Our First Look at Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein

Posted by Miss Cellania

https://www.neatorama.com/2025/06/01/Our-First-Look-at-Guillermo-del-Toros-iFrankensteini/

We've had Frankenstein for more than 200 years, since Mary Shelley gave us what is considered the first science fiction story. The concept of a man playing God but getting it all wrong is universal, and it's still a story we never get tired of. The latest cinematic Frankenstein comes from writer/director Guillermo del Toro. Oscar Isaac stars as Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and Jacob Elordi is the monster, although we don't get a good look at him in the first teaser trailer. We do get a sense of his size and power. Frankenstein is scheduled to be released on Netflix in November. Why not in October for Halloween? Del Toro, who has been developing this project for decades, says "the movie will not be a horror movie, but an incredibly emotional story." I dunno, horror is an emotion, isn't it? The comments at YouTube are mostly how this should be released in theaters. -via Fark

https://www.neatorama.com/2025/06/01/Our-First-Look-at-Guillermo-del-Toros-iFrankensteini/

Why is the European Space Agency beaming a waltz at NASA's Voyager 1 probe this weekend?

https://www.space.com/entertainment/why-is-the-european-space-agency-beaming-a-waltz-at-nasas-voyager-1-probe-this-weekend?utm_source=DamnInteresting

Why is the European Space Agency beaming a waltz at NASA's Voyager 1 probe this weekend?• (see also) (from space.com)

https://www.space.com/entertainment/why-is-the-european-space-agency-beaming-a-waltz-at-nasas-voyager-1-probe-this-weekend?utm_source=DamnInteresting

Scientists create super-efficient 5G antenna that could transform wireless networks

https://knowridge.com/2025/06/scientists-create-super-efficient-5g-antenna-that-could-transform-wireless-networks/?utm_source=DamnInteresting

Scientists create super-efficient 5G antenna that could transform wireless networks (from knowridge.com)

https://knowridge.com/2025/06/scientists-create-super-efficient-5g-antenna-that-could-transform-wireless-networks/?utm_source=DamnInteresting

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Great Lakes Region

(no subject)

Another chance for Northern Lights tonight. It's a G4, so you might get naked eye viewing, if the smoke is not bad near you. (This is mostly for Northern Hemisphere North America. But with a G4, who knows how far the CME will spread?)

https://www.spaceweather.gov/news/g4-severe-conditions-observed

We’re close to translating animal languages – what happens then?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/01/were-close-to-translating-animal-languages-what-happens-then?utm_source=DamnInteresting

We’re close to translating animal languages – what happens then? (from theguardian.com)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/01/were-close-to-translating-animal-languages-what-happens-then?utm_source=DamnInteresting

NASA Wants Your Help to Study These Rare, High-Altitude Clouds That Appear to Glow at Sunrise and Su

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasa-wants-your-help-to-study-these-rare-high-altitude-clouds-that-appear-to-glow-at-sunrise-and-sunset-180986721/?utm_source=DamnInteresting

NASA Wants Your Help to Study These Rare, High-Altitude Clouds That Appear to Glow at Sunrise and Sunset (from smithsonianmag.com)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasa-wants-your-help-to-study-these-rare-high-altitude-clouds-that-appear-to-glow-at-sunrise-and-sunset-180986721/?utm_source=DamnInteresting

The Long Legacy of a 152-year-old Man

Posted by Miss Cellania

https://www.neatorama.com/2025/06/01/The-Long-Legacy-of-a-152-year-old-Man/

Thomas Howard, the 14th Earl of Arundel, visited his estates in Shropshire in the year 1635, and met a tenant farmer who has recently celebrated his 152nd birthday. Impressed, he insisted that Thomas Parr accompany him to London, where the old man stayed at the earl's home, met the king, and enjoyed high-class dining and sumptuous accommodations. But within months, he died. Parr's story was recorded in a poem by John Taylor, and then picked up by writers, artists, and storytellers of all kinds. Thomas Parr left no descendants, but his name and fame lived on for hundreds of years.

