, and it’s always exciting to see an eruption from high up in the air.

Though really, it’s a very good thing this turned… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:39 AM on December 21, 2023

The eruptions in this series have not had much in the way of an ash plume, almost nothing when compared to the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Thankfully, as the international airport is on the same peninsula.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:57 PM on December 21, 2023

There's been a fatality in Grindavík. A man was working on repairing damage that resulted from a crevasse opening through the middle of the town fell in yesterday, most likely because a part of the wall gave out, and a day and a half later he still hasn't been found. The crevasse is 20 meters deep (60 feet) where he was working, and about half of it is full of water. They've sent drones down, but so far haven't found any trace of him, but they're working on expanding the mouth of the crevasse so… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:59 PM on January 11, 2024

Here we go once more, another eruption has started, slightly closer to the town of Grindavík.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:45 AM on January 14, 2024

Another fissure opened, right by Grindavík's town limits, and lava has flowed into town, two houses so far have been destroyed. You can follow further developments on RÚV's English-language liveblog.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:37 AM on January 14, 2024

So, it seems that the small fissure that opened right by Grindavík seems to have closed up during the night, happily, though three houses were destroyed. The lava is still flowing from four or five openings along the larger fissure that was further away from the town.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:05 AM on January 15, 2024

The owner of the first house to be hit, which he and his family had been building themselves for the last two years and were just about ready to move in when the town was evacuated in November, was interviewed by RÚV. He was remarkably well-what're-you-gonna-do about the whole thing, especially considering that his family's older house had also been destroyed as it was on a faultline. It certainly puts in perspective when I curse of all available gods because I bumped my head on an open cupboard… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:07 AM on January 15, 2024

All indications point to the eruption being over. Or rather, that this eruption is over, because the magma chamber beneath the Svartsengi Power Station, just north of Grindavík, is still getting fresh magma from below. The people of Grindavík, and the Icelandic government, is taking stock of the situation. As of now, the whole town is in shock. Not just from the eruption, but also the fatality that occurred three days prior (the body is yet to be found).

One increasingly… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:52 AM on January 17, 2024

cupcakeninja: A key feature of media and fandoms on the internet at this point is deep niches.

That's absolutely true in my family's case. We have a subscription to Disney+ because they have a lot of Icelandic-language content, thanks to decades' worth of cartoon and family movie dubbing. If it weren't for that, we probably wouldn't subscribe to any streaming service. Very much a niche need. I think Netflix kinda gets that, which explains why they've… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:52 AM on January 15, 2024

It’s been very gratifying to see the post office scandal finally blowing up. I first heard about it from Marina Hyde, who’s been on it for years. But I wanted to highlight someone who was way ahead of everyone, Rebecca Thomson, who in 2009 broke the story in the aforementioned Computer Weekly. She was interviewed about it two years ago in the Times [archive link], on of many, many national news organizations that didn’t pick up on the story. Among the many incredible details in her interview,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:33 AM on January 14, 2024

I don't want to continue the weird derail, but for those wondering, Sleiman has multiple sclerosis. He used to to musical comedy, but switched to stand-up (which he sometimes does sitting down) because of how MS was affecting him. This happened at about the same time he started working from home. I honestly don't really see what his disability has to do with the story.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:48 AM on January 12, 2024

Substack has responded. I had rock bottom expectations and still I’m somehow disappointed. Like, I expect them to be Nazis, but I also expected them to at least pretend not to be, for business reasons.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:20 AM on December 21, 2023

“to pressure Substack about its supposed platforming of Nazis”

I’ve enjoyed John Ganz’ writings, but the word ‘supposed’ is doing a lot of work here and for the rest of his argument.

I find it so baffling that people whose opinions I respect and consider thoughtful find ways to rephrase a really simple and clear situation.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:30 AM on December 22, 2023

Why Platformer is Leaving Substack. Casey Newton is ghosting. Excerpt: When I launched Platformer on Substack in 2020, it was not in the belief that we would be here forever. Tech platforms come and go; in the meantime, they can also change in ways that make staying there impossible for the creators that rely on them. For this reason, I almost launched Platformer on a custom-built stack of services centered on WordPress, the way my inspiration Ben Thompson had done for Stratechery.… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:45 PM on January 11, 2024

And Taylor Lorenz and Will Oremus report on Newton's decision for the Washington Post, giving more context.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:37 AM on January 12, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:39 PM on January 11, 2024

.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:16 PM on January 10, 2024

.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:34 PM on January 10, 2024

From Bklyn: On the one hand, I had no idea he was Polish.

