November 16

Kiva transparency commentary: "I suspect that most Kiva users do not realize this." The controversy is summarized by the NY Times. [more inside]
posted by kmennie at 4:43 AM - 28 comments


This is Photobomb celebrates those strangers whom you didn't mean to take a snapshot of, yet end up dominating the picture.
posted by not_on_display at 4:09 AM - 8 comments

October 29, 2009 marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Welcome To The Pleasuredome, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, kicking off the short rule of Frankie over reality. oh so much [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:37 AM - 22 comments

November 15

In a hot lab in the center of Lyon, space-suited virologists want to create a superflu as contagious as H1N1 and as lethal as H5N1. Why? So nature doesn't get there first.
posted by drdanger at 11:06 PM - 32 comments


Charles Van Schaick was a photographer in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the late 19th and early 20th Century. His work was made famous by Michael Lesy in the book Wisconsin Death Trip in which the photographs were juxtaposed with local newsreports of murder, suicide, disease, insanity, animal mutilation and other calamities plus the occasional non-morbid event. Flickr set of photos used in Wisconsin Death Trip. Some of the texts from Wisconsin Death Trip. Robert Birnbaum interviews Michael Lesy about Wisconsin Death Trip and other things. Over 2500 photographs by Charles Van Schaick owned by The Wisconsin Historical Society. [Warning: Some of the photographs are of deceased infants]
posted by Kattullus at 10:22 PM - 11 comments

Open Letter to the Sudoku community and the organizers of the Sudoku National Championship about the potential cheating of Eugene Varshavsky during this Saturday's tournament. An unknown "man in a hoodie" shows up late and unregistered to the 2009 Sudoku National Championship in Philadelphia, and wins third place despite skipping the first two rounds. Second-place finisher and 2007 World Champion Tom Snyder accuses him of having a radio transmitter concealed underneath the hood, feeding him computer-generated solutions. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Varshavsky, wearing a stocking cap, defeated a grandmaster in the 2006 World Open chess tournament. Has competitive puzzling lost its innocence?
posted by escabeche at 6:36 PM - 55 comments

“I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,” : The New York Times on the perils of being a font nerd.
posted by The Whelk at 6:02 PM - 65 comments

Sin Sisamouth, the king of Cambodian pop. Klen Kloun Noun Srey::Bopha Thy Moy::Kom Sman Bong Phlech::Ah Snae Meas Bong::many more here::(previously, from the mighty mighty flapjax)
posted by vronsky at 4:59 PM - 13 comments

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for "doing his duty". Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year. [more inside]
posted by Jakey at 4:04 PM - 101 comments

Hong Lauwai ('Red Foreigner') sings along with patriotic Red Chinese songs on various sites like YouTube. Alleged to be a New Yorker and stock trader, his true identity isn't known at this time. Since he appeared shirtless in his first performances (Without the Communist Party, There would be No New China; The East is Red), there was some doubt of his sincerity, and consternation among hard-liners in Beijing -- what if he was singing totally nude? [more inside]
posted by Rash at 3:47 PM - 15 comments

History of a New York Block. A nearly complete record of the life cycle of Eldridge St between Stanton/Rivington. Click on the buildings for details. [more inside]
posted by minkll at 2:29 PM - 20 comments


Olympic Flame Burns for Icy Relay
Canada is launching its countdown to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics by boldly sending the Olympic flame farther north than it has ever gone before.
posted by kliuless at 1:01 PM - 21 comments


You’d have to be blind to drive a bobsleigh. At least if you want to finish first, second, or third nine times in seven years. Since 2001, U.S. bobsleigh pilot Steven Holcomb has dealt with a degenerative eye condition that left him with 20/500 vision. He drove a sled hurtling down an ice track anyway, often winning. Now that his vision has been restored via an experimental operation, he fuzzes over his helmet visor so it’s just like the olden days. Bobsleigh, it seems, is all about feel. [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 11:43 AM - 3 comments


Get a glass of Harvey's Bristol Cream, put on some funky 1970's music, sit back, and feast your eyes on some glorious Wood Porn! (SFW) "Oh, baby, you got some great vascular cambium!" "Yeah, that is some hard oak, drill me, baby!"
posted by Drasher at 8:12 AM - 32 comments

How should math be taught? The Kumon Math curriculum provides a simple and clear description of one possible sequence of skills. Hung-Hsi Wu decries the bogus dichotomy of basic skills versus conceptual understanding (PDF, Google Docs). David Klein provides a detailed history of US K-12 math education in the 20th century. The NYT describes the 2008 report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (full text as PDF). [more inside]
posted by russilwvong at 7:28 AM - 47 comments

Star Trek fans know that there was a second, unaired pilot episode of Where No Man has Gone Before. That version has been found by a collector in Germany, and is going to be released.
posted by pjern at 5:09 AM - 27 comments

