"A lot of people think I'm a complete idiot. But I'm actually a professional idiot with decades of experience." Christopher Schewe, aka Shoenice22, posts videos of himself quickly consuming things that should not be consumed quickly, if at all. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 12:27 PM - 0 comments

Giant Ants is a wall-to-wall Facebook graffiti made by two giant ants as they plan for summer, have NSFW encounters, and even answer some fan inquiries! [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:18 PM - 0 comments

Only a lucky few MeFites have the ability to view vaudevillian, commercial actor, inventor, and photographer George Mann's gorgeous vintage Kodachrome survey of Los Angeles coffee shops in 3-D as he intended.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 11:29 AM - 12 comments

Make way for the $21 Long Island Ice Tea: The trshy summer cocktail goes upscale (The Awl)
posted by The Whelk at 11:13 AM - 37 comments

Where did the formula that a dog ages 7 years for every 1 human year come from? No one knows for sure, but the BBC, using data from the UK Kennel Club and US Veterinary Medical Database, have come up with a more accurate online dog years calculator. The truth about how dogs age is more fascinating, and less straightforward, than we thought. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:18 AM - 33 comments

“We did our first show in a bar...all of a sudden, the whole room was quiet. And then we got everyone to sit on the floor cross-legged to watch our crankies.” [more inside]
posted by Miko at 10:06 AM - 8 comments

Daft Train That Friday happy place where Daft Punk overlaps the Soul Train cakewalk. SLYT.
posted by perhapsolutely at 9:57 AM - 30 comments

Khaki Dance by The NSJ Crew. SLYT
posted by catch as catch can at 9:49 AM - 10 comments

Actual conversations with my 2 year old daughter, as re-enacted by me and another full grown man - Episode 1.
posted by quin at 9:23 AM - 50 comments

Detroit Institute of Arts collection could face sell-off to satisfy Detroit's creditors Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr is considering whether the multibillion-dollar collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts should be considered city assets that potentially could be sold to cover about $15 billion in debt.
posted by R. Mutt at 9:13 AM - 60 comments

In 1997, Last Unicorn gave Zug the chance at recreating Frank Herbert's 'Dune' through a new trading card series. He was originally told to base his work off of David Lynch's film, but after complications with licensing, "they told me to avoid similarity to Lynch's visuals" says Mark Zug. Mark Zug's Dune trading cards.
posted by Artw at 9:12 AM - 28 comments

Nowadays, fortified wines are the butt of jokes. (previously) However, there was a time when they were considered mainstream and there were even a few commercials made. Of course, we can't leave out the best commercial for fortified wine ever made.
posted by josher71 at 9:06 AM - 53 comments

Eine murul / Breakfast on the Grass is a stop-motion animation answering one of Art's most enduring mysteries: why are those people sitting like that? (SLVimeo, 4:30)
posted by theodolite at 8:57 AM - 5 comments

Skeleton of teenage girl confirms cannibalism at Jamestown colony. [more inside]
posted by elizardbits at 8:41 AM - 48 comments

In April, French cartoonist Boulet (previous, more previous) was invited to go on tour in the US, courtesy of the French embassy in New York. As a good 'webcomic', he kept a diary of his impressions of New York, the language barrier and going to the MoCCaFest, and also had a book to sell, a reworked edition of his 2012 24-hours comic Darkness (previous).
posted by MartinWisse at 8:32 AM - 13 comments

A rare disease is defined as any condition affecting fewer than 200,000 patients in the United States. More than 7,000 such diseases exist, afflicting a total of 25 million to 30 million Americans.. One of them, fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), might be approaching a cure. [more inside]
posted by dmd at 7:01 AM - 17 comments

You might have heard at one time or another a 60s band called Canned Heat, who made a wee bit of a splash way back when with a little number called Going Up the Country. The song featured a simple but very catchy little flute riff between verses. If you ever wondered where that riff came from (not to mention the melodic contour of the tune itself) you need look no further than a 1928 recording by Henry Thomas, who played the flute melody on his quills, or, panpipes. The song was called Bull Doze Blues. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:14 AM - 32 comments

Tech writers and their secret shame - outdated gear.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:11 AM - 109 comments

Corporate Spirit uses stock photography to tell a deranged tale about living the corporate life.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:41 AM - 30 comments

Railroad bridge domino collapse in Lampasas County, Texas. (SLYT) No reported injuries, and the bridge dates from 1910, according to the AP. The Infrastructure Report Card, released this week (in which America received a D-), may need a small update to "8,680 of the 52,260 bridges in Texas (16.6%) are considered functionally obsolete."
posted by Erasmouse at 5:16 AM - 70 comments

