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]

Thucydides previously

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.

Ships rolling in the sea. Just for fun.

North Sea More North Sea And More North Sea Maybe avoid the North Sea Cape Horn Antarctica North China Kuril Islands Drake Passage Pacific Ocean Iceland and from the inside (my personal favorite) (Audio recommended, but NSFW - lots of cursing)

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.

Navalny founded the non-profit organization FBK in 2011. Its aim is to combat corruption by uncovering and publicizing cases of bribery and abuse of power among the Russian elite. Many see Navalny's death at the age of 47 in a penal colony in Siberia as a result of the years of reprisals and harassment by the Russian authorities for these political activities. Yulia Navalnaya to receive DW Freedom of Speech Award 2024 The widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation are the 10th DW Freedom of Speech Award laureates. Freedom of Speech Award: DW honors Navalny's widow This year's Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award goes to the woman who was long considered the first lady of the Russian opposition. Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and vocal critic of Vladimir Putin, receives the prize. Earlier this year, she cast her ballot in Russia's presidential election at the embassy in Berlin. An election where any real opposition had long been dealt with by Vladimir Putin. Following the death of Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony, the opposition has been all but decimated in Russia. And the heir apparent is Yulia Naválnaya. It's not a role she's taken on by choice ... but by necessity. Just 12 days after her husband's death, she addressed EU lawmakers in Strasbourg. Yulia Navalnaya, DW Freedom of Speech Award winner: "Putin killed my husband, Alexei Navalny. On his orders, Alexei was tortured for three years. He was starved in a tiny stone cell, cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls and then even letters. And then, they killed him." Yulia Navalnaya trained as an economist and worked at a bank before marrying Alexei Navalny in 2000. Navalnaya was long a quiet supporter of her husband's anti-corruption efforts. She was his closest political advisor, and by his side as he went to court and prison numerous times on charges Kremlin critics say were trumped up. Her profile grew when Navalny was poisoned in 2020. While her husband was fighting for his life in a hospital in Siberia, she issued a public letter to Vladimir Putin and led a pressure campaign to allow her husband to be flown to Germany for treatment. When Alexei Navalny returned to Russia in 2021, police arrested him - and detained Yulia Navalnaya, separating the couple for good. She long shunned the spotlight, but after her husband's harsh imprisonment and death, she vowed to continue the fight against the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin has a new vocal critic, not afraid to make use of her freedom of speech.

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.

This weekend sees the annual world pilot gig championship take place on the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the SW tip of the UK. There are men's and women's open categories, plus veterans, super-vets add masters categories. The open attracts ~130 crews in both the men's and women's open categories, with a total of 441 crews, more than doubling the population of the islands for the May Day weekend. Open racing begins with a straight line race amongst all of them (hard to film), before splitting crews into groups of 12 for subsequent races. Three rounds of these heats with top 2 promoted up and bottom 2 relegated leads to open finals on Sunday. The sport also has its devotees further afield, with clubs from as far afield as the Netherlands, the US, France, Australia and Devon - a Dutch team, KWV De-Kaag - remain the only non-Cornish team to take a world open title. Champion of gig rowing: Ann Glanville, a champion rower in the C91th, rowing into her 60s. Named by the British press as the "champion female rower of the world". Her name is memorialised on the lead boat of Caradon, a leading gig team and previous world champions. The Cetatwayo: Recreating a champion boat of the past: A highlight for the wpgc's Scilly hosts this year is their new boat, a hand built recreation of a C19th racing boat with a bit of history. A bit more on the history, boat building science and life saving of the Cornish Pilot Gig and its rowers.

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)

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.

In this video ad, the Hero Wars mascot Galahad finds himself in dire straits as but a human plough-horse upon the field. His captor, half-cow, half-human woman, brands him on the buttock with what looks like our old friend the purple devil emoji—rather a "naugty" [sic] act. Suddenly set upon by wolves, the cow lady is compromised—and Galahad steps up to become white knight, fending the beasts off with his axe. The cow lady and her new hero Galahad elope to her encampment, where she carries him around like a baby, and spots him for sit-ups. Needless to say, the episode of the bovine damsel does not occur in-game. from The Weird World of Hero Wars Ads: Sex Sells [Splice Today]

For examples see: Hero Wars Ads As Art

"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.

Premise: An accident destroys a New York City-like metropolis already in decay. Cesar, an idealist, aims to rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia, while the venal mayor, Frank Cicero, has other plans. Coming between the opposing men and their visions is Frank's socialite daughter, Julia. Tired of the attention and power she was born with, Julia searches for her life's meaning. Themes:

A film professional who attended the first screening told IndieWire the film is about a civilization teetering on a "precarious ledge, devouring itself in a whirl of unchecked greed, self-absorption, and political propaganda," and echoed a Coppola quote: like "Apocalypse Now" before it, "Megalopolis" isn't about the end of the world but the "end of the world as we know it."

