~metafilter | Bookmarks (979)

Zoo elephants huddle to protect calves during San Diego earthquake. Elephants at the San Diego Zoo were caught on video running over to protect their young by huddling together during a 5.2-magnitude earthquake. This "alert circle" is a natural response to perceived threats, with elephants having the ability to feel sounds through their feet, an expert says. The zoo confirmed the herd and crew...

Arcade asteroids game powered by real-time Wikipedia edits . Every Wikipedia edit produces a new asteroid. Game is by Kevin Payravi. His article describes installing the game in a Wikipedia-themed arcade cabinet, and links to other Wiki games and visualisations. Via The Signpost at the English Wikipedia.

As both farmers and processors—all of Bear Creek Farm's cattle and pigs are processed, or "harvested," at Cherry Meat Co.—the Cherry family manages the entire conception-to-carcass journey. "From birth and conception until it goes to somebody's hands to cook," said Bill. Within an industry often vast, cruel, and secretive, they have built the opposite: an intimate form of vertical integration, from conception to harvest,...

On the weekend of March 29, 2025, the Cherry Blossom Regional Open Circuit, a fencing tournament that is a qualifier for the Summer Nationals, was held at the University of Maryland. This year's would be very different. In a match between a Wagner College fencer named Red Sullivan, and a Philadelphia fencer named Stephanie Turner, Turner chose to take a knee and be disqualified...

4chan, the internet's most infamous forum, is down following an alleged hack : "According to screenshots shared on Imgur (NSFW warning), it appears a hacker gained shell access to 4chan's hosting server. They then went on to post images of the site's phpmyadmin page, and appear to have doxed the entire moderation team alongside many of the site's registered users. While it seems some...

Scientist and former NASA engineer join first all-female crew in space since 1963 (Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission on the Vostok 6 and orbited Earth 48 times).Women in Space (Wikipedia article) Jerrie Cobb on the need to send women to space (1963) (YouTube interview footage) Tereshkova speaks about the experience (YouTube Science Museum feature) Sally Ride, first US American woman in space...

Why do AI company logos look like buttholes? If you ever thought that AI company logos look like buttholes, you're not alone.

Meet Ron Hawkins, Toronto's most prolific prickly political rock star. Painter, activist, and of course, world class musician, Ron Hawkins has always done it his way (more or less.)Hawkins rose to fame with his band, The Lowest of the Low, in the early 90s. (Fun fact: they are still touring and I am seeing them in May.) Their debut album, Shakespeare My Butt, was,...

"She's holding up a fabric sample, deep green embroidered with gold. I wore green at my adoption too. I'll wear black to be abandoned." The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For is a science fiction novelette by Cameron Reed, published this month in Reactor, described as: "In a corporate-run dystopia, a trans girl plucked out of poverty to give birth to a...

New York City's municipal steam system is an iconic anachronism: a fascinating part of the city's daily life and visual language, a foundational part of its history, and a system that has been exported and refined worldwide. It was an essential technology for its time as the buildings of Manhattan began to reach up and nudge the sky even higher. from Steam Networks [Works...

Someone hacked the crosswalk buttons in Palo Alto and Redwood City. Simulated Musk, Zuckerberg voices are speaking from hacked crosswalk buttons. (archive link)

Crows can consistent detect outlier shapes Crows "could still continue to find the outlier, even though .. perceptually very similar to the other five regular shapes," So what's the next step? - an ordered array of crows ready to peck-select the odd shape out in reCAPTCHAs?

There's a small house ( ⌂ ) in the middle of IBM's infamous character set Code Page 437. "Small house"—that's the official IBM name given to the glyph at code position 0x7F, where a control character for "Delete" (DEL) should logically exist. It's cute, but a little strange. I wonder, how did it get there? Why did IBM represent DEL as a house, of...

I think of this as an archive of nearly all written/online pieces on anarcha-feminism and lots of radical pieces on other related topics that are marginalized because of their relationship to gender (adding news items to this blog would compound my work load, although i haven't ruled it out). Not all anarchist feminists agree on various subjects such as sex work, gender, what justice...

" This month saw the publication of two books containing explosive reporting on Biden's downfall, and coming months will bring two more: so far the picture emerging is a damning one for Biden, his top aides and the Democratic party. The books have detailed a president increasingly unfit for the task of taking on Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and his top...

Crack That Tank (13 minutes) is a World War II training film. A tank commander, played by Dick Purcell, explains to infantry soldiers (the film's audience) what to do when they find 25 tons of rolling metal death bearing down on them on the battlefield.For many of the young soldiers preparing for battle, this would be the last film they would see in their...

Spring has sprung in the northern hemisphere, which is great time to consider the 50 most romantic movies of all time!

From the New Yorker. "We analyzed the literature of protest and spoke to a range of people, including foreign dissidents and opposition leaders, movement strategists, domestic activists, and scholars of nonviolent movements. We asked them for their advice, in the nascent weeks of the Trump Administration, for those who want to oppose these dramatic changes but harbor considerable fear for their jobs, their freedom,...

Despite the prevailing skepticism toward non-fungible tokens, the world isn't becoming any less digital and blockchain remains the foundation of digital art's brave new market. It is right to acknowledge the seismic impact of NFTs on contemporary art even while they continue to enrage and inflame. The old world might be putting up resistance to the on-chain economy, but this story is far from...

Stonefish toxin could be new weapon against parasitic worms in livestock: a recently discovered stonefish toxin has enormous promise, according to researchers in Far North Queensland. The compounds have been shown to kill helminths or parasitic gastrointestinal worms while leaving mammal cells unharmed, said Danica Lennox-Bulow, a PhD candidate at James Cook University. Ms Lennox-Bulow said the toxin was different from the one stonefish...

Steve Mould takes on the question... Treadmill vs. Real Hill: Which is harder to run - YouTube. Good arguments, good experiments, conclusion. Right or Wrong? Pick sides.

Sometimes you just gotta go but it can't hurt to know your options. Bathrooms at homeBathrooms outside Bathrooms in hotels Bathrooms for public use, United States edition Bathrooms for public use, world edition Bathrooms that won a contest, United States Bathroom, mall. It's beautiful! Bathroom, most opulent. Rocca Restaurant, Ivens Hotel, Lisbon Portugal. Warning! This is an influencer video, I couldn't find anything better...