September 27
Polar bears have taken over a tiny town on an island in the Chukchi Sea, on the far east coast of Russia. To be fair to the bears, they didn't evict anyone. These houses were abandoned. They used to be occupied by workers at a now defunct polar research station that shuttered in 1992.
posted by chavenet at 11:13 AM - 21 comments Lil' Saturday Web Game: You're a messenger on a tiny 3D planet.
posted by slater at 8:21 AM - 26 comments Danny Thompson, legendary British double-bass player, died on September 23rd aged 86. He first came to my attention playing with Pentangle in the late 1960s.
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posted by 43rdAnd9th at 2:41 AM - 19 comments Well, I'm 23 years old. That's why. That was the reason. I lived through the same kind of cultural, memetic era that he did, and the moment that I heard about the bullet casings, I instantly recognized what kind of person this was, because I knew them. I went to school with these kinds of kids. from What Type of Guy was the alleged Charlie Kirk shooter? [Max Read; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 12:13 AM - 117 comments September 26
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address at the 80th UN General Assembly - "If a nation wants peace, it still has to work on weapons. It's sick, but that's the reality. Not international law, not cooperation -- weapons decide who survives."
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posted by kliuless at 11:26 PM - 25 comments World-first tracking shows the ocean from a turtle's point of view. GPS tracking, motion sensors and video cameras reveal where flatback turtles in Broome's Roebuck Bay feed and travel, contributing to a richer understanding of the vulnerable species.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:55 PM - 1 comment "No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them." On 25 September, Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army, died aged 78 in Havana, Cuba (Guardian) There's a great in-depth discussion of her legacy in this Millennials Are Killing Capitalism discussion stream. "Assata Shakur lived free, Assata Shakur left this earth a free woman. And the state couldn't get her - they couldn't defeat her. In the end Assata Shakur still won." Assata Shakur in her own words:
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posted by Space Coyote at 1:37 PM - 30 comments Field Station: Dinosaurs, the Leonia dinosaur park set to close at the end of the fall season, is selling its prehistoric creatures on Facebook Marketplace. The animatronic dinosaurs, made of steel, rubber and foam, are going for $850 for a winged quetzalcoatlus to $2,700 for each T. rex (there¡¯s two ¡ª ¡°slightly used, well loved!¡±) and $2,800 for the spinosaurus. [NJ.com, via Fossilocator]
posted by chavenet at 11:08 AM - 17 comments Multiple outlets (
WaPo ungated,
Washingtonian,
The New Republic) are reporting what appears to be an attempt by gay conservatives to disrupt musician Yasmin Williams' (
prev) September 18 show at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage.
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posted by the sobsister at 10:57 AM - 22 comments Fanfare for the Common Man This is a gorgeous version of the song.
Have a Fabulous Friday, everyone!
posted by dfm500 at 9:33 AM - 18 comments Candidate Q&As and more are linked here. At 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, the campaign period ends for the board of MetaFilter Community Foundation.
posted by NotLost at 8:38 AM - 1 comment Via Pronoiac, the Swedish Chef singing Sia's Chandelier.
posted by JHarris at 8:17 AM - 12 comments How to play Wack Fuck. Single link instagram, trigger warning: golf ?
posted by phunniemee at 8:15 AM - 18 comments Sept. 26, 2025 is World Cassowary Day.
The cassowary's status as the world's deadliest bird has led many to wonder how it would fare in one-on-one, garro-a-mano mortal combat with... well, anything.
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posted by logicpunk at 7:23 AM - 25 comments Niko Stratis On coming out and
To The 5 Boroughs
posted by Uncle at 7:21 AM - 9 comments A ginkgo tree as old as Islam still drops its leaves every autumn in China.
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posted by rory at 7:15 AM - 9 comments A family in Wisconsin found a living frog in a carton of organic salad greens. (Wisconsin, United States of America.)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:55 AM - 46 comments Welcome to the LGBTQIA+ News Post for September 26. Everyone started out a little insane / But we learn pretty quick how to fake it for the game / But some of you never learned to drop the act / So under that skin of yours: a heart attack..
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posted by mephron at 6:46 AM - 3 comments What can one extract from that immense unconscious? I know my eyes passed over every word on every page. I think I understood what was happening, insofar as that was possible. At the same time, the novel washed over me, around me, and through me. I gave myself up to the mystery. from Road to Nowhere [New York Review of Books; ungated]
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posted by chavenet at 12:01 AM - 18 comments September 25
"Beowulf" (2025), adapted and performed by Jess of the Shire, other puppeteers, and the insects attracted to the projector. Twelve years ago, a video featuring Mary Robinette Kowal gave some context for this medium and presented a brief example from the 18th Century: "Shadow puppets!"
