The Votes are in, and Narendra Modi has won a third term as Prime Minister of India. However, in a surprising upset, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to win a majority, much less the supermajority Modi had predicted.
posted to MetaFilter by GenjiandProust at 1:54 PM on June 7, 2024 (19 comments)

If you want to pop into a no-shame-no-blame-if-you-can't-do-it, trounce the rich boycott with heart, enjoy this continuing saga. Background below the fold. The Loblaws boycott was set to take place in May, but continues, and rumour has it that it's had an impact. Alt.grocery is up and running with crowdsourced information. (Reminds me of Vaccine Hunters.) Executives are posting replies to social media complaints on LinkedIn. Some folks are creating posters in satiric support -??? - of Galen Weston grocery overlord. Support for the boycott crosses political lines. And oh yes, there's swag for sale (one example of many.)
posted to MetaFilter by warriorqueen at 8:09 AM on June 4, 2024 (42 comments)

The jury has reached a verdict and is currently filling out paperwork until about 5:15 Eastern. Trump was looking cheerful and relaxed, sharing smiles and laughs with his lawyers, as they prepared to leave for the day. As soon as the judge announced that instead we had a verdict, his demeanor changes dramatically. He crossed his arms and knitted his brows. He continued to whisper with attorney Todd Blanche, but no longer cheerfully.
posted to MetaFilter by kensington314 at 1:52 PM on May 30, 2024 (689 comments)

The IRS announces that "Direct File will be a permanent, free tax filing option." Despite years of lobbying from the likes of Intuit and H&R Block, the IRS ran a successful pilot program of its Direct File program with 12 states. Today, they announced that the program will be permanent and invited all states to participate.
posted to MetaFilter by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:04 PM on May 30, 2024 (22 comments)

The Stasi files offer an astonishingly granular picture of life in a dictatorship—how ordinary people act under suspicious eyes. Nearly three hundred thousand East Germans were working for the Stasi by the time the Wall fell, in 1989, including some two hundred thousand inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, or unofficial collaborators, like Genin. In a population of sixteen million, that was one spy for every fifty to sixty people. In the years since the files were made public, their revelations have derailed political campaigns, tarnished artistic legacies, and exonerated countless citizens who were wrongly accused or imprisoned. Yet some of the files that the Stasi most wanted to hide were never released. In the weeks before the Wall fell, agents destroyed as many documents as they could. Many were pulped, shredded, or burned, and lost forever. But between forty and fifty-five million pages were just torn up, and later stuffed in paper sacks. from Piecing Together the Secrets of the Stasi [The New Yorker; ungated]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:19 AM on May 30, 2024 (21 comments)

A very old ham finally got the funeral it deserved. Ellen Klages, during her intro on a recent episode of "Jeopardy!" mentioned an old, scary ham, and encouraged people to learn more about it. The tale of the "heirloom ham" does not disappoint.
posted to MetaFilter by davidmsc at 8:44 AM on May 24, 2024 (48 comments)

A Furious, Forgotten Slave Narrative Resurfaces (NYT gift link) John S. Jacobs was a fugitive, an abolitionist — and the brother of the canonical author Harriet Jacobs. Now, his own fierce autobiography has re-emerged.
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 9:04 AM on May 24, 2024 (5 comments)

Young schoolchildren from County Cork, working with a non-profit children's music & creative space, have created a piece called 'The Spark" for Cruinniú na nÓg, which is the national free day of creativity for young people, run by the Creative Ireland Programme’s Youth Plan. [cw: strobe transition effect on first link]

Take a moment to imagine what you think it might sound like, before you click the link and enjoy 'The Spark'.
posted to MetaFilter by Busy Old Fool at 9:03 AM on May 17, 2024 (15 comments)

[B]ooks in the public domain—books anyone with a digital file, a printer, and a dream can produce and sell—can be a sweet side hustle for people looking to make a quick buck, and they are free to make their own choices when it comes to the cover art they select, but this one cracked me up because it is not even close to representing the contents or the tone of the book. I decided to do a deep dive into the world of public domain publishing, to see what else was out there… (Karen T. Brissette) Bonus: 50 Very Bad Book Covers for Literary Classics (LitHub)
posted to MetaFilter by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:12 PM on May 12, 2024 (40 comments)

