March 13
Some thoughts on the masterpiece 1976 album 2112 by Canadian band Rush
When other bands cite us as an inspiration or an influence, [the theme of 2112 is] what they're talking about, more than anything. I've often read when we're mentioned as an influence for a band they'll say, 'We're big Rush fans, because they did it on their own, they did it their own way, and that told me that I could do the same thing. If I stick with it, persevere, I can do things the way I want them to be.'" via NPR
‘2112’ can be considered many things – a band manifesto, a conceptual landmark, maybe even the birth of prog metal – but above all, it was the band’s play for creative independence. via udiscovermusic [more inside]
‘2112’ can be considered many things – a band manifesto, a conceptual landmark, maybe even the birth of prog metal – but above all, it was the band’s play for creative independence. via udiscovermusic [more inside]
Patricia Highsmith's "Little Tales of Misogyny"
Graham Greene: The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of this legendary, cultish short story collection. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbors into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In the darkly satiric, often mordantly hilarious sketches that make up Little Tales of Misogyny, Highsmith upsets our conventional notions of female character, revealing the devastating power of these once familiar creatures — "The Dancer," "The Female Novelist," "The Prude" — who destroy both themselves and the men around them. This work attests to Highsmith's reputation as "the poet of apprehension". [more inside]
Reddit Is Restricting Luigi Mangione Discourse—But It Gets Weirder
Reported by Slate [archive.org]: “I remember r/LuigiMangione got banned, then r/LuigiMangione2, then r/LuigiMangione3, and I think it went up to r/LuigiMangione6 before people were like, ‘We’re not going to keep doing this,’ ” she told me in a phone conversation. “I’d made one called r/LuigiFever, which was just photos of him, and that got banned too.”
Hand-made covers
The German musician der schaelm specializes in the art form of manualism—the art of squeezing air between one’s hands to produce melodious sounds. But back when we (yes, I’m including you) were doing this at eight years old, we called it “hand farting.” There’s a lot that goes into hand farting. The musician must precisely arrange his or her hands and engage differing levels of tightness in order to achieve higher or lower or shorter or longer notes. It can take decades to master the craft and der schaelm has done the work.
PBS Am. Masters The Disappearance of Miss Scott (2025)
PBS American Masters Season 39, Ep 1
Learn about jazz virtuoso and screen superstar Hazel Scott, the first Black American to have their own television show. An early civil rights pioneer, she faced down the Red Scare at the risk of losing her career and was a champion for equality. The film features interviews with Mickey Guyton, Tracie Thoms, Amanda Seales, and Sheryl Lee Ralph as the voice of Hazel Scott.
Mediterranean monk seals make a remarkable comeback
Mediterranean monk seals make a remarkable comeback.
Once on the brink of extinction, the rare marine mammal's populations are rising, thanks to conservation efforts. [more inside]
Now you're playing with power. Super power.
An unexpected discovery in the age of planned tech obsolesce: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) hardware appears to be running faster and faster as the devices age.
Toronto's new landlords
“Make no mistake, they’re not doing these renovations out of the kindness of their hearts." [more inside]
Pulped Fiction?
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction have been acquired by Must Read Magazines, a division of a new publishing company, Must Read Books Publishing. All editorial staff from the magazines have been retained in the acquisitions. [more inside]
The world, filtered through the apps, is not the world we want
This sounds spectacularly self-centered: that you can only quit a thing, or modify your usage of it, when it fails to serve you. But if we think of our phones and social media as addictive products, which they certainly are, then the classic addiction model makes sense: you only consider quitting when the negative impacts (the dead feeling of the soft-brain scroll, the loss of attention span, the weight of comparison, the exposure to trolls, the lack of control over the algorithm) outweigh the positive benefits (the distraction, the serotonin hit, the semblance of connection, the loose ties, the business benefits). from The Social Media Sea Change by Anne Helen Petersen
Why you should treat wombats with respect
Most wombats are shy, gentle, and timid unless you make them angry, but they are very muscular and have sharp claws. A man in 2010 had the misfortune of accidentally startling a wombat that had sought shelter from a bushfire under his caravan: 20 minutes later, he was in a condition that resulted in him being admitted to hospital with significant injuries to his arms and legs. (And yes, if this had happened to the influencer who kidnapped a baby wombat, I would have been on team wombat.) Meanwhile the woman who kidnapped a baby wombat is having her visa reviewed and may not be allowed back into Australia again. [more inside]
March 12
That's a lot of sites
While it's self-proclaimed, it's easy to believe that this is the largest collection of links to free sites on the internet.
