MetaFilter

Carli Cutchin was an athlete and a grad student, but sudden undiagnosed pain sidelined her exercise and her career. It took eleven years to get treatment. During that time, she discovered that she felt a connection with the often-ignored female characters in science fiction.
posted by suelac at 10:18 AM - 0 comments

"In his conversations with François Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock insisted that the birds in the film of the same name had to be ordinary birds, seagulls, ravens, sparrows, and not the more spectacular, and arguably more frightening hawks and eagles. This particular anecdote is relayed in Fujita's Le Ciné-Capital and in some sense it functions as the lynchpin that connects Deleuze's understanding of film, Marx's understanding of Capital, and revolutionary politics." Jason Read, Any Bird Whatsoever: on Fujita's Le Ciné-Capital: D'Hitchcock à Ozu.
posted by mittens at 8:53 AM - 0 comments

The Pentagon notified Congress it plans to divert roughly $750 million from the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, a NATO-backed program funding American-made weapons for Kyiv, to restock its own depleted arsenal, the Washington Post reports. (Gift link.) Officials cited shortages of critical air defense systems—including Patriot and THAAD missiles drawn down through heavy use in the Middle East. President Donald Trump publicly attacked NATO, calling it a “paper tiger” on Truth Social and warning the United States would “remember” which countries failed to step up. [more inside]
posted by subdee at 8:44 AM - 6 comments

"Whilst we appreciate the criminals' exceptional taste, the fact remains that ⁠cargo ​theft is an escalating ​issue for businesses of all sizes," KitKat said.
posted by chavenet at 3:16 AM - 16 comments

Why the "pink it and shrink it" approach to design fails people who have been assigned female at birth (AFAB people). Phones, cars, and the temperature in an office were all designed to suit the average cis man. Researchers say people who have been assigned female at birth (AFAB people) are an afterthought in the way many products and spaces are designed.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:54 AM - 22 comments

Be careful if you add googly eyes to something no matter how much they fit or if a pint costs more than 7 pounds. [more inside]
posted by Higherfasterforwards at 12:26 AM - 9 comments

Facebook link The cat is really out of the bag - forget 3D printed handguns. Not exactly field-expedient but all on github. What a strange state is 2026 America (and anywhere with the net), but such forbidden knowledge may prove essential for Americans confronting an illegal regime.
posted by unearthed at 12:26 AM - 8 comments

Did you know that “competitive” jigsaw puzzling is a thing? A huge thing, actually. Right now, hundreds of the country’s fastest puzzlers are gathered in Atlanta to compete for fastest individual , pairs, and 4 person teams competitions. IMO, the most wholesome, inclusive community you’ve ever seen, and remarkably full of fun stories and drama. There’s Alice, who won it all as a high schooler and back even faster, the amazing Reuter Sisters (now competing separately!), and puzzle puns galore. I don’t do any of this myself but it’s fun to watch.
posted by foxywombat at 8:50 AM - 14 comments

Barely 24 hours after nine-month-old capybaras Samba and Tango were brought to Marwell zoo near Winchester, they had made a break for it through a hole in their temporary enclosure. Samba is still yet to be found, and the mission to find her has attracted international coverage.
posted by ShooBoo at 8:35 AM - 13 comments

Apple variety once thought extinct confirmed on NSW farm. The Rymer variety of cooking apple, once believed to have died out, has been found on a rural property in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:32 AM - 8 comments

Top five covers ranked of the saccherine hit Seasons in the Sun - all beaten out by the original Le Moribond with a fantastic 1961 performance by Jacques Brel. Brought to you by my daughter's wide-eyed wonder that this new hit she'd found was older than her mum.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:57 PM - 40 comments

BDG does it again. [more inside]
posted by probablytom at 7:55 PM - 10 comments

Electrons to the people: Neighbours build commercial solar farm. Hundreds of residents of a rural New South Wales town combine to build their own commercial solar farm, demonstrating the community benefits of renewable energy.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:28 PM - 9 comments

