The Big Internet Math-Off 2024, Round 1, Match 1 – Here's the first match in this year's Big Internet Math-Off. Today, we're pitting Katie Steckles against Benjamin Dickman. Take a look at both pitches, vote for the bit of maths that made you do the loudest "Aha!", and if you know any more cool facts about either of the topics presented here, please write a comment below! Overview of the 2024 edition.

Previous editions:

• 2020
• 2019
• 2018

Pikimov is a new free, browser-based alternative to After Effects. Maybe you might find it useful!

The ship waited. The cars waited. The starfish and sea cucumbers waited, but in the meantime, they explored the smooth surfaces of the ship and the cars. They crawled over the charred flanks and squeezed into the seams of doors and trunks and hoods. An octopus took refuge in the underbelly of a Bentley. The metal and fiberglass and plastic, the wires and buttons and glass belonged to the sea creatures now. from Felicity Ace Falls Over & Sinks, Tuesday, 9am by Shena McAuliffe [Speculative Nonfiction]

Felicity Ace, previously

As we enter the latter half of 2024, the question is: have you ever won anything? Perhaps in the tombola at a summer fete? A prize for art or poetry or writing? An election where you were a candidate? A scooter uh motorbike on a TV game show? A word game? Maybe you got lucky in life or employment, or got some free cheese, or scooped a big lottery cash prize? Winning literally, or figuratively? Happily or sadly? Or do you want to win something specific? ... Or write about whatever is on your mind, in your heart, on your plate or in your journal, because this is your weekly free thread. [Post title/inspiration by Brown Sauce from 1981]

A European wild cat was nearly extinct. Now, it is making a comeback. The Iberian lynx is no longer classified as endangered, with one group calling it the "greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation."

In 2002 there were only about 60 adult Iberian lynx in Portugal and Spain, and the species was labeled "critically endangered." After a lot of hard work, there are now more than 2000 young and adult Iberian lynx on the Iberian Peninsula.

How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number

Fiber artist and dancer Nick Cave is best-known for his elaborate head-to-toe Soundsuits, the first of which originated as a metaphorical suit of armor in response to Rodney King beating. He also has celebrated Black queer culture through "The Let Go" installation. Forothermore is a short documentary about his work. Previously on Mefi.

He named them for the rustling he heard as he moved around in them. I never think anything is finished. But I do know when a piece has life, when it has a pulse, when it's breathing...Then I can walk away because I know it can sustain itself in the world. (via) Title of post from here.

In 1862, Adam Worth listed as "dead, he was now free to enlist once more and to claim another bounty. Like many others he got a taste for it, taking the money, deserting, re-enlisting again in another unit under another name. In the words of George Bernard Shaw, "The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is." "The words refined and gaudy, by all practical standards, contrast. But, somewhere between the ether of the two words there is a fine line that, when the words blend across that line, a rarity is created. This specimen is one of color but with an ability to control that color to his/her advantage; to sip of the grapes of life with a celebratory vigor and vim and always emanate what the Parisians call en elegance." In 1876, he stlole Gainsborough' Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire from JP Morgan's father. it wasn't until 1901 that the portrait was returned brokered through Pinkerton. "He nicknamed Worth 'the Napoleon of Crime.' Called Adam Worth, Alias 'Little Adam' by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, you can read it here. 'A Master Thief, Irish Hostess, English Duchess, and the Origins Pan Am.'

This Ancient Roman Souvenir Stylus Is Inscribed With a Corny Joke

Your Boss Will Freeze Your Eggs Now There is always a market for products, from skin care to weight loss, promising to ease the angst of womanhood. Efforts to slow down the reproductive clock are no different. The business of egg extraction is thriving, among the privileged group of people who can access it.

40 Saddest Albums of All Time (slDiscogs)

As museums encounter increasing claims on their collections, experts say much of the debate hearkens back to 1815, when the Louvre was forced to surrender the spoils of war. "In September 1815, Karl von Müffling, the Prussian governor of Paris, presented himself at the doors of the Louvre and ordered its French guards to step aside. Belgian and Dutch officials, backed by Prussian and British troops, had arrived to reclaim art treasures plundered by the French during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. This moment is recognized by many scholars as a sea change in political attitudes toward the spoils of war and is seen as the birth of repatriation, the concept of returning cultural goods taken in times of conflict to the countries from which they were stolen." Nina Siegel for the NYT.

Dutch museum looted by Napoleon does not seek restitution An exhibition at the Mauritshuis in The Hague has revealed that the Dutch are still missing 67 paintings looted by the French in Napoleonic times (Senay Boztas for The Art Newspaper 2023). repatriation previously.