This comment inspired me to check to see if the Wikipedia edit war about Copernicus' nationality was still raging, and yes, the latest comment in that particular kerfuffle was just a month ago. Wikipedians have been arguing whether Copernicus was German, Polish or Prussian since 2006. That dispute is old enough to vote. It's the real life version of the dril tweet "'Is Wario A Libertarian'… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:18 AM on January 9, 2024

SansPoint: Also, Finland and a lot of Europe seems to have some... issues with trans rights, and I'm not sure how easy it would be to continue getting my HRT.

Trans rights in Finland took a massive step forward last year. Finland had fallen far behind even the median European position, but legislative deadlock had kept things frozen for years and years. It’s a credit to Sanna Marin’s government that they put political capital into expanding queer… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:17 PM on January 2, 2024

Also, on voting, in Finland non-citizen residents such as myself get to vote in local elections. This is fairly common practice in Europe.

So while I don’t get to vote for the president or parliament, I get to vote who my mayor is and for city and province councils.

Mapping voting practices in the US to other countries is difficult.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:01 AM on January 3, 2024

MtDewd: Or that 1800 was a leap year.

In the Gregorian calendar 1800 wasn’t a leap year, but in the Julian calendar it was. Which makes the Foula timeline kind of confusing, because if they switched at the beginning of 1800, then it wouldn’t matter. But if they did halfway through the year, it would make sense.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:00 PM on December 30, 2023

Around the turn of the century I traveled around Europe with some friends and acquaintances, including a Moroccan, and she was really excited about M6, as she referred to him. Her hope for the future really struck me. For the generation of people who were young when he came into power, he represented a new beginning, and it’s a shame that the Moroccan state has become jammed.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:48 PM on December 30, 2023

That was a really sweet and touching video. There’s something really profoundly beautiful about the story if this odd little gif traveling through time and finding itself in a very different Internet from the time of its creation.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:56 PM on December 26, 2023

Thanks, mollweide!

The first ten minutes sounded like someone had contact-miked up a very large present and then unwrapped it. It was fab, and I was a bit disappointed when the indie music kicked back in, as lovely as it is.

This also spurred me to find WPRB on Radio Garden, which I’d meant to do in forever (it’s in Princeton, NJ).
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:55 AM on December 25, 2023

Happy Yuletide to one and all! I hope you get a piece of clothing this season or else the Icelandic Yule Cat will eat you. Anyway, all of you are the best and my life would be immeasurably poorer without you. As a treat, here’s a recording of Björk singing the old song about the Yule Cat that was translated in that post I linked earlier.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:04 PM on December 24, 2023

In the last thread i_am_joe’s_spleen posted a link to a piece by Katie Notopolous which makes a really clarifying comparison between Substack and Etsy.

The latter expressly forbids the selling of Nazi merchandise. Besides the ethical good sense, it also is a sound business decision, because not many people would want to sell your art and crafts on a site that also sells swastika tea-cosies. Currently, Substack is selling swastika tea-cosies.

Or… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:06 AM on December 23, 2023

this is too damn wholesome for words

best of the web, best of American culture
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:41 PM on December 16, 2023

Inspired by this post I picked up some Riga Gold Sardines on my latest grocery store run. I'm already excited to try them.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:25 AM on December 19, 2023

This really does measure something about your brain, because I was up most of the night because my 4-year-old daughter kept coughing herself awake. Yesterday I could always at least get to 12 letters, and sometimes a handful more, but now I can't even get to 12.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:52 AM on December 16, 2023

I was finally about to break my record and get to 16, and the prompt was "containing 'er'", a prompt I had gotten a gazillion times. I excitedly, and confidently, typed out LERM and hit enter.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:38 AM on December 19, 2023

I finally got to 16. I think I can stop thinking about 20 Words 20 Seconds for a little while now. Between this game and the volcano, I have gotten sweet eff all done today, workwise.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:08 AM on December 19, 2023

These are lovely! I’d seen a handful before, but never the full set.

Earlier this winter I went to a Tom of Finland exhibit and it featured a selection of his Christmas cards and they were something else. Here’s a positively demure example, the only one I could find online, but most of them were hilarious.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:59 PM on December 18, 2023

a clattering of jackdaws descending on a giant goat statue to feast on its seeds

well that sure isn’t ominous, everything’s going to be fiiiiine
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:20 PM on December 17, 2023

Usenet was the first thing I found on the internet that really wowed me. The web was really small and somewhat staid when I first encountered it in 1991 or '92. I was ten, eleven at the time, and there just wasn't that much content on there I found interesting, at least that I could find easily. But Usenet was filled with all kinds of interesting conversations on an incredible variety of topics. I loved it.

