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The long night had come again.
Imagine a planet in a system with six suns where total darkness, in the form of a solar eclipse, comes only once every 2,049 years. This is the setting of "Nightfall," a short story that appeared in the September 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. An immediate sensation, it sealed the reputation of its author, a little-known 21-year-old graduate student at Columbia University named Isaac Asimov.
Mary Poppins had more magic than you know
The folks at Corridor Crew recently reached back sixty years to recreate a truly wonderous piece of special effects technology that was thought to be long lost.
The comics legend lurking in a Sunderland basement
The BBC profiles comic artist and writer Bryan Talbot, following the recent announcement that he will be inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame.
"If that offends them, so be it."
"Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts" A letter from The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH) editor Chris Quinn
An Infamous Anime Genre Comes To English
As part of their regular updates to the English lexicon, the Oxford English Dictionary has added a number of Japanese loan words, most notably the term for a notorious genre of anime and manga - isekai, or "portal fantasy".
Hugo Award Finalists Announced
Announcement video: ”Hello, my name is Nicholas Whyte and I have a baller accent.” (video with transcript).
Text announcement on the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon Bluesky account. Full list of finalists with details about nominating numbers and disqualified or self-withdrawn items is online at File 770.Previously, censorship report- Previously, scandal erupts - Previously, 2023 boycotts - Previously, full tag list.
Conviction for illegal voting
Crystal Mason: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years over voting error acquitted.
Mason, who has remained out of prison on an appeal bond, said in a telephone interview on Thursday evening that she received the news while going through a drive-through and became emotional. “I was thrown into this fight for voting rights and will keep swinging to ensure no other citizen has to face what I’ve faced and endured for the past seven years, a political ploy where minority voting rights are under attack,” she added.
They are risen
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence began in 1979 when a small group of gay men in San Francisco donned the habit of Catholic nuns, and used camp to subvert expectations & promote social and political change in San Francisco. Sacrilege or serious parody? Illicit joy or elicit compassionate apraxis? The Sisters have grown into an organization of queer joy with 65 houses in 10 countries. This Sunday Easter in the Park: Hunky Jesus and Foxy Mary Competition is set to attract 10,000+ attendants, but the works of a Sister is never done.
whereas, the alt right prepper alone in his basement with tons of food
Zoe, The Leftist Prepper, on supporting one another after disaster.
From the Struggle Care podcast, with an auto-generated transcript. It's this rugged individualism that I think combined with gun love, because they are in my comments every single day... 'Oh, I'm gonna come to the blue state when the apocalypse hits and just take all your stuff.' And it baffles me... like, don't you care about the old granny next door who may need help opening her cans? I just, I don't get it.
Families in cars, driving all night with the heat on to keep kids warm
A new report on on rural homelessness Finding Home: A True Story of Life Outside (full report) and press release. Of the hundreds of homeless Oregonians interviewed for the report, roughly 60% are employed but cannot earn enough money to meet income requirements, credit scores, and security deposits necessary to re-enter the rental housing market. Interview with report author and former mayor of Ashland Oregon Julie Akins: At what point do we accept that? That you can be a working person and still homeless? That you can be a retiree who worked your entire life — and now you’re unhoused because your wife died, and only one Social Security benefit is not enough?
“I actually think that AI fundamentally makes us more human.” (BOOOO)
Ted Gioia: "Tech leaders gathered in Austin for the South-by-Southwest conference a few days ago. There they showed a video boasting about the wonders of new AI technology. And the audience started booing." [Xitter link]
Gioia argues that users are becoming much more wary, not only about "AI," but about tech in general.
This is one of the best Blake's 7 fan fictions that I have ever read
This is one of the best Blake's 7 fan fictions that I have ever read. Avon and Blake both survive Gauda Prime - but can Blake ever trust Avon again? and can they win the war against the Federation? In the Bleak Midwinter by x_los.