(Mod note: AI content) MetaFilter survived Web 2.0, social media, Reddit, and the death of blogs — turns out a community of snarky intellectuals who pay $5 to join is the one moat AI can't cross. A side project by Sam Williams that takes any website, scans the content and works out if it could be replaced with a markdown file in Claude. Then it gives the prognosis. Inspired by someone posting about the death of SaaS by Claude Code. MetaFilter may not be immortal in the eyes of DeathByClawd, but it is to me.
posted by scblackman at 3:01 PM - 69 comments

Canada will cancel thousands of refugee claims under new retroactive law. (slTOStar) [more inside]
posted by Kitteh at 2:15 PM - 25 comments

What's your favorite way to hold a mug? Is it more important to prevent spills? To keep your hands warm? To prevent your hands from being too hot while keeping the drink warm? [more inside]
posted by Art_Pot at 1:48 PM - 20 comments

There are five distinct steps to the process of felinization. Had enough of the world? Don't blame you. "It is possible, with practice and determination, to become a cat."
posted by JanetLand at 12:17 PM - 26 comments

Welcome to the LGBTQIA+ News Post for March 27, 2026. Every day is so wonderful / Then suddenly it's hard to breathe. [more inside]
posted by mephron at 11:52 AM - 91 comments

"It is on us, the people, to show that we will fight to protect one another and our country." No Kings protests are happening all over the United States on March 28. Indivisible invites you to be a part of the largest day of protest in US history. The ACLU urges you to join us at No Kings on March 28. Unions like the AAUP and the UUP and AFSCME and the Texas AFL-CIO will see you at No Kings on March 28. The Interfaith Alliance will meet you at No Kings on March 28. [more inside]
posted by kristi at 11:40 AM - 31 comments

During testimony before the US Senate, I called it the largest fraud in the history of the US immigration system. In fact, it is likely the first $1 billion fraud—a theft of processing fees for services never rendered. Even Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told me at the hearing that he was shocked it was happening. It is happening, and it is shocking. [more inside]
posted by subdee at 8:44 AM - 24 comments

The Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school building in Minab had been classified as a military facility in a Defense Intelligence Agency database that, according to CNN, had not been updated to reflect that the building had been separated from the adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound and converted into a school, a change that satellite imagery shows had occurred by 2016 at the latest. A chatbot did not kill those children. People failed to update a database, and other people built a system fast enough to make that failure lethal.

[more inside]
posted by postcommunism at 7:25 AM - 18 comments

Under microscopic magnification, the unique beauty and individual character of sand grains reveal a diverse origin reflecting geological history and marine life biodiversity. Sand is everywhere on earth – on our beaches, in our deserts, and on the bottoms of lakes, rivers and oceans. Sand particles are coarser than silt but finer than gravel, ranging in size from 0.02 to 2 mm. They are created when weather and chemicals break down terrestrial rocks, minerals, marine bivalves, corals, mollusks, bryozoans, and foraminifera.
posted by chavenet at 4:43 AM - 15 comments

Hong Kong police arrest bookstore owner for allegedly selling Jimmy Lai book. Hong Kong police have arrested a bookstore owner and three shopkeepers for allegedly selling seditious publications.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:20 AM - 1 comment

Tracy Kidder died this week, lung cancer. Starting with The Soul of the New Machine (1981) [Sada El Balad] Tracy Kidder repeatedly turned environments that resist easy storytelling into page-turning narratives. That was not achieved by simply choosing dramatic scenes; his work often confronted settings where “not a lot happens, ” as he put it when describing the challenge of shaping life inside a Northampton, Massachusetts, nursing home for Old Friends. The craft problem was structural: how to make incremental changes and small interactions accumulate into meaning. The solution, visible across his books, was to treat micro-events as moral and emotional evidence.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:27 AM - 34 comments