Hollywood Elsewhere has glowing responses from a recent private screening (though the bewildered reaction from industry insiders might explain its difficulty finding a distributor):

"It's a startling film....a very enveloping film, but also highly visual in a '60s experimental way. It felt like Francis's youth was returning to him and pouring through his heart at age 84....the kind of independent cinema that he grew up on....it's a wonderful, larger-than-life, jumps-off-the-screen movie and in a totally personal way....constantly entertaining....it's not like any movie that's out there, I can tell you that...avant garde experimental. "It's principally about a love affair between Driver and Natalie Emmanuel, the daughter of his rival and opponent (Whitaker)....a battle for her heart. Romeo and Juliet....a Shaekespearean battle between two families...a bit like Baz Lurhman's Romeo + Juliet. "The statement that I felt summed up the general response was from Andy Garcia: 'This guy is the reason we're all making movies.'

Cast:

Adam Driver as Cesar Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero Giancarlo Esposito as Frank Cicero Jon Voight - Laurence Fishburne - Aubrey Plaza - Shia LaBeouf - Jason Schwartzman - Grace VanderWaal - Kathryn Hunter - Talia Shire - Dustin Hoffman - D. B. Sweeney - James Remar - Chloe Fineman - Madeleine Gardella - Isabelle Kusman - Bailey Ives - Balthazar Getty

Megalopolis previously on MeFi

How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fab . By Brian Potter of Construction Physics.

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

"For years I've been using felt pens, mostly red and black but sometimes purple, to mark up The New York Times," Nader told me in a phone interview last year. "I go through every page of the Times, and I mark up different articles and send them to different people. And I do that with The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal." (I am aware that once I click "Post" I cede control of this article, but if this could become a fun conversation about pens and not the umpteenth rehash of past presidential campaigns, I'd love it.)

Archaeologists reveal reconstructed face of 75,000yo Neanderthal woman. The Neanderthal woman's skull was discovered in 2018 in a cave in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq.

The great Howard DaSilva performs the showstopping number "Little Tin Box" Fiorello! is a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a reform Republican, which debuted on Broadway in 1959, and tells the story of how La Guardia took on the Tammany Hall political machine. The book is by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott, drawn substantially from the 1955 volume Life with Fiorello by Ernest Cuneo, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock.

It won the three major theatre awards - Tony Award (shared with The Sound of Music), the New York Drama Critics Circle award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It is one of only ten musicals to win the latter award. As a side note Mr. DaSilva was blacklisted for many years by Hollywood In 1947, his career was threatened when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its investigation into alleged Communist influence of Hollywood. Actor Robert Taylor, called as a "friendly witness", accused many of his fellow actors and writers of either being communists or having communist sympathies. When questioned about da Silva, Taylor said, "I can name a few who seem to sort of disrupt things once in a while. Whether or not they are communists I don't know. One chap we have currently, I think is Howard da Silva. He always seems to have something to say at the wrong time."

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]

An interview with the Japanese comedian about the upcoming documentary (NYT gift link) on Hulu, The Contestant. Previously on Metafilter, "Staying alive became my full-time occupation" we were introduced to the strange tale of the 1998 Japanese reality show Susunu! Denpa Shonen which was famous for taking an aspiring comedian, placing him naked in a room, and telling him that he needed to acquire 1 million yen worth of items via sweepstakes. Now, there is a Hulu documentary (YT trailer link) coming out about how the Eggplant is doing.

By leveraging a unique large dataset and new techniques for exploring this dataset, our paper highlights the diversity of moral dilemmas experienced in daily life, and helps to build a moral psychology grounded in the vagaries of everyday experience. from A Large-Scale Investigation of Everyday Moral Dilemmas, in which Philosophers are studying Reddit's "Am I the Asshole?" [Vox]

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.

In 1963, a clean-cut Frank Zappa appeared live on the Steve Allen show playing a musical composition on bicycles. The entire 16:28 is worthwhile to watch for the conversation and interaction between the two, but the performance with the show's orchestra starts at 11:56. The show's talent coordinator Jerry Hopkins discusses how the young musician's debut performance came about.