Found by a friend, 12 years old but still fun in an inexplicable kind of way: a deer wizard explains how to build an owl theremin (2 minutes), then demonstrates playing it (1m). (Note: the owls are wooden. No real owls are promised, nor harmed.)

@drvolts: "Now, I'd like you to think about what will happen if Trump takes over, Project 2025 is implemented, & the entire federal bureaucracy (including law enforcement branches) is staffed with ideological MAGA cronies."[1]

That will mean the end of anything like independence or expertise in the civil service. Crime statistics will be engineered to support Trump -- in his mind, and theirs, that's what the bureaucracy is *for*. The gov't is Trump's, devoted to Trump's glory... And you can broaden that out to economic statistics, trade statistics, GHG emissions, any & all information about the objective state of the country & the polity. It will all be pure propaganda under Trump, which will mean simply that *no one really knows* what's going on. People lament the "post-truth" era we're living in. Misinformation. Epistemic bubbles. Algorithmic distortions. Etc. But I need people to understand that we really haven't seen anything yet... Take a peek at Russia or Turkey for a preview. This is what keeps striking me over & over again as we wander backward into fascism, with scarcely any resistance: all the blessings we enjoy in America, the result of so much hard work that came before us, that we are taking for granted & casually frittering away.

@GregTSargent: "Under Project 2025, an army of Trump loyalists would deeply corrupt information gathering by the government and turn it into little more than pro-Trump propaganda."[2] (TNR)

MAGA personalities raged at CNN when it refused to allow a Donald Trump propagandist to smear journalists on air. They exploded again when CNN announced that the debate would be fact-checked. We think this provides an unexpected glimpse into what Project 2025's implementation might look like. This thought was driven home by a must-read thread from writer David Roberts about Project 2025's true aims. So we talked to Roberts about what MAGA's hostility to neutral journalism portends for a second Trump term—one that wrecks the professional, fact-based civil service and transforms government into a tool for manufacturing propaganda. Listen to this episode here.[3]

also btw...

• Supreme Court decision can't defrost chilling effect on disinformation research, experts warn - "Why it matters: Disinformation campaigns targeting the 2024 U.S. elections are expected to reach further and outnumber what's been seen in past elections, experts warn."
• The Destruction of Economic Facts - "During the second half of the 19th century... To prevent the breakdown of industrial and commercial progress, hundreds of creative reformers concluded that the world needed a shared set of facts. Knowledge had to be gathered, organized, standardized, recorded, continually updated, and easily accessible... The result was the invention of the first massive 'public memory systems' to record and classify—in rule-bound, certified, and publicly accessible registries, titles, balance sheets, and statements of account—all the relevant knowledge available... for investors to infer value, take risks, and track results... Over the past 20 years, Americans and Europeans have quietly gone about destroying these facts. The results are hardly surprising. In the U.S., trust has broken down..."[4]

Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth. Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it's learned may be crucial to Western democracy - "The exercises include examining claims found in YouTube videos and social media posts, comparing media bias in an array of different 'clickbait' articles, probing how misinformation preys on readers' emotions, and even getting students to try their hand at writing fake news stories themselves."[5]

The course is part of an anti-fake news initiative launched by Finland's government in 2014 – two years before Russia meddled in the US elections – aimed at teaching residents, students, journalists and politicians how to counter false information designed to sow division. The initiative is just one layer of a multi-pronged, cross-sector approach the country is taking to prepare citizens of all ages for the complex digital landscape of today – and tomorrow. The Nordic country, which shares an 832-mile border with Russia, is acutely aware of what's at stake if it doesn't. Finland has faced down Kremlin-backed propaganda campaigns ever since it declared independence from Russia 101 years ago. But in 2014, after Moscow annexed Crimea and backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, it became obvious that the battlefield had shifted: information warfare was moving online.

Comparing Trump to 'political chemotherapy' - "Cuban said: '...a lot of [chemotherapy patients] die. A lot of the systems, they change.'"[6]

"My kids, when they're 60 years old and say, hopefully, say, look, we went through, the country went through the s*** when I was a kid, but we learned from it," he continued. "I think we're starting to learn from what happened. You're seeing them throw him under the bus."

