How much do you need to be happy? We are storing treasure in Heaven, not just by giving money but also our talents and influence for God. Every day we are storing treasure – by what we talk about, what we do with our resources, time, talents, and influence. To get your treasure in the right place you need your heart in the right place.

We are not saved by works, but how we live our lives shows whether or not we are truly Christian.

I asked for assignments or suggestions and for this one I chose the assignment "hrose".

Mefite aubilenon requested a loop for Bergamot, a cat of strong emotions.

It's an old American fiddle tune. I'm obsessed with A minor.

A short, somewhat creepy guitar-arpeggio-centric near-instrumental.

This one had a very long gestation time. According to my records the germ of it is from Dec 2020, but I think it took me some time to come up with the B section and I waffled about what to do with it lyrically for a very long time. Before today I had a notion about a longer lyric that would occupy more of the track, but I never liked it so when I came up with a little line today I realized I could just let this be mostly an instrumental and finally call it done. I always liked the instrumental and was never quite sure it needed lyrics at all, but this seemed like an ok balance.

Continuing my ambition of actually finishing and posting projects, here's a little love letter to the early 90s. Still has spooky themes! The drums are fine. Could have spent another year doing them properly. Lyrics in the fold.

"In this city (filled with pretty grad students and endless reasons to get out of bed today), you better find something to love. You better have something to say. No one wants to hear about some famous shit you gave!" she said. "Play guns," she said. "Play house," she said. She said, "Play guns!" She said... Haunted houses, holidays, and hired mouths made me this way. "When you lose your mind, you'll be the last to know. All these tough-love black and blues and [pep-rally] scars just teach you that the dizziest of heights ain't worth the lowest lows," she said. "Play guns! Play guns," she said. "Play hearts," she said. "Play guns," she said. She said...

My "new" band The Coffee Sergeants. The first single off our new album, Racing Shadows.

So whew, it's been a while! I have been busy with gigs, and stuff, and Carbon 7 is no more, and -- I joined this already-existing band (longtime good friends) 2.5 years ago, and it took us a year to put together enough songs for an album, then another year to get it recorded, mixed and pressed. It's at all the usual online outlets. I borrowed a Rickenbacker 4001 for this song because it just seemed to need it. Yes, it's all the notes all the time. Most of our stuff isn't this frenetic, as you'll see in coming weeks. Carey writes and sings, but he lets the rest of us do our things, so the arrangements are collaborative. Guitars, bass & drums are live & unedited, take two. Keys and vox overdubbed because of bleed.

https://youtu.be/iTw4VJBx5BU Above is a lyric video we put together last week. This is a song from an album I recorded this summer that was supposed to be a solo project but then turned into a band.

I am so sad, angry and confused by the recent US election result that I created this: a fitting fanfare from the people of the rest of the world. It is puerile and disgusting.

This is a ~30 second excerpt from the full work, which is almost two minutes long. It was compiled entirely using the command line tool sox, including the stereo spatial effects. Yes, it's farts. Lots of farts. It shows the appropriate level of respect.

We gave Über a try last week. Let's head back to Halcyon Brewing for Tuesday trivia. Trivia starts at 7:30pm. Let's meet up at 7pm.

Trivia is held in the room without the bar. The room may be empty at 7pm, but fills up as 7:30pm approaches. All ages. Maximum number of team members is 6, but we can split if there are more. No entry fee. Check Halcyon's Facebook page for category hints. Brush up on the latest news (regular, pop culture, and sports) beforehand, or not and we'll make our best guesses.

We will beat last week's 42 point winning score? Let's meet for Tuesday trivia night at Halcyon Brewing in Greenwood. Trivia starts at 7:30pm. Let's meet up at 7pm.

Trivia is held in the room without the bar. The room may be empty at 7pm, but fills up as 7:30pm approaches. All ages. Maximum number of team members is 6, but we can split if there are more. No entry fee. Check Halcyon's Facebook page for category hints. Brush up on the latest news (regular, pop culture, and sports) beforehand, or not and we'll make our best guesses.

My spouse and I recently moved into a lovely big ole house in Amersfoort. We really enjoyed meeting those of you who came to the last meetup (June 2022), and would like to invite you to come join us for a hangout at our new place.