(Yes, this is a dupe from 2006. I came across this on my own, but it's been 18 years, the links are dead in the dupe, and I think it's worthwhile to revisit)

"It wasn't the second helping on all-you-can-eat, but the third" an executive explained. After losing $3.3 million in seven weeks during a 2003 all you can eat crab leg offer, Red Lobster makes the same mistake in 2024. By turning $20 all-you-can-eat shrimp into a permanent menu item, the chain suffers a further $11 million loss. "We have to be more careful," an executive noted.

The blogging platform Cohost (previously) has launched a new section: Artist Alley, where members pay to advertise their podcasts, zines, art, games, and other creations (many of which are free to enjoy). Or sometimes members advertise just to play around - the "#doing a bit" tag is replete with Rickrolling, "Hey check out this picture of a pileated woodpecker I took", a silly survey, etc. Artist Alley is "a take on user-to-user ads we feel good about — a dedicated space which users can access to see promotions from other users, like an artist alley at a convention" and "a revenue product" for Cohost, which had a poor financial forecast in March which has since improved.

"That Summer" Peter Beard (and his then girlfriend Lee Radziwill) was the impetus for the June 1972 meeting of the Beales and the Maysles - culminating in Grey Gardens the documentary the impetus for the June 1972 meeting of the Beales and the Maysles - culminating in Grey Gardens the documentary (and later the musical and film). In 2007, a film lab accidentally returned a rough cut of 1972 Maysles footage of The Beales to Peter using an old label on a film cannister. It was part of the Maysles Films archives digitization project and was supposed to be returned to Maysles directly, but had been paid for by Peter and Lee in 1972 and had Peter's still-current address on it.

Maysles Films had insisted the film had all been returned or destroyed when Lee cancelled the project. The lie exposed, the film (now presumed very valuable) became the subject of a custody battle. The footage became the basis of the 2018 documentary That Summer, due to Peter's heroic efforts to get around litigious Maysles and Radziwill attorneys by adding new footage.

Why have philosophers had so little to say about Descartes's stove, and so much to say about his dreams, his resolve, and his conception of analytic geography on that winter's night? Suppressing the agency of the stove makes it easier to tell a simple story about the agency of the individual thinker. But it has made it that much harder to discern the subtle yet powerful ways in which modern air conditioning technologies condition thought, culture, and social experience. from Descartes's Stove by the author of Air Conditioning, Hsuan L. Hsu

Sumatran orangutan becomes first wild animal seen using medicinal plant to treat wound.

A Sumatran orangutan has become the first wild animal seen self-medicating with a plant to heal a wound. The male orangutan, named Rakus, had sustained a wound on his cheek pad, most likely from fighting other males, researchers said in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. Rakus was seen chewing liana leaves without swallowing them, then using his fingers to apply the resulting juice onto the wound, the researchers said. Finally, he covered the wound up completely with a paste he had made by chewing the leaves and continued feeding on the plant. Five days after he was seen applying the leaf paste onto the wound it was closed, and a month later barely visible. It is the first documented case of active wound treatment by a wild animal with a plant known to have medicinal qualities. The leaves were from a liana known as akar kuning (Fibraurea tinctoria in Latin), which is used in traditional medicine to relieve pain, reduce fever and treat various diseases, such as diabetes and malaria. It also has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antifungal and antioxidant properties.

What happens when your toddler is haunted by memories that aren't hers? In Louisiana in 2000, 2-year-old James Leininger would wake screaming, repeating the same phrases to his baffled and disturbed parents: "Airplane crash on fire! Little man can't get out!" Over the following year, a story unspooled in memories and drawings: He was a World War II pilot whose plane took off from a boat, and he died when he was shot down by Japanese forces. James offered names of people and places, and his account would ultimately become one of the most prominent and thoroughly documented "cases of the reincarnation type," or CORT, ever recorded.

Patrick Gill discusses Helldivers 2, Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, and satire. And how satire of fascism can be missed by viewers, undermined by its medium, or embraced by genuine fascists.

Menswear writer Derek Guy compares UK TV personality Piers Moron's fashion style with that of Kermit the Frog. That is all. [a thread on X]

The only thing that can be improved under self-evacuation is the flow of information towards people in emergency. This leaves us with eyesight and hearing to work with. Visual aids are greatly more flexible and easy to work with. However their huge drawback is their usefulness expires quickly once the smoke sets in. 2500 dense Lisp programming words from Eugene Zaikonnikov via lobste.rs, whence this YouTube ad.