"In the Democratic party, not everybody gets their way, but everybody gets a voice. In the Republican party, there's just one voice." --Christopher Gibbs, Farmer, Shelby County Ohio You Are Entering the Infernal Triangle - "Authoritarian Republicans, ineffectual Democrats, and a clueless media."[7]

I took how fast everything was moving for granted. Like, I guess this happens for everybody; this is what happens when you get famous. So I took all of that for granted but I was never like, "I'm the [expletive]." There's no higher blessing: You make people laugh, that's more than anything. That's more than making them dance, making them feel drama. To look around and see that all the good things that came in my life all came from making somebody laugh? That's a beautiful feeling, man. from Eddie Murphy is Ready to Look Back [NYT; ungated]

"If you shoot him, I'll shoot you": The hostage who made sure Ned Kelly survived his last stand. Constable Hugh Bracken, who insisted the infamous bushranger be captured alive, has been shunned by history. Now there's a push to honour his actions.

Gill Partington recounts the story of Thomas James Wise in the London Review of Books and the LRB Podcast. Wise was the doyen of Victorian bibliophiles, and might the most prolific literary forger in history. Thomas J. Gearty jr. wrote a brief survey of his forgeries in 1973. You can see images from Wise's work, with explanations by librarian Alexander Johnston, on the University of Delaware Library website.

at document scale. I took the 8.5-by-11-inch FBI pages, which were heavily redacted and punctuated with officious markings and handwritten margin notes, and splashed them with bright pink spray paint and pastel rhinestones. The spray paint points to graffiti and "tagging" (an act of reclamation), to my own lexicon of redactions and the unknowable. The crystal adornment is an impossible and tiny act of healing. I also figured pink glitter would be a kind of kryptonite to J. Edgar Hoover's tortured ghost. [Sadie Barnette]

An autistic YouTuber looks at neurodivergence in Delicious in Dungeon (SLYT)

"Political disagreements were framed as tragic misunderstandings, easily solved with a shared understanding of the facts. This obsession with the facts, Klein and Gogarty argue, has failed." (Celine Nguyen in the Cleveland Review of Books)

"This belief is what brings together "respectable liberalism and its garish, populist cousin," Gogarty writes. Liberals believe that systemic problems are caused by secret forms of corruption and solved with exposés. Similarly, conspiracy theorists imagine an omnipotent cabal of individuals, quietly pulling the strings of power and yet vulnerable to a grand reveal. Both groups assume that, by bringing the right information into public awareness, we'll be able to build a better world. In reality, Klein argues in Doppelganger, our liberal democratic societies are characterized by "unmasked plutocracy;" there's no secret to reveal. Instead of the Illuminati, we have the attendees of the annual Davos conference, where the politicians and capitalists most responsible for climate change and capitalist extraction pretend to be our heroes, solving the world's hardest problems for the greater good. Our world might be more corrupt than the conspiracy theorists realize."

Who dresses better? Alpha males or little dogs? [by Derek Guy, on X (Threadreader) (previously)]

Back in October 2022, there was linked a fancomic where Frasier and Niles tried to hide Maris' (partly) accidental murder from Lt. Columbo. It's now been voice-acted (not by the original actors of course) and put on Youtube. (12 minutes)

Note: The comic in the first post was on Twitter. It's also on creator Joe Chouinard's website, so I linked to it there. I try not to link to Twitter or Reddit now unless absolutely necessary. Also from Joe Chouinard, you might enjoy: - Niles and Crane in Bloodborne - the residents of Springfield participating in a fighting tournament - and the ongoing series Clown Corps, about crime-fighting clowns

Martin Mull, star of "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", "Fernwood Tonight", "America 2-Night', "Mr Mom", "Roseanne" and the oft quoted cult classic - "Clue" has passed away after a long illness at the ago of 80

The land, water and air around us are chock-full of DNA from fungi that scientists can't identify. Like dark matter, these organisms are hidden, connected with no known species—or organism. It's not just fungi; microbial dark matter makes up as much as 99% of microorganisms currently can't be cultured and studied.

I'm reminded of the Barry Lopez quote from Arctic Dreams that I can't presently find about how landscapes always surpass our expectations of them.

Goonhammer Historicals covers the full sweep of historical wargaming, from ancients to the world wars. They have a number of introductory articles, covering basic history and factions of various eras, and the major rulesets and miniatures available. Their 'historical representation in wargaming' article is a pretty great discussion on approaching the problematic aspects of historical wargaming.

There's also a few articles on Turnip28. The post title is the name of this medieval skirmish game.

Fruit tree netting that can entangle flying foxes and birds now banned in Canberra backyards. Fruit tree netting with large holes is now prohibited in Canberra backyards, with residents facing fines of up to $800 if caught using it. Netting must now have a mesh size of 5mm by 5mm or smaller.