Bernie "Whistling" Smith, a legendary, no-nonsense Vancouver cop was the subject of this 1975. Oscar nominated documentary. [more inside]
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 3:52 AM - 2 comments

At age 9, Josie Romero -- born a boy but living as a transgender girl -- sought out a controversial hormone treatment that would begin transitioning her body into the opposite sex. NBC Dateline (21:48)
posted by Blasdelb at 1:32 AM - 48 comments

Research finds that same-sex unions are happier than heterosexual marriages. What can gay and lesbian couples teach straight ones about living in harmony?
posted by Long Way To Go at 11:10 PM - 45 comments

FFF: A long time ago, a child turned on a home gaming console for a little Saturday morning fun — unaware that inter-dimensional demons were using it as a portal into our world! MISADVENTURE! [via freeindiesgames]
posted by lemuring at 10:47 PM - 6 comments

Lindsey Stirling in Kenya..
posted by HuronBob at 10:37 PM - 14 comments

The Madon­nas of Sci­ence, plus selected other work (possibly nsfw) by Chris Shaw. [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 9:45 PM - 4 comments

“We’ve seen the price of food become more expensive than ever three times in five years. Normally we’d see three price spikes in a century,” said Kaufman. “And part of the reason is this new kind of commodity speculation in food markets.” In an article published Oct. 24 in Nature[subscription required], Kaufman describes what he calls “Wall Street’s thirst for water” — the push to turn water into a commodity like food, with the same instruments that produced the mortgage-backed security collapse and 2008 financial crisis.

Public or Private: The Fight Over the Future of Water [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:34 PM - 44 comments

Au revoir, Georges Moustaki. The French chansonnier, who got his start writing for Edith Piaf, and later had a lengthy career of his own, has passed away. His simple, languid, contemplative songs include "Le Métèque", "Ma Solitude", "Votre Fille a Vingt Ans" and many, many, many more. He was 79.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:12 PM - 8 comments

Ask Strax! The famed warrior from the Sontaran Empire answers questions from miniature humans for Monster Day Out.
"The last time a human called me a 'Potato Head' I simply turned and walked away calm and collected ... once I had crushed him to a pulp him with my monster fists!!"
posted by Podkayne of Pasadena at 4:06 PM - 45 comments

The former singer for Freshkills talks about playing in a band no one likes
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 3:27 PM - 83 comments

By a vote of 61%-38% the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America has finalized a decision to lift sexual orientation from the criteria to discriminate for youth membership. Previously and previously. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:17 PM - 95 comments

Next to a beautiful, elegant woman, between the silky spirals of her train, on the back of a chair, in a dark angle in the background, he accurately painted, although almost invisible, the animal that recalled the face of the protagonist. He thus had a series of ladies and gentlemen from the squirrel, from the lizard, from the sea horse, etc.

From "The Real Face," by Guido Gozzano, "first and finest representative of the Crepuscolari, the poets of the Twilight." [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 2:54 PM - 1 comment

Park Slope Family Circus: Old Family Circus panels combined with jokes poking fun at denizens of Park Slope, Brooklyn.
posted by mathowie at 2:50 PM - 61 comments

When news came through of Yahoo! buying Tumblr, everyone wanted to know what that meant for all the porn on Tumblr. But it turns out that long before Yahoo! signed a check, Tumblr had been quietly doing something about it on its own: stopping adult blogs from being indexed. [NSFW links] [more inside]
posted by themadthinker at 1:13 PM - 146 comments

"Against all probability, a device that purports to use cold fusion to generate vast amounts of power has been verified by a panel of independent scientists . . . The cold fusion device being tested has roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline. Even allowing for a massively conservative margin of error, the scientists say that the cold fusion device they tested is 10 times more powerful than gasoline — which is currently the best fuel readily available to mankind." [more inside]
posted by Just Another Entity at 12:30 PM - 126 comments

Chris Hadfield has captured the world's heart, judging by the 14m YouTube views of his free-fall rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity", recorded on the International Space Station (ISS). The Canadian astronaut's clear voice and capable guitar-playing were complemented by his facility in moving around in the microgravity of low-earth orbit. But when the man fell to Earth in a neat and safe descent a few days ago, after a five-month stay in orbit, should he have been greeted by copyright police?
posted by DiesIrae at 11:42 AM - 57 comments

In a new book, a historian reveals that during WWII, the British kept three groups of Nazi prisoners captive under condititons that an outraged Churchill demanded be stopped. [more inside]
posted by never used baby shoes at 11:06 AM - 30 comments