Slippery Slope: How Private Equity Shapes a Ski Town (Nick Bowlin for Harper's)

Dad Baby is an episode from season two of Bluey, the Australian children's cartoon, which Disney has refused to make available for streaming, has been uploaded in full to the official Bluey YouTube channel. If you are unfamiliar with the hijinks of the Heeler family, you can watch a selection of episodes on YouTube, either as one long compilation or individually:

Magic Asparagus Ice Cream The Pool Hotel Bluey Seesaw Movies Faceytalk It's a Baby Race Yoga Ball Christmas Swim Pizza Girls The Sleepover Double Babysitter The Beach Mini Bluey Unicorse Magic

Waluigi sings "Rainbow Connection." It'll consume two minutes and 44 seconds of your day, but no more than that. That's all. That's enough.

From Matthew Taranto, who made the Brawl in the Family webcomic some years back.

77,000 Young Salmon Were Dumped Into the Wrong Creek After a Truck Crashed in Oregon. The spring Chinook salmon smolts should still be able to find their way to the Pacific Ocean and help boost the threatened population of the fish, officials say, though another 25,000 salmon died in the accident.

Boston Dynamics two latest bangers All New Atlas and Sparkles. For once, sort by "top" and definitely read the YouTube comments.

All new atlas replaces old atlas, whose highlight clips are here.

People who care about internet monoculture and control are often told they're nostalgists harkening back to a pioneer era. It's fiendishly hard to regenerate an open and competitive infrastructure for younger generations who've been raised to assume that two or three platforms, two app stores, two operating systems, two browsers, one cloud/mega-store and a single search engine for the world comprise the internet. (Noema sl)

I will say I am not fond of the use of the word "plantation" in regards to how online spaces are seen. But for all that, I mostly agree with this despite the impossibility.

A bookshop in East Sussex has launched an early morning initiative to help writers. Kemptown Bookshop, in St George's Rd, Brighton, opens its doors at 05:00 BST on the first Wednesday of every month for a silent writing session.

Owner Cathy Hayward said: "There's no workshopping, just the motivation of being around other writers as the sun comes up." The bookshop opens to the general public at 09:00, but Ms Hayward says the early writers are welcome to stay. This just felt like a nice news story so thought I'd share. Enjoy.

In this episode we'll look at how production notes flat out lie about the making of a film, we'll look at two different sides of Gran Turismo, and we'll check out the history of CGI and why it fell from grace. We'll bust some common misconceptions about CGI, and we'll look at the most notorious "no CGI" project that I know of. the 4th and final episode of "NO CGI" is really just INVISIBLE CGI

Episode 3 Episode 2 [Previously] Episode 1 [Previously]

What the heck bro! Here are 16 videos of avalanches (no audio needed). Just for fun.

Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche! And a landslide.

Skeleton of famous whale-hunting Orca "Old Tom" reassembled for new museum display. The orca known for working alongside human whalers has been given a new exhibit that museum curators hope pays better homage to its legacy.

Nathan Heller on the secretive Order of the Third Bird: There is a long-standing, widespread belief that attention carries value. In English, attention is something that we "pay." In Spanish, it is "lent." The Swiss literary scholar Yves Citton, whose study of the digital age, "The Ecology of Attention," argues against reducing attention to economic terms, suggested to me that it was traditionally considered valuable because it was capable of bestowing value. "By paying attention to something as if it's interesting, you make it interesting. By evaluating it, you valorize it," he said. To treat it as a mere market currency, he thought, was to undersell what it could do.

His Book Was Repeatedly Banned. Fighting For It Shaped His Life. (Robert Cormier and The Chocolate War, NYT gift)

Biden administration forgives $6.1 billion in student debt for 317,000 former Art Institute students

The decision covers people who were enrolled at any Art Institute campus from Jan. 1, 2004, to Oct. 16, 2017, a period in which Education Management Corp. (EDMC) owned the chain of schools. Today, the Education Department will begin notifying eligible borrowers, who are not required to take action. The agency said it also will refund payments that former students have made on loans that are earmarked for forgiveness. (CNBC) "The Art Institutes launched in 1970 when the Education Management Corporation purchased the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. The system continued to grow in the ensuing years, largely through additional acquisitions. In 2001, the Art Institutes owned 20 campuses; by 2012, there were 50." (Artnet) After much legal wrangling, the eight remaining schools permanently closed on September 30, 2023. Some 1,700 students were given a week's notice of the closures. "Over the last three years, my Administration has approved nearly $29 billion in debt relief for 1.6 million borrowers whose colleges took advantage of them, closed abruptly, or were covered by related court settlements, compared to just 53,500 borrowers who had ever gotten their debt cancelled through these types of actions before I took office. And in total, we have approved debt cancellation for nearly 4.6 million Americans through various actions." - Whitehouse.gov statement. 2015: EDMC to Pay $95.5 Million to Settle Claims of Illegal Recruiting, Consumer Fraud and Other Violations 2011: U.S. Files Complaint Against Education Management Corp. Alleging False Claims Act Violations 2010: A whistleblower alleged EDMC paid recruiters illegal bonuses to lure students to its schools through fraudulent means, and paid recruiters to falsify job placement data to entice students to choose EDMC colleges. Jason Sobek, the former recruiter for EDMC's South University who filed the lawsuit, also alleged that EDMC deliberately targeted students who were vulnerable and unlikely to succeed in college, including students who were mentally ill or homeless. Sobek claimed that EDMC trained and encouraged its recruiters to prey on these vulnerable students. 2007: The initial qui tam False Claims Act lawsuit against EMDC was filed by whistleblower Lynntoya Washington (formerly an assistant director of admissions at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division) — who later filed an amended complaint, jointly with Michael T. Mahoney (formerly director of training for director of training for Education Management's online higher education division). Last week, the DOJ announced a new whistleblower initiative, the Criminal Division's Voluntary Self-Disclosures Pilot Program for Individuals, to combat corporate crime:

Sometimes, the best evidence of corporate wrongdoing involves a company insider. Our experience shows that individuals who are involved in criminal conduct and are willing to accept responsibility and cooperate with us are critical sources of information. [...] Under this pilot program, individuals with criminal exposure—not including CEOs, CFOs, high-level foreign officials, domestic officials at any level, or individuals who organized or led the criminal scheme—who come forward and report misconduct that was otherwise unknown to the department will be eligible to receive a non-prosecution agreement (NPA) if they meet certain criteria. NPAs have been a part of the federal criminal system for decades, and prosecutors have long exercised discretion to offer NPAs as an essential tool to get culpable individuals in the door. Our new individual self-disclosure pilot program, which provides clear guidelines and threshold criteria, builds on the department's longstanding practice to advance our fight against complex corporate crime. At bottom, making NPAs available to individuals who come forward to report corporate crime and cooperate allows us to prosecute more culpable individuals and to hold companies to account. Under the new program, culpable individuals will receive an NPA if they (1) voluntarily, (2) truthfully, and (3) completely self-disclose original information regarding misconduct that was unknown to the department in certain high-priority enforcement areas, (4) fully cooperate and are able to provide substantial assistance against those equally or more culpable, and (5) forfeit any ill-gotten gains and compensate victims. The pilot program is designed to provide predictability and certainty by offering a pathway for culpable individuals to receive an NPA for truthful and complete self-disclosure to the department.

A few previouslies on U.S. education debt, for-profit colleges, and student-loan forgiveness.

You could call them "sky flowers," but that doesn't really make sense either—after all, the faded blue behind each squiggle is water, not sky, and the squiggles themselves don't represent solid objects in any tangible, meaningful way. But they look right. The reds and greens and yellows add life and color in a way that a flat blue might not. Those odd shapes, suspended motionless with no clear reason or value, establish a tone. There are a lot of things that don't make sense on SpongeBob SquarePants. But there's a clear and coherent vision that runs through the entire show, from the design of SpongeBob's kitchen-sponge body down to the squeaky-balloon sound of his footsteps. It's a perspective, and a warm, specific, crazy little world. Of course it has sky flowers in it. What else would be up there?

Today marks 25 years since the original broadcast of "Help Wanted" -- the pilot episode of marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg's educational comic that became a delightful romp of "relentless optimism and fundamental sweetness", a hothouse flower of inventive and absurdist imagination, a cultural touchstone for multiple generations, and one of the most iconic and beloved animated franchises of the 21st century. Are you ready, kids?

Background Stephen Hillenburg, In His Own Words - "Compiled from various interviews, documentaries and other appearances, here is Stephen Hillenburg, talking about SpongeBob, his career, and more." Hillenburg's original educational comic, The Intertidal Zone, on the Internet Archive Hillenburg's death at age 57 from ALS led to an outpouring of grief and remembrance The original 1997 "story bible" SpongeBob Season 1 DVD Behind the Scenes The Oral History of SpongeBob SquarePants MeFi on the show's 10th anniversary ✏️ Animation ✏️ Spongebob Squarepants: The Art of the Gross-Up, a technique originally pioneered by Ren and Stimpy - see also: spongebobfreezeframes.tumblr.com Lovingly-curated Imgur galleries of all the matte-painting freeze-frame moments (notes):

Season 1: part one - part two - part three Season 2: part one - part two - part three - part four Season 3: part one - part two - part three - part four

