September 18
Following on
a recent posting to the blue about musical acts and subscribers quitting Spotify, Apple, in late August, quietly rolled out the ability to import playlists, as well as songs and albums, from other streaming platforms to Apple Music.
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posted by the sobsister at 12:02 PM - 19 comments Dream Exchange is a tiny startup with big dreams to tap the $60 trillion U.S. stock market. Cecala, who is white, has pitched the venture as a Nasdaq for Black-owned businesses. The company says it is named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famous speech. There¡¯s more to the story. Dream Exchange and its leadership team have extensive ties to the Church of Scientology and entities connected to the religious institution, according to financial and other records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the company¡¯s inner workings. from They Went to Work for a Stock Exchange. Then the Scientology Ties Became Clear [Wall Street Journal; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 11:04 AM - 2 comments Welcome to the LGBTQIA+ News Post for September 18, Rage Edition.
It's in the blood, it's in the will, it's in the mighty hands of steel.
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posted by mephron at 10:54 AM - 11 comments Exploring Gender and Trans Identity in the Worlds of C.J. Cherryh.
posted by signal at 10:44 AM - 8 comments NHK released Naoki Urasawa's interview with Katsuhiro Otomo. They spoke about his manga Domu, which was a pre-cursor to his seminal work Akira. Fascinating discussion of workflow, influences and high-resolution close-ups of the original work.
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posted by ishmael at 8:16 AM - 6 comments A Bluesky account provides frequent updates on how full the tank is; this is one of several online ISS metrics. The tank holds liquid waste produced by crew members; in an AskMe, MeFite Klipspringer provides further information, while MeFite Telegraph has calculated how many astronauts might reasonably fill the tank (it is unclear how many
drunken chimpanzees it would take). Alternately, pISSStream is a menu bar app that shows the International Space Station's urine tank's capacity in real-time.
posted by Wordshore at 7:54 AM - 9 comments Chimps consume equivalent of a beer a day in alcohol from fermented fruit. Study finds chimpanzees¡¯ enthusiasm for guzzling ripe fruit puts their ethanol intake at about 14g per day.
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posted by deeker at 1:17 AM - 26 comments How fur seals are helping scientists collect data about our oceans. A colony of seals on the New South Wales Far South Coast has been fitted with tracking devices as researchers work to find out more about them and the environment.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:28 AM - 1 comment ¡°People are going to need beacons of taste to get through this onslaught of really discombobulated media,¡± said Andrew Goldstein, the former editor of Artnet. ¡°It¡¯s not just because of AI ¡ª we¡¯ve already been living through this period of metastasizing forms of culture, where there¡¯s too much on social, too much on Netflix, too much on Spotify. And a lot of people are seeking guidance and thought leadership from individuals, rather than publications.¡± from Do Media Organizations Even Want Cultural Criticism? [New York Magazine; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 12:00 AM - 10 comments September 17
ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show over Charlie Kirk comments after FCC chair threatens fines From The Guardian US edition: ABC bowed to pressure from the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday by announcing that Jimmy Kimmel¡¯s late-night show will be taken off the air ¡°indefinitely¡± following complaints about his comments on the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week.
¡°Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-empted indefinitely,¡± an ABC spokesperson told CNN.
The decision by Disney-owned ABC came after one of the country¡¯s largest owners of local ABC stations, Nexstar, announced that it would immediately preempt Kimmel¡¯s show, ¡°for the foreseeable future¡± because the company ¡°strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk.¡±
posted by pjsky at 6:31 PM - 202 comments If
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is part of your DNA, you need to see this tribute created by Greig Johnson and featuring wonderful performances from Johnson, Tom Bell and Rachel Parris.
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posted by rory at 1:57 PM - 38 comments She was 99 and wrote for the paper for more than 60 years.