The dispute over portable art was, however, as nothing to that which preceded the acceptance of parietal art — images painted or engraved on the walls and ceilings of caves. Today, we know that parietal art is not confined to deep caves; that was only true of the first discoveries. ... That most of the parietal art known today is of this kind may be a result of the effects of natural weathering on art in exposed places — though we cannot be certain about this point. [mind in the cave: consciousness and the origins of art (g)] previously

The first and most important lesson of the past few years is obviously the fact that competence is a moral issue, rather than simply a practical one. It is the mechanism that allows you to act in the world, to impose yourself on it. There can therefore be no meaningful morality without competence. Without it, we cannot secure the good. We can only wish for it. And that wish will be forlorn, deprived as it is of the measures by which it could be asserted.

So the aftermath of the Internet exploding is inevitably going to come with ambivalent, and even bittersweet, feelings. Many of us are probably going to miss the amazing sense of connection we have with people all around the globe and the book recommendations, free recipes and gardening tips, but, to no less an extent, are probably going to be extremely relieved to no longer be quite so pressured by corporations to be rampantly interested in our own surfaces or be beset by the constant lingering sense that we are arguing with people we've never met about a version of ourselves that doesn't exist. Yes, having go into the city to our bank to transfer some money, just like we did during the 20th Century, will be a pain. But I am looking forward to being able to relax while eating some salty snacks without worrying about the way their residue sticks to my thumb and makes my online banking app impossible to open. It's a case of swings and roundabouts. from What Will Life Really Be Like After The Internet Gets Incinerated? by Tom Cox [The Villager]

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Waterfront real estate for $450,000. 4 bedroom, 1 bath. 360 degree ocean views. 2.5 miles off shore at the mouth of the Potomac River.

Smith Point Lighthouse isn't for the faint of heart (or stomach). Getting there, about three miles from shore, requires a journey by boat that can take up to an hour on a choppy day. The entrance consists of two corroded ladders wobbling with every gust of wind. A railing with missing rungs hovers above the tempestuous waters below. More photos here. Previously & Previously

One of the best things to come out of Oklahoma is the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation Twitter account. Sarah is stepping down as the leader of the OKWildlifeDept twitter account. We will all miss her a lot.

In these few short years, America's newly opening landscapes—residential, rural, and the fastest routes between them—were given a visual identity by the federal government. If olive drab and its ilk were the colors of Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation, then the hues of the first revision were those of America's well-branded internal expansion. Every mailbox, park sign, and highway mile-marker was another tiny flag planted by a growing nation, proclaiming its new success with the same methods and military sensibility that had recently secured it a starring role on the international stage. Though they're brighter and friendlier, the colors and rules that dictated the look of American infrastructure's mid-century boom are every bit as ordered as a dispatch from the Quartermaster Corps. from Americhrome [The Morning News]

AMS Standard 595

Welcome to the website dedicated to preserving the Civil War history & record of the men of the 13th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer infantry. The site was launched June 2, 2008. Since that time over 60 pages of detailed history have been added. These pages include newspaper stories, soldiers letters, diaries, memoirs, photos, and post-war reminiscences.... Content warning for language, racism, and violence.

It cost a recruit $12.50 for the privilege of enlisting in the exclusive 4th Battallion of Rifles, but before considering the fee, the applicant needed to be approved by a vote from members of the Boston Militia group. In spite of the cost there were plenty of applicants & there was no problem filling each company to its full compliment of men. The four rifle companies of the Fourth Battallion, Companies A, B, C, & D, became the nucleus of the 13th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers (...) Many of these men chose to go directly to the seat of war as privates in the 13th rather than wait for a chance at an officer's commission with another organization.(...) "They are a damned insubordinate lot," said brigade commander General John J. Abercrombie when asked what kind of troops they were. Amongst the material gathered here is this outstanding story attributed to (Union) Lieutenant Edward Rollins: Dr. Stringfellow's Slaves

Wind River Pride organizes an annual pride festival and advocates for LGBT+ people in central Wyoming. Last year their annual pride parade was disrupted by a far right group, they did not let that stop them this year.

BEAST IN BLACK - Power Of The Beast [Single Link, YouTube] – Contains: Falsetto, power metal, colorful outfits, spiky bits, AND SUPER EURO BEAT.

The awkward, inspiring, completely out-there inside story of 'Napoleon Dynamite'. Twenty years later, the proud weirdos who made the movie look back on their deadpan classic.(WaPo gift link, archive)

Mosqpedia is an encyclopedia of winners of the triennial Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture, focused on contemporary ideas in mosque design and construction. The award also has a YouTube channel with short documentaries in a variety of languages, including English, that discuss the architects' design decisions.

