May 1
How sustainable is your weekly grocery shop?
How sustainable is your weekly grocery shop? These small changes can have big benefits. The last thing we want to do is take the pleasure away from eating. But bite-sized changes add up to significant environmental benefits.
April thinking brings May linking
LinkMe, May '25: Come across an interesting link recently that you'd like to share, but don't want to work it up into a full post? Share it here for our perusal, nbd. And if you'd like to post something but need some inspiration, check out the links here to see what other members have found interesting and would like to read more about! Just tag the resulting post "LinkMe" and include a nod back to the original suggestion. No self-linking and usual site rules apply, but otherwise feel free to post whatever you like! Look inside for a round-up from last month. [more inside]
Australian Federal Election 2025
A rare example of an economic system that does not depend on capitalism
Unlike patents, which are owned, licensed, bought, and sold, standards are developed collaboratively and published by SDOs on “reasonable and non-discriminatory” terms, ensuring that they are widely available. Even Friedrich Hayek, in “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” practically the ur-text of free market fundamentalism, notes that the free market needs a process by which knowledge is constantly communicated and acquired. from The Anti-Capitalist Case for Standards [MIT Press Reader]
"We take care of our own."
The Texas County Where 'Everybody Has Somebody In Their Family' With Dementia (slAtlantic) [more inside]
The LgBTQIA+ News Post, Today With Extra Rage: May 1, 2025
It's the semi-regular LgBTQIA+ News Post. I'm including news people added to my last post, and I will credit them with giving me that information. A little delay today because of some last-minute addition to the bad news. [more inside]
Ok, who's going first?
While the internet debates who would win in a fight between 100 men vs 1 gorilla, the real question is why fight the gorilla? Yes, they're powerful, but they're also known for being gentle with strong family bonds. [more inside]
Female Domestic Servants, Dress and Identity in France and Britain
”Beyond the Black and White: Female Domestic Servants, Dress and Identity in France and Britain, 1900-1939” [more inside]
A City Drowned in god's Black Tears
A City Drowned in god's Black Tears (bandcamp) - an album by Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals [more inside]
📚 Canadian small press hat-trick #4 📚
Under the fold, Canadian small presses Anvil Press, Talonbooks, and the Ville-Marie Literature group. [more inside]
...and Richard Kind as Darth Vader
Maclunkey Treasure Island - An All-Star Live Reading of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (SLYT) On March 15th The Star Wars Minute Podcast and The george Lucas Talk Show staged a live reading of the original screenplay to 1977’s Star Wars, with a cast including Laraine Newman, D'Arcy Carden, Tatiana Maslany and more.
We manage our uneasiness by deflecting and denying
Lolita seduces us with language, and insists, in the intense pleasure of its verbal play, on being read. Whether we pay attention to what Humbert is actually saying is, of course, up to each reader. To turn away from the novel without reading it—to hide the book, and spare ourselves, with the problematic veil—bespeaks a dangerous, even immoral, incuriosity. To insist upon our own projected vision—to “solipsize” Lolita and Humbert both, if you will, or to reduce them to symbols or types, or more broadly to read without rigorous attention to the finer details of the text; to be shoddy, inadequate readers—is equally to be condemned. from In Its Purest Form by Claire Messud [LARB]
April 30
When you think you reached the bottom, you find a trapdoor leading down
Every Eye In The Animal Kingdom
Professor Lars Schmitz is in this video guiding us through a giant tree of life mapping the evolution of eyes in the animal kingdom: how they work, why they've taken the form they have, and the evolutionary advantages they've unlocked across species. (36m)
Indigenous fire management methods being used in Western Australia
In one of the world's most fire-prone regions, cutting edge techniques are protecting precious habitat.
Indigenous fire management methods being used in Western Australia's Kimberley are drawing international acclaim, as rangers say they are making a big difference to the health of the tropical savanna landscapes.
(Best books *so far*)
A.I. Coding
From Anthropic: AI’s Impact on Software Development "In our previous Economic Index research, we found very disproportionate use of Claude by US workers in computer-related occupations: that is, there were many more conversations with Claude about computer-related tasks than one would predict from the number of people working in relevant jobs. It’s the same in the educational context: Computer Science degrees—which involve large amounts of coding—show highly disproportionate AI use." [more inside]
The Moon felt like a reasonable answer
In 1822, someone in northern germany shot a stork. The bird fell, revealing a 31.5-inch arrow lodged in its neck. The real question wasn’t how it could still fly—it was where that arrow had come from. For Centuries, People Thought Birds Flew to the Moon During Winter—Until an Arrow Shot in Africa Landed in germany [Xatakaon]
"He's rigging the system/he's always on speed"
DC band Sub-radio here to give you a catchy lil ditty about one of the worst people! And tbh, a pretty fun Cake cover.
