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January 2007 Archives
January 31
Minnesota is a state rich in study material for fans of political oddity. The state has faced famous (and infamous) political news in the last few years, from the legendary surprise independent gubernatorial victory of
Jesse "The Body" Ventura to the tragic death of
Senator Paul Wellstone and its ensuing
fallout,
controversy, and
lunacy. It holds a unique variation in the usual two-party system with the
DFL replacing the Democratic Party. St. Paul will host the
2008 Republican National Convention. And now, the ongoing oddity that is Minnesota politics will now enter a new chapter as Comedian
Al Franken, who moved his Air America radio show to his home state of Minnesota a year ago, will be leaving radio in February
to run for his late friend Paul Wellstone's old Senate seat against incumbent Republican incumbent
Norm Coleman. Another unique fact would be should Franken win the DFL nomination, it would be a rare instance of both candidates from the major parties in a statewide race being Jewish- Franken and Coleman are two of the
less than 50,000 Jews living in the state.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:06 PM PST - 48 comments
New York Magazine published an article about the hardcore punk scene back in May of 1986, written by future best-selling author
Peter Blauner. It was the story of two girls. One, 16-year old Becca, rose from the gutter to be near the stars. The other, Natalie, a grizzled veteran at 20, had to fight to keep her status as punk queen. Like with everything else in those days, it
ended up on Donahue (clips from the episode, not the whole show). The band most featured in the article, Murphy's Law,
is still a pogoing concern.
posted by Kattullus at 5:00 PM PST - 20 comments
William Pfaff argues against
American utopianism in foreign policy--a form of "manifest destiny" not limited to the Bush administration.
The Bush administration defends its pursuit of this unlikely goal ["ending tyranny in the world"] by means of internationally illegal, unilateralist, and preemptive attacks on other countries, accompanied by arbitrary imprisonments and the practice of torture, and by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities. ... Other American leaders before George Bush have made the same claim in matters of less moment. It is something like a national heresy to suggest that the United States does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations, and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not. Pfaff has been a columnist for the International Herald-Tribune, based in Paris, for the last 25 years. His
website includes an
archive of past columns.
Previously.
posted by russilwvong at 4:41 PM PST - 5 comments
According to one colleague, Senator Obama
is "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." For what it's worth, Senator Biden
says that Senator Obama was not insulted by the remark, but no public reaction from his presumably
inarticulate or
non-bright or
unclean counterparts yet. Can we get senators to stop saying
stupid things about black people? Can we at least get everyone to stop using
"articulate" as the stock compliment for people of color in positions of political power?
posted by Slap Factory at 2:11 PM PST - 173 comments
Last Friday a YouTuber by the name of "Mark Erickson"
posted a video claiming to reveal an easter egg in Gmail that unlocked an invite to a yet to be announced Google beta service called Google TV. Using some relatively fancy spoofing, he showed a screencast of how logging in and out of Gmail over and over again would eventually unlock the invite. Many greasy Google fanboys (like me) followed his instructions, logging in and out dozens, and dozens and dozens of times. Eventually,
we realized it was a hoax. In fact, this is what "Erickson" does,
post fake technology demo videos on YouTube which lead you on wild goose chases. Also see
his production company and some of their YouTube work (especially the alternative intros to "
Designing Women" and "
Golden Girls"). Clever little shit.
posted by JPowers at 12:31 PM PST - 29 comments
January 30
The President's call for a
troop surge in Iraq will likely be a headache for military recruiters, who have already had to
relax standards to (barely) meet their quotas. But just how desperate are they for warm bodies? Radar prank called recruiting stations around the country disguised as a veritable
Breakfast Club of misfit would-be soldiers, all dramatically unqualified or unattractive for service in some way.
The resulting transcripts are hysterically funny (the writer poses as a flamboyantly gay man, a mama's boy, a martial arts freak, a junkie, an IBS sufferer and a lobotomy patient). The recruiters turn out not to be quite as sleazy as you might imagine, but the conversations are priceless.
posted by P-Soque at 10:19 PM PST - 30 comments
A four-year-old girl (YouTube 1:26) is interviewed about her views of various hypothetical budgetary allocations. It is called "A SOTU Response," but it isn't really directly related to the SOTU.
Via Plastic.posted by textilephile at 5:11 PM PST - 44 comments
Jonson takes pictures of The Salton Sea, which is a
strange place, like some kind of huge, perpetual,
Burning Man, but by a
huge, salty, polluted, manmade lake with
distant shores,
dying fish,
has-been resort towns,
Salvation Mountain,
fundie dinos,
fountains of youth, and
nice churches.
[via mefi projects] [previously] [howdy]posted by brownpau at 10:13 AM PST - 36 comments
Behind on your car payments? Need to pay rent?