I'm thinking something like this: - A Saturday afternoon / evening in July or August - Food and drink - Patio games, video games setup for folks (we love a structured hangout or activities to have on-hand) thoughts?

Let's meet for Tuesday trivia night at Halcyon Brewing in Greenwood. Trivia starts at 7:30pm. Let's meet up at 7pm.

Trivia is held in the room without the bar. The room may be empty at 7pm, but fills up as 7:30pm approaches. All ages. Maximum number of team members is 6, but we can split if there are more. No entry fee. Check Halcyon's Facebook page for category hints. Brush up on the latest news (regular, pop culture, and sports) beforehand, or not and we'll make our best guesses.

here through the 24^th while moving randomly across the surface of europe. the last roll of the dice got me to sweden during midsommar, so that's pretty cool

Let's meet for Tuesday trivia night at Halcyon Brewing in Greenwood. Trivia starts at 7:30pm. Let's meet up at 7pm. Trivia is held in the room without the bar. The room may be empty at 7pm, but fills up as 7:30pm approaches. All ages. Maximum number of team members is 6, but we can split if there are more. No entry fee. Check Halcyon's Facebook page for category hints. Brush up on the latest news (regular, pop culture, and sports) beforehand, or not and we'll make our best guesses.

so the semi-random tour of europe that i've been doing has gotten me to paris through the 5th and i'd love to hang out with metafilter people here, should there be metafilter people here who'd love to hang out

• ten points to anyone who wants to go to a protest or rally, because it feels
  1. wrong not to do so, given the historical juncture we're at
  2. fun to do so, given the place we're at
• at least two hundred points to anyone who knows of a good punk-adjacent or riot grrl-adjacent concert to go to. other genres considered too
• also probably there's something super fun and weird to do that i'm not thinking of and you're thinking of and in that case let's do that thing
• failing all else it's fun to play board games and consume substances

memail me if you want to get my attention most quickly, though i'll try to remember to check this thread too

With MeFi's 25th anniversary coming up on Sunday July 14, WE'RE ON I'm contemplating Let's celebrate with a BBQ at my house in Seattle that day.

I live in Greenwood, within easy walking distance from either the E or 5 Metro bus lines. There's also plenty of street parking. The house has a large yard and deck (with a propane BBQ). Enter the yard through the gate in the fence in the driveway. Significant others and kids would be welcome, of course. I'll supply plates, cutlery, cups and napkins, and some food and drink. Please bring whatever you'd like to share. If you do know what you're going to bring, mention it in a comment.

With last week's 2nd to last place allowing a choice of audio category for this week: how well do you know you metal genres? Let's meet for Tuesday trivia night at Halcyon Brewing in Greenwood. Trivia starts at 7:30pm. Let's meet up at 7pm.

Trivia is held in the room without the bar. The room may be empty at 7pm, but fills up as 7:30pm approaches. All ages. Maximum number of team members is 6, but we can split if there are more. No entry fee. Check Halcyon's Facebook page for category hints. Heavy metal genres should be the audio category (unless the trivia master decides that's too esoteric and changes it to something like classical covers of metal tunes). Brush up on the latest news (regular, pop culture, and sports) beforehand, or not and we'll make our best guesses.

Oh snack! MetaFilter's 25 year anniversary is this weekend! East Bay (and other Bay Area) mefites, let's meet up! I couldn't think of an easy venue that is outdoors and works with who-knows-how-many-people, except for my back yard! Come hang out and eat some food! Sunday, Jul 14, 2pm until close. I probably won't start the grill until 4 or 5, so have brunch or late brunch (portmanteau: "lunch") beforehand.

It's last minute so I have no idea how much people will show up, so rather than provision based on guesses, let's just everyone potluck it up!

If you want to bring something, great! Comment below so everyone doesn't each bring twelve of the same thing.

If you don't want to bring anything, great!

If you don't know, you can flip a coin, or defer your decision until after you arrive, because:

There is a grocery store literally directly across the street from my house. It's pricey but if we run out of groceries, we can get more groceries, and then eat the groceries. Yum, groceries!

