Most Favorited Posts in the Past 24 Hours (7 days, 30 days, 12 months, all time)
Here's a quick guide to what the numbers mean. Subscribe
The most significant hip hop feud in decades
Kendrick Lamar and Drake (aka Aubrey Graham), two of the biggest active hip hop artists and former collaborators, are seriously beefing in a major way that hasn't been seen since Tupac vs Biggie. Last October, Drake dropped a track, First Person Shooter, where his collaborator J Cole named the two of them and Kendrick as "the big three". Kendrick, who has a competitive streak, took umbrage at being put on the same level as the other two and replied in Like That "it's just big me". What might've started as a somewhat professional competition has rapidly gone nuclear since Kendrick took shots at Drake's Blackness, fitness as a parent, and masculinity in his track titled "euphoria" and Drake responded with allegations of domestic abuse, infidelity, and cuckoldry in Family Matters. As of the latest, Kendrick has accused Drake of hiding a 2nd child and being a sexual predator of underaged girls. [more inside]
Can Yulia Navalnaya unite the Russian opposition?
Three days after her husband's death, Yulia Navalnaya announced publicly that she would continue his work and take over the management of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). Three days after her husband's death, Yulia Navalnaya announced publicly that she would continue his work and take over the management of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). She also accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of killing Alexei Navalny, and announced that an investigation into the exact details was underway. [more inside]
“I am not an artifact”
How we heal. "First out was a rust-red calf, legs unsure against the solid ground of a Rocky Mountains meadow. Then in an instant a whole herd of shaggy bison surged, hooves flashing, tails up, eyes wide, a long-awaited storm of buffalo power thundering into the wild... the first free-roaming bison ever to be unleashed onto the North American prairie by a sovereign Tribal government."
More on tribal/federal collaborations and tensions from National Parks magazine: an innovative archaeological field school; freeing the lands between Badger Creek and the Two Medicine River from oil leases; a Blackfeet-run tour company in Glacier National Park, over a century after Native Americans were displaced to create the park. [more inside]
More on tribal/federal collaborations and tensions from National Parks magazine: an innovative archaeological field school; freeing the lands between Badger Creek and the Two Medicine River from oil leases; a Blackfeet-run tour company in Glacier National Park, over a century after Native Americans were displaced to create the park. [more inside]
Big ships in even bigger waves.
Quoth the Pingu:
Best printer 2024 for printing printers who love to print in 2024
It’s weird because the correct answer to the query “what is the best printer” has not changed, but an entire ecosystem of content farms seems motivated to constantly update articles about printers in response to the incentive structure created by that robot’s obvious preferences. Pointing out that incentive structure and the culture that’s developed around it seems to make a lot of people mad, which is also interesting! Anyway, here’s the best printer for 2024: a Brother laser printer. You can just pick any one you like; I have one with a sheet feeder and one without a sheet feeder. Both of them have reliably printed return labels and random forms and pictures for my kid to color for years now, and I have never purchased replacement toner for either one. Neither has fallen off the WiFi or insisted I sign up for an ink-related hostage situation or required me to consider the ongoing schemes of HP executives who seem determined to make people hate a legendary brand with straightforward cash grabs and weird DRM ideas.Best printer 2024, best printer for home use, office use, printing labels, printer for school, homework printer you are a printer we are all printers / After a full year of not thinking about printers, the best printer is still whatever random Brother laser printer that’s on sale. [Previously]
We Sent Ralph Nader Some of Our Favorite Pens. He Dismissed Them All.
Ralph Nader is loyal to one pen: the Papermate Flair. But Nader claims that the pens are drying out quicker then they used to. He reached out to Wirecutter (a NYT property) and they investigated.