Fossil clue suggests echidna ancestors lived in water like platypus
Fossil clue suggests echidna ancestors lived in water like platypus.
A study of a 100-million-year-old bone suggests the ancient relative of the echidna and the platypus was semiaquatic — and echidnas moved back to the land from the water as they evolved.
Live and Let DEI
A poetry competition using the words flagged by the Trump Administration. (Link goes to the Submittable portal which requires registration). Submit an original poem that makes creative use of the words that the Trump administration is flagging on government websites and research papers. See the list (PDF). There is no fee to enter. Final judge: Jendi Reiter. A free anthology will be published. [more inside]
The complicated alternative history of A Christmas Prince
For a group of not-terribly serious holiday romance movies, Netflix's Christmas Prince films actually demand a long and significant alternative history. The map shown in the third movie of the series, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby, show three kingdoms ruling over eastern Europe, two of which have royal families that speak RP English, and one of which is east Asian and uses Chinese characters for writing. How did this happen? [more inside]
📚 Canadian small press hat-trick #3 📚
Under the fold, Ontario small presses guernica Editions, Invisible Publishing, and Palimpsest Press. [more inside]
The conjoined projects of critique and utopia
What is remarkable about the 1970s, and the subsequent half century, is, from Foucault’s perspective, not that a “new” liberalism emerged (as, he implied, “new” liberalisms are continually emerging) through a reshuffling of economic policies, but that its ideological dominance was established through, or amid, the narrowing of this formerly expansive repertory down to a single, minimal figure of “economic man.” from Just Another Liberalism? [The Hedgehog Review] [more inside]
April 29
Human connections to seagrass meadows date back 180,000 years
g'day mate!
Ander Louis, an author from Melbourne, Australia, is in the midst of translating Tolstoy's epic, War & Peace into Bogan Australian. [more inside]
The Abbott and Costello Show
The series is considered to be among the most influential comedy programs in history. In 1998, Entertainment Weekly praised the series as one of the "100 greatest TV Shows of All Time". In 2007, Time magazine selected it for its "The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME". Jerry Seinfeld has declared that The Abbott and Costello Show, with its overriding emphasis upon funny situations rather than life lessons, was the inspiration for his own long-running sitcom, Seinfeld.*
Joint Subreddit Statement: The Attack on U.S. Research Infrastructure
The mods of the academic subreddit r/askhistorians, with the support of about 30 other research & academic subs, have posted a call in defense of the US research, which is under an unprecedented attack by the current administration. The text is signed by historian Dan Howlett with inputs by researcher and specialist of online communities Sarah gilbert.
ALL KINDS OF VEgETABLES
Twelve years ago (gosh, really??) I made a post about Woody the Spoon, an animated character voiced by Bette Midler for the 70s kids show Vegetable Soup. Recently, Vegetable Soup has appeared in an official channel on Youtube, with entire runs of both seasons. It has a whole playlist of Woody the Spoon recipes, and within the episodes themselves, the kids-go-to-space puppet adventure Outerscope.
Hey, it says "gullible" on the ceiling!
“There is this myth of the digital native, that because some people have grown up with digital devices, they are well equipped to make sense of the information that those devices provide,” says Joel Breakstone, who led the 2021 study. “The results were sobering.” from How gen Z Became the Most gullible generation [Politico] [more inside]
Who you gonna trust, me or your lyin' eyes?
“Is it nonsense? Is it brilliance?”
28 slightly rude notes on writing "The more you think, the closer you get to the place where the most interesting writing happens: that tiny slip of land between “THINgS THAT ARE OBVIOUS” and “THINgS THAT ARE OBVIOUSLY WRONg”."
'Tis a silly place
50 years ago this week Monty Python and the Holy grail was released: Monty Python and the Holy grail at 50: a hilarious comic peak (The guardian). Monty Python and the Holy grail turns 50 (Ars Technica). Monty Python and the Holy grail cast 50 years later: Here’s what became of the iconic comedy troupe (EW).