Chris Biggs' shorts on 80s classics - oh the memory of cigarettes and Strawberry Shortcake!
posted to MetaFilter by dorothyisunderwood at 7:55 AM on May 6, 2024 (31 comments)

As part of Secret Base's Patreon based restructuring, Internet video troubadour and oddity explainer Jon Bois has ressurected his long defunct Pretty Good series with a three part video on the rise and fall of Henry Ross Perot's political party/personal vehicle - the Reform Party.
posted to MetaFilter by NoxAeternum at 11:14 AM on May 1, 2024 (24 comments)

The Book of Miracles unfolds in chronological order divine wonders and horrors, from Noah’s Ark and the Flood at the beginning to the fall of Babylon the Great Harlot at the end; in between this grand narrative of providence lavish pages illustrate meteorological events of the sixteenth century. In 123 folios with 23 inserts, each page fully illuminated, one astonishing, delicious, supersaturated picture follows another. Vivid with cobalt, aquamarine, verdigris, orpiment, and scarlet pigment, they depict numerous phantasmagoria: clouds of warriors and angels, showers of giant locusts, cities toppling in earthquakes, thunder and lightning. Against dense, richly painted backgrounds, the artist or artists’ delicate brushwork touches in fleecy clouds and the fiery streaming tails of comets. There are monstrous births, plagues, fire and brimstone, stars falling from heaven, double suns, multiple rainbows, meteor showers, rains of blood, snow in summer. [...] Its existence was hitherto unknown, and silence wraps its discovery; apart from the attribution to Augsburg, little is certain about the possible workshop, or the patron for whom such a splendid sequence of pictures might have been created.

The Augsburg Book of Miracles: a uniquely entrancing and enigmatic work of Renaissance art, available as a 13-minute video essay, a bound art book with hundreds of pages of trilingual commentary, or a snazzy Wikimedia slideshow of high-resolution scans.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:53 AM on April 29, 2024 (15 comments)

Writing for Defector, Asher Elbein talks about the evolution of the character of Magneto, who is (yet again) back from the dead and the shift of meaning in "Never Again," from inclusive aspiration to its violent modern application.
posted to MetaFilter by Ghidorah at 4:13 PM on April 24, 2024 (100 comments)

Enclosed within its rugged mud brick walls the temple precincts at Dendera seem to be an island left untouched by time. Particularly in the early hours of the morning, when foxes roam around the ruins of the birth house or venture down the steep stairs leading to the Sacred Lake. Stepping into the actual temple is like entering an ancient time machine, especially if you look up to the recently cleaned astronomical ceiling. This is a vast cosmos filled with stars, hour-goddesses and zodiac signs, many of which are personified by weird creatures like snakes walking on long legs and birds with human arms and jackal heads. On the columns just below the ceiling you encounter the mysterious gaze of the patron deity of the temple: Hathor.

It might not have the iconic status of Giza or the Valley of the Kings, but the Dendera temple complex north of Luxor boasts some of the most superbly-preserved ancient Egyptian art known, ranging from early Roman times back to the Middle Kingdom period over 4,000 years ago. Most breathtaking is the ceiling of the temple's grand pronaos, which is richly decorated with intricate astrological iconography. But you don't have to travel to Egypt to see it -- thanks to photographer and programmer José María Barrera [site], you can now peruse an ultra-HD scan of the fully-restored masterpiece in a slick zoomable scroller. Overwhelmed? See the captions in this gallery for a deep-dive into the symbolism, or click inside for even more.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:52 AM on April 21, 2024 (10 comments)

Klay Thompson Accused in Bizarre Brick-Vandalism Spree. "In a bizarre turn of events, NBA star Klay Thompson has been accused of vandalizing multiple houses with bricks in Sacramento. Authorities are investigating the claims after several individuals reported their houses being damaged, with windows shattered by bricks. Klay Thompson has not yet issued a statement regarding the accusations. The incidents have left the community shaken, but no injuries were reported. The motive behind the alleged vandalism remains unclear."
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 1:16 PM on April 17, 2024 (48 comments)