Finalists for the 60th Nebula Awards
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the Nebula Awards. [more inside]
Where to start with the National Film Board of Canada?
Leonard Maltin’s Animation Faborites from the National Film Board of Canada! The National Film Board of Canada is such an amazing wealth of riches!
This movie has 9 short animations that start with a brief description by Leonard Maltin, and they are all amazing. Some of them have been staples of Canadian school curriculums for half a century and many Canadians will watch these, as I did, with the realization that they have seen them before but forgotten.
With a runtime of 1:34, it’s well worth the time either all at once or in little snippets. [more inside]
Stan Brakhage's "The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes"
The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes is a grueling, fascinating experience only made bearable by our sense of the real human being gripping the camera for dear life. There’s a moment when Brakhage brings the camera around to take in the newly emptied cranium of one of the autopsied corpses, peering down into the gaping skull, where I felt that he and I were experiencing exactly the same great and horrible feeling of dumbstruck awe at what had become of a human life. It’s enervating but surprisingly humanist in its aspirations -- if it’s ultimately despairing, it remains clearly the work of a master exploring the human condition in every facet. - Bryant Frazer (h/t: languagehat)
On a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits
Wikipedia portraits are famously bad, so much so that there's an Instagram page dedicated to them. They're amateurish. They're old. Sometimes, like in the case of English footballer Kyle Bartley, they're just weird. (Is that a referee’s finger in his mouth?) WikiPortraits, a group of volunteer photographers, has been covering festivals and shooting celebrities specifically to improve images in the public domain. (404Media)
"They used our building, so now we’re using their typeface."
The office of London design studio DUDE was vandalized... so they turned the graffiti into a free* typeface for everyone to use. [more inside]
B.S.
“I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said.
Terrifying reporting from ProPublica about the SSA describes a meeting held by acting head of the Social Security Administration Leland Dudek in which he seems to admit that the "DOGE kids" may very well actually break the social security payments process and tries to disavow all responsibility because he is clearly alarmed by what he is being asked to do. [more inside]
The dam, the myth, the legend: 50 years of the beaver
“I’m gonna do it on purpose forever,” you said.
elodieunderglass (previously quoted on MeFi) and derinthescarletpescatarian wrote a moving, funny composite narrative about human biology: “Wait a minute,” you say a couple of generations later, because you’re not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post... That link won't work well unless you're logged into Tumblr, so here's a repost that everyone should be able to read.
Freedom Cities
Plans are underway to create "Freedom Cities" around the United States on large open tracts of protected federal lands, following in the footsteps of California Forever, Próspera, Yatai New City and other law and regulation free Special Economic Zone safe-havens for anarcho-capitalists, libertarians and criminals. [more inside]
It is possible to arrest someone for crimes against humanity
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on an ICC warrant for crimes against humanity in Manila. According to his daughter, who is currently the country's vice president, “As I write this, he is being forcibly taken to The Hague tonight. This is not justice – this is oppression and persecution.” Internal Philippine politics made the arrest possible, as a former power-sharing agreement between the Marcos family currently in power and the Dutertes broke down.