Wario Metafilter
Ben Smith writes in Semafor about the private group chats where tech billionaires and right-wing pundits hash out their ideas. [more inside]
Modern Beatboxing
Beatboxing has been on the fringes of the music scene for years. The current crop of beatboxers are trying to break into the mainstream. (Lots of Youtube links) [more inside]
a leaking sack of heuristics
'The work of these researchers suggests there’s something fundamentally limiting about the underlying architecture of today’s AI models. Today’s AIs are able to simulate intelligence by, in essence, learning an enormous number of rules of thumb, which they selectively apply to all the information they encounter. [...] This research might also explain why AIs from different companies all seem to be “thinking” the same way, and are even converging on the same level of performance—performance that might be plateauing.' We Now Know How AI ‘Thinks’—and It’s Barely Thinking at All (WSJ; archive) [more inside]
"And Breathe Normally"
London’s low emission zones save lives and money Turns out, reducing emissions from cars may be good for the environment, for physical and mental health but also have substantial economic benefit. [more inside]
📚 Canadian small press hat-trick #2 📚
Under the fold, Canadian island small presses Acorn Press, Orca Book Publishers, and Stonehewer Books. [more inside]
A map of griftSville, U$A
Since his inauguration, Trump has been hard at work bulldozing regulatory or legal barriers for crypto companies that could require registration with financial regulators, more burdensome oversight, customer support programs and recourse for players whose in-game and/or crypto assets are stolen, and limits on gambling mechanisms in games — all things that would cut into crypto gaming companies’ profits. The Securities and Exchange Commission has practically broken the sound barrier in its race to drop investigations and enforcement actions (including the lawsuits involving Binance and Coinbase naming the gaming tokens as securities). from Trump’s newest grift: Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators by Molly White
April 28
Brand-New 75 year old airplanes
It's one thing to reverse-engineer a single airplane... It's quite another to build production facilities based on 75 year old blueprints. This is the story of Helio Alaska.
Blackout on the Iberian Peninsula
32,000,000 pieces on 64,000,000 squares
One Million Chessboards. Moving a piece moves it for everyone, instantly. There are no turns. You can move between boards. [more inside]
What is art and what is industry, what moves and what stays put
There are four cor-ten forms in a row, four objects different than they appear. Not closer, not through a mirror. Stand to one side and see an inverted, truncated cone; shift your vantage point a few feet to the right, and it’s a parallelogram in front of you. But the point is to go inside—you don’t look at them in space but inhabit the space that they make, an early 21st-century embodied museum experience. from Man About Town [n+1] [more inside]
She gave Voice to the Silenced
Virginia Roberts giuffre, who campaigned against sexual abuse and sex trafficking following her own experiences at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and ghislane Maxwell, has passed away at the age of 41. Her family confirmed that she died by suicide. [more inside]
le temps retrouvé
#freethread: the consideration of a shared time that takes the form of a succession poses yet another question: What about the continuity of the other (for us)? I believe that Time Regained provides a certain ‘solution’ to the problem of the identity of the self, but it does not provide a sufficiently clear answer to this question, which is also one of the main questions of the whole novel. To answer it, it is necessary to see time in a different way than as a quality or succession, namely as a certain constellation 🌌 [word & sense] (by request &, of course, previously)
This, he tells us, is Europe
There are glimpses of hope, even beauty: whispering Koranic Hadiths on the Autobahn while doing Amazon runs, savoring self-made wine in a French village where a family has lived for six generations, or finding queer liberation in Berlin. Judah’s dispatch on the war in Ukraine, one of the best in the book, reflects the otherworldly terror of battle. He describes a swamp «where everything is green, a strong, bright green; where the mist clings for a while after dawn; where if you blink it can feel a little out of time; like a woolly mammoth, like a german tank, could appear between the reeds.» from Europe disenchanted [The European Review of Books; ungated] [more inside]
April 27
"Fascism starts as violence... In fascism, belligerence is celebrated."
Rick Steves' The Story of Fascism in Europe - "In this one-hour special, Rick travels back a century to learn how fascism rose and then fell in Europe — taking millions of people with it. We'll trace fascism's history from its roots in the turbulent aftermath of World War I, when masses of angry people rose up, to the rise of charismatic leaders who manipulated that anger, the totalitarian societies they built, and the brutal measures they used to enforce their ideology. We'll see the horrific consequences: genocide and total war. And we'll be inspired by the stories of those who resisted. Along the way, we'll visit poignant sights throughout Europe relating to fascism, and talk with Europeans whose families lived through those times. Our goals: to learn from the hard lessons of 20th-century Europe, and to recognize that ideology in the 21st century." (via, previously) [more inside]
*tick tick tick tick*
In tonight's Last Minute, a note on Bill Owens, who until this past week was executive producer of 60 Minutes. He was our boss. Bill was with CBS News nearly 40 years -- 26 years at 60 Minutes. He covered the world, covered combat, the White House. His was a quest to open minds, not close them. If you've ever worked hard for a boss because you admired him, then you understand what we've enjoyed here.60 Minutes Chastises Its Corporate Parent in Extraordinary On-Air Rebuke
Bill resigned Tuesday. It was hard on him and hard on us, but he did it for us -- and you. Stories we pursued for 57 years are often controversial -- lately, the Israel-gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair -- he was tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires. No one here is happy about it. But in resigning, Bill proved one thing: he was the right person to lead 60 Minutes all along.
"Slide, ride, fly to Michigan"
Looking through the A.V clubs "wiki wormhole", "The most famous lizard in American history. In 1928, a time capsule was opened in Eastland, Texas, and inside was a still-living horned toad (technically a Texas horned lizard), who had survived a 31-year hibernation. [more inside]
All the metals
This intrepid guitarist demonstrates all the metals.