Library book that was borrowed in Dudley, West Midlands, in Britain returned to a library 16,898 km (10,500 miles) away in Australia.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 5:16 PM - 13 comments

Having a wheel break is inconvenient. Having a wheel break 225 million kilometers from the motor club is a vehicle killer. So the Curiosity rover team has come up with a plan - just rip the busted wheel off.
posted by Mitheral at 5:12 PM - 9 comments

Anthony Edwards takes on Obama in hoops, ping pong and Connect 4. (slyt)
posted by Xurando at 1:42 PM - 16 comments

Exactly what it says in the description Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat) - is the full name of the Mortal Kombat Game Theme music. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 12:55 PM - 13 comments

Effects on BC of Canadian international student visa/tuition crisis: B.C. saw 66% drop in international student approvals following federal reforms (article includes a chart of the disparity between forecasted and actual approvals in 2024 across all 10 provinces). “And it brought about unintended consequences,” says the Auditor General. (YouTube, 2:30 m) [more inside]
posted by nuclear bessel at 10:43 AM - 30 comments

Salt is a lyrical 5 min. Palestinian short from 2024. Two boys are floating in The Dead Sea (supposedly on the Jordanian side). On the other shore is their old country. The film is guided by the poetry of Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish. [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 10:22 AM - 2 comments

A Strategic analysis of the US/Israel - Iran War (as of Mar 25 2026) "This post is a set of observations on the current war in Iran and my thoughts on the broader strategic implications". By Bret Devereaux. 7k words. [more inside]
posted by lalochezia at 8:59 AM - 119 comments

Today, bitch wears hundreds of faces. Since its earliest form, bicce, it has spawned a host of creative respellings, many of them modern, like ‘biznatch’, ‘biatch’, ‘bish’ and others besides. It appears in dozens of idioms and stock phrases, from ‘resting bitch face’ and ‘bitch tits’ to ‘Bitch, please!’ and ‘Life’s a bitch, and then you die.’ This is a word that’s very much alive. [Aeon] [CW: lots of swear words]
posted by chavenet at 4:14 AM - 23 comments

Island council considers total ban on all new pet cats. Kangaroo Island Council is considering banning the introduction of all new cats to the island, in a move the mayor is calling the last cat policy (existing pet cats will be allowed to live out their natural lifespan in place, but no new cats will be brought in). If successful, the ban would make the South Australian island one of the world's biggest inhabited islands to be free of cats. Kangaroo Island has a population of 4894 humans. Its main industries are farming and tourism. It is the last refuge for many endangered native species, especially small marsupials. (Australia)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:44 AM - 6 comments

Why I Got Out Of The Gambling Business There are broadly speaking two types of gamblers: valuable and not valuable. [more inside]
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 8:00 PM - 27 comments

What to know about ‘boy kibble’, the viral meal slop trend Some gen Z men are using the term to describe an easy meal consisting of ground beef, rice, and a vegetable or fat.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:58 PM - 108 comments

Another Day - The release of the video Thriller by Michael Jackson is now closer to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima than to today. The release of Jurassic Park is now closer to MLK Jr's I have a Dream Speech than to today. The first McDonald's Happy Meal is now closer to the release of the Wizard of Oz (movie) than to today. [more inside]
posted by AlSweigart at 3:33 PM - 65 comments

The first female Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, was enthroned or installed today. The text of her sermon is here. You can watch the service (2 hours). This BBC article describes the service, and Church Times gives more details. The Guardian writes about the challenges facing Mullally. There is an interview with her at Premier Christianity. Mullally previously.
posted by paduasoy at 2:23 PM - 9 comments

Meta and YouTube found liable in landmark social media addiction trial Kaley, was awarded $3m (£2.2m) Jurors found Meta to be 70% responsible for the plaintiff's harm and YouTube was responsible for 30% of the total, meaning Meta will pay the majority of Kaley's award. [more inside]
posted by many-things at 1:30 PM - 27 comments