(PS: Why so much focus on the first three seasons? Because Hillenburg left the show after the release of the first movie at the end of season 3, causing a noticeable decline in tone and quality.) ️ Voice Acting ️ The incredible voice cast has done plenty of table reads of key episodes (Help Wanted, Band Geeks, Shanghaied), not to mention dubbed classic cinema (previously), but most impressive are their fully-produced live-action skits: The Trusty Slab - More scenes Tom Kenny & Bill Fagerbakke Answer the Web's Most Searched Questions News you can use: How to do the SpongeBob laugh (Note that Kenny also doubled as series "host" Patchy the Pirate) ✍️ Essays + Articles ✍️ On The Postmodern Ethos Of "Spongebob Squarepants"

Like all postmodern "texts", Spongebob Squarepants doesn't deny the absurdity of existence. The show is filled with absurd and surreal moments, far too many to describe here. And as a postmodern show, Spongebob has its nihilistic moments as well. One in particular that stands out is from season three's episode "Doing Time", when Spongebob and Patrick attempt to break Mrs. Puff out of jail. After she refuses to leave, Spongebob wonders to Patrick if maybe she'd forgotten what it's like to "live in the outside world". The scene then cuts to a montage of typical postmodern malaise — a man (fish, rather) going to work, sitting in rush hour traffic, then gazing dejectedly out of his window as a woman asks if he's coming to bed. Depressing, hopeless, and completely nihilistic, this moment reminds viewers of their own mortality and the dangers of routine... or, if you're just a kid, you'll realize that being an adult can suck.

SpongeBob Made the World a Better, More Optimistic Place

On Monday, SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg died after a recent diagnosis with ALS. Nickelodeon confirmed the news on Twitter Tuesday afternoon. What followed was an outpouring of grief for the man behind one of the most recognizable and beloved cartoon characters of all time. [...] Through his show, Hilleburg was an evangelist of sorts for the unstoppable power of positive thinking, which he usually dramatized with absurd scenarios. Think of the time SpongeBob sculpts a perfect marble sculpture with a crack of the chisel, or when he wins a fast foodery face-off against the Flying Dutchman—the undead daddy of burger grilling—with the special ingredient of love. SpongeBob tackles everything in life—work, driving school, friendship, pain, lifeguarding, climate change—with a level of zealous breeziness usually reserved zen monks and six-year-old kids.

Memes Vox: How SpongeBob memes came to rule internet culture

It's hard to overstate just how popular SpongeBob SquarePants memes are. On Reddit, r/BikiniBottomTwitter — which exists mainly so that people can screencap the memes from Twitter and share them on Reddit — has more than 1.7 million subscribers, making it one of the site's most popular meme subreddits. (By comparison, the more general r/Spongebob subreddit only has 74,000 subscribers.) And SpongeBob memes don't just appear and then die; as Digg's editors noted in the site's 2018 SpongeBob retrospective, the biggest SpongeBob memes "are all pretty much meme superhits. There are no deep cuts here." What exactly is it about SpongeBob memes that make them so enduring and enjoyable?

SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg gave the internet language Revisit: A Chronology of SpongeBob Memes Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke on Spongebob Meme Culture What's your favorite SpongeBob quote? Each Radiohead album described with SpongeBob -- just the first of a whole genre of video memes Music Songs:

Season 1: Opening Theme - Livin' In The Sunlight, Lovin' In The Moon Light - Ripped Pants - Jelly Fish Jam [CW: flashing lights] - The F.U.N. Song - Doing the Sponge - I Wanna Go Home Season 2: Loop de Loop - This Grill is Not a Home - Sweet Victory - Hey All You People - Hey Mean Mr. Bossman [Happy May Day, btw] Season 3: Striped Sweater - Electric Zoo - Underwater Sun - When Worlds Collide - You're Old - The Campfire Song Song

Plus a complete playlist of season 1's eclectic production music, including twangy ukelele, ragtime, traditional Hawaiian , whimsical Rakenhornpipe, and of course sea shanties like "What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor" Recaps + Retrospectives TVTropes' sprawling article on the series and recap of nearly the entire run Episode retrospectives:

Help Wanted (S1E1): Reimagined as a collaborative ReAnimation and as a black-and-white classic cartoon Pizza Delivery (S1E5): This Is What A Perfect Episode Of Spongebob Looks Like - A whole playlist of live-action remakes SB-129 (S1E14): How Spongebob Explored Existential Nihilism ("SB-129") Rock Bottom (S1E17): "Rock Bottom" reimagined as a Gothic claymation - Podcast discussion Hooky (S1E20): The Powerful Message In This Episode of Spongebob: Don't Get "Hooked" On Drugs Squirrel Jokes (S2E11): The Smartest Episode of Spongebob Squarepants (an Analysis) Shanghaied (S2E13): Live-action remake Band Geeks (S2E15): Band Geeks Is The Best Spongebob Episode - Band Geeks ReAnimated - the disappointing Super Bowl LIII cameo (and the improved LVIII version) Procrastination (S2E17): This SpongeBob Episode Will Make You Stop Procrastinating Sailor Mouth (S2E18): SpongeBob SwearPants: A Look At Moralization Of Swearing - Why "Sailor Mouth" Was So Controversial Squidville (S2E26): Spongebob's Darkest Episode Wet Painters (S3E10): Bubbles of Thought - Full storyboard recap Krusty Krab Training Video (S3E10): The Brilliance of Krusty Krab Training Video - Live-action remake Chocolate With Nuts (S3E12): Live-action (puppet!) remake Graveyard Shift (S3E24): How 'Nosferatu' turned up in SpongeBob SquarePants - Why a Painting of SpongeBob SquarePants Just Sold for $6 Million

The official YouTube playlist of 50 episode capsule summaries in 5 minutes ️ Clips ️ A grab-bag of memorable moments (via):

I DON'T NEED IT - How to blow a bubble - FIRMLY GRASP IT - 1% Evil, 99% Hot Gas - The gang's all here - We serve food here, sir - Krusty Krab Pizza - The pioneers used to ride these babies for miles - He's just standing there... MENACINGLY - Are there any other Squidwards I should know about? -Too hot... Too wet... Toulouse Lautrec - Everything is chrome in the future! - Photosynthesis -"MY LEG" - Advanced darkness - Steppin' on the beach - You used me... for LAND DEVELOPMENT - Stop starin' at me with them big ol' eyes - Have you finished those errands? - The story of the Ugly Barnacle - "No, this is Patrick" - Leif Ericsson Day - The boy cries him a sweater of tears, and you kill him - Ravioli Ravioli, give me the formuoli - Freeform jazz - That's OK, take your time - WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE - What I learned in boating school is... - Going on dry land - How does he dooo that? - DoodleBob - The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma - Is mayonnaise an instrument? - Flag twirlers - BIG... MEATY... CLAWS - That's his... eager face - Sweet Victory - Nosferatu! - - Sentence enhancers - Bold and Brash - MY NAME'S... NOT... RIIICK! - One Eternity Later... - Push it somewhere else - I'll remember you all in therapy - The Magic Conch - You like Krabby Patties, don't you, Squidward? - We've been smeckledorfed! - IMAGINATION - Wumbo - Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen - Striped Sweater - The French Narrator's time cards - Welcome to the Salty Spittoon, how tough are ya? - Weenie Hut, Jr.'s - The world's smallest violin - A clever visual metaphor used to personify the abstract concept of thought - Robots have taken over the world! - Spongebob and Patrick as parents - We're not cavemen -- we have technology! - HOOPLA! - Maximum Overdrive - It's time for the moment you've been waiting for - CHOCOLATE - Is your mother home? - Flatter the customer! - Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy - What do you normally do when I'm gone? - That's a 4/4 string ostinato in D minor! Every sailor knows that means death! - Are you feeling it now, Mr. Krabs? -

Episodes

And lastly, the first three classic seasons online (click to expand)