They Owe it All To Clean Living
Kevin Roose writes in today's NYT about how content moderation made Reddit what it is today - a successful IPO
"Today, Reddit is a gem of the internet, and a trusted source of news and entertainment for millions of people. It’s one of the last big platforms that feel unmistakably human — messy and rough around the edges, sure, but a place where real people gather to talk about real things, unmediated by algorithms and largely free of mindless engagement bait. "
No, really. Just ignore the porn, and everything is great. Really.
Remember that one episode of DS9 with the tribbles?
The Making of Star Trek Deep Space Nine Trials And Tribble-ations [32m, complete with commercials] was a documentary which was broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US on November 4th, 1996. The documentary looks at the writing and production of the episode [Wikipedia] and features footage filmed during production of the episode.
How Britain got done by Getting Brexit Done
Four years on from Britain's exit from the EU, how's it going? Swimmingly, say its supporters, who argue that we should stop blaming Brexit for our economic ills. Most people in the UK have more of a sinking feeling about it, but the prospects for repairing or reversing the damage are unclear.
His invention was instrumental
Shigeichi Negishi, the inventor of the world's first commercially-available karaoke machine, has died in Japan. He was 100 years old.
Finalists for the 59th Nebula Awards
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the Nebula Awards.
TikTok... DOOM!
The seemingly dormant push to target ultrapopular video platform TikTok on national security grounds roared back to life this week as the House teed up a surprise bipartisan vote on forced divestment of the app's US operations.
An attempt by Chinese parent company ByteDance to mobilize users against the legislation clearly backfired, angering lawmakers into delivering a unanimous vote to proceed.
Critics warn the app offers the increasingly authoritarian CCP government reams of sensitive data and an unprecedented insight into the American psyche (along with a potent avenue for propaganda and influence operations), while defenders cite the company's diversified ownership and ongoing efforts at re-shoring US data operations.
Bolstered by support from the White House (and a troubling intelligence report on election interference), the bill sees likely passage in the House today and an uncertain path in the Senate, as well as a long legal battle after that. The biggest twist: former president Trump, a longtime Sinophobe who signed a failed executive order banning the app, has suddenly flipped in favor of it as a counterweight to Facebook -- a move many insiders see as calculated to undercut Biden's already precarious support from young voters.
How COVID contributes to heart attacks and strokes
How SARS-CoV-2 contributes to heart attacks and strokes. The virus that causes COVID-19 can infect coronary arteries and increase inflammation in atherosclerotic plaques. An NIH-funded research team, led by Dr. Chiara Giannarelli at New York University School of Medicine, analyzed coronary artery tissue samples from people who died of COVID-19 between May 2020 and May 2021. Results appeared in Nature Cardiovascular Research on September 28, 2023.
Joe Biden's final State of the Union (before the 2024 election)
With dismissing the also-rans and cementing a rematch few wanted, the 2024 presidential race has officially entered the general election stage -- just in time to watch Joe Biden's 2024 State of the Union address (in about an hour -- 9PM Eastern). The first before Speaker Mike Johnson (and potentially the last of his presidency), the address is especially high-stakes this year, with anxious Democrats counting on Biden to demonstrate competence, energy, and a hopeful vision amidst a slew of dismal polling. Anticipated topics include Ukraine funding, abortion and personal freedom, fighting corporate price-gouging, the GOP-blocked border bill, and a new plan to construct a humanitarian seaport in Gaza.
Lepas Don't Lie
The Sea Creatures That Opened a New Mystery About MH370.
Could freaky barnacles do what advanced technology couldn’t — find the missing plane?
Two reviews of the new White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman
In the Washington Monthly, How to End Republican Exploitation of Rural America and in the Washington Post, this book about Trump voters goes for the jugular.
(gift link)
a Wikipedia article that was citing an AI-generated "source"
Video: Become a Wikipedian in 30 minutes
(with transcript)! web3isgoinggreat's Molly White's fantastic explanation of how to get started and lots of other useful advice. White suggests that new editors to get started writing about something they know nothing about: for example, the silverspotted tiger moth. If you are a subject matter expert in a particular topic, you don't know what other people don't know and may not be able to write a good 101-level entry.