- The "winners" link is from the entry for the Naji Hamshari Mosque in Amman, Jordan. - Not all of the mosques are modernist; many are in a more traditional style, like this one.

Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Sleeping Outdoors (NYT)

Supreme Court Says Ban on Homeless Camping Does Not Violate Constitution (WaPo) Supreme Court Allows Policy Targeting Homeless People (NBC) Supreme Court Rules Cities May Enforce Laws Against Homeless Encampments (LA Times) Supreme Court Gives Cities More Power to Crack Down on Homeless Camps (CalMatters) Supreme Court posts get a Supremes song: here's 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds.'

"The Supreme Court on Friday reduced the authority of executive agencies, sweeping aside a longstanding legal precedent that required courts to defer to the expertise of federal administrators in carrying out laws passed by Congress. The precedent, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, is one of the most cited in American law. There have been 70 Supreme Court decisions relying on Chevron, along with 17,000 in the lower courts. The decision threatens regulations in countless areas, including the environment, health care and consumer safety." Supreme Court Overrules Chevron Doctrine, Imperiling an Array of Federal Rules (NYT; archive)

SCOTUSBlog on the likely effects. Elie Mystal: "Conservatives have now completed their generational goals of overturning Abortion, Affirmative Action, and Chevron. If y'all don't think Obergefell and gay marriage is next on the chopping block, you must read the New York Times."

Thick atmosphere discovered around super-Earth in nearby solar system.

Bloomberg article "We work hard to live up to our Mission and Values every day and represent the values of the communities and customers we serve. We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart."

"Going forward, we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business. For instance, this means we will: 1. No longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign 2. Refocus our Team Member Engagement Groups on mentoring, networking and supporting the business 3. Further focus on rural America priorities including ag education, animal welfare, veteran causes and being a good neighbor and stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities like pride festivals and voting campaigns 4. Eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment 5. Withdraw our carbon emission goals and focus on our land and water conservation efforts" This is the company that owns PetSense. Apparently this is a product of a campaign on Twitter by "Robby Starbuck" brought about via the company's webpage comment field.

In the Grand Hall, miles of new grout secure 29,000 Guastavino ceiling tiles, while in the south concourse a glass roof now protects original brickwork (miraculously intact despite flooding). All throughout Michigan Central Station, stonework has been refreshed or replaced, lighting faithfully reproduced, and period details revived thanks to some 1.7 million hours of work. "They poured their memories and love for Detroit into this project" [Architectural Digest] previously

Some things might be classics because they're just plain good. There was a lot of crap published around the same time, and most of it has rightly been forgotten, but some was great even by the standards of today. Like, maybe if you published Pride and Prejudice today, it would be received as "ah yes, this is an excellent entry in the niche genre of Regency-era romance. The few hundred committed fans of that genre will be very excited, and people who dabble in it will be well-advised to pick this one out". But as I said above, I don't think the Iliad meets that bar. from Book review: the Iliad [A Reasonable Approximation]

Why this sunken island is changing the way we think about myths. Legend has it a jealous husband used a wave curse to sink Teonimenu into the ocean forever. Scientists have worked out what really happened.

Richard "Kinky" Friedman... known for his boundary-pushing music and deep love for animals — died this week. He was 79.

President Biden debates a rapist and convicted felon with the future of the world on the line. Some national and international sites to watch the debate online.

While I hold my hand over my eyes, I need those brave members of Metafilter to peek between their fingers and tell me all is well.

Back in April a group of transit riders protested in front of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority headquarters. Their demands? If the MBTA's subways and trains can't be reliable they should at least be made more relatable by decorating them with large googly eyes. And now after months of campaigning, five of the T's trains and trolleys have been made a little friendlier.

I have chosen to shape this personal collection with a few criteria given the availability of various carabiner models. My primary interest and expertise is in tree climbing, which uses locking carabiners almost exclusively. As such, I primarily focus on the acquisition of locking carabiners, but non-lockers have been produced in far greater numbers, for much longer. Non-lockers tend to highlight changes or dead-ends of carabiner design and seem to keep showing up in my collection... plus I'm not one to toss aside a carabiner even if it's a little boring.

Terminology Guide Categories: Triple-Action Twist Lock; Twist Lock; Slide Lock; Screw Lock; Other Locking; Multi-Gate; Non-Locking; Gated-Hook; Accessory; All Carabiners Virtual Exhibits Other Thoughts