Digital Charity may be your answer. Digital Charity gives you a list (sorted by category) of people who are looking for donations via PayPal. Each person looking for a donation can create a page with their situation and a PayPal link. Anyone interested in giving them money can then click on that link.
posted by Jenesta at 5:38 AM PST - 45 comments
January 29
The Wikipedia List of Unusual Articles. Including popular favorites such as
Raining Animals,
Penis Panic,
The Utah Teapot,
The Jesus Nut,
The Mexican Perforation, and
The Liver-Eating Johnson. But wait, there's more!
Sweater Curse! Turtles All The Way Down! Acoustic Kitty! (Seriously, WTF CIA?) The
Ding Hai Effect.
Blue Peacock, the Chicken Powered Nuclear Bomb. Chess-Related Deaths,
ETAOIN SHRDLU,
Alien Hand Syndrome,
Colors of Noise,
Drake's Plate of Brass, and
Mole Day. Click now and they'll also include
List of Songs in English Labled the Worst Ever and the
List of Songs Whose Title Constitutes The Entire Lyrics free of charge!! Had enough? Succumb to the
Flynn Effect but watch out for
Exploding Head Syndrome!
posted by loquacious at 11:50 PM PST - 49 comments
Bush has got a brand new bag - In an executive order signed today Bush created a new oversight position at all regulatory agencies. This position, which will be staffed by someone appointed by the White House, will over see regulatory suggestions and reports to congress.
posted by sourbrew at 9:04 PM PST - 63 comments
Hubble's ACS Has Died. Hubble's
Advanced Camera for Surveys has apparently gone into safe mode, with little hope of return. The ACS was installed in 2002, and added amazing upgrades to Hubble's imaging capabilities. Though its lifespan was only projected at five years, scientists had hoped it would hold out longer. Though a final shuttle servicing mission is scheduled for 2008,
the mission objectives plate is already too full to consider its repair. Alas, more of those beautiful pictures (as well as extended research capabilities) will have to wait until the
James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2013.
posted by Brak at 8:22 PM PST - 23 comments
MacRobertson's Confectionery were, in the 1930s, trialling new ideas for their children's range. An employee suggested that as "women and children were afraid of mice," rather than a chocolate mouse,
a chocolate frog would be more popular with children. Three days later, what would become Australia's most popular children's confectionery, the
Freddo Frog, was born. Its supposed creator, Harry Melbourne,
died last week, having never received a cent in royalties. However, to this day there remains confusion as to whether he, or rather the inventor of the
Cherry Ripe, Lesley Atkison, was
in fact responsible. Those that only know him in chocolate form may be surprised to find out that Freddo was also the star of
Australia's first cartoon.
posted by Mil at 6:00 PM PST - 22 comments
Instead of reducing emissions, maybe we can block out the sun. This is a proposal offered by the United States in response to a draft of a UN report on climate change, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. According to the linked article, the U.S. has resisted a treaty that would involve binding targets for emissions reductions, and is instead pushing for the exploration of techniques for blocking out the sun, including (according to the Sydney Morning Herald article) "putting a giant screen into orbit, thousands of tiny, shiny balloons, or microscopic sulfate droplets pumped into the high atmosphere to mimic the cooling effects of a volcanic eruption." This is via Yale Law professor Jack Balkin, who
speculates that there is Biblical precedent for this proposal.
posted by jayder at 5:36 PM PST - 93 comments
The Independent has some anticipations on the soon to be released first volume of
IPCC's 4Th Assesment Report , concerning matters such as climate change and global warming.
Quoting the article :
It is virtually certain (there is more than a 99 per cent probability) that carbon dioxide levels and global warming is far above the range of natural variability over the past 650,000 years. It is virtually certain that human activity has played the dominant role in causing the increase of greenhouse gases over the past 250 years.posted by elpapacito at 7:29 AM PST - 74 comments
The Profane Game. Got a pottymouth? Test your curse word vocabulary with this simple game. You have one minute to enter as many naughty words as you can.
(via)posted by zardoz at 2:24 AM PST - 55 comments
January 28
IJN Battleship YAMATO (from 2005 Toei
film). NHK IJN feature
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Glorious Imperial Japanese Navy,
Modern mashup,
JSDF fanvid pt 1 &
2. JMSDF Fleet Review
rehearsal. JSDF Marching Festival 2006:
Opening Ceremony,
USAJ Band (sad),
7th Fleet Band (gack),
III MEF Band (nice!),
J NDA Honor Guard. PLA
schools everyone.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 4:22 PM PST - 29 comments
Keep Burberry British. The 150 years old
very british brand is now under a new management that decided to ...*surprise* move production to China closing Treorchy plant, firing 310 workers , despite a 25% increase in profits ! Celebrities from Prince Charles to Tom Jones are supporting the protest.
posted by elpapacito at 3:34 AM PST - 72 comments
January 27
W. Edwards Deming: Noted
consultant, and proponent of total quality
management.