There's a bunch of restaurants nearby that can do take out or delivery if you hate all this BBQ business. My back yard is pretty big and fine for kids and well-behaved dogs. I've got a gas grill. Two cars can park in my driveway on a first come first serve basis. The neighborhood can otherwise be difficult to park in. Nearest BART is MacArthur, which is about a mile away, and there's bike share docks there and close to here.

Let's meet for Tuesday trivia night at Halcyon Brewing in Greenwood. Trivia starts at 7:30pm. Let's meet up at 7pm.

Trivia is held in the room without the bar. The room may be empty at 7pm, but fills up as 7:30pm approaches. All ages. Maximum number of team members is 6, but we can split if there are more. No entry fee. Check Halcyon's Facebook page for category hints. Brush up on the latest news (regular, pop culture, and sports) beforehand, or not and we'll make our best guesses.

Hiya! I'll be in Toronto from Wednesday, November 27th through Saturday, November 30th and would love to say hello to some MeFites. I got to walk the St. Lawrence Market with Mandolin Conspiracy on a previous trip and chat and eat nice things. I'd be amenable to meeting up there, or maybe somewhere else. I'm flexible.

FWIW, we have cousins in Toronto and I have been many, many times. So I don't need any tourism assists, I just wanted to meet and spend a little time with MeFites, as you're the best, folks.

I am very sad to let the MeFi community know that one of its staunchest supporters and all around good guy digaman (Steve Silberman) has passed away as reported by his spouse on Bluesky. For people who didn't know digaman well, you might know his book NeuroTribes (MeFi post), the Grateful Dead box set he co-produced So Many Roads, or one of his 184 posts to MetaFilter (all from 2010 and before). He was always a great internet friend to me especially lately over on Mastodon and I know I will miss his voice. May his memory be a blessing, we are lucky to have known him.

Hello, folks. I would like to know 1) if it's common practice for mods to edit users' comments without any indication of a mod note, 2) when this practice began, and 3) if it's been disclosed as a community practice here. As a member of the mefi community it's certainly something I would like to provide feedback on!

I noticed that a recent dumb joke comment of mine was altered at some point after it was posted. The comment in question:

Where's the mugshot. There are no known photos of this guy after like 2006 Found it. (Content warning: gory image) posted by phunniemee at 3:22 PM on October 22

The bold text--the content warning--was not added by me. There is no mod note either in my comment or elsewhere on the thread indicating that this was edited in any way. Was my comment in poor taste? Yeah sure, many of the things I do are. If a comment picks up flags, please delete it. Or add a content warning that says "MOD NOTE: CONTENT WARNING FOR GORY IMAGE" if you must. That's the community I have been a part of--moderation by deletion with active mod involvement in the thread. I absolutely do not want to be in a community where people's comments are EDITED by a mod without any indication that the text was written by someone other than the poster. My own comment here and the relatively minor edit is about as stupid as it gets in the specific, but I'm feeling genuinely scandalized right now and deeply uncomfortable to find out that our mods are editing users comments in secrecy. I've been on metafilter for a decade and a half, and I know the people here only because of the things that people say online. It's important to me that our names are appended to the things we actually say. This is a staggeringly bad path for metafilter moderation to take and I think the community needs some disclosure on how often this happens. [phunniemee's note: Loup did reach out to me over email to explain that this edit followed the policy from the FAQ to add a content warning where deemed necessary by a mod, but that it was an error to not leave a mod note or to let me know the edit had occurred. That the mod team has discussed and agreed that a mod note will always be included in the future. I appreciate that individual errors happen and I believe it's most likely that this was an edit made in good faith. However. There have been a number of mod calls this year that have eroded the faith that I have in the ongoing moderation of the community I love, and I would like to continue forward with this metatalk to ensure we continue to be a community that's moderated thoughtfully and with active user engagement.]

It's the 8th MeFi Holiday Card Exchange!

