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mefi
"negative space to denote premium feel & materiality"
"Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute is an online community dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now." Examples: Cyberdelia, Eco-Beige, Paperback Chic, Corporate Grunge / Grunge™, Genericana, and Dollar Store Vernacular. Each category has a "Gallery" -- select "Show" to display examples of the aesthetic.
That's my jam!
Artist Stacy Nguyen, while making a tomato and onion jam, "wondered: What is jam? What makes something authentically jam?" and learned about the definitions of jam, jelly, curd, preserves, conserves, fruit butter, chutney, confit, and marmalade, then decided "dude, this information would make a good infographic." and made a fun "Fruit-in-Jars 101" graphic. Graphic is near the end of the post, after the recipe.
Abysmal to perfect and neat to dope
What words do English speakers use to describe things as good or bad or eh? In 2018 and 2019, YouGov did some surveys: Britons and Americans read selections of adjectives, such as "dreadful," "satisfactory," "decent," and "fantastic," and scored them from “very negative” to “very positive”. Meanings were broadly similar between the UK and the US but did differ, especially "at the most negative end of the spectrum." Also, across generations in the US, "cool," "awesome," and "nice" were the "top three words for describing something as generally favorable", but "fire," "far out," "superb," "poppin'," "fab," "righteous," and other adjectives differed in usage between age and ethnic groups.
US healthcare: terminology, appealing denial, and Medicaid eligibility
A plain-language primer on US health insurance billing terminology like "copay," "deductible," and "premium," and on coordinating benefits between multiple insurance policies. If your insurer has denied coverage for a test or treatment, a possible way to shame them into reversing their decision. And a public service announcement for US Medicaid members: "For the last three years – since the start of the pandemic – the federal government had the states stop checking the financial eligibility of Medicaid enrollees. They're going to resume doing that in April. This means, if you (or your kids) are on Medicaid, at some point in April or as soon as your state gets around to you, you're going to be required to do a bunch of paperwork to keep your Medicaid."
wiggly letters and a little strategy: Clickword
Clickword is a new word puzzle game where you "drag letter tiles to a grid and build words to score points." It's a bit like Scrabble, but since words disappear after you form them and you get a few fresh tiles at a time to arrange on the board, it also reminds me a bit of Tetris (but it's turn-based; there's no ticking clock). Each game ends once you've placed 60 letters. From the creator of squareword.
"i’m worried that this has something to do with the wizard thing"
Do you perhaps like your historical/fantasy fiction short and silly? "first day as a second century warlord..." starts a 16-paragraph farce of mistakes, crucial conversations gone wrong, and accidental intrigue. Found via unpretty.
a funnel, the tinsel, sifting, forgetting, remembering
Here, have 2 heartwrenching short speculative fiction stories where parents, trying their best, say or do terrible yet ordinary things; their children eventually find imperfect ways to cope or heal. "Coming Through in Waves" by Samantha Murray -- content notes at the top -- "[My mother's] sentences all sound … reasonable on the surface. She’s pulling any immediate clues from the environment, from my expression, from words that knit well together, to cover the gaping wound which is her mind.". Summary of "Sand" by Jasmin Kirkbride: When Suzy was born, her parents filled her mouth with sand. But this is normal and natural and the way things are always done. And if she finds it uncomfortable to keep it there, to eat with it there, to talk with it there, she’s just going to have to learn to live with it.
tips on changing a car's tire
meat, raucous spectacle, custom, Chaucer, and wedded bliss
There's a now-revived old tradition that happy married couples are eligible for a "flitch" of bacon (basically half a pig), as decided and awarded at "the Dunmow Flitch Trials -- "if they can satisfy the Judge and Jury of 6 maidens and 6 bachelors that in 'twelvemonth and a day', they have 'not wisht themselves unmarried again'". The trials involve counsel for the claimants arguing against counsel for the bacon, cross-examinations, and a lot of laughs. 2-minute clip of a trial from 1930; 43-minute video of a 2016 trial (spoiler for results).
passionate bacon enthusiasm in the US & Canada
On this December 30th, US National Bacon Day (coverage last year; one of several Bacon Days?), enjoy the English Wikipedia page on "bacon mania".