No one at the time seemed to question Parr's advanced age, but there was much speculation about how he lived so long and why he died. Was it the foul air and water pollution of the city? Or was it the rich food and luxurious lifestyle that he wasn't used to? Two hundred years after Parr's death, Herbert Ingram appeared to have figured it out when he produced Parr’s Life Pills, one of the earlier patent medicines that promised a long life. It was marketed as being a mixture that Old Parr himself discovered but shared with no one during his lifetime. Read about Thomas Parr and his postmortem fame at The Public Domain Review. -via Nag on the Lake

https://www.neatorama.com/2025/06/01/The-Long-Legacy-of-a-152-year-old-Man/

Current Mood: relieved

Entry tags:

celiac test is negative

My GI doctor says the celiac test is negative. This is both unsurprising and a relief: the doctor ordered the test because of comorbidities, not because there were any signs of celiac, but celiac is common enough in people with collagenous colitis that it was worth checking.

I do still need to contact her office tomorrow and ask about that follow-up appointment.

Entry tags:

pope,
trumpii

A Tale in Two Headlines [pope, pols, US]

2025 May 16: The Washington Examiner: "An American papacy: The Catholic Church didn’t choose Pope Leo XIV to battle Trump"

2025 May 30: AlterNet: "'Divine trolling': Pope schedules Chicago mass on the same day as Trump's military parade"

Entry tags:

vital functions

vital functions

Reading. Finished: a comfort reread of your blue-eyed boys, which fit the bill excellently. Have only restrained myself from launching straight into (even if I could) make a deal with god (and for that matter the other two series) on the grounds that I need to reread Prophet (Helen MacDonald, Sin Blaché) so that I can properly appreciate rydra_wong's a word you've never understood.

You see, I read the first two paragraphs, had a lot of feelings, and promptly decided the way to Maximise Feelings would be to do the reread I didn't set off on immediately after first finishing it.

Thus far I am going "my goodness, I forgot a lot of the detail here". ( Spoilers... )

I have also listened to a little bit more of Furiously Happy (Jenny Lawson). There are definitely aspects I don't love (like, as someone who is taking an antipsychotic for non-psychosis reasons, and someone who can at this point go entire years plural without any significant episodes of even very mild psychosis, the way antipsychotics are discussed makes me... a bit twitchy), and I'm annoyed by how much more disruptive needing to reread sentences is in audio than in text (and how much more frequently I'm needing to do it), but also it turns out rather to my own surprise to be a thing I can listen to when I'm not doing anything else with my brain, provided I don't mind not really retaining any of it for longer than about five minutes.

Eating. I have been fed a slightly ludicrous amount of (more-or-less responsibly harvested) wild asparagus this week, which has been A Delight.

A Variety of other things, courtesy of having someone else doing meal prep all week. Still suspicious of Nutritional Yeast, mind.

FIRST STRAWBERRIES from the plot.

Growing. Swung by the plot this evening (courtesy of significant support from A) and in addition to STRAWBERRIES: ( Read more... )

Turned out to be a pretty great day!

I did about 1 mile of walking, almost surprised I did that much. Last Fall, I did 10 miles in one day, didn't create pain, but my energy level went way down after it. I tend to think that about 10 miles a week is a pretty good goal. I was planning on doing a long walk, because I woke up early, and felt up for it.. but decided to cut it short and headed back early. I woke up feeling pretty great, went for a walk, came back, and instantaneously had this attack of something horrible. I started falling asleep, and I think I have mentioned before this place of "disturbed consciousness" like.. I am falling asleep, but it is painful to do such. It has happened maybe 5-10 times in the past year? I have had a seizure before, and it scares me that I might have a seizure again. And I like to reiterate: I was not born epileptic, I'm not even diagnosed epileptic. Doctors put me on a mental health medicine that gave me an allergic reaction which was a seizure, several years ago. As if my life wasn't horrible enough as an HSR, everything is just regularly getting worse.