Sign ups are open, and will close approximately 8am EST 11/17. I hope to have assignments out by end of day EST 11/19 - if you haven't gotten yours by end of day Friday 11/22, please check your spam/junk and contact me. This is our eighth year of the card exchange. We have 5, 10, and up to 20 options available. You can choose US only, send anywhere (international) or Europe only (if there are enough signups for this). Most of the people participating are in the US and Canada, so if you sign up for international, you will mainly get those addresses. I try to spread them out. If you're in Europe, and want a limited number of US addresses, just let me know in the notes section - I likely won't be able to give you 20 non-US/Canadian addresses, but I will do my best! (same if you'd rather mostly have US and Canadian addresses. I will do my best with specific requests.) Other answers to commonly asked questions- - There isn't a specific timeline on when you need to have your cards sent out by, just whenever you can. - If something happens and you can't send out your cards after all, send me a message, and I will happily send some for you! - Any type of card is fine - store-bought, handmade, postcards, etc. - While this is a holiday card exchange, and most people do send holiday themed cards, I have received all sorts of cards, so do what makes you happy! - Number of card options are 5, 10, and up to 20. If you are open to more than 10, but not 20, you can add that to the notes. Sometimes the sorting works out that I have some odd numbers. Also, if you choose up to 20, it is possible that you will have a duplicate (because you may be in two lists of 10) - so it may not work out perfectly evenly (I do my best to avoid this!). If you don't have the bandwidth to do the card exchange, but you'd like to get a holiday card anyway, I am happy to send one - just memail me your info! (Seriously - Costco had holiday stamps, and I said "oh, I'll take two!" and phew, I have a lot of stamps now!) I do have the form set up so that it sends a confirmation with a summary of what you've chosen - this means that it has to collect your email. If you don't want to let it do that, you're welcome to memail me, and I will add you to the spreadsheet. I'll try to check into this thread daily, but if you have an urgent question, please memail me. This is (still) truly one of my favorite things all year, so thank you for participating! Sign up form is here!

I put this mix together recently for a friend who doesn’t listen to any electronic music.  While each of the artists below have a lot of boundary-pushing avant garde material, I picked their “safe” tracks to provide an introduction to the genre(s). Download the mix here. Don’t forget to look these artists up if you like […]

Updated at 8:47 a.m. ET The coronavirus pandemic has pushed unemployment to its highest level since the Great Depression, but the pace of layoffs has been easing. And there are now some signs that the job market could slowly start to recover. The Labor Department says another 1.87 million people filed claims for unemployment insurance last week. That's down 249,000 from the previous week. While still very high by historical standards, the number has been declining steadily from a peak of 6.8 million the week ending March 28. In the past 11 weeks, 42.6 million new claims have been filed. Continued claims for unemployment went up 649,000, to 21.5 million, in the week ending May 23, the latest week for which data was available, after dropping the prior week. While some workers continue to get pink slips, others have started going back to work. The payroll processor ADP reported Wednesday that private-sector employers cut just under 2.8 million jobs between April and May. That's a much

Since the coronavirus pandemic battered China's economy, tens of millions of urban and factory jobs have evaporated. Some workers and business owners have banded together to pressure companies or local governments for subsidies and payouts. But many of the newly unemployed have instead returned to their rural villages. China's vast countryside now serves as an unemployment sponge, soaking up floating migrant workers in temporary agricultural work on small family plots. "Say a factory used to hire 1,000 temporary workers; now, without new orders, these business owners can't afford to hire this many people," Yan Xiyun, a labor intermediary, told NPR. "The factory I usually go to in previous years could easily hire 2,000 people. Now there is scarcely anyone [on the factory floor]." Ten years ago, Yan left her own village near the small city of Zhumadian in Henan province for the first time and joined the migrant workforce. Now, she's a headhunter working on commission, placing thousands

It may seem obvious, with double-digit unemployment and plunging economic output. But if there was any remaining doubt that the U.S. is in a recession, it's now been removed by the official scorekeepers at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The bureau's Business Cycle Dating Committee — the fat lady of economic opera — said the expansion peaked in February after a record 128 months, and we've been sliding into a pandemic-driven recession since. In making the announcement , the committee pointed to the "unprecedented magnitude of the decline in employment and production, and its broad reach across the entire economy." At the same time, the committee noted the recession could be short-lived. The U.S. added 2.5 million jobs last month after losing more than 22 million in March and April. Many forecasters said they expect economic output to begin growing again in the third quarter. The standard definition of a recession is "a decline in economic activity that lasts more than a few

Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here . In summer of 1967, African Americans protested, marched, and rioted in cities across the country. The unrest convinced President Lyndon Johnson to set up the Kerner Commission, which spent about six months doing research, visiting slums, and holding hearings. In 1968, they published a provocative report that civil rights leader Jesse Jackson recently called "the last attempt to address honestly and seriously the structural inequalities that plague African Americans." "Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans," the Kerner report said. "What white Americans have never fully understood — but what the Negro can never forget — is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it." Fifty years later, Americans are taking to the

After the coronavirus lockdowns forced it to shut down its 345 U.S. theaters, Texas-based Cinemark in April decided to do what a lot of companies have done: borrow money by selling bonds. The sale was made easier by the fact that the Federal Reserve was lending out trillions of dollars to businesses and governments, providing a much-needed boost to the corporate debt market in an effort to prop up the economy. Even as it was borrowing money, Cinemark also announced a number of steps "to endure a prolonged period of no revenue." They included laying off 17,500 workers with no guarantee when they'll be rehired. During the current crisis, the Fed, which began a two-day meeting on Tuesday, has pulled out all the stops to keep the economy afloat, lowering interest rates to zero and starting a series of unprecedented and historic new lending facilities practically overnight. "It has taken what were already extraordinary, exceptional, unusual, unconventional tools and has expanded them even

Updated at 4:12 p.m. ET The Federal Reserve left interest rates near zero Wednesday and once again promised to deliver whatever monetary medicine it can to an economy that's badly ailing from the coronavirus pandemic. "The Federal Reserve is committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time," the central bank said in a statement . While noting that "financial conditions have improved, in part reflecting policy measures to support the economy," the Fed's rate-setting committee reiterated its intent to leave interest rates at rock-bottom levels, "until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve its maximum employment and price stability goals." Notes released along with the committee's statement suggest no rate increases are expected at least through 2022. "We're not thinking about raising rates," Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference. "We're not even thinking about thinking about

Our national fascination with sourdough starter appears to have stopped. Or at least slowed down a bit. The price of baking flour fell last month along with the price of eggs, suggesting that the baking craze that gripped hungry and housebound consumers in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic has cooled. "Sourdough is definitely a commitment," says Kristin Hoffman, who makes instructional YouTube videos for aspiring bakers. "I have heard a couple of people say that they really don't understand why somebody would want to put so much effort into a loaf of bread." Hoffman's Baker Bettie website saw a surge of interest from first-time bakers in late March and April, when tens of millions of Americans found themselves stuck at home with time on their hands. "I saw four to five times higher traffic than even during peak holiday-baking season," Hoffman says. "It has started to kind of level back out, now that things are reopening." Even if the bake-off was a turnoff for some, people

Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here . Johannes Eisele / AFP via Getty Images The United States has been grappling with a global pandemic, an economic meltdown and massive protests — and yet, until recently, the stock market basically shrugged it all off. Between March 23 and late last week, the market surged 45% , erasing the drop it had seen at the start of the pandemic. That is, until last week, when apparently the market rediscovered that there's a freaking pandemic still going on. Public health experts have been warning for months now about the dangers of reopening without a solid plan for testing and tracing. But they're just uptight nerds, right? Economists consider the stock market a "leading indicator" of the economy, meaning it often signals where the real economy is headed. But it's a notoriously faulty signal. The MIT economist Paul Samuelson famously joked that big drops of the stock market had predicted nine out of the last

Shanna LaFountain has been a nursing assistant in New England for 20 years. About two months ago, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, she stopped working. "It was an extremely hard decision," she said. LaFountain has three children and made the decision once their schools closed and their learning went online. "My son was not answering teachers, not doing assignments," she said. "I had to be home with my children." Instead of working, she gets state unemployment benefits and receives another $600 each week from the federal government. She is making more money now than when she works. LaFountain is not alone. As part of the CARES Act, the federal government added an extra $600 per week to individuals' unemployment checks. Such benefits may be available not only to those who were let go but also to those who quit their jobs due to the virus. While a Federal Reserve report said the expanded benefits provide a critical lifeline to many individuals, there is concern that the

Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here . Geoff Caddick / AFP via Getty Images Brooklyn Heights sits across the East River from Lower Manhattan. It's filled with multimillion-dollar brownstones and — usually — Range Rovers, Teslas and BMWs. These days it's easy to find parking. The brownstones are mostly dark at night. The place is a ghost town. And the neighborhood's sushi restaurants, Pilates studios, bistros and wine bars are either closed or mostly empty. It's a microcosm for what has been the driver of the pandemic recession: Rich people have stopped going out, destroying millions of jobs. That's one of the key insights of a blockbuster study that was dropped late last week by a gang of economists led by Harvard University's Raj Chetty. If you don't know who Chetty is, he's sort of like the Michael Jordan of policy wonks. He's a star economist. He and his colleagues assemble and crunch massive data sets and deliver insights that

Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here . A health worker sprays disinfectant inside government offices as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus. ARUN SANKAR / AFP via Getty Images Last week, I went into Planet Money 's vacant office in midtown Manhattan to pick up some stuff. It felt like visiting the ruins of a bygone age. It reminded me of a time when you could hop in a crowded subway car, stroll into work without a mask, and interact with your colleagues without having to stare at their disembodied heads through a computer screen. Our building is still mostly abandoned, but our building's manager had already taken precautions for that elusive day when we might all return. There were stand-six-feet-apart circles in the lobby to encourage social distance. Our elevators could only fit four circles, and they didn't even seem like they were actually six feet apart. This being a skyscraper, it had always been a pain in the

Many people with underlying medical conditions are worried about what's going to happen at the end of the month. It's not currently safe for many of them to go back to work. The COVID-19 death rate is 12 times higher for people with underlying conditions. But an extra $600 a week in federal unemployment benefits, which has been enabling them to pay their rent and other bills, will stop coming at the end of July. "We don't have a whole lot of options that don't involve risking our lives," Lauren Van Netta says. "We need help. We really do." Van Netta lost her job at a perfume store in New Orleans during the outbreak. She says she's had serious bacterial infections that have damaged her lungs and compromised her immune system. And she has asthma. So even if she could find another job in retail, she says her doctors have told her it would be risky. She says even wearing a mask and trying to keep social distancing in a workplace, "it's like the fear of, you know, I could make a mistake.

Updated at 8:44 a.m. ET From airlines to paper mills, the job news is grim, and there are growing signs it won't be getting better anytime soon. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported nearly 2.4 million new applications for state and federal unemployment benefits last week. And United Airlines is warning that it may have to furlough as many as 36,000 employees this fall. Demand for air travel has collapsed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The president of the flight attendants union called the warning a "gut punch" but also "the most honest assessment we've seen on the state of the industry — and our entire economy." Union President Sara Nelson tweeted that demand for air travel had recovered a small fraction of its pre-pandemic levels this summer and "even those minimal gains evaporated over the last week due to surging COVID-19 cases across the country." Jobs in other industries are facing similar threats as the coronavirus tightens its stubborn grip on the country. Derse

Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here . Pixabay Banks and laundromats are scrambling. Arcades and gumball machine operators are bracing for the worst. Grocery stores are rounding their prices to even dollars or rejecting cash altogether. The specter of the coin shortage lurks everywhere. Blame COVID-19. The U.S. Mint cut back on coin production this spring to keep its workers safe. Meanwhile, the economy is constipated. "With the closure of the economy, the flow of coins through the economy has ... kind of stopped," explained Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last month. Coins sit idle in closed stores' cash registers and people's homes, and they're not making it to the banks and companies that need them for business. The coin shortage could be a rallying cry for a long-running movement that has lost steam in recent years: Kill the penny! Last year, almost 60% of the coins that the U.S. Mint churned out were pennies. 60 percent . It

A Free 42-page PDF you can read on your phone, tablet, or laptop and enjoy!