Marilyn's review of her local Olive Garden restaurant
went viral and lead to the USA Today Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, a book deal, and an honorary master's degree from UND. She wrote several follow up articles, including one on the first anniversary of the review that made her famous.
posted by soelo at 1:43 PM - 17 comments This is not a post about the 1971 film
Protein Synthesis: An Epic on the Cellular Level, produced on the campus of Stanford University. That's available on YouTube and through the UCSD library, and we've already had
two posts about it specifically, plus it was included in a
2010 MegaPost on bioanimation and other science education tools. No, this post is instead about the making of the 1971 film
Protein Synthesis: An Epic on the Cellular Level, produced on the campus of Stanford University.
posted by nickmark at 12:19 PM - 12 comments Another neal.fun internet toy thing: I'm Not a Robot
posted by AlSweigart at 11:52 AM - 35 comments MinutePhysics takes a fun dive into The Physics of Dissonance (YT, 28m) and how interacting musical overtones create patterns of consonance and dissonance. They then go on to show how these lead to western and non-western scales, and eventually chords. This is based on an interactive page by Aatish Bhatia where you can explore some of these concepts and hear how different chord triads sound on a 3-d consonance/dissonance mapping.
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posted by indexy at 11:20 AM - 3 comments The more a community cares about its values, the more vulnerable it becomes to betraying them. Not because the values are wrong. Not because the people are bad. But because human social dynamics create predictable failure modes that turn principles into their opposite. from When Values Eat Their Young: How Ideal-Driven Groups Drift into Their Own Shadow by Kenneth
Reitz
posted by chavenet at 11:08 AM - 23 comments ¡°Once we label our adversaries in these cosmic terms¡ªall good versus all evil¡ªthere's now going to be no compromise,¡± says Dr. Fuller. ¡°No rational discourse is possible, because the Antichrist is a deceiver, so all the arguments that might be brought for the worth of an opposing point of view are ¡®deception.¡¯ And so there can be no rational compromise. It only will bring out all-out tribal cohesion, tribal loyalty, unquestioning commitment. And so it usually leads to...sometimes violent consequences.¡±
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posted by subdee at 9:36 AM - 36 comments People with disability finding connections in accessible video games. Rob Taylor has motor neuron disease and uses specially-designed controllers to play video games with his son Chris.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:31 AM - 5 comments New tom7/suckerpinch video is out! Learn about cubes and their relatives for eighty minutes.
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:46 AM - 19 comments The failure of Reconstruction feels like the origin story for much of American life as we know it now. And it¡¯s a story we¡¯ve told, time and again, without Hinds. What would it mean to add him back in? I needed to find out for myself. from The Eloquent Vindicator in the Electric Room [Longreads]
posted by chavenet at 12:05 AM - 11 comments September 16
hip-hop classic performed in 2010 by "One Man, Multi Genre, Traveling Sonic Medicine Show" lewis floyd henry (alternate version, here, with better audio).
posted by nobody_truncates at 11:39 PM - 4 comments Hedgehog highways could become requirement for new buildings. House of Lords amend planning bill to include protections for wild animals, including bird-safe glass and swift bricks [building with one or two hollow bricks with openings for swifts to nest inside]. (Britain)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:28 PM - 7 comments Call the genre "A.I.-and-I": Writers are obsessed with writing about what A.I. will do to their profession. Strange that they all sound the same.
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posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 5:59 PM - 33 comments Beloved children's book author, Robert Munsch, has applied for MAID. He has been open about his health struggles from mental illness and addiction (The Walrus) to dementia (NYT); archive.
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posted by warriorqueen at 11:29 AM - 29 comments On 9/16/25, celebrate a date of mathematical beauty [NPR]
posted by chavenet at 11:05 AM - 18 comments Dig. Archaeological Education is a YouTube channel that focuses on the history of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Some are on well known topics, e.g. the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Caracalla, but they really shine on less well known topics, e.g. the Eblaite kingdom¡¯s rise and fall, a love story in the city of Ugarit, and who the heck the Ahhiyawa were. The videos are information rich, and they explain and cite their sources.
posted by Kattullus at 9:57 AM - 4 comments Robert Redford has died at age 89. He defined "movie star" for a young me.
posted by MorgansAmoebas at 6:29 AM - 133 comments Fancy a new job? If so, a new job opening has um opened: driving Booky McBookFace around Orkney. On Bluesky, a short video of the library van, in setting. On MyJobScotland, the job advert. The library archives. Driving the van in windy weather is fun. Some pictures on Flickr. Yes, there is internet and internal flights.