In some ways, MetaFilter is the inheritor of Usenet's legacy on… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:18 AM on December 15, 2023

“A poet should be recognizable not by his style but by the way in which he looks at things.”

This is such a brilliant way to think about what poetry is. I tend to think of poetry as, essentially, playing with language, and therefore look to language as the mark of a poet. But playing with language is, in some fundamental way, impersonal and easily reproduced. However, a human being’s perspective will always be unique, as no two humans will see the world from the same… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:10 PM on December 13, 2023

Simon Mayo, on the film podcast he does with Mark Kermode, referred to the Covid pandemic as “what with one thing and another” and I’ve often thought that phrase could be expanded to fit everything that was going on right now.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:17 PM on December 9, 2023

The Finnish intelligence service has released its documents concerning Lee Harvey Oswald’s short stay in Helsinki on his way to Moscow in 1959. There are no bombshells in there, but it’s kinda interesting. Short excerpt: On the night of October 10, 1959, a young man identified as Lee Harvey Oswald arrived at Hotel Torni in Helsinki.

Hailing from the United States, he checked into room 309, claiming a five-day stay. However, after just two nights, Oswald changed hotels,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:56 AM on December 9, 2023

St. Oops: so it's time for a dive back in when the family tires of Christmas music

The last song, titled Holy Night, isn’t the old hymn, but a song about the old hymn, and it’s a firm favorite as a Christmas song in my household. And it’s one of my favorite songs in the genre of songs p-about-other-songs, which are always about the power of music to move the listener.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:05 AM on December 8, 2023

I find it oddly comforting that my favorite album of the year, Hannah Jadagu’s Aperture, only shows up on one of the linked lists, as an “also worthwhile” pick by Jon Pareles of the New York Times. As far as I can remember, it’s only happened once before (Emma the Great’s Virtue was my favorite of the year it came out, and I remain mystified why it hasn’t been widely acknowledged as a masterpiece). That’s also about the time I stop being a music critic.

I thought, back… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:03 PM on December 6, 2023

General Malaise: An album is on way too many lists with an antisemitic verse by someone with a deep history of antisemitism

Noname's album was my biggest musical disappointment of the year. I've loved all her work until now, and I was so excited when it dropped. I listened to it once, and never again.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:51 PM on December 6, 2023

That looks like an interesting list, and the albums I've listened to are indeed good. Thanks for posting it, hippybear!

One thing I've been struck by in recent days, looking at English-language "best songs/albums" lists online is how similar they are. For instance, more than half of the Guardian's 20 best songs of the year are on Pitchfork's 100 best songs lists. It's nothing new that critical opinion has tended to herd towards the same works of art, but until… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:31 AM on December 5, 2023

Oh, and to stop being grumpy and get into the spirit of the post, the album released this year that I've listened to the most is certainly Lana Del Rey's Do You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd? with Blur's The Ballen of Darren being a close second.

But if I had to pick one album that's most got under my skin, it would be Aperture by Hannah Jadagu.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:50 AM on December 5, 2023

morspin: Thought I'd see Sudan Archive there, but maybe she was more last year than this year. What's a year anyway?

Yeah, I made the same mistake. My first comment was going to be “what where’s Natural Brown Prom Queen”, but then I checked the date and saw that it came out last year. I listened to her music a lot this year, and saw her live – the show was fantastic – so I’ll probably always associate her with 2023 in my head.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:22 PM on December 5, 2023

On his other channel HBurgerGuy Brewis has posted a 20-minute supplemental video called Iilluminaughtii and the perils of lazy video essays which pretty much explains itself, but is still fairly jaw-dropping.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:15 AM on December 5, 2023

This may be common on Reddit, but I was shocked to see comments by AI-bots on the HBomberguy thread about the episode, specifically a product summary about the book The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War on Homosexuals.

Absolutely not the time, topic and place, even if there were ever a time, topic or a place for garbage LLM nonsense.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:02 AM on December 5, 2023

Amelia Tait wrote an earlier article about potato chip flavors and mentioned Tayto and Murphy, but yeah, it's a bit odd not to mention that in this article too.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:10 AM on December 5, 2023