ROM corruptions are games played in emulators where the files have been run through a program (for example: Corrupster, and The Vinesauce Corrupter) which makes changes to the game data while still allowing it to remain playable. This results in strange graphical and audial glitches, like character models exploding in to chaotic swirls, garbled sprite assignments, and music distorted in to fascinating new compositions. Some other still image examples from Max Capacity (previously). This forum thread has a guide on how to corrupt ROMs yourself. Some Youtube links NWS due to swearing.
posted by codacorolla at 10:36 AM - 15 comments

Magic Hat Brewery is facing a ban in several Lexington, Kentucky establishments after a recent lawsuit against local business West Sixth Brewery. Many are dubious about the claims being made regarding copyright infringement. The Consumerist offers a visual guide to some of the potential similarities between the designs. West Sixth claims that they are experiencing corporate bullying and have asked the community to sign a petition and stop drinking Magic Hat, while Magic Hat argues that West Sixth has been less than straightforward with the public. West Sixth responds with further claims of corporate chicanery.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:52 AM - 160 comments

While national media coverage of state politics has focused on hot-button topics like gun control and gay rights, a storm has been quietly brewing in Raleigh, NC, where the NAACP has organized protests calling attention to the regressive agenda of the Republican governor and NC General Assembly. Known as "Moral Mondays," these protests have resulted in nearly 160 arrests -- and they're getting bigger each week. With the GA taking a break for Memorial Day, the next showdown is set for June 3.
posted by Shoggoth at 9:16 AM - 62 comments

The Boston Marathon bombings may be fading from the front pages, but the numerous conspiracy theories that sprang up in the wake of the incident continue to rage on, spurred by professional conspiracists such as Alex Jones. Book reviewer and skeptic Anita Dalton (previously), at her new website devoted to skeptical examinations of conspiracy theories and paranormal claims, has kicked off a meticulous and in-depth series of posts comprehensively debunking the Boston Marathon conspiracy theories. (Related: Why rational people buy into conspiracy theories.)
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 8:41 AM - 69 comments

Scientists have discovered a 10-metre-high rock of granite deep in the Atlantic, more than 8,000 feet beneath the sea in a region known as the Rio Grande Elevation (Google auto-translation; original Portuguese webpage). It is believed that this formation could be part of a lost continent, something formed when South America split from Africa, around 100 million years ago. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:09 AM - 45 comments

The series of Project Mathematics tapes regularly brought the house down at the annual SIGGRAPH video show; these mathematical animations were glowing jewels among the over-produced, techy-commercial animations usually shown at SIGGRAPH. -- Edward Tufte via edwardtufte.com

I wonder where these jewels might be found ... [more inside]
posted by tarpin at 7:23 AM - 8 comments

Rave and Hardcore YouTube Comments Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity
posted by Artw at 6:44 AM - 60 comments

The Night Heron (SL NYTimes), an invitation-only club held in an abandoned water tower in Chelsea for 8 weekends in March, April and May.
posted by dabug at 5:16 AM - 98 comments

The female artists who shaped the American Dream Girl (mildly NSFW) "...according to pin-up art expert Louis K. Meisel, three of the most talented pin-up painters from the Golden Age, roughly the 1920s to the early 1960s, were women. “Pearl Frush, Joyce Ballantyne, and Zoë Mozert were terrific, as good as any of the men—in fact, better than many of them,” Meisel says." A fascinating look at three very interesting women and their work in an area of art that is overwhelmingly known for its male artists. [more inside]
posted by halcyonday at 3:06 AM - 13 comments

Steven Universe is an upcoming series by Rebecca Sugar, who has written many songs for Adventure Time. It will be the first Cartoon Network series created by a woman. Check out some screenshots here.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 12:38 AM - 37 comments

A rather surreal story seems to be developing around rapper Tim Dog, who recently died (previously) - or did he? Enough people believe he actually faked his death that an arrest warrant has been issued for him. [more inside]
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:49 PM - 32 comments

If you were watching late-night television in July 1998 you may have seen the half-hour informercial parody that the Beastie Boys produced to promote their upcoming album, Hello Nasty. The ad features Mike D, MCA , and Ad-Rock taking on roles to shill everything from the services of phone psychics to get-rich-quick scams to a food processor that plays songs from the upcoming LP. (Warning: video auto-loads.) [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 9:21 PM - 8 comments

The Legend of Malacrianza: Costa Rica’s badass, killer toro. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 9:10 PM - 20 comments