My friend Jordanlafordan, organised and compiled a Fanzine to celebrate Star Trek: Discovery. Full of Fanfic, essays, photos, games, poems, and quotes from our beloved Star Trek: Discovery, this is the first annual Celebrate Disco fanzine! I (Faintdreams) submitted the crossword. Enjoy! If you like it please let the organiser know. They have a mastodon account here: ( https://tenforward.social/@jordanlafordan )

[Link

Reg Smythe's Andy Capp was the greatest British newspaper strip of the 20th Century, but few people realise how much of his own troubled childhood Smythe poured into Andy and Flo's lives. Andy was essentially a portrait of Smythe's wastrel father, Flo a version of his formidable mother, and their neighbourhood a portrait of the pre-war Hartlepool where Smythe grew up. My new book traces Smythe's own biography, explores its parallels in Andy's world, and tackles the strip's early wife-beating jokes. There's also a look at how the balance of power has shifted between Andy and Flo down the years and my own analysis of just what made Smythe such an accomplished and stylish cartoonist.

Down The Tubes has already reviewed the book, calling it "a terrific re-examination of Andy Capp, smashing myths about the strip". Paul Gravett, the UK's leading comics critic, describes it as "a rich, revelatory study". MeFites discussed an earlier version of the book's Andy Capp material here.

[Link

It's a GPT that rates your existential dread

[Link

In which I write about Islam, spirituality, my Hajj pilgrimage in the summer of 2024, living as a USian in southern Spain, and change both voluntary and unwilled.

Example of what I write about: I just added a post about how fear of Satan, which was encouraged by the Catholic church and pop culture, scared me off from belief in ANYTHING Unseen (including God) for decades.

[Link

Stark Raving Mab, the third book in my urban fantasy trilogy Gravity's Daughter is out as of yesterday. If you're intrigued by any of the following: action-heavy urban fantasy, less-traditional faeries, gravity-defying antics on public transit, Canadian settings or in-over-their-heads characters who will not give up sarcasm 'til you pry it from their cold, dead hands, then give the books a look or request them from your local library.

I did a projects post back in 2022 on the first book but I think I forgot to crow about the second last fall, because I have trouble regularly remembering to talk about myself. (Or even, uh, irregularly--like when I publish a literal book.)

[Link

I've done my best to collect and catalogue all of the storyboards from the production of 1983's Richard Marquand hit Return of the Jedi, driven by wanting to see what unfinished or cut scenes could be revealed.

You can read the entire screenplay, including deleted scenes while looking at the storyboards with a little commentary, or you can see all the storyboards in galleries. I've included some pages with behind the scenes photos and an explanation of my methods as well. If it's deleted scenes you're after, the bulk of those are found the Space Battle and the Rebel Attack sequences. Return of the Jedi ran into some time-and-budget-crunch problems in the last year of production, as well as technical issues, which resulted in some cuts being made to those sequences. Figuring out just what was cut and why was my original motive for the project, and although I'm still missing a lot of the storyboards from those cut sequences, there's enough to get the gist. Oh, and if you are, for some reason, in possession of copies of any of the missing storyboards, please get in touch!

[Link

A 6-page guide for research-group leaders in academia, providing concrete suggestions to make labs more welcoming and accessible to autistic students and postdocs. Written by a late-diagnosed autistic academic.

Contents: 1. Dispel your misconceptions. 2. Communicate clearly. 3. Check the sensory environment. 4. Be aware of different cognitive profiles. 5. Model inclusivity to your group.

[Link

"Honeymoon in Oak Ridge" is a documentary that tells the story of my parents, two young newlyweds who unknowingly contributed to building the world's first atomic weapon.

In 1998, I returned with them to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where they shared on camera their wartime memories with pride and sorrow. Decades later, I sat down with their grandkids to hear what they think about their grandparents' role in this piece of history and how it affected our family and their view of history. The 20-minute documentary won the Jury Award for Best Short Documentary at the 2024 Uranium Film Festival. It's now available to stream on Docsville.com (free trial available).

[Link

Toronto/Los Angeles-based indie pop artist Julian Daniel is making waves with his infectious new single, “do you feel me?,” a track he hopes will stir listeners' emotions through its seductive…