The children's counting book, Hippos Go Berserk!, over 45 years after its original publication, now has a sequel, Hippos Remain Calm. In an interview with Slate, author Sandra Boynton reveals hitherto unknown details of hippo psychology and muses on the literary merits of board books.
posted to MetaFilter by jackbishop at 11:42 AM on April 3, 2024 (33 comments)

Who's the worst fast food mascot ever created? The Burger King? Phil A. O'Fish? Some would offer another possibility. Meet Mr. Delicious, the attempted post-modern deconstructionist mascot believed by some to be at least partly why the Rax restaurant chain only mostly died. You can watch a short video about the campaign, watch a longer video (mirror) about it from the company itself, read an article, or actually watch and listen to ads starring a balding, unhappy middle aged mascot for The Fast-Food Restaurant For Grown-Ups.
posted to MetaFilter by BiggerJ at 3:10 AM on April 2, 2024 (46 comments)

Massive Missing Head of Ancient Ramesses II Statue Uncovered. "Egyptian and American researchers recently uncovered the top half of an ancient statue depicting the pharaoh Ramesses II, completing a puzzle that has remained unsolved since 1930, when German archaeologist Günther Roeder initially uncovered the bottom half."
posted to MetaFilter by moonmilk at 12:16 PM on March 20, 2024 (19 comments)

Surprising detail is a near universal property of getting up close and personal with reality. You can see this everywhere if you look. For example, you’ve probably had the experience of doing something for the first time, maybe growing vegetables or using a Haskell package for the first time, and being frustrated by how many annoying snags there were. Then you got more practice and then you told yourself ‘man, it was so simple all along, I don’t know why I had so much trouble’. We run into a fundamental property of the universe and mistake it for a personal failing.

Blogger John Salvatier talks stair carpentry, boiling water, the difference between invisible and transparent detail, and how paying closer attention to the beguiling complexity of everyday life can help you open your mind and break out of mental ruts and blind spots.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:28 PM on March 18, 2024 (48 comments)

"A while ago my wife introduced me to Stand In Pride, where queer people can find stand-in family members for support and indeed often for big life events — when their biological families don’t show up. And so it came to pass that a couple of weeks ago I had the singular honour of walking Taylor down the aisle to marry Ruth. Family is what you make it. Love endures." (via @chrisphin on Mastodon, with their permission and featuring lovely pictures of the wedding.)
posted to MetaFilter by chococat at 2:48 PM on March 15, 2024 (16 comments)

"As soon as Senator Katie Britt started speaking, I knew exactly who she is. She is so many of the pastor's wives and Sunday School teachers I knew growing up in an Evangelical church. Be sweet. Obey."
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 11:37 AM on March 9, 2024 (93 comments)

I HATE IT!
posted to FanFare by Lawn Beaver at 12:27 PM on March 7, 2024 (12 comments)

Omelet you finish, but whipped egg dishes are popular around the world. Some that Western audiences might not be familiar with: Uganda's Rolex, Malaysia's Ramly burger, South Asia's Anda Bhurji and Akuri, Japan's chawan mushi and Turkey's Menemen, the world is ova-flowing with possibilities.
posted to MetaFilter by zamboni at 9:01 AM on February 29, 2024 (34 comments)

A surprisingly interesting case study on what the left hand does, when the other is the invisible hand of the market: How Boeing broke down: Inside the series of leadership failures that hobbled the airline giant. "It was that managerial decisions, made over a period that spanned more than 20 years and four CEOs, gradually weakened a once vaunted system of quality control and troubleshooting on the factory floor, leaving gaps that have allowed sundry defects to slip through" (non-paywall), changing Boeing from an engineering product company to the McDonnell Douglas finance machine. Previously (1) (2) (3).
posted to MetaFilter by rubatan at 12:44 PM on February 28, 2024 (48 comments)

For a variety of reasons I am stuck at my job (at least until they kick me out), and it's driving me completely around the bend. Yes, I have a therapist, yes, we're working on it, but in the meantime I'm just really casting about for anything to keep me from gnawing my own face off. Books, tricks, I don't know, for dealing with the feeling of "this should be tolerable but it isn't."
posted to Ask MetaFilter by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:47 AM on February 28, 2024 (31 comments)