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:14 PM - 5 comments Blort is old.
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posted by growabrain at 10:29 PM - 21 comments A lovely documentary about American photojournalist Steve Schapiro has a trailer, and will be distributed in North America beginning 11/14. Think you've never heard of him? Watch the trailer and count up how many iconic photographs of his you recognize.
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posted by BlahLaLa at 8:54 PM - 4 comments Australian wins peace prize for farming idea feeding millions in Africa. A Victorian scientist whose farming technique has revolutionised agriculture in Niger has been awarded an international peace prize.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:27 PM - 13 comments Evanescence - Fight Like A Girl (feat. K.Flay) , we are so back.
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posted by signal at 4:18 PM - 7 comments Non-urgent mail will be allowed to move by ground, increasing delivery time from 3-4 days to 3-7 days "There is every reason to believe ¡ª and no reason not to ¡ª that the letter mail decline will continue and that this trend is irreversible: not a levelling off, but almost certain and eventual extinction," the report said.
posted by Kitteh at 11:11 AM - 68 comments Watch a ballgame today ¡ª really watch it ¡ª and you¡¯ll be amazed at how often the pitchers, catchers and umpires change the ball. Just how many does it take to get through a game? It¡¯s like trying to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar. You can¡¯t tell on TV, because the ball isn¡¯t always on the screen. And you can¡¯t tell in person unless you commit to looking solely at the ball the entire time. from Gone in 2.5 pitches: The fleeting life of a baseball in modern MLB [NYT; ungated]
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posted by chavenet at 11:04 AM - 20 comments Nicky Ryan was Enya's longtime produce who created the "wall of sound" effect with his wife, Roma. He and his wife were with Enya from the beginning of her career.
posted by ichimunki at 10:42 AM - 18 comments I want be as locked in as John JR Robinson playing "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough."
posted by swift at 10:01 AM - 11 comments Ordinary people and local groups in the US can research candidates for local elections and make endorsements. For example, Kelly Jensen explains how to build a voter's guide for public library board elections, and Frank Strong does similarly for school board elections (more details in the introduction to this Google Doc, "The Book-Loving Texan¡¯s Guide to the May 2025 School Board Elections"). Naomi Kritzer has written several useful guides as well (below), having researched and published endorsements in Minnesota for decades.
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posted by brainwane at 9:32 AM - 3 comments In this episode, YouTube creator HMS2
[previously] hand crafts an oden cart from scratch.
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posted by phunniemee at 8:21 AM - 4 comments Art culled from a wealth of video game and tech-related patents and patent applications, presented without explanation: Context-Free Patent Art
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posted by ShooBoo at 7:17 AM - 14 comments How an Artist Couple Lives on the Last Ellis Island Boat in the World. A beautiful short film by Joshua Charow, with artists Victoria and Richard MacKenzie-Childs, who founded and lost their ceramics company, eventually moving onto Yankee, an Ellis Island ferry to live and work. Victoria has her own YouTube channel about living on Yankee. And if you want to buy the boat, make them an offer.
posted by R. Mutt at 6:52 AM - 5 comments Chickens step in to raise abandoned emu chicks at wildlife park. Birds of a different feather are flocking together at a wildlife park in New South Wales, where the chickens have been given the responsibility of being foster parents to a pair of abandoned emu chicks.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:39 AM - 14 comments If you look at the tradition of high European art painting (he then expands to photography and novels), you will notice that many paintings seek to show figures as if they were not aware of being looked at by an audience. This could come through absorption in work, such as artisanal craftsmanship, or immersion in sociality with others. But in any case, the figures are oriented away from the audience, and pulled into the distinct world of the painting. This ¡°pulling in¡± is crucial, since it sets up the painting as somehow standing outside and beyond our own wishes, with its own inner solidity. Because it pulls them away from us and into it, the figures and their world become objects that we look at and learn from, not mere projections of our desires. from A Different Annihilation: Absorption and theatricality in Michel Houellebecq [The Point]
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posted by chavenet at 12:01 AM - 3 comments September 24
Bluestockings - New York's only queer, trans and sex worker run bookstore - announced today on their website that the store (in person and online) is closing today, with operations to be wound down by the end of the year. It does not appear that any interventions are possible.