How to Design a Tabletop Game
The folks over at Stonemaier Games have a nice, lengthy set of pages and links about how to design a tabletop game. Game design previously.
Here at the edge of things.
(The child has opened the book again)Evan Dahm just finished the first passage of his latest web comic, 3rd Voice. In his words: 3rd Voice is a long-format fantasy graphic novel updating with one scene or so a week. It concerns an invented world in a state of apocalyptic crisis, and the precarious lives of many people therein.
INDISS: Hark. (Closing the book with one enormous hand, scattering the dried flowers) Look not too closely, girl.
CHILD: I want to hear the voice, Indiss!
INDISS: (holding the book) I’m sorry. It isn’t fair. But we live beyond the end of such things. In the shadow of a great catastrophe. Or within its bleaching light.
History of Lettering Comics
The Art and History of Lettering Comics
is available free on letterer Todd Klein's blog. Originally planned as a print book, he's posted the whole thing online. From the early 1900s to today, Todd covers the evolution of word balloons, special effects lettering and comic book and newspaper comic letterers known and unknown and much more.
Prickly paddy melon could help create sustainable cement alternative
Weed that costs farmers $100 million a year could help create sustainable cement alternative. Prickly paddy melon is a major problem for the Australian agricultural industry but researchers say it may have potential to reduce soil erosion and offset the construction industry's large carbon footprint.
My hosts were nice people. They showed us extraordinary hospitality
Kate Wagner (a cycling journalist best known for her blog McMansion Hell) takes a trip to the Austin Grand Prix for Road and Track magazine as a guest of INEOS F1 team. A subeditor chose the pull quote “If you wanted to turn someone into a socialist you could do it in about an hour by taking them for a spin around the paddock of a Formula 1 race. The kind of money I saw will haunt me forever.”. Shortly after, an editor chose to pull the article entirely.
Plague Data
One of the most dreaded diseases in early modern London was plague. Starting in 1603, government officials published weekly plague mortality statistics in a broadside series known as the Bills of Mortality. The bills grew to include not just plague deaths but also dozens of other causes of death, ensuring their continued publication for decades after the final outbreak of plague in England. Between 1603 and 1752, almost 8,000 different weekly bills were published. Death by Numbers aims to transcribe and publish the information in these bills in a dataset suitable for computational analysis.
Paper tools for broken hearts
"In this sense, the understanding of cartomancy that the authorities had was the direct opposite of how it often worked in practice: far from ‘sowing discord in social relations, and mistrust within families’ as one journalist put it, cartomancy aimed to mend broken relations by reconnecting each card to its wider system of meanings. ... What this meant for clients in practical terms was rarely articulated by cartomancers."
Radley Balko goes long against a George Floyd conspiracy documentary
The Fall of Minneapolis (IMDb), a right-wing conspiracist documentary arguing that Derek Chauvin was innocent of wrongdoing against George Floyd, has recently gained some traction in more “respectable” conservative circles.
Long-time police reporter Radley Balko (mefi’s own) has written a three-part critique of the documentary breaking down the film’s inaccuracies, the naïvely positive coverage it received in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, and the various corporate and social systems that work to protect police racism and violence: “The Retconning of George Floyd” · “The Autopsy” · “The Great Flattening”
Long-time police reporter Radley Balko (mefi’s own) has written a three-part critique of the documentary breaking down the film’s inaccuracies, the naïvely positive coverage it received in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, and the various corporate and social systems that work to protect police racism and violence: “The Retconning of George Floyd” · “The Autopsy” · “The Great Flattening”
PFLAG sues Texas to protect transgender members
From Erin Reed's newsletter: In a legal filing Thursday, PFLAG National sought to block a new demand from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that would require the organization to identify its Texas transgender members, doctors who work with them, and contingency plans for anti-transgender legislation in the state. The civil investigative demand, issued on Feb. 5, calls for extensive identifying information and records from the LGBTQ+ rights organization. PFLAG, in its filing to block the demands, describes them as "retaliation" for its opposition to anti-transgender laws in the state and alleges that they violate the freedom of speech and association protections afforded by the United States and Texas constitutions.