AI is already better than you. "You cannot shame this technology into disuse any more. That only works if quality is something the people with money care about. The problem with the continuing erosion of the games industry, the dehumanisation of game workers and the brutal treatment of outsourced work, is that many roles in the games industry are already treated as if they were automated. You are appealing to the better nature of money men who do not have one."
posted to MetaFilter by simmering octagon at 5:11 AM on February 28, 2024 (78 comments)

just to tick me off. In the early 2000s, gaming magazine GameNOW spent two years sneaking the same screenshot of Final Fantasy VIII into every issue, just to needle a single irate reader.
posted to MetaFilter by signsofrain at 12:14 PM on February 27, 2024 (11 comments)

Maybe a glimmer of hope for today...
posted to MetaFilter by BlueHorse at 7:15 PM on February 13, 2024 (26 comments)

Wow, dang! Dang, you guys! There's a new Homestar Runner toon! You can watch it on the website (which now uses Ruffle to play Flash in modern browsers) or you can watch it on YouTube, if you truly must.
posted to MetaFilter by DoctorFedora at 9:39 PM on February 13, 2024 (13 comments)

The Vesuvius Challenge Grand Prize has been awarded to a team that joined forces after their earlier successes. The team provided about 5% of the first scroll, which looks to be part of an Epicurean work. The organizers also announced the 2024 goal: 90% of the first four scrolls scanned and segmented!
posted to MetaFilter by bbrown at 12:28 PM on February 5, 2024 (20 comments)

Elmo Asked an Innocuous Question: Elmo was not expecting it to open a yawning chasm of despair. (NYT gift link) “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” In thousands of responses, social media users let Elmo know that no, actually, they were not doing too hot.
posted to MetaFilter by jenfullmoon at 10:15 PM on January 30, 2024 (24 comments)

Equal parts Murder Mystery Party, Escape Room, and Parlour LARP, Jubensha are the Chinese gaming experiences that you've probably never heard of. (NYT)
posted to MetaFilter by forbiddencabinet at 12:01 AM on January 28, 2024 (4 comments)

I’m helping my best friend gather information on assisted living facilities and I am concerned about getting good information while not getting either of us on endless phone call, email, or mailing lists. I work, so phone calls would be easiest, but also neither one of us have the mental or emotional capacity right now to deal with unending, unwanted solicitations. Asking people who have been through this recently - will i be on endless lists if i give the facilities my mailing address? Or do you recommend taking a day off work and hitting as many places in person that I can in a day?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Silvery Fish at 8:28 AM on January 22, 2024 (10 comments)

Michael Kruse, writing in Politico, ‘This to Him Is the Grand Finale’: Donald Trump’s 50-Year Mission to Discredit the Justice System, is a VERY long read that begins with the Trumps being sued for racist rental properties in the early Seventies and being defended by Roy Cohn, and moves forward decade by decade and provides a LOT of really interesting and necessary context for what we will be seeing happen this year in various courts around the country.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:20 PM on January 23, 2024 (26 comments)

The Monsters Know What They're Doing is a blog that examines all of the D&D 5th Edition monsters, according to their rulebook stats and descriptions, and offers strategy ideas for the interested DM.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 9:37 AM on January 10, 2024 (30 comments)

An Open Letter to Jeremy Allen White Regarding His Recent Calvin Klein Ad Campaign
posted to MetaFilter by O Time, Thy Pyramids at 8:53 AM on January 9, 2024 (125 comments)

The Washington Post Revisits Stories from This Year to See Where They Are Now In January, I posted this thread about Devon Henry, a Black Virginia contractor who was hired to take down a Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery when no one else would. In doing so, Henry took on significant risk with workers walking off site, being told his business would be ruined, and having to wear a bullet-proof vest to work every day. An update is the 5th story at the gift link above.
posted to MetaFilter by Toddles at 9:14 AM on December 31, 2023 (4 comments)

The villain who plans to demolish the toy shop in a Hallmark Christmas movie sets the record straight. By Joanna Castle Miller, December 2021.
posted to MetaFilter by russilwvong at 11:12 AM on December 25, 2023 (23 comments)