Archive.is link: https://archive.is/54jtw [more inside]
Spuds for the Spud God
Turnip28 is a miniatures war game by Max Fitzgerald about Napoleonic tubers. An endless war has reduced the world to mud and muck, and a giant mutant root vegetable has spread ceaselessly throughout the land. Misshapen soldiers emerge and sink into the swamps with rusty bayonets and pole arms seemingly supplied by the root stock itself. It is deliciously weird. [more inside]
Finding Lillian
Finding Lillian: The lost patients of Washington’s abandoned mental hospital [25m, Seattle Times] "He uncovered 200 headstones. She was searching for remnants about her great-grandmother’s life. This documentary follows two people's consuming quest to unearth the truth about Northern State Hospital and revive the stories of its forgotten patients." Companion longread article, The Lost Patients Of Washington's Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital [Seattle Times]
A careful analyst of the textured nature of historical repetition
Thucydides intimates that the careful art of drawing fitting analogies, honed as it may be through the diligent study of political history, will assist some to think more clearly about the present. But mastering this art should not be confused with political mastery. The power of ‘great’ events will remain too easily harnessed, and too hard to control, to serve only those who are clear-headed and well-intentioned. Specious analogies will remain a danger for as long as people stand to benefit from them, and their emotional pull will continue to knock even the most astute off balance. And yet, if there’s little chance that political life will ever be freed from distortive thinking, it may still prove less hazardous for those who look toward history as something more than a sourcebook of convenient parallels. from What would Thucydides say? [Aeon] [more inside]
Brian Potter explains the construction of a semiconductor fab
How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fab. By Brian Potter of Construction Physics.
World Pilot Gig Championships 2024
The Cornish Pilot Gig is a coxed 6-oar, clinker built rowing boat, originally built to take pilots out to sailing ships to pilot them into harbour. Since the first pilot to get to a ship got the job, speed became essential to anyone who wanted to get paid, requiring strong arms, stamina and innovations in boat design. While this trade is long gone, most Cornish harbours continue to support a gig club who race competitively, purely for fun and glory. [more inside]
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls (but in this case.......)
What happens if a US presidential candidate dies? Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the two oldest candidates in US history. If either needs to be replaced, what next? from the Guardian [more inside]
The survival of this ancient language is as mysterious as its origins
Shakespeare toys with numerous European languages throughout his work, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Dutch. Often, these are spoken in thick accents, with comedic pronunciation. The same holds true for his use of the various British dialects—Scots, Welsh, Cornish, and Irish—heard in scruffy taverns or high courts. In Henry V, soldiers fracture the King’s English while the king himself and a French princess descend into a comical Franglais courtship. Yet, no matter how garbled the speech, playgoers can usually identify distinct languages and dialects—that is, until they bump up against what scholars have called the “invented language,” “unintelligible gabble,” and “‘Boskos thromuldo boskos’ mumbo-jumbo” in his comedy "All’s Well That Ends Well." from I Understand Thee, and Can Speak Thy Tongue: California Unlocks Shakespeare’s Gibberish [LARB]
Man on a Ledge
"Megalopolis has always been a film dedicated to my dear wife Eleanor. I really had hoped to celebrate her birthday together this May 4th. But sadly that was not to be, so let me share with everyone a gift on her behalf." Weeks after the loss of his wife, the legendary Francis Ford Coppola reveals a first look at his magnum opus more than 40 years in the making, which has finally found a distributor after the director spent $120 million of his own funds on the project. [more inside]
OH! And RIGHT into the bales!
From YouTube channel Legends Of Soapbox Racing, I present to you London's BEST CRASHES EVER #redbullsoapboxrace #londoncrashes [28m]. It's a cavalcade of hilarious car designs and amusing sudden ends. Despite the crashing, there don't appear to be any real injuries.
Let's play life
the internet has produced many things, but its driving force is cowardice. it's there in the collective failure to conceptualize how the things one does online manifest themselves in the larger world. it's there in the lionization of an almost spiritual level of intellectual laziness in the need to endlessly double down on whatever your personal brand becomes. it's there in the desire to tear down anyone who might attempt to shine a light on your own personal failures and limitations, in either your work or your larger perspective on the world. the internet is a refuge for the bad faith. Let's play life, a long post about "let's plays", internet culture and youtube by Liz Ryerson (previously)
10 PRINT "HELLO METAFILTER"; 20 GOTO 10
For many people, the first time they tried to take control of a computer centered around learning to program in BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), a simple, interpreted programming language designed around easily-understandable keywords and syntax. BASIC turned 60 a couple of days ago, so find one of the many online BASIC interpreters and write yourself a little bit of history.
A book fair only in name but oh the amount of shame!
Tasmanian devil tooth found during archaeological dig North of Perth
Tasmanian devil tooth found during archaeological dig 1000 kilometres north of Perth. The tooth could provide further historical evidence of inter-community trading in Western Australia and was unearthed in Juukan Gorge, which made headlines in 2020 when its rock shelters were damaged by Rio Tinto blasts.
"There is no physical evidence that [Tasmanian devils] ever lived in the Pilbara, and the last evidence of devils living in Western Australia was in the South West around 3000 years ago," he said.