Officer-Involved Book Banning
Sheriff Robert Norris is speaking into his body camera. “Today’s date is April 20, approximately 7 a.m. Just want to document my visit to the Hayden Library. My attorney and I are just curious and would like to document this visit to see what kind of materials are on display here.” Norris, the sheriff of Kootenai County, Idaho, meets up outside the library with Marianna Cochran, the founder of CleanBooks4Kids, a “grassroots group of North Idaho citizens alarmed at the abundance of books sexualizing, grooming, and indoctrinating kids in our local libraries at taxpayer expense,” to search for the book Identical, which Norris says he had “seen an image [of] floating on social media.” [...]404media: Police Bodycam Shows Sheriff Hunting for 'Obscene' Books at Library
They walk into the library, and for the next 45 minutes search for “obscene” books in the Young Adult section while Norris’s camera is rolling in one of the most bizarre police body camera videos I’ve ever seen.
Skewered Meat, Skewered
Skewered meat is Middle Eastern in origin, but kebabs got their start with the Ottomans. Skewered meat is Greek in origin, from way back. Skewered meat is different when it comes to Persian Kebab. Skewered meat leads to debate. Skewered meat is from the dawn of humanity. Meats on a stick can be many things, including spread on the Silk Road, and the varieties go on and on.
Eugenics Powers IQ and AI
What kind of intelligence is valued in AI? Writing for Public Books in 2021, Natasha Stovall (previously) asked us to consider whether the claim that conceptually undergirds IQ—that "human intelligence is universal, hierarchical, measurable"—is reified in the development of AI. The answer seems clear from today's perspective; we use the same terminology to talk about AI advances as we do "gifted" individuals (e.g., verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, processing speed, working memory.) More provocatively, Stovall charges that such a "reductive definition of human ability" has a coherent lineage from eugenics through the popularization of IQ and on to today's version of AI—and that all of the above are rooted in whiteness.
A Closer Look at Self-immolations in Freedom Struggles
Dying in the Truth:
Self-immolation is an unthinkably costly and tragic method of last resort sometimes used by those striving for justice and freedom in asymmetric conflicts. The first person to perform this fiery protest as a modern political tactic is Thich Quang Duc, who sat in the lotus position at a busy intersection in Saigon in 1963 and set himself on fire to decry Buddhist suffering under a pro-Catholic regime. Since the birth of the tactic in 1963, the world has witnessed some 3,000 incidents of self-immolation, according to sociologist Michael Biggs. About 160 of these occurred in Tibet between 2011 and 2018, marking one of the greatest waves of suicide protests in history. Considering the extent of the practice, we, scholars and practitioners of nonviolent resistance, must ask ourselves: Why do some people prefer to die in the truth, rather than to live in a lie? And does the involvement of death, in and of itself, automatically place any tactic in the camp of violence?
'I think too much complexity can actually be a bad thing.'
"I decided to write a sequel of sorts to a craft talk I gave in Paris last month on what I’ve been calling moral worldbuilding, which to me just means being more conscientious about the kinds of value systems we include in our work, and facing up to the fear of being called didactic or melodramatic. That talk was pretty diagnostic and focused mostly on theorizing causes of how we got there. This one focuses more on the aesthetic qualities of bad moral worldbuilding and their immediate causes. It’s pretty vibey." Brandon Taylor's new essay, living shadows: aesthetics of moral worldbuilding.
The New Tabletop Games Journalism
Rascal News
is a new venture in tabletop games journalism. Building on the 00s' New Games Journalism for videogames, the editors/authors are Lin Codega, Rowan Zeoli, and Chase Carter. A recent interview with Kimi Hughes discusses "How Has Actual Play Changed Game Design?"