Closing Date: 23:59 Orkney Time on Sunday 21 September 2025
posted by Wordshore at 6:13 AM - 19 comments Volunteers plant 800 seedlings to replace banksia lost in Black Summer. Volunteers hike into the Victorian mountains to plant banksias that are the genetic perfect match to those wiped out by fire.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:50 AM - 3 comments A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
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posted by deeker at 1:32 AM - 33 comments This impulse is not limited to moments of national trauma. It is the default setting for how we navigate the world. Our contemporary culture favors other, more seemingly certain ways of knowing: the parsimonious models of economics, the predictive ambitions of political science, the data-driven certainty of algorithms. We are conditioned to seek simple causes, generalizable rules and clear, predictable outcomes. Yet in the realms of statecraft, strategy and societal decision-making, this craving for certainty is a dangerous vulnerability. from The Lost Art Of Thinking Historically [Noema]
posted by chavenet at 12:02 AM - 4 comments September 15
Wombat makes home in main street bowls club amid habitat loss. A wombat has made its home in the main street of Robe, evidence of an influx of the animals in the South Australian fishing town.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 5:43 PM - 2 comments Wokeshop is a concept project in development at MAV [Multicultural Arts Victoria]. It reclaims the meaning of ¡°woke¡± and transforms it into wearable and shareable art, building an economy that values, rewards and celebrates the creativity of culturally and marginalised artists.
Working with students from the Master of Communication Design program at RMIT¡¯s School of Design, MAV set forth provocations to be explored through visual design and typography. Developed within the Experimental Typography Workshop led by Dr Fayen d¡¯Evie, the students moved beyond surface-level multiculturalism, experimented with code-switching, and embraced joy as a radical act. The resulting works include experimental typefaces, alphabets, and merchandise concepts that carry stories of memory, migration and exchange.
posted by creatrixtiara at 2:43 PM - 4 comments "This barbaric incident will leave a lasting stain on Korea-US relations."
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posted by mrjohnmuller at 1:30 PM - 61 comments Before the turn of the millennium, photographer Adrienne Salinger noticed that a creative, opinionated cohort were underrepresented in wider conversations ¨C Gen X teens. Pictured in their home sanctuaries, they form a luminous portrait of subcultures and styles of the time. from Teenagers in their Bedrooms [Huck]
posted by chavenet at 1:01 PM - 8 comments Take something quite disturbing, which is the explicit fusing of the Republican Party apparatus and the corporate media. After Skydance bought Paramount, David Ellison [son of Larry Ellison] sought to make conservative Bari Weiss the ideological minder of CBS. Warner Bros. Discover owns the iconic CNN, which means this deal would put both CBS and CNN under the control of the Republican Party.
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posted by subdee at 9:41 AM - 25 comments Thirty years ago today Zero Cool, Acid Burn, Phantom Phreak, Cereal Killer, Lord Nikon and Joey hacked the Gibson with the help of Razor and Blade, while rollerblading through Central Station to avoid The Plague and Secret Service. (Previously on the
25th and 20th anniversary)
posted by autopilot at 8:52 AM - 30 comments The Washington Post has fired its only remaining full-time Black opinion columnist, Karen Attiah. Her crime? Quoting Charlie Kirk's own words, ""Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot".
