Displaying post 1 to 50 of 97
Surtsey was first observed on November 14, 1963, as
a pillar of smoke on the water some ways south of Iceland. The very next day lava and tephra broke the surface of the Atlantic and by May, 1964 the formation had grown to 2.4 km². Over the next three years lava eruptions continued, coating the loose debris in a hard shell and protecting it from erosion.
An island born. Naturally, Surtsey has been under close scientific observation since its emergence, and courtesy
The Surtsey Research Society you can read published reports on the
geology and
biological colonization of this new earth.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 8:41 PM on July 17, 2008
(9 comments)
Why is my bedroom consistently 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house, and what can I do to cool it off?
posted to Ask Metafilter by carsonb
at 4:17 PM on July 3, 2008
(24 comments)
Pete Seeger and
Majora Carter sit down together and bridge the generational gap with a discussion on environmentalism, activism, history, and music.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 1:52 PM on June 24, 2008
(19 comments)
Colorful AllusionsThough printed in black and white, great literature is bursting with vibrant colour. In these rebus-style puzzles, color words and parts of words have been replaced with colored boxes.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 7:58 AM on June 11, 2008
(8 comments)
Each year, people around the world spend billions of hours playing computer games. What if all this time and energy could be channeled into useful work? What if people playing computer games could, without consciously doing so, simultaneously solve large-scale problems?
GWAP is
Luis van Ahn's answer [PDF, HTML cache] to these questions, a collection of easy and engaging games that make computers smarter.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 4:45 PM on May 27, 2008
(27 comments)
Some readers will appreciate their typographic form, while others will see further strategies at work — informational, strategic, philosophical, literary. There are odd, even anachronistic cultural references, gestures that date these books in a manner oddly soothing.The Next Page: Thirty Tables of Contents
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 12:09 PM on May 16, 2008
(16 comments)
The story goes like this:
In the early 80's Madonna sat in with
Was (Not Was) to record backing vocals (to Ozzy Osbourne's main vox) for their track
Shake Your Head (Let's Go To Bed). Everything was peachy until Madonna's record label, Sire, refused to grant ZE Records permission to publish her recording. So other voices sang of things that cannot be done. Fast-forward ten years and the hits collection
Hello Dad, I'm In Jail included the track and, again, the Madonna vocal was not released for use. (This time
Kim Basinger's new backing track got the spot.) The new Basinger-backed single peaked at #4 on the UK charts and featured a b-side remix by producer
Steve 'Silk' Hurley. However, a glorious blunder resulted in a recall of the single: ZE had sent Hurley Madonna's background vocals. The mistake wasn't caught until after pressing and lo! a very few copies of the record made it out into the world. And so, music fans, for a cool G you can lay hands on your own copy of
Shake Your Head (Let's Go to Bed), featuring the b-side dub, the
rarest of Madonna recordings.
[Mouse over links for descriptions.]
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 4:53 AM on May 12, 2008
(49 comments)
Ultraviolence chic again in Justice video
Stress. NSFW
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 11:32 PM on May 3, 2008
(83 comments)
I'm starting a new job as a telephone concierge at a Brand-new upscale retail/housing establishment in Glendale, CA next week—can you help me get my ear to the ground?
posted to Ask Metafilter by carsonb
at 6:00 PM on April 27, 2008
(6 comments)
Beer &
Books: Authors pair their work with the appropriate beverage.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 2:47 PM on April 25, 2008
(19 comments)
Why do we spend so many precious hours of our lives watching films? What is it about cinema that it should occupy a place of such prominence in our lives? And why do we even need movies? It is as though we are trying to fill a gap in our lives - a void, an emptiness within ourselves. So to even begin on the path of our Truth Quest, we have to see the broader picture of how film correlates to life, and life to film. To find this higher perspective, it is helpful to look towards the other arts, as well as philosophy.Cinema Seekers: Searching for truth in cinema and in life.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 11:49 PM on April 21, 2008
(26 comments)
Today is Record Store Day!What is it about music? It is Love and Passion channeled through a medium that cuts across and through actual definition straight to your soul whether you love Blues, Reggae, Country, Punk Rock, or Quawwali music, your favorite artists take you places you could otherwise never go - and that place is often a place of love and inspiration. -
Marc Weinstein
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2008
(38 comments)
Monsieur, you vill not speak disrespectfully of a member of ze family! It is a boon travelling companion, without which I do not function, I cannot operate. It has been with me for 21 years, zis thing, this chair!
