Slow Death Captured on a Blog. Brian Hill died February 2, 2008 after living with and blogging about his experiences with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. A similar story, previously.
posted to MetaFilter by otherwordlyglow at 4:34 PM on February 25, 2008 (14 comments)

TubeDuel The CTFL was created out of a desperate need to better train and arm citizens with cardboard tubes. The goal of the CTFL is to provide organized cardboard tube based events that help spread cardboard awareness.
posted to MetaFilter by otherwordlyglow at 3:35 PM on October 24, 2007 (24 comments)

Favela Rising is a recent documentary exploring the AfroReggae (in Portuguese) movement and the amazing story of one of its founders, Anderson Sa. AfroReggae (MySpace page has music on) was born in the Vigário Geral favela as a way to give the community an alternative to the drug trade and to fight police oppression.
posted to MetaFilter by otherwordlyglow at 12:41 PM on October 11, 2007 (8 comments)

Modern Military Ruins in San Francisco. Really awesome Flickr set includes documentation of Hunters Point Shipyard, Treasure Island Naval Station, Alameda Naval Air Station, the SF-88 Nike Missile Site, Hamilton Field Air Force Base, and Mare Island Naval Shipyard.
posted to MetaFilter by otherwordlyglow at 11:45 AM on June 12, 2007 (30 comments)

During the Vietnam War, millions of gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed across regions of the country to destroy forest cover used by guerillas. A photo essay from Slate: On this day in 1984, a $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans, who argued that exposure to AO had caused various cancers, birth defects, and other chronic diseases. The settlement came to government benefits of about $1,500 a month until 1997. Yet many Vietnamese victims who also suffer greatly have received nothing from the United States since the end of the war. Some images are quite graphic and not something you want to look at while eating lunch or possibly at work. I know we've done Agent Orange before ( here and here), but this collection of images is rather intense.
posted to MetaFilter by otherwordlyglow at 1:14 PM on May 7, 2007 (23 comments)

Nature's Sumo Wrestlers. Hundreds of thousands of northern elephant seals once inhabited the Pacific Ocean. They were slaughtered wholesale in the 1800s for the oil that could be rendered from their blubber. By 1892, only 50 to 100 individuals were left. Today estimates are that about 150,000 roam the Pacific Ocean. And they are extraordinary animals - the males can average 1,800 kg and 5 meters in length. Mirounga angustirostris spends eight to ten months a year in the open ocean, diving 1000 to 5000 feet deep for periods of fifteen minutes to two hours, and migrating thousands of miles, twice a year, to its land based rookery for birthing, breeding, molting and rest. Once on the beach, they survive up to 3-4 months with almost no food or water. You can spy on them at through the live cam at Ano Nuevo State Reserve from 9am to 9pm (EST) though at this point, it’s mostly only the pups that are still on the beach as most of the adults have headed back to sea. Also, they do not like to be woken up.
posted to MetaFilter by otherwordlyglow at 4:07 PM on March 15, 2007 (28 comments)