"a way that builds more trust instead of tearing it down"
When you realize you want to turn a private group chat conversation into a useful public document, Sisi Wei suggests: "Many times, it is only because a conversation was off the record that we are able to learn the most — and after learning it, we realize that the broader community could benefit from learning it too. So how do we share knowledge from conversations we all agreed would be private, in a way that builds more trust instead of tearing it down? I’m so proud to announce the launch of 'How to turn 🔒 Private Conversations into 🌳 Public Resources through 🤝 Community Consent,' a step-by-step guide for journalists on how to use a consent-based, trust-building process to turn off-the-record conversations into public, shareable resources."
SF/F published this year that somebody loved
Enjoy reading and recommending science fiction and fantasy prose, art, TV, film, and more published in 2022 with a crowdsourced list of Hugo Award-eligible works, people, magazines, etc. It currently lists 164 short stories and 29 novelettes, most of which you can read for free online, along with more than 130 novels, 19 graphic stories, and dozens of magazines and podcasts. This collaborative spreadsheet is administered by the fans who run the group blog Lady Business. If something you loved isn't in the sheet, please add it!
"The warlock said, 'These are not new jokes.'"
Three fantastical stories about trying to heal. "Isabel said, 'I think I’m being possessed.' You said, 'You’re not being possessed.' You also said, 'Don’t be so dramatic,' which you would later look back on and regret." "Spirochete" by Anneke Schwob (please note the content warnings on that page) has a demanding friendship and a chronic illness. “Did you regret what you said before Carl passed?” "Reprise" by Samantha Lane Murphy (please note the content warnings on that page too) portrays the end of a car ride, over and over. "Traditional witches and green witches don’t always see eye to eye. With a life on the line, Berthe is very persuasive." "Berthe the Green Witch" by Catelyn Winona (Caffeine and Magix on Tumblr) features a snob getting comeuppance.
"the service, which centred on themes of growth and renewal"
Iona Datt Sharma (previously) is a lawyer and author of science and fantasy fiction that I love and frequently recommend. They often write about the legal and social infrastructure of fantastical places. "Are you here to bang on about cultural ties and the longitudinal view of history?" "Light, Like a Candle Flame" (2017) reckons with the aftermath of a generation ship, sewage treatment, and the fear of "repeating all the old mistakes". "And it is the oldest settled law of our people that where signene lies, no cause of action can." "One-Day Listing" (2014) depicts attorneys taking care of refugees and each other, and grief.
"resentment is an essential survival skill"
A few short scifi pieces by BIPOC authors whose work I love and I frequently recommend. "As a low-quality person waiting for slaughter, Helena understands how those cows feel." "A Series of Steaks" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (January 2017) (previously) portrays a beef forger, stuck with an awful job, who makes an unexpected friend. "I’m a very expensive prototype but there will be efficiencies at scale." "Left of Bang: Preemptive Self-Actualization for Autonomous Systems" by Vajra Chandrasekera (April 2017), on training in surviving and committing violence, is short and brutal.
"I grabbed a seat in the reality opposite her."
Three short science fiction stories written by people of color and published this year (and thus eligible for you to nominate for 2022 awards). "there’s official information, but it’s never enough. And there are rumors, but you can’t trust them. This is almost like…in between." "Shared Data" by Malka Older imagines us joining forces to share information as mutual aid. "What he wanted was to leave reality." "Simulations" by Danilo Campos portrays an AI who gives a tech CEO surprising advice. Vaughn reached inside herself experimentally, tentatively, looking for anger, and found only fear again. "All That Burns Unseen" by Premee Mohamed depicts firefighting, eldercare, and a new friend.
"I can’t tell you what a relief it was to find this place!"
Two short speculative stories, written by people of color, that use a fantastically cozy teashop and restaurant to depict comfort and care. "Speaking of the service! They’re LGBTQ+ and undead-friendly, obviously, so that’s a plus." "Review for: Izakaya Tanuki" by J. L. Akagi praises a hard-to-find ozoni vendor. "Who’s that interesting hominid you were talking to?" In "Liz's Tea House" by Rodrigo Culagovski (MetaFilter's Own signal), space newbie Ana stumbles through a lot of beloved scifi stories on the way to making a home for herself.
"you had to write out how it was smart"
"how many painters are having to basically become process artists and action artists instead and setting up a camera in order to film themselves doing the painting because actually, what the algorithm cares more about is the verb..." Gabrielle de la Puente, in the conversation "Instagram Has Ruined The Art World" (27 Nov 2022) on making alternative online venues for artists to display work. (via sliceofpearpie: "this isn’t about external validation.... these form part of our working conditions.") "You were trying to explain to an artist how they could reach ten times more followers online by adhering to certain principles. You felt like the devil when you explained it." A comic by Jaakko Pallasvuo about relatability and attention. "Not everyone presents well in 280 characters, especially in a space they don’t even want to be present." charlottemadison42 and largishcat on a similar issue for writers.