How Google is killing independent sites like ours
Private equity firms are utilizing public trust in long-standing publications to sell every product under the sun. In a bid to replace falling ad revenue, publishing houses are selling their publications for parts to media groups that are quick to establish affiliate marketing deals. They’re buying magazines we love, closing their print operations, turning them into digital-only, laying off the actual journalists who made us trust in their content in the first place, and hiring third-party companies to run the affiliate arm of their sites. While this happens, investment firms and ‘innovative digital media companies’ are selling you bad products. These Digital Goliaths shouldn’t be able to use product recommendations as their personal piggy bank, simply flying through Google updates off the back of ‘the right signals,’ an old domain, or the echo of a reputable brand that is no longer.Indie air purifier review site HouseFresh does a deep dive into the incestuous world of top-ranking Google product search results.
Blue Beat Baby: The Untold Story of Brigitte
Who was the woman who inspired ska's ubiquitous Beat Girl logo?
Joanna Wallace found a picture of the woman who inspired Hunt Emerson's iconic logo, and it led her to start digging into the history and career of Brigitte Bond.
The unauthorized adventure of Tom Bombadil
Redditor "whypic" has been posting daily installments to the Glorious Tom Bombadil subreddit of an original webcomic work of fan-fiction describing an adventure of the mysterious side-character Tom Bombadil from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In the webcomic, Bombadil is portrayed like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, and his naive enthusiasm is contrasted with the more worldly and serious elf-king Gil-Galad who is more of a "Hobbes" figure. Who is Tom Bombadil? Let "Jess of the Shire" explain.
Webcomic installments 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
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15
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(Previously: Dark Bombadil)
(Previously)
Rabbit Test
Rabbit Test
is a short story by Samantha Mills, published online by Uncanny.
Content Note: Sexual Assault, abuse, traumatic miscarriage, psych ward treatment, and suicide.
X-Men '97 Picking up where they left off
TheTrailer for the Disney+ Exclusive X-Men '97 Animated series is out.
Airing between 1992 and 1997 the X-Men animated series was a pivotal piece of X-Men Media.
Luminous glass artworks bring troubling histories into the light
The Art Gallery of WA has meticulously curated thousands of pieces of delicate glass created by a First Nations artist, Yhonnie Scarce, to tell significant stories.
Two floors of a Perth gallery have been filled with large-scale glass works that depict nuclear fallout from nuclear testing conducted at Woomera, South Australia in the 1950s, the impacts of uranium mining and intimate family history.
In the largest survey of work by Yhonnie Scarce, a Kokatha and Nukunu artist from South Australia, the Art Gallery of WA has brought together pieces that include two 2000-piece hanging glass works.
a taxonomy of supremacist bad faith, and the margins of permission
Part 1:
my Poochie who is sure to tell you that he only finds anti-woke rhetoric understandable. Part 2 : Charlie Kirk now believes that pretending to revere Dr. King is less useful. Part 3: the most insidious kind of bad faith—pretending to take an opposing position in order to create a normalizing debate for [white] supremacy. A.R. Moxon's Reframe, relocated off of substack!
No Vehicles In The Park
Why it's impossible to agree on what's allowed.
No Vehicles In The Park is a little game by David Turner made to illustrate how difficult it is to to have policies on things like moderation, spam, fraud, and sexual content that people agree on, even in a trivial case.
Hat tip to Dan Luu
[STOP in the name of HUMANITY]
Why Deleting and Destroying Finished Movies Like Coyote vs Acme Should Be a Crime
Whatever the technical legality of writing off completed films and destroying them for pennies on the dollar, it’s morally reprehensible: Oller memorably calls it “an accounting assassination.” Defending it on grounds that it’s not illegal is bootlicking. The practice also has a whiff of the plot of Mel Brooks’s “The Producers”. The original idea of Brooks’ hustler protagonists Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom was to mount a play so awful that it would close immediately, and they can live off the unspent money they raised from bilking old ladies. When the show unexpectedly becomes a hit, they blow up the theater. The biggest difference between the plot of “The Producers” and what happened to “Batgirl” and “Coyote vs Acme” is that in “The Producers,” the public got to see the play.Background: The Final Days of ‘Coyote vs. Acme’: Offers, Rejections and a Roadrunner Race Against Time, in which WB executives axe a completed and likeable film they've never even seen for a tax write-off after a token, bad-faith effort at selling it.