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posted by 99_ at 7:27 PM - 26 comments Breeding success for endangered tree frog amid habitat threat. Scientists have achieved a breakthrough in their work to save the Littlejohn's tree frog species which only exists in three isolated regions in New South Wales.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:34 PM - 2 comments How Germany¡¯s fight against anti-Semitism is empowering the far right | Featured Documentary (Al Jazeera English, YouTube, 50m23s): Prominent Jewish Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein returns to his ancestral home, Germany, to investigate how the country¡¯s impulse never to repeat the horrendous anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust has resulted in the suppression of any criticism of Israel and its actions in Gaza.
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posted by flabdablet at 1:27 PM - 23 comments How the Octopus Came to Earth: Stunning 19th-Century French Chromolithographs of Cephalopods [The Marginalian]
posted by chavenet at 11:08 AM - 9 comments "The opposite of doomscrolling: Every two weeks (roughly) I [Clive Thompson] send you a collection of the best Internet reading I've found -- links to culture, technology, art and science that fascinated me. Full, free archives here."
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posted by MonkeyToes at 11:03 AM - 10 comments A subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, which is run by the sons of US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, is letting clients essentially bet that President Donald Trump¡¯s tariffs will be struck down in court. Wired.
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posted by subdee at 9:09 AM - 32 comments A few pieces of memoir on teaching children critical thinking, mitigating risk, etiquette, and more. "I decided that as much as reasonably possible, I wasn¡¯t going to make her do stuff." "Instead of blindly looking for permission, the conversation became more about cause and effect." "...they know who they can talk to about stuff and who they can¡¯t." "Kids often don¡¯t have the words that they need to explain what is going on." "Present Practice is a fun game to play so the kids do it to each other." and "And Bee said, 'Have we explained that to them? Do they know?'"
posted by brainwane at 7:43 AM - 18 comments "There was every chance that we would never see a result like this, so to be living in a world where we know this is not only possible, but the actual magnitude of the effect is breathtaking, it's very difficult to fully encapsulate the emotion."
Huntington's Disease has been successfully treated for the first time.
posted by mhoye at 7:05 AM - 14 comments Steve is a Orange Fish with arms and Legs - Original French Version - with Lyrics. English Version - with Lyrics.
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posted by Faintdreams at 4:12 AM - 8 comments Tån:talán is a bell emulator - a collaborative platform where anyone can upload photographs, audio files and information about their local bell towers and signature bell ringing patterns.
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posted by deeker at 3:35 AM - 6 comments E¡¯ morta martedì sera a Nemours, vicino a Parigi, «circondata dai suoi figli», Claudia Cardinale: aveva 87 anni ed era una delle dive più amate dal pubblico, che ha scalato il successo lavorando con i registi più prestigiosi, non solo in Italia, ma naturalmente in Francia e poi anche in America. [Corriere della Sera]
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posted by chavenet at 12:07 AM - 18 comments September 23
Clues in 161-year-old painting help restore Grampians' native beauty. Russian artist Nicholas Chevalier's now-famous painting of Mt Abrupt in western Victoria is being used by a revegetation group to reflect the landscape as the artist saw it in 1864. (Australia)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 11:21 PM - 5 comments On the 7th of January 2018, Transport for NSW (TfNSW) pulled off something extraordinary¡ Overnight, traffic signals across the core of Sydney¡¯s CBD were reprogrammed¡
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:43 PM - 21 comments Japan has terminated operations of space probe Akatsuki, which studied the orbit and atmosphere of Venus. Over 13000 messages and illustrations of Hatsune Miku were included on the probe.
posted by one for the books at 2:27 PM - 8 comments Although an 86-acre terrestrial farm would be considered boutique, the Ocean Rainforest plot, floating in sight of the Channel Islands, represents a significant leap in size from the average U.S. seaweed farm of 1 to 4 acres¡ªand a new frontier for ocean farming [civileats]
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posted by HearHere at 1:00 PM - 2 comments Cicciolina. The Mitchell brothers. The O¡¯Farrell Theater. United for a one-time-only milestone engagement. Some stories are about an event. Fewer stories are about a poster of an event. And there are no stories about a poster of a event that may never have taken place. Perhaps this is that story. [NSFW! text & images]
posted by chavenet at 11:19 AM - 9 comments « Older posts | Newer posts »