Tubi, a free-to-watch (ad-interrupted) film and TV streaming site
In the US and some other countries, Tubi is an ad-supported streaming service where you can watch some movies and TV for free, without having to log in. The catalog of course includes a lot of "that looks like dreck" stuff, but also 16 seasons of Columbo, classic films such as Stalag-17 and Fail-Safe, and other stuff you may have been meaning to watch.
Cohost, a new social media site
Cohost.org is a new, in-development blogging platform that pledges: no ads, no tracking, your home feed is a chronological timeline of posts by the people you follow, with "clear and effective moderation done by humans." It's open to signups and it's built by a not-for-profit worker-owned software company. It's currently not that easy to browse unless you're logged in; here are some sample tags: food, autism, long post. Previously.
"servers, sewers, alienation"
From Maya.land (previously): a "drafty as hell lol" post on public utilities, tourism, personal experience of infrastructure, technical agency, and the romantic and the invisible.
HEP2go, a physical therapy exercise reference
HEP2go is a site that helps physical therapists and other rehabilitation professionals create home exercise programs for patients and clients, and helps patients by providing clear instructions and examples for each exercise. The inventory of exercises is divided up by anatomical category and exercises are annotated with text descriptions, photo illustrations, and -- in many cases -- short demonstration videos. (Click the "play" icon in the lower left corner of the photo to get a Vimeo inset to pop up and play.)
"the entry level hug"
"These are the hugs I miss" by Linda McIver: "One person can give many different hugs, but hugs between the same two people tend to develop a distinctive character over time."
Guess the Christmas song with a new Heardle spin
One of the guess-that-song daily web games, Heardle Decades, has added Christmas Heardle -- listen to a few seconds at a time, type the name of the song or artist to search among dozens of Christmas songs, and try to guess the song within the first 12 seconds of the tune.
"Our radical ideas are now the conventional wisdom"
USENIX is ending the Large Installation System Administration Conference after 35 years. "LISA made LISA obsolete (That's a compliment!)" by Thomas A. Limoncelli takes us back to 1987, when "System administration is important" and "Open systems like TCP/IP and POSIX (Unix) are the future" were radical ideas, and shares LISA history (including: "LISA was LGBT-friendly when other conferences most certainly were not.").
"something extratextual was always going to be conveyed"
Maya.land is one of those idiosyncratic personal websites with, for example, a page about heraldry and the Internet. ("Heraldry scales nicely down to avatars.") Maya most recently posted about choosing a new font. "...a lot of what we think we’re perceiving in an artwork or Thing is the part that can be flawlessly reproduced, but the way our minds grab onto it is all about its aura – the origin, the context, the situatedness that a mechanical reproduction wouldn’t duplicate."
"appropriate, but mutually exclusive"
"I’m always looking for tangible examples of how our towns and cities go through long slow cycles. Our places as well as our institutions have a lifespan." Johnny Sanphillippo at Granola Shotgun (previously) writes about the death of an elderly neighbor, sorting through her belongings, San Francisco infrastructure that's well-maintained or not, and related topics, illustrating his post with many photos (heads-up in case you're on a low-bandwidth connection). In case you enjoy his work, check out the Granola Shotgun archives, including 2014-2020 material on his old WordPress site.
"beautiful emergent things that happen... once you get a new capability"
Where do banks site their branches, and why? Or: how does deposit insurance work? Or: what does it mean for a transaction to be "final"? Patrick McKenzie discusses these topics and more in his newsletter "Bits about Money: About the modern financial infrastructure that the world sits atop of." He focuses on the US, international networks, and Japan.
Throttle Tabs: limit visible browser tabs to a set maximum
"A while ago I made an addon for myself. It was essentially a tab FIFO [First In, First Out]. It would only allow 10 tabs to be open at a time. If an 11th tab was created, the least recently activated tab would be closed." Throttle Tabs is a Firefox browser extension (an add-on) by Eitan Isaacson to help manage open tabs. "I decided to add an 'overflow' feature which is essentially tab purgatory. Instead of having the addon auto-close the tab, it hides it. .... The overflow can be capped too so it can permanently discard old tabs after a given limit." Source code.
