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52 things I learned in 2023, by Thomas Whitwell (SLMedium) [more inside]
posted by Gorgik at 9:59 PM PST - 35 comments

For four years each December, Québecois Marc-Antoine Goyette headed across the Canadian border, destined for a New York City street corner. Once there, Goyette built a small shelter to live in for the month, and sold fresh Christmas trees to residents from Manhattan and the Bronx. (a NYC law allows sale and display of coniferous trees on the streets without a permit, only during the month of December)
posted by jessamyn at 5:55 PM PST - 6 comments

Following in the footsteps of reimagined yuletide music of yore comes snethyxmasparty, featuring seasonal cello-and-kazoo favorites nipnees nuug n’blinting blaizdos and nuntos durgi​-​dog. Each track has lyrics inside.
posted by duende at 5:31 PM PST - 6 comments

JUICE launched on April 14th and has been making its way to Jupiter's moons! This 2 hour video is a loving, painstaking look at the incredible teams who worked within the European Space Agency to make JUICE. If you're into micro-details of things like testing to find out how clean the spacecraft is magnetically, to vibration testing of the solar panel array (which is 85 square meters deployed), to logistics challenges, to the contest to solicit art from children to decorate the launch vehicle, this movie is for you. You can also track JUICE's progress through the solar system in an incredible trajectory with multiple planetary fly-bys to pick up speed here.
posted by jasper411 at 4:36 PM PST - 9 comments

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023: Fighting crabs and friendly turtles round out People's Choice finalists.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:19 PM PST - 7 comments

On Saturday night, Kiss closed out the final performance of their “The End of the Road” farewell tour at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden. But as dedicated fans surely know — they were never going to call it quits. Not really. from Kiss say farewell to live touring, become first US band to go virtual and become digital avatars [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:09 PM PST - 53 comments

On May 1, 1982, 300,000 students took the SAT. There was one question on the test that every single student got wrong.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:47 PM PST - 72 comments

Paralympic athletes answer some of the most searched questions about disability.
posted by ellieBOA at 1:09 PM PST - 6 comments

"The chip stand differentiates us from our American neighbours. It is not a food truck. It is not a diner. The very nature of the chip stand is defined by it being a combination of both." Every Chip Stand, by illustrators Chantal Bennett, is an attempt to illustrate every chip stand in Ontario and some neighbouring provinces, "thus chronicling the visual history of these structures that are slowly being replaced by professional food trailers and trucks."
posted by Shepherd at 6:03 AM PST - 54 comments

HBomberguy's latest video is about plagiarism. It's almost 4 hours long but really worth a watch.
posted by Pendragon at 5:05 AM PST - 320 comments

Scottish Gritter names. Previously
posted by Phanx at 3:16 AM PST - 19 comments

A campus plot might not be as high-stakes anywhere else in the world, because the stakes of the real world would be totally different. Nash Jenkins, author of Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos, said the campus itself “provides a sort of infrastructure that makes emotional intensities more coherent and less solipsistic.” But this is no longer entirely true, as the borders between the campus and “real life” are much more porous, and the campus is open for public scrutiny. from Is the Campus Novel Dead? [Esquire; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 3:01 AM PST - 20 comments