Flight Attendant Uniforms
1,891 different flight attendant uniforms from 632 airlines (previously) (previouslyer) (previouslyest) [more inside]
Jewish comedian dropping truth bombs
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Addresses General Assembly, 78th Session (pdf) - "Terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons." [more inside]
Photographer Jacob Holdt: A Message of Love
A Message of Love is a long interview with Danish photographer/activist Jakob Holdt. Long haired hippy Jakob Holdt hitchhiked in the US for 5 years in the early 70's, documenting the lives of the most marginalized people, as well as some of the most affluent. His "adventures" resulted in an output of 15,000 harrowing photographs, which he later published as the book "American Pictures". (CW: Abuse, Racism, Deprivation, Poverty, KKK). [more inside]
Don't pick up wild baby wombats
Don't pick up wild baby wombats. Picking them up can injure them; can cause their mother to abandon them (a death sentence if they are still breastfeeding); and could cause you to get seriously injured by an angry mother wombat (wombat claws can disembowel a person if the wombat gets angry.) US influencer criticised for temporarily taking joey wombat from mother. A US influencer is under fire after posting a video of herself capturing a wild baby wombat off the side of the road. [more inside]
Welcome to the wild west of Glasgow’s waterways
“Not many people come out in the rain,” says Goody, with a smile. “But we just batter on. You never know, we could pull out Rob Roy’s sword, fingers crossed”. They fish “for the history,” he adds. A lot of this history seems to be embodied by weaponry, judging from the list Goody reels off. Unexploded ordnances are a particular pain. “We’re a bit scared of pu’ing them oot — feart in case the police will do us wi a public disorder or suhhin like that. It becomes a bit of nuisance when you have to phone the polis and get the MOD out.” from Magnet fishing is supposed to be a wholesome hobby. Why all the beef?
March 11
Jim Goldberg's "Rich and Poor"
"By depicting the rich and the poor in their respective environments, we see life as it is lived by our means, which tells a far different story than would portraits taken outside of these contexts. Jim Goldberg’s other key innovation in this book is how he has allowed his subjects to attempt to capture themselves. As part of his process, he asks for their commentary on their own photos, giving the subject an opportunity to add context, personality, and self-perception to each photo in handwritten reflections. These annotations change not only the meaning of the book, but also the meaning of the act of taking the photos." - Abbey Lee
What the size of your book collection says about you
What the size of your book collection - potentially - says about you "Are you a minimalist or a mini-librarian? Do you let your books pile up around your home, or do you treat your collection like a carefully curated gallery of your best self? Time to find out." [more inside]
The Manipulative Bastards corner is especially interesting
You may be wondering: What makes a villain “best”? That, friends, is really up to you. You can vote for the most iconic villains, the most memorable villains, or the most villainous villains. You can vote for the villain you enjoyed reading about the most, or the one that kept you up at night. You can vote for the cutest villain, if that’s your thing. The point is, there are no rules. Villains are rule-breakers, and so are we. from The Best Villains in Literature Bracket: The Not-So-Sweet 16 [LitHub]
It was already pointless, fellas
After a very positive reception at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight, Carson Lund's directorial debut Eephus is opening this week to very good reviews, touted as "the best baseball movie since ‘Moneyball’". [more inside]
Finding the source music from The Dirty Cowboy
A short doc about a musical obsession, perseverance and git'n r done ...The Mystery of the Dirty Cowboy
Christ, What an Asho
In a triumph of graphic design and branding, Major League Baseball’s new ‘Overlap’ hats are going viral for all the wrong reasons.
People stay around a long time. The result is that they go bananas.
AT&T Workers: Drugged, Bugged and Coming Unplugged; Moving the Indiana Bell Central Office; History of Engineering and Science at Bell Labs; How the Telephone Helps the Farmer; and much more of the lore of telecommunications from the library of Telephone Collectors International.
It’s down at the end of Infinite Street… Hilbert Hotel
A six minute video illustrating Hilbert’s paradox of the Grand Hotel with cute blobby monsters.