"neat, distinct eras instead of long, messy lifetimes"
"It was possible for someone to spend their late teen years attacking slave catchers as part of an abolitionist vigilance committee, hit their 20s ambushing proto-confederates in Kansas alongside revolutionaries who fought on the barricades in 1848, fight in the war itself, battle the klan in guerrilla actions after and still be spry enough to end up in the middle of the 1877 Great Upheaval and the conflicts following that. They would have spent very little — maybe none — of those years in uniform." "Living in the prologue: lessons from America's long civil war" by journalist and anarchist David Forbes (notes on her sources) narrates the life of Abraham Galloway to discuss the US's "long civil war — and the thousand forms of resistance within it".
Speech-to-text with Whisper
Whisper, from OpenAI, is an open source tool you can run on your own computer that "approaches human level robustness and accuracy on English speech recognition"; "Moreover, it enables transcription in multiple languages, as well as translation from those languages into English." Instructions on how to download, install, and run it. (I have successfully used Whisper and the results were very good. However, it is not fast enough to run during recording of an interview and give you live captions/transcripts; it runs after the fact, on already-recorded audio.)
A wide variety of entertainment recommendations
The 2022 Yuletide fanfic exchange starts soon, and fans are recommending their fandoms for you to check out. Yuletide celebrates fandoms that have relatively little fanfic on the major fanfic platforms. This fandom promo post has tons of comments recommending songs, video games, films, books, ads, poems, visual novels, and other work, old and new, along with content notes and "where to find it" advice. "Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them."
"plausibly polished logos"
includes rule covering "Unspecified Winter Celebration"
Any ex-lovers of residents of Spirit Falls must file, in writing, their intent to enter city limits ninety days before an intended visit. The paperwork must include a notarized affidavit of intent to not participate in, instigate, or be the recipient of romantic gestures. "We Are a Picturesque Small Town and We Refuse to Be the Setting for Your Romantic Comedy" by Rachel Mans McKenny, a short humorous piece in McSweeney's.
New "Our Bodies, Ourselves" website
The classic, groundbreaking, influential book "Our Bodies, Ourselves" has a new website with "updated, curated, and inclusive information about the health and sexuality of women and gender-expansive people .... features the best of the 'old' Our Bodies Ourselves as well as extensive new health content." Topics include "Sexual Anatomy and Common Medical Problems", "Trans Healthcare", and "Heart Health". In keeping with the book's inclusion of first-hand storytelling, the new site includes interview videos and transcripts.
Rejections, feedback, delays, payment, and numbers
Amit Gupta gives readers and writers a peek behind the curtain: How much time does it take to sell a short scifi story, and how much do you make? "10 publications rejected the story before it found a publisher.... Read on for all the gory details including actual emails!"
"no more boxes filled with things I'll deal with later"
Published October 31, 2001, Paul Ford's "Cleaning My Room" starts, "I find it hard to clean. Certainly the basics are simple." (Content note for mice and rats, and fatphobia, and 9/11.) Ford's memoir moves through self-esteem, love, household order, guilt, shame, and making it "to this trivial point, to this small and stupid place that seemed entirely out of reach".
Tips for baking while dealing with brain fog
Resilience, staffing, succession planning, and changes for our era
"Today, when someone is sick, they’re often sicker, or sick for longer than we are used to." "The new normal of staffing, conferences, and work" is a post by Heidi Waterhouse (disclaimer: a friend). "We have to change how we think about staffing and add in a lot of expensive redundancy. I thought about this originally in the context of in-person events, but it’s honestly true for every part of work and life."
Chinese and Australian governments, protests, and digital privacy
Bail conditions for climate change activists linked with Blockade Australia have clauses "that would prohibit the use of encrypted communication apps such as WhatsApp and Signal. [New South Wales] police also imposed conditions forcing the activists to hand over any communications device to police and provide passcodes upon request." Elsewhere, "A protest planned by hundreds of bank depositors in central China seeking access to their frozen funds has been thwarted because the authorities have turned their health code apps red", which left them unable to travel. (Previously.)
"I want my life to flash before your eyes."