S1E1: Help Wanted / Reef Blower / Tea at the Treedome S1E2: Bubblestand / Ripped Pants S1E3: Jellyfishing / Plankton! S1E4: Naughty Nautical Neighbors / Boating School S1E5: Pizza Delivery / Home Sweet Pineapple S1E6: Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy / Pickles S1E7: Hall Monitor / Jellyfish Jam S1E8: Sandys Rocket / Squeaky Boots S1E9: Nature Pants / Opposite Day S1E10: Culture Shock / F.U.N. S1E11: MuscleBob BuffPants / Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost S1E12: The Chaperone / Employee of the Month S1E13: Scaredy Pants / I Was a Teenage Gary S1E14: SB-129 / Karate Choppers S1E15: Sleepy Time / Suds S1E16: Valentines Day / The Paper S1E17: Arrgh! / Rock Bottom S1E18: Texas / Walking Small S1E19: Fools in April / Neptunes Spatula S1E20: Hooky / Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II S2E1: Your Shoes Untied / Squids Day Off S2E2: Something Smells / Bossy Boots S2E3: Big Pink Loser / Bubble Buddy S2E4: Dying for Pie / Imitation Krabs S2E5: Wormy / Patty Hype S2E6: Grandmas Kisses / Squidville S2E7: Prehibernation Week / Life of Crime S2E8: Christmas Who? S2E9: Survival of the Idiots / Dumped S2E10: No Free Rides / Im Your Biggest Fanatic S2E11: Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III / Squirrel Jokes S2E12: Pressure / The Smoking Peanut S2E13: Shanghaied / Gary Takes a Bath S2E14: Welcome to the Chum Bucket / Frankendoodle S2E15: The Secret Box / Band Geeks S2E16: Graveyard Shift / Krusty Love S2E17: Procrastination / Im with Stupid S2E18: Sailor Mouth / Artist Unknown S2E19: Jellyfish Hunter / The Fry Cook Games S2E20: Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm / Squid on Strike S3E1: The Algaes Always Greener / SpongeGuard on Duty S3E2: Club SpongeBob / My Pretty Seahorse S3E3: The Bully / Just One Bite S3E4: Nasty Patty / Idiot Box S3E5: Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy IV / Doing Time S3E6: Snowball Effect / One Krabs Trash S3E7: As Seen on TV / Can You Spare a Dime? S3E8: No Weenies Allowed / Squilliam Returns S3E9: Krab Borg / Rock-a-Bye Bivalve S3E10: Wet Painters / Krusty Krab Training Video S3E11: Party Pooper Pants S3E12: Chocolate with Nuts / Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V S3E13: New Student Starfish / Clams S3E14: Ugh S3E15: The Great Snail Race / Mid-Life Crustacean S3E16: Born Again Krabs / I Had an Accident S3E17: Krabby Land / The Camping Episode S3E18: Missing Identity / Planktons Army S3E19: The Sponge Who Could Fly (The Lost Episode) S3E20: SpongeBob Meets the Strangler / Pranks a Lot

♫♪

Remember back in 2017-2020 when everyone was aglow with the warmth and camaraderie of the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen? And then, well, Milkshake Duck happened. But not all is lost....

One of the biggest highlights of the Test Kitchen era was watching pastry chef Claire Saffitz re-making mass market food items like Twinkies,SnoBalls, KitKats Pop Rocks and more over the course of several days of increasingly stressed out labor and craziness.. (First discussion here) After the Test Kitchen, many of the chefs spun off to their own channels - Sohla(in multiple places, really.), Molly, Carla, Gaby, Rick (also in multiple places) and even eventually Brad (Although maybe watch out for his fermentation advice), but off them all, Claire as been the most successful with her Dessert Person channel. And now, she's debuted a less stressed version of her recreations with her brand new series Claire Recreates starting with the classic Drumstick

Palm OS and the devices that ran it - a retrospective on the popular PDA and precursor to the smartphone.

Paul Auster, the prolific novelist, memoirist and screenwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s with his postmodern reanimation of the noir novel and who endured to become one of the signature New York writers of his generation, died of complications from lung cancer at his home in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening. He was 77. [NY Times; ungated]

Le grand écrivain américain Paul Auster, auteur de « Moon Palace » et « Léviathan », est mort à 77 ans [Le Monde; ungated] Paul Auster's New York Tragedy "an appraisal" by Lucy Sante [New York Times; ungated] Paul Auster, American author of The New York Trilogy, dies aged 77 [Grauniad; ungated] 'A literary voice for the ages': Paul Auster remembered by Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates and more [Grauniad; ungated] Paul Auster, a life in images [El Pais; ungated] Paul Auster: Why Is America the Most Violent Country in the Western World? [LitHub] The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age [LitHub] "Scribe" [LitHub]

As part of Secret Base's Patreon based restructuring, Internet video troubadour and oddity explainer Jon Bois has ressurected his long defunct Pretty Good series with a three part video on the rise and fall of Henry Ross Perot's political party/personal vehicle - the Reform Party.

While Part 1 is being released generally on YouTube, parts 2 and 3 will be Patreon exclusive for some time (though there are plans to eventually release the full series on YouTube.) Bois also explains that why Pretty Good wound up failing was difficulty in monetization - the purpose of the Patreon is to make it so that they have a revenue stream to support such projects in the future - projects like resurrecting Pretty Good , with videos on the history of slipping on banana peels and a dissection of Independence Day on the schedule.

Part 1: From the S Dynasty to the Chin Dynasty. Part 2: From the Chu-Han contention, through the first Chinese golden age of the Han dynasty, to the Warring States, and the Northern and Southern dynasties. To clarify, this YouTube series is NOT about the actual history, but how Chinese history is interpreted through Chinese cinema. This is a continuing series from Accented Cinema. Previously from AccentedCinema. For those interested in the actual history, he recommends Cool History Bros.