BUILDING THE WORLDS BIGGEST MARBLE TRACK TO EXPLOIT THE GAME - Marble World Is Perfectly Balanced [50m] is completely entrancing. Nearly 1000 marbles begin the run, only a few will make the winner's circle, and many end up in the gutter. The Spiffing Brit has done this before [previously], but this one is even more unhinged than the first.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:57 PM on December 23, 2023 (5 comments)

25 years ago, on November 19th 1998, a small game studio called Valve Corporation launched their debut game: a zombie shooter and puzzle platformer called Half-Life. Yesterday, Valve published their 25 year anniversary update to the game (complete with restored multiplayer maps, bug fixes, patch notes and a usable crowbar), leading to a new all time high of 14 thousand concurrent players (xitter link).
posted to MetaFilter by fight or flight at 4:24 AM on November 18, 2023 (43 comments)

"no matter how hard you try to implement these discriminatory policies in the right way, you are never going to find a right way to do the wrong thing" Man gives truly inspiring speech at Virginia Beach school board meeting [DailyKos, includes transcript] "And Gov. Youngkin’s policies are wrong. One of the ways you could tell is because you have speakers from groups like Moms for Liberty here to support them. And I'll be real simple in case you aren’t paying attention—they're not the good guys. How can you tell? I can help. The good guys don't get declared extremist groups by human rights organizations." Direct Link To Video Of Speech [2m10s]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:59 PM on November 15, 2023 (21 comments)

The long history of weather observation and prediction in the US (National Endowment for the Humanities)
posted to MetaFilter by moonmilk at 5:12 PM on November 8, 2023 (13 comments)

I'll confess to not having watched Saturday Night Live at all this season but this sketch—Washington's Dream—is damn funny. The host was Nate Bargatze, who is a comedian I've never heard of, and he also had a funny opening monologue.
posted to MetaFilter by bbrown at 11:24 AM on November 3, 2023 (135 comments)

“Hey Chloe,” you say, “I would like both Four Weddings and the Funeral and my relationship with Doctor Who completely sullied while still nourishing my relationship with my vinyl fetish. You got anything for me?” - Ten flicks that'll make you thirsty... for blood!
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 3:17 PM on October 20, 2023 (35 comments)

[CW: The image I'm asking about here depicts violence, possibly in the context of war, though it was judged fit for printing by a mainstream magazine.] Can anyone help me figure out what magazine cover I saw in the 1980s depicting two men in a physical altercation?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kensington314 at 11:43 AM on October 16, 2023 (4 comments)

In major news in the fight against malaria, the World Health Organization has approved the R21 vaccine - which can be produced cheaply at scale.
posted to MetaFilter by NoxAeternum at 10:17 AM on October 3, 2023 (17 comments)

Top 10 Arcades Games Every Year From 1980-1989 (100 Games) [25m] offers without commentary a list of each of the 100 games, showing gameplay and those delicious sound effects. Right away I was struck by "oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that one!"
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:07 AM on September 25, 2023 (104 comments)

...it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. The Stories Behind The Making Of The Blues Brothers [55m] is a 1998 documentary about the 1980 film that defined an era and the likes of which will likely never be made again.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:52 AM on September 22, 2023 (57 comments)

Tech Talk with Tim and Ted is a semi-improvised narrative podcast about technology and emotional labour, told in the form of an Apple evangelist podcast. Learn how to download the Spotify app, update your printer firmware, and how to get your wife back. (I haven't listened to anything else in the last two weeks and I can't stop laughing.)
posted to MetaFilter by avocet at 9:40 AM on September 21, 2023 (14 comments)

Light is an online poetry magazine that's been going since 1992. If you often think of poems as stodgy and hard to understand, you might want to give the sparkling light verse produced by their stable of poets a chance -- archives include work by Wendy Cope, frequent higgledy-piggledy (double dactyl) appearances, an "impossible rhymes" compilation including Tom Lehrer, Ogden Nash, and Roy Blount, Jr., and more. Poems reacting to current events, large and small, appear in the magazine's long-running Poems of the Week feature.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 10:51 AM on September 18, 2023 (12 comments)