"And every minute you spend with me is a minute that they too get to look for beauty." "The Unweaving of a Beautiful Thing" by atb depicts a battle between a witch and Death. It was posted to the Effective Altruism forum but is much more about character than calculations. 'There were two words that Superman lived by, and they were “pay me”.' Over on Archive of Our Own, "A Common Sense Guide to Doing the Most Good" by cthulhuraejepsen is an unfinished narrative of "Clark Kent, effective altruist" that addresses "the Crank Problem".
"But I knew that all was not ok."
Maria Farrell wrote advice for people struggling with the effects of COVID in 2020: "Indefinitely Ill – Post-Covid Fatigue: What to do when your body forgets how to be well": "Because I really only want to say one thing; if you have had Covid-19 (tested or not), and are getting to a month or two on and still feel like you’ve been hit by a bus, please, for the love of God, rest." Last year Ada Palmer wrote about a bad turn in her health: "the resistance to taking medical leave came from me, not others." This month Farrell wrote "Settling in for the long haul": "about how I habituated, or; how I learnt to lie not with my words but my deeds" when coping with life-changing chronic illness.
DeathSucks.pdf (also known as SayingGoodbye.pdf)
A free "workbook on the kind of bullshit you need to do when someone you love dies", available as a "version with lots of swearing at the useless, shitty situation you're in" or a "version with a fair amount of black humor but no cursewords". Including "Prepare to spend a long and miserable time on the phone," "Depressing Mad Libs" (obituary templates), "So You Suddenly Have To Become Some Kind of Hacker," and "How to plan a non-religious death party". Published 2019.
Daily puzzles in art, geography, and more
Enjoy several daily free-to-play web puzzles or trivia games, playing with math, subway routes, film stills, and more. This list attempts to be comprehensive with (as of this post) 770 games that are in some way like Wordle. Artle: guess the painter/photographer/sculptor. Tradle: guess the country based on its chief exports. Sociolinguist Jessi Grieser is "nominating -le as a combining form meaning ‘internet game that has one solution per day and can share nonspecific results on social media’" for the 2022 Word Of The Year.
"How Do I Accommodate This Person?" Ask JAN
A couple years ago, through Ask a Manager comment threads (previously), I learned about the Job Accommodation Network which has a giant organized list of accommodations an employer could make, sorted "by disability, by limitation, by work-related function, by topic, and by accommodation". It's also a useful source of ideas if you're interested in better accommodating yourself as a self-employed freelancer, or supporting your family, friends, or volunteers.
"the recognition of roast potatoes at home and abroad"
For over 20 years, the annual Roasted Potato Festival has been celebrated in Slovenia, organized by the Society for the Recognition of Roasted Potatoes as a Distinct Dish. They have a song (recording). Other Slovenian potato festivals include "blindfolded potato digs".
math, cola, and a chicken suit
"Cola math" is a silly, twenty-nine-second video: "Circa year 2000 something, cut together from a couple silly student films." Found via Brion Vibber as he was testing video transcoding/deinterlacing.
upholds the permanently ricketty elaborate structures of living
"And maintenance is the sensible side of love /
Which knows what time and weather are doing / To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring..." from U. A. Fanthorpe's poem "Atlas". "and I realise that, without me asking / you've stopped what you were doing / to take him outside, so he can continue playing / and I can have a quiet house for my call" -- from a comic by Jordan Bolton, part of Scenes from Imagined Films Issue #1.
Joy of Computing
"Joy of Computing is here to remind you that computers can be both useful and fun": one new link to a technical project posted each day -- blog posts, toys, tools, games, and more. There's now an archive going back to 2018 ("a bit like a big group Tumblr"). Everything from a mathematical expression generator ("Do you want to say '1' as inscrutably as possible? This web app will generate a complicated mathematical expression for the integer of your choice.") to "an interactive tool that invites you to play and experiment with DNS to understand how it works" to a book about how WebRTC works.
a civilized and graceful concession
I post this to let y'all know that da share z0ne (previously) has now posted perhaps the graphic most? or least? suited for reference in MetaFilter discussion: "Thank's for the infomation / I changed my mind / I was wrong / It won't be the last time / bitch" of course accompanied by a leather-clad skeleton arcing colored energy between their hands.
"clipping each word so it faced the world alone"
"I’ve no fixed place on account of I’m often late from my shift." "Churched" by Maria Farrell is a short story that is about, among other things, "the marooned generations of Irish in London – people who came over from the 1950s onward, pushed out by economic and social stagnation, and who rarely got home again." And resolving a little mystery about a man who starts acting oddly in church.