Aside from the political implications, this leaves the Post with an all-white opinion section in a city that's majority Black. The firing compounds the loss of Black journalists at the post, including two Pulitzer Prize winners, and cements a numbers of changes occurring since owner Jeff Bezos announced a focus on "free markets and personal liberties."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:28 AM - 104 comments Evidence points to remains being South-East Asia's earliest known homicide victim. It was on a sweltering morning in 2018 in a cave in northern Vietnam when Chris Stimpson and his team uncovered what may be the oldest cold case murder in South-East Asia.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:06 AM - 7 comments astrological shift ? [nyt]
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posted by HearHere at 2:30 AM - 101 comments This lineage of (mostly) working systems is easily forgotten. Instead, we prefer a more flattering story: that complex systems are deliberate creations, the product of careful analysis. And, relatedly, that by performing this analysis ¨C now known as ¡®systems thinking¡¯ in the halls of government ¨C we can bring unruly ones to heel. It is an optimistic perspective, casting us as the masters of our systems and our destiny. from Magical systems thinking [Works in Progress]
posted by chavenet at 1:48 AM - 17 comments September 14
Today, the 15th of September, is the birthday of Agatha Christie, Fay Wray, Tommy Lee Jones, Sophie Dahl, Tom Hardy and Prince Harry. Some party. Which birthday - of you or someone else - do you especially remember, and why?
Or chat about things going on in your life, your neighbourhood, your world, your head, because this is
your free thread.
posted by Wordshore at 11:42 PM - 75 comments Daniel Schreiber believes the correlation between people living alone, sans partner, and being lonely has traditionally been overestimated. "Society understands better now that romantic love is not the only model to live by, or something to wish for," he adds. "There are different ways of life, and it's not as necessary to be in a traditional romantic relationship." from 'Humans need solitude': How being alone can make you happier [BBC]
posted by chavenet at 2:23 PM - 57 comments Mizohata-Takeuchi Conjecture dates from the 1980s
something something Fourier
something something harmonic analysis
something something partial differential equations. Earlier this year autodidact Hannah Cairo found a counterexample; then simplified her proof to make it more generally applicable and send
more mathematicians back to their chalkboards. The Fourier restriction conjecture of Elias Stein (1931-2018) is wobbly for example.
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posted by BobTheScientist at 1:34 PM - 10 comments AI and sonar croc detection trial to begin in far north. Boat ramp users could soon be alerted to nearby saltwater crocodiles by a state government-backed warning system using sonar and artificial intelligence technologies.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:20 PM - 4 comments The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber, read by Lauren Bacall.
Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn't go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. [more inside]
posted by Zumbador at 11:21 AM - 16 comments Post-rock titans Tortoise are back with a new album!
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posted by deeker at 9:55 AM - 10 comments The woodpecker¡¯s pulsing cadence shifts the mood from transcendent to urgent. At moments of their choosing, these birds demand to be noticed. They raise crowns of gold or scarlet as they bob, sway and scream, and find the most resonant objects to strike, drumming signature beats with their impressive bills. (archive)
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posted by ShooBoo at 6:53 AM - 7 comments
So does this mean that AI researchers have finally found a core concept whose meaning everyone can agree upon? As a famous physicist once wrote: Surely you¡¯re joking. A world model may sound straightforward ¡ª but as usual, no one can agree on the details. What gets represented in the model, and to what level of fidelity? Is it innate or learned, or some combination of both? And how do you detect that it¡¯s even there at all? from ¡®World Models,¡¯ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback [Quanta]
posted by chavenet at 2:31 AM - 26 comments September 13
Did a Couple Poison a Neighbor¡¯s Trees for a Better View? In 2017, a home furnishings artisan and an interior designer/writer bought a summer house in Rockport, Maine. At $320,000, the small, 19th-century clapboard house was among the lower-priced properties on Mechanic Street, known for its stately homes overlooking the town¡¯s scenic working harbor. This house had no such vista. Although there was a lot behind their house in sight of the harbor, it was thickly wooded and owned by a woman who lived next door.
Almost immediately, the couple asked the woman about clearing her land of the trees that blocked their view. She refused....
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posted by Toddles at 5:25 PM - 41 comments « Older posts