Meanwhile, how the hell am I supposed to get these "disturbed consciousness" things to go away? I would love it if they would just go away on their own, but I just have no idea.

So I finally fell asleep again, and it did become comfortable!! I slept for 2 more hours, and then woke up feeling all better, so just a very short and extreme 'not feel well' session.

Spent the day hanging out con mi kazoku. We had a very nice time, I did just a few origami pieces. After departing, I went to the park for a short while. Now it's the end of the day, and I'm just winding down.

Something fun for you: Did you know that HSRs can still drive? I'm blown away by it myself.

I regularly think that there are efforts being made to take my license from me, but I also got my license more than 5 years after my surgery. I'm pretty sure that the police officers that arrested me last year, arrested me because they don't think HSRs should be drivers. I was driving when I was arrested, I pulled over by the side of the road, and they pulled up behind me and arrested me, they also broke my car window. I told them that I was an HSR, and they expressed no concern. Do you have any idea what hell my life is? And they put me in jail for at least 5 days, they are definitely criminals.

I sorta wish I had the mobility program. They made slight efforts to get me on that program recently.. I went to another physical health doctor who continued to mostly discuss mental health, and gave me a mobility form... ah well.

I would prefer to just be healthy, that would be great. But I'm not convinced that science is currently advanced enough for HSRs to return to even 80% of a full health bar. Maybe it has happened for others, but I don't think it has happened for me. Oh well.

Cold Lazarus, Episode 3, liveblog

Wait did I miss something, or did Ciaran Hinds kill that guy *between* episodes?!

Prof. Porlock: I feel dirty because I just spent ten hours hanging out with an entertainment mogul.
Fyodor: *thinks* I feel dirty because I just killed someone.

Oh, she’s just spotted the body.
Fyodor: We had a row! (actual line)

This has been doing a sort of classical-tragedy thing where the rape and murders happen between scenes and we get descriptions and see the after-effects.

They’ve uncovered Daniel’s memory of shooting Pig. He blacked out after that, so now they’re trying to jolt him awake by feeding his brain an archival clip of Charles and Di giving a press conference, which has to count as torture.

Ok, filming this scene must have been a hoot. I have just had the experience of hearing Albert Finney declare: “Mumble mumble, plastic whale, mumble mumble.” He’s not mumbling, he’s saying the word “mumble.” It all makes sense in context.

Hoo boy I think we’re about to finally get a flashback to Daniel’s lost love.

Oh so we’ve shifted to first-person PoV camera, interspersed with back-of-a-younger-actor’s-head and Finney doing Dan’s voice. Beth’s not played by Saffron Burrows (Sandra), we’re not pulling a Life and Death of Colonel Blimp here.

The poor scientists haven’t seen Karaoke, so they’re completely lost in this flashback to the brasserie.
Dan’s brain (beginning to suspect something): What’s happening here?
Prof. Porlock: …..

Everyone in the series: Wow, Karaoke is such a great series!

Nice going, Prof. Emma Porlock! Also I ship you and Luanda!

Ok at this point I think this counts as neo-noir. Porlock and her team are getting in over their heads (and also Dan’s head)

Poor Dan’s starting to have flashbacks even when there’s nobody around to watch them. And poor Finney presumably had to spend several shooting days wearing frozen-head makeup and standing in a box.

And now his head’s about to be kidnapped. End of Episode Three.

Episode Four— more plot stuff, Daniel is finally released. I hope Emma and Luanda get away. Is that a clip of the Wilson and Kepple sand dance, and if so, why is it part of Daniel’s dying visions?

CCOC reprises The Monkiest King

https://operaramblings.blog/2025/06/01/ccoc-reprises-the-monkiest-king/

The unbearable darkness of jail

https://mailchi.mp/themarshallproject/the-unbearable-darkness-of-jail

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During a tour of the city jail in St. Louis, Missouri, a reporter from our newest local news team was struck by its darkness — almost no sunlight filtered through the thickly glazed windows into the building. The dim, gloomy jail isn’t unique to St. Louis, we found.