November 14

STEP 1 Buy 100 pieces of crap from thrift stores and garage sales.
STEP 2 Get 100 authors to write a fiction about pieces of crap.
STEP 3 ???
STEP 4 Profit!
Significant Objects hosts the stories for all 100 pieces of crap/art, but the last six are still available for bidding: Blue Vase by Lauren Mechling, Umbrella Trinket by Bruce Holland Rogers, Lighter Shaped Like a Small Pool Ball by Rob Agredo, Bar Mitzvah Bookends by Stacey Levine, Geisha Bobblehead by Edward "ed" Champion, and Missouri Shotglass by Jonathan Lethem.
posted by carsonb at 10:28 PM - 12 comments


Singer, beatboxer, electric ukelele player Merrill Garbus says "It was about a woman selling her child to the butcher," referring to her puppet show that led to her first written songs. Her one-woman band Tune-Yards (24:59 video) is like Imogen Heap's live performing, mixed with some Phoebe Snow and Nina Simone. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 6:54 PM - 8 comments



Belle de Jour reveals herself. She's Dr Brooke Magnanti. She's real and once wrote this column about autopsies.
posted by feelinglistless at 4:51 PM - 70 comments

NASA's Fluxtimator helps calculate the meteor shower activity in your area. There will be one of the biggest meteor shower events of our lifetime, the Leonid Meteor shower of 2009. Start time: this Monday November 16, 2009 at 11:00pm EST. End Time: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 4:00am EST (best 2am to 4 am EST). An Atomic Age song in mp3 to celebrate: What Is A Shooting Star. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 4:34 PM - 14 comments


Newmoticons: Fresh new emoticons for happy internet people.
posted by The Whelk at 3:48 PM - 80 comments

NPR's jazz blog A Blog Supreme recently concluded a series in which they asked jazz bloggers to "name five albums you would recommend to somebody looking to get into modern jazz". The results are now up in the category Jazz Now; the intro has the index, including reactions elsewhere. Destination: Out had some pricklier suggestions—see also their best of the 90s list (and their own nominations). [more inside]
posted by kenko at 2:42 PM - 38 comments

NSFW - A gallery of the world's Ugliest Tattoos. [via FAIL Blog]
posted by not_on_display at 1:54 PM - 92 comments



A Poem by Stephen King The poem is stored by Playboy.com so NSFW. Also, body horror and vernacular involved.
posted by Sparx at 3:16 AM - 94 comments

November 13


TSA is cracking down on snow globes. Although now a terrorist threat, traditionally snow globes have stood for Elvis, Jesus, and the American flag.
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:16 PM - 131 comments

David Guttenfelder is the chief Asia photographer for The Associated Press. Recently, he has been focusing his lens in Afghanistan. Photographer Collection: David Guttenfelder in Afghanistan and On Assignment: Afghanistan.
posted by netbros at 4:44 PM - 9 comments


"The EyeWriter project is an ongoing collaborative research effort to empower people, who are suffering from ALS, with creative technologies." [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 2:32 PM - 5 comments



Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No by James Blagden (SLYT). MetaFilter is no stranger to the late Dock Ellis and the legendary no-hitter he pitched under the influence of everyone's favorite indole phantasticant (previously: 2001, 2005, 2008), but this animation takes the story to a new level.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 1:50 PM - 53 comments

NASA scientists claim to have found significant amounts of water, after successfully bombing the moon last month. This may have implications on possible Terraforming efforts as well as NASA's goal to understand the nature and distribution of habitable environments in the Universe. What might it look like?
posted by localhuman at 1:27 PM - 78 comments

Wikipedia is being sued for publishing the names of two convicted killers. Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed well-known German actor Walter Sedlmayr in 1990. They were convicted of the crime in 1993 and sentenced to prison, and recently released. Under German law, publishing the name of a criminal after he has served his sentence is considered an undue infringement of privacy, and is illegal. Accordingly, the German Wiki removed the names of the killers off the page discussing the murder --- but the English language version of wiki, based in the US and operating under the First Ammendment, has not. Now the killers' lawyer has sued the Wikimedia foundation to get them to remove the names. [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 12:30 PM - 153 comments

Don't! Mess! With! A! Snap! Diva! A clip from the 1989 documentary Tongues Untied which is about black gay identity. (via)
posted by The Devil Tesla at 12:23 PM - 14 comments

Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home Tribe of Heart's first film, "The Witness", was an eye opening look at how one man's whole life was changed by an encounter with a kitten. Their new film, "Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home", tells the story of a group of farmers coming to grips with the realization that they can't continue to make a living from the suffering of animals.
posted by DaddyNewt at 12:04 PM - 7 comments


A collection of links to recipes from Thomas Keller's latest cookbook Ad Hoc at Home, including crispy braised chicken thighs with lemon and fennel, blowtorch prime rib, leek bread pudding, brownies, and the famous buttermilk fried chicken.
posted by AceRock at 11:33 AM - 15 comments

Thousands of people who play setar in Iran are against me,” he said. “They say why add two more strings to the instrument? But I don’t get upset with them.

Hafez Nazeri, son of renown Persian singer Shahram Nazeri, is an Iranian setar player and composer. Tomorrow night, he will be the first Iranian composer to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall. The concert will feature a new instrument invented by Nazeri: the Hafez. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:21 AM - 5 comments

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