Tootfinder

i can see why some fans might be miffed by artists pressing not-quite-finished albums to LP, but if i was a fan of these artists, i feel like i'd also be at least a little stoked? alternate takes/mixes/edits/drafts/outtakes/rarities! things to collect! https://www.

A pressing issue: why are vinyl albums becoming so different from their digital versions?
They’re expensive, elaborate – and may not contain all the music. After Olivia Rodrigo, Charli xcx and more sent out incomplete or unfinished vinyl versions, fans are feeling shortchanged

Complex three-dimensional rearing environments amplify compensatory plasticity following early blindness (in short-tailed opossums) https://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2026/07/02/ENEURO.0059-26.2026 Try visual-to-auditory sensory substitution to supplement tactile f…

Complex three-dimensional rearing environments amplify compensatory plasticity following early blindness
The neocortex has a remarkable capacity to alter its functional organization and connectivity in response to sensory loss, particularly if this loss occurs early in life. A key question is whether this cross-modal reorganization is driven by sensory deprivation or by enhanced use of the spared senses. We investigated how different rearing environments shape neural responses in primary somatosensory cortex (S1) of short-tailed opossums ( Monodelphis domestica) , following elimination of visual i…

once again feeling trapped by the ever-enshittifying otter #transcription platform. does anybody have an online or offline alternative that allows users to search through all transcripts at once?

"""
[…] and I opened the case (politely examined by the guards of the Palace at four stages of my approach to the Red Hall) that held my ansible and some pictures. The pictures—films, photos, paintings, actives, and some cubes—were a little gallery of Man: people of Hain, Chiffewar, and the Cetians, of S and Terra and Alterra, of the Utter-mosts, Kapteyn, Ollul, Four-Taurus, Rokanan, Ensbo, Cime, Gde and Sheashel Haven … The king glanced at a couple without interest. “What’s this?”
“A person from Cime, a female.” I had to use the word that Gethenians would apply only to a person in the culminant phase of kemmer [a cyclical period of heightened sexual activity during which secondary gender characteristics emerge], the alternative being their word for a female animal.
“Permanently?”
“Yes.”
He dropped the cube and stood swinging from foot to foot, staring at me or a little past me, the firelight shifting on his face. “They’re all like that—like you?”
This was the hurdle I could not lower for them. They must, in the end, learn to take it in their stride.
“Yes. Gethenian sexual physiology, so far as we yet know, is unique among human beings.”
“So all of them, out on these other planets, are in permanent kemmer? A society of perverts? So Lord Tibe put it; I thought he was joking. Well, it may be the fact, but it’s a disgusting idea, Mr. Ai, and I don’t see why human beings here on earth should want or tolerate any dealings with creatures so monstrously different. […]”
"""
(Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness)

FIling: Lone Palm Labs, the startup behind friend-focused photo sharing app Retro, raised a $21M Series A from Thrive Capital and others (Sydney Bradley/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/alternative-social-media-ap…

Instagram alternative Retro raises $21M for close friends sharing
In 2023, ex-Instagram employees launched a new app called Retro. It's one of many new social media apps taking on Big Tech platforms.

The AfD is exploiting Germany’s fear of change
The Alternative for Germany has just achieved the best result of any far-right party in the country’s postwar history.
In regional elections in Saxony-Anhalt, a state in eastern Germany,
the party more than doubled its share of the vote,
and is projected to take about 44 percent,
likely just short of an absolute majority.

The result could put the state into a political deadlock.
It would take an extr…

The AfD is exploiting Germany’s fear of change
A political culture built on stability is failing in an age that demands disruption.

NFL Fines Cowboys, Saints $500K Each Following Joint Practice Altercations https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/nfl-fines-cowboys-saints-500k-each-following-joint-practice-altercations

I'm not big on the whole Christian "natural/artificial" binary, or the settler-colonialist concept of "wilderness" which erases indigenous stewardship in a bid to claim mid territory (see, e.g., tribes forced out of what are now national parks in the US). But I do enjoy getting out of urban/suburban environments and into places where the human impact on the land is minimal and/or synergistic with non-human flourishing.
I was thinking about why I enjoy this so much today while out on a stroller hike with my younger child, and came to the conclusion that it may be less about being in a "natural" space and more about being in a space whose flourishing is not tied to the capitalist necropolitical "growth" spiral.
Like, there's the baseline intrinsic beauty of flowers, trees, flowing water, etc. Then there's the pleasure of considering how these things fit together into an ecosystem and mutually support each other (and also compete/predate, etc.). But on top of all that, there's the sense that these things are part of a self-sustaining pattern that's capable of continuing without outside inputs and without creating external waste over vast, geologic timescales. The things I see when I look around in a city aren't like that. 100 or 1000 or 10000 years from now they'll be ruins, not necessarily because of human extinction or anything like that, but because the resource flows that create them are inseparable from a fundamentally unsustainable economy built around a paradoxical assumption of infinite exponential growth.
There *are* of course some human-built or -stewarded things in the world that are sustainably maintained, and ruins can have their own kind of beauty. But to me part of the joy of being on a hiking trail is to look around and see beautiful systems that will persist regardless of (most) human political outcomes that I spend a lot of energy worrying about.
Even in the extreme cases of climate change these things will eventually come back, albeit in an altered form. I don't want to ignore the incredibly destructive impact of humans on the environment, of course, but still, it's comforting to me to think about how the problems and brokenness of currently-dominant human cultures might change and scar but will not actually destroy the many systems on this planet that just don't depend on humans for their propagation.

Raiders’ Maxx Crosby Gets Strong Message After Kirk Cousins Scuffle https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/las-vegas-raiders/maxx-crosby-message-kirk-cousins-scuffle/

Apple opens iOS to alternative app marketplaces in Brazil and changes App Store commission structure following a settlement with competition watchdog CADE (Marcus Mendes/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/18/apple-an…

Apple announces major App Store changes for Brazil - 9to5Mac
App developers can now distribute apps through alternative app marketplaces in Brazil, as part of a broader set of changes in the country.