There are no ghosts in Galley House
Why don't you come down to Galley House this Saturday evening?… I have recently acquired something to keep you interested if you decide to come. It's not perfect, but sometimes when you close your eyes, it's like someone else is in the house… Type Help is a new, free, browser-based, text-based deductive mystery game by William Rous. [more inside]
Just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history
Fukuyama’s pining for past ideological struggles suggests that the Last Man would eventually get bored with technocracy, consumerism, and the stultifying constraints of middle management—and seek new monsters to fight. America’s flirtation with an authoritarian leader who promises he alone will fix the nation’s problems and restore the country’s past glory is a manifestation of this phenomenon. The greatest challenges to liberal democracy would not come from new ideological competitors but rather from complacency. from Francis Fukuyama Was Right About Liberal Democracy [The New Republic; ungated]
March 10
Lifesling in action
Following up last month's post on the development of the Lifesling, two sailors participating in the Possession Point Race were rescued from Puget Sound (Seattle Times, archive) after falling off one of the contending boats, while videoed from a ferry. [more inside]
Scientists genetically modify Victorian lizard
One of Australia's smallest skinks has undergone a big genetic change in an attempt to fight the risk of extinction due to climate change. Biologists bred and released four tiny genetically modified Guthega skinks in an outdoor enclosure on Victoria's High Country in December.
It is one step away before the tiny lizards are released into the greater wild when biologists are hopeful the offspring of the critters can be set free in about a year.
The Best Sports Moments of the last Quarter Century
From The Ringer: The Best Sports Moments of the (last) Quarter Century
Then listen to this, plus my Roland
The Roland TR-808 had a larger impact on commercial music than any other branded musical instrument except perhaps the Fender Stratocaster. So someone made a documentary about it. [more inside]
RIP Calpundit
Kevin Drum, one of the earliest left wing political bloggers, has passed away after a long battle with cancer. [more inside]
It's the little differences
If there's one thing McDonald's is known for among its American customers, it's its uniformity. Almost all McDonald's from Maine to California look the same and have the same offerings. And when McDonald's began to open restaurants outside the States over the course of the later 20th century, the standard menu of the United States McDonald's held an exotic appeal for non-Americans. McDonald's was exporting America. ...Now with over 40,000 restaurants across the planet, the McDonald's of each country can look and taste as different as the cultures in which they are embedded. from McAtlas documents, analyzes, and celebrates the international multiformity of McDonald's [BoingBoing] [more inside]
How Do You FREEly Express Your Creative Self?
Oh sure, there's always the usual mainstream things every article trots out, blah blah blah. But what unusual/surprising/interesting hobby, activity, or task do you find works as a creative outlet? Or talk about anything else - it's our weekly free thread!
“You just walk in like you belong.”
The first season of Andor is now streaming on Hulu and Disney has uploaded first three-episode arc to YouTube. This is done to build momentum for the April 22nd premiere of the second, and last, season. A day which happens to be, as Damien Walter notes in a recent video essay, Lenin’s birthday. This fits Walter’s argument that Andor is a Marxist story. Others, such as Sage Hyden and Phoebe Wagner, maintain it should be understood as anti-fascist. Either way, left-wing science fiction magazine Red Futures released a whole issue devoted to Andor analysis.
"In 5 years you'll be giving unsolicited life advice to strangers."
An Alternative to Hope
Emily and Amelia Nagoski discuss how to cope when you've either lost your hope or never had any. Emily and Amelia made the Feminist Survival Project podcast in 2020. In 2025, they brought it back. In a recent episode, they discuss what to do when you don't have hope. [more inside]
see (Marquand, 1983)
Is a bone a viable weapon when combating a Rancor? Estimating the bite force of an intergalactic mega-predator. S. Lautenschlager and T. Clements, Journal of Geek Studies, volume 12, issue 1, pages 25-36 (2025).
The ability of the Rancor to snap the femur with apparent ease poses interesting questions: (1) how much dorso-lateral force is required to snap a femur of the size used by Luke to stave off the Rancor in ROTJ? (2) Could the Rancor generate such force with its jaws? Lastly, (3) could any other extinct or extant organisms generate such force? Despite the fact that Rancor exist(ed?) a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away, there are techniques employed in paleontological research that can answer the questions outlined above.[more inside]
Urban downhill mountain biking in Chile
Please enjoy this POV video of the winner of this year's Cerro Abajo Valparaiso race. 2km descent through the streets, sidewalks, stairs, rooftops, and houses of the hills of Valparaiso.