We — reporters Ivy Scott, Brittany Hailer and Daja E. Henry — noticed a similar pattern in all of the cities where our local teams report. With little to no oversight, and in some cases a disregard for the protocol that does exist, people behind bars were living in the dark for longer and longer periods of time.

In our latest story for The Marshall Project, we investigated people’s access to fresh air and sunlight in jails in St. Louis, Cleveland, and Jackson, Mississippi. All three cities have requirements to provide sunlight and fresh air, either mandated by jail policy, or by the state or federal governments; all three have consistently fallen short.

An illustration shows a grid of different jail cells with small or narrow windows, or no windows at all.

The Unbearable Darkness of Jail

One person in St. Louis recalled trying to guess the time based on the size and position of the shadows. Incarcerated people in Cuyahoga County, near Cleveland, told a jail staffer they could only tell what time of day it was by the meals they were served. A former Hinds County, Mississippi jail administrator said she had seen cells that were dark 24 hours a day.

We couldn’t imagine going years without seeing the sun or feeling a breeze on our skin. But that’s the reality for many people awaiting trial in jails across the country. They’re locked up in “basements,” “sick buildings” and “holes” without access to sunlight and fresh air.

While access to fresh air and sunlight may seem like a privilege in a place designed for punishment, we found that the implications of this deprivation run much deeper. People in dark jail cells are sicker, and their lives are in greater danger. Most have not been convicted of a crime, but are nonetheless being punished, in violation of their civil rights.

Thanks for reading our latest reporting on how people behind bars are impacted by being denied access to sunlight and fresh air — we hope you’ll continue to follow our local reporting on conditions in prisons and jails in Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi.

— Ivy Scott, Brittany Hailer, and Daja E. Henry

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https://mailchi.mp/themarshallproject/the-unbearable-darkness-of-jail

Entry tags:

cooking,
recipes

Culinary

This week's bread: a loaf of 50:50% strong white and einkorn flour, with a little splash of oil when making up, turned out very nice.

Saturday breakfast rolls: brown grated apple, strong brown flour, and Rayner's Classic Organic Barley Malt Extract, which is much nicer than most other malt extracts.

Today's lunch: pseudo-spanokopita, spinach sauteed in butter and seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg and lemon thyme, pie-dish lined with sheets of filo brushed with olive oil, layer of the spinach, soft cheese, rest of spinach, more sheets of filo, baked for 45 mins in a very moderate oven; served with baked San Marzano tomatoes and white chicory quartered, healthy-grilled in walnut oil and splashed with bramble vinegar.

Some thoughts on the UK and immigration

British Voters are happy that UK net migration is down. But they still think it's too high. Sadly, there is no information about how much immigration voters would like, but I suspect that they think that zero is good. And probably that negative is better.

And a fair chunk of this is because Labour and the Conservatives are both backing the idea that immigration is a bad thing. Lib Dems are in favour of being more humane about it than either of them, but only the SNP seem to have a policy that recognises that if immigration doesn't go up the economy is fucked.

Britain is aging. With serious economic consequences, with insufficient people entering the workforce to make up for the people leaving it, and increasing healthcare costs.

If we want the economy to function then either we will have to have more children or to bring more people in to work here. Those are the two options. And nobody has successfully managed to get a developed society to do the former*. So either we deal with an insupportable economy or we increase immigration. But neither of the big political parties wants to deal with the Daily Mail screaming at them, so we're going to spend the next few years doing the economically** stupid thing.

* Except Israel. Who we are unlikely to emulate.
** Obviously I haven't touched on the moral case here.

Entry tags:

This one depends on theology actually (not that that is rare for these)

Ink

I would remake
My flesh
As mine:

Engrave
Protection and
Devotion
Across my skin
And never be devoid
Of my attributes
Of power.

See:
I have claimed my heart
I will inscribe a god
On every limb.

I shall not be robbed again.