Glenn Gould performed for 21 years seated in a folding card chair modified by his father to be height adjustable. That one
chair accompanied him around the world in support of each of his recordings and performances, and now resides on a pedestal at the National Library of Canada. Luckily, exact replicas of the skeletal, cushion-less chair
are available for only €990.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 10:00 PM on April 16, 2008
(20 comments)
On the
Add a new meetup to the Calendar page ground rule #1 states,
Someone proposes a meetup in the gatherings category, people mull over a location and a date. Eventually an actual date and location is proposed, then people start saying if they're coming or not. It would be neat if there were (optional) entry fields for
date and
location and maybe
location URL, and also neat if adding a meetup to the calendar posted a comment or notification in the thread stating all available specific details.
posted to MetaTalk by carsonb
at 4:27 PM on April 16, 2008
(14 comments)
Enjoy 10 variously attributed
* vintage
Monkey Cartoons and more courtesy
STWALLSKULL and
BOOM!
Also available for your viewing pleasure, an itemized list with embeddable links:
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 11:49 PM on April 12, 2008
(3 comments)
Do you find relaxing very taxing? Are you tense? anxious? worried? Always tired but can't fall asleep? Are you afraid you're losing your grip? You may not know it, but that's good. Yes, good! Because this video can help you. Yes, it can! No matter who you are, you will feel better—and live better!—when you learn to relax. You can start right now by watching
The Relaxed Wife (in
two parts). Go ahead, watch!
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 9:09 AM on April 11, 2008
(7 comments)
Please help me fit my new monitor to my crappy old computer.
posted to Ask Metafilter by carsonb
at 3:40 PM on January 25, 2008
(17 comments)
The Red Bull Music Academy is the best in music, past & present, from around the world, under one roof, getting down just for the funk of it. It is an event that travels the world, a yearly celebration of all the journeys and breakthroughs, all the dreams and intricacies that go into the music we love.
Here on the 'tubes the RBMA mainly consists of
lectures,
interactive features, and
documentaries.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 3:24 AM on January 20, 2008
(21 comments)
The shadowy back alleys of MetaFilter...
posted to MetaTalk by carsonb
at 6:21 AM on January 12, 2008
(125 comments)
Straight 8 challenges anyone to make a 3 minute film on one cartridge of super 8 film, editing only in-camera, with a separate original soundtrack.
The best of each year
is shown at Cannes Film Festival.
[Some NSFW videos]
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 2:10 AM on December 22, 2007
(14 comments)
Jean Shepherd was one of the greatest storytellers ever to be heard on radio.
The Jean Shepherd Project collects recordings of these historic broadcasts, converts them to mp3 files and makes them available to be revisited by his longtime fans and by those who wish to discover what great American storytelling is all about.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 8:05 PM on December 11, 2007
(26 comments)
Miomi (beta) is taking all the world’s information—including the personal history of as many people as possible—and putting it all in a big fat timeline.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 8:03 AM on December 9, 2007
(18 comments)
Pretty Big DigA dance film by Anne Troake that gently illustrates the assimilation of technology.
QT video
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 5:01 PM on December 2, 2007
(8 comments)
Why does my roommate's PS2 play some DVDs and not some others? Is there anything I can do about it?
posted to Ask Metafilter by carsonb
at 8:02 AM on November 25, 2007
(6 comments)
What is the best way to watch a regionally televised college basketball game if I'm not in the region?
posted to Ask Metafilter by carsonb
at 4:43 PM on November 13, 2007
(7 comments)
The year 1964 was a watershed period in British music. Before that year, British popular music was barely heard outside of the U.K. But when the Beatles achieved American success, a seemingly endless number of British bands and singers were suddenly able to crack the American market.
By the end of 1964, some enterprising filmmakers decided to create a cinematic year-in-review to highlight this new wave of British music talent. The result was “Pop Gear,” a strange but jolly little production that serves as a celluloid time capsule for that remarkable musical year.
The features opens with footage from a November, 1963 Beatles concert in Manchester -
She Loves You
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 1:03 PM on October 28, 2007
(24 comments)
Abstraction by Shintaro Kago is
distilled surrealism, a
fourth wall-smashing comic that amazes at every turn. (NSFW)
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb
at 11:38 PM on October 25, 2007
(45 comments)