Scientists create wheat that turns white bread into a higher-fibre food. Australian scientists have developed a wheat variety that dramatically boosts fibre in white bread and other flour-based foods.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:29 PM - 6 comments

Writing Through It: Five of our greatest novelists on what it takes to write something true -- fun chats with Margaret Atwood, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ottessa Moshfegh, Joyce Carol Oates and Jesmyn Ward.
posted by mittens at 12:38 PM - 3 comments

Vancouver Island marmots are coming back from the brink. In 2005 there were just 22 in the wild with another 10ish in captivity. Today after a successful breeding program the wild population numbers over 400. This is especially good news for the marmots because they are social animals used to living in extended family groups. Gob was born in Toronto and over wintered his first year at the Marmot Recovery Foundation's Mount Washington facilty before being released into the wild two kilometres away in June 2025. But Gob started feeling lonely and soon made the trek back to the facilty where he spent the summer burrowing underneath. They brought him in for the winter and will soon be re-releasing him; this time a bit farther away.
posted by Mitheral at 10:40 AM - 6 comments

Graham Platner timeline and lies. Platner is running in the Democratic primary for a US Senate seat in Maine. He has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, among many others. The author of this document has concerns--and sources.
posted by chaiminda at 10:01 AM - 162 comments

Meet “Roadrunner": a bipedal, wheeled robot for multi-modal locomotion [SLYT]
posted by chavenet at 8:31 AM - 22 comments

CBS News Radio is shutting down. CBS announced last week that CBS News Radio will be shutting down this spring after nearly 100 years of broadcasting. The company cited "challenging economic realities" and a shift in radio programming strategies as reasons behind the decision. [more inside]
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:15 AM - 29 comments

With this verdict, New Mexico becomes the first state in the nation to prevail at trial against a major tech company for harming young people. The jury ordered Meta to pay the maximum penalty under the law of $5,000 per violation, totaling $375 million in civil penalties for violating New Mexico’s consumer protection laws.

posted by postcommunism at 7:12 AM - 14 comments

GEO Group are a notorious private prison firm whose federal contracts for monitoring, housing and deporting illegal immigrants totaled more than $1 billion / year even before Trump took office. According to sources who spoke with NBC News, GEO Group founder George Zoley met with Corey "actually running DHS" Lewandowski before Trump took office. During that meeting, Lewandowski told Zoley that he wanted to be paid in exchange for "protecting and growing" GEO Group's share of federal contracts. Zoley declined and instead offered to put Lewandowski on retainer — a recurring consulting fee. Lewandowski balked, saying he wanted to be compensated based on the company’s new or renewed contracts. “He wanted payments — what some people would call a success fee,” said a person with knowledge of the meeting. [more inside]
posted by subdee at 5:20 AM - 13 comments

The Armenian Who Learned Greek in Ancient Egypt. Linguist Danny Bate introduces his favourite historical document, a Greek "phrasebook" written in early Armenian for a newcomer to Egypt somewhere in the 5th-7th century AD
posted by minifigs at 5:07 AM - 8 comments

New colonies of stick insect once thought extinct found on volcanic outcrop. Once so common they were used as bait, Lord Howe Island stick insects are making a comeback from the brink of extinction.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:22 AM - 4 comments

Back in November 2023 I posted about The Amazing Digital Circus, which was then just a pilot. Now there's eight full episodes and a handful of fun merchandise videos on Youtube, and if you choose you could watch it on Netflix instead. There's just one episode to go, set to release in June, before the series concludes. Peek inside for MORE-- [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 3:52 PM - 15 comments

Obsolete Sounds is the world’s biggest collection of disappearing sounds and sounds that have become extinct – remixed and reimagined to create a brand new form of listening. Part of the Cities and Memories sound project.
posted by chavenet at 2:00 PM - 8 comments