The prevailing forces of destruction start early in life-grades in school from toddler on up through the university, gold stars for school athletics, merit system or annual appraisal on the job, incentive pay, work standards, MBO (rather, MBIR: Management by Imposition of Results), MBR (Management by Results). These forces of destruction must be replaced by leadership.... The transformation will restore the individual; will abolish grades in school on up through the university; will abolish the annual appraisal of people on the job, MBO, quotas for production, specified requirements that people work 57 minutes out of every hour, incentive pay, monthly or quarterly reports on business targets, competition between people, competition between divisions, and other forms of suboptimisation. Leadership will replace these bad practices, and will restore the individual. posted by Brian B. at 9:53 PM PST - 51 comments
Pompous Ass Words is a site dedicated to identifying words that shouldn't be used, on the grounds that doing so makes you sound like a pompous ass. With humorous citations and links to examples of pompous word usage by the media.
posted by amyms at 8:09 PM PST - 202 comments
Bollywood Dreams. Bollywood in a nutshell: Bollywood is the name given to the Bombay (Mumbai)-based Hindi-language film industry in India. Bollywood films are colorful, crammed with
singing,
dancing, loads of
costume changes. In the past there were often absurd and hilarious take-offs on Western films or superstars, such as the
Beatles,
Michael Jackson ,
Elvis,
70's music and
hair styles. Spectacular collection of
Bollywood posters and
vintage original poster art for sale and
t-shirts.
Stats and
faqs. The
history of Bollywood, brief
chronology [pdf]. The main
actors,
images. The main
actresses,
images. Some of the
renowned songs and the
singers who sang them. Bollywood
song lyrics and audio at the excellent Music India Online. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 1:13 PM PST - 74 comments
January 26
Time magazine recently launched a new politics blog,
Swampland. The blog is, to this point, most interesting for its confrontations between the commenters and the bloggers. [m.i.]
posted by ibmcginty at 11:35 PM PST - 26 comments
Carl Cannon on
why Presidents lie, including a lengthy discussion of George W. Bush.
Even giving him the benefit of the doubt on honesty, why doesn't the nation's first-ever M.B.A. president demonstrate a better command of the facts?posted by russilwvong at 10:54 PM PST - 44 comments
If anyone can put together a kick-ass concert DVD, it's Trent Reznor. For your consideration: Nine Inch Nail's upcoming "Beside You In Time," which will be released in HD-DVD, Blu-Ray and some format from the late-90's they are referring to as simply DVD (this is apparently the first music DVD ever to be released on all three formats). View the trailer and some clips
here in 1080P (if you're computer and eyes can handle it). Or, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the chosen cities,
attend a screening.
posted by JPowers at 9:12 PM PST - 48 comments
The Dervaes Institute is an 'off the grid' homestead in Pasadena, CA and supports 4 adults full time. It also produces 3 tons of produce annually. It's all run from solar panels and biodiesel. Over 350 different plants and a handful of farm animals thrive on a 1/5 acre lot, not too far from the middle of Los Angeles. An 'urban homestead' indeed!
posted by drstein at 4:24 PM PST - 10 comments
One day, a vintage motorcycle restorer gets an idea in his head to tackle a new project, restoring an old-timey
"board-tracker" bike. In and of itself, that's not such a big deal; over the past century, vehicle restoration has become equal parts
hobby,
business, and
spectator sport. The catch with this particular project, however, is that there are no existing examples of the bike he wants to rebuild, the last known extant part remaining is a corroded engine case, and there are only 5 known photographs - all of which happen to show just the right side of the bike.
This is the story (so far) of Paul Brodie's Excelsior OHC. [via]posted by the painkiller at 8:27 AM PST - 14 comments
Wired: What We Don't Know How did life begin? What's the universe made of? Why do we sleep? Is the universe actually made of information? How does the brain produce consciousness? Why do we still have big questions? 42 of the biggest unanswered questions in science.
posted by loquacious at 1:07 AM PST - 45 comments
January 25
The dirty underbelly --
I'm sick and tired of these hypocritical Hoosier legislators who think that my sex life or relationship status is any of their business. Do I intrude on who they're sleeping with? I didn't, but I'm going to start now. ...Consider this a call to arms gossip. ... -- Bilerico, a GLBT blog in Indiana, fighting their proposed state Constitutional Amendment to ban marriage and all other rights for gay and lesbian couples and families.
posted by amberglow at 8:58 PM PST - 40 comments
HyperBike! Invented by
Curtis DeForest, this sci fi-looking gizmo has its rider standing up between a pair of cambered eight-foot wheels and pedaling with both arms and legs.
It can "easily" hit 50 mph and it much harder to tip over than a regular bike (and doesn't kill your sperm count, either).
NASA is interested in it for low-gravity environments.
posted by gottabefunky at 1:35 PM PST - 54 comments
The Credibility of Power.
Daryl Press, author of
Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats, argues that in a crisis, the credibility of threats is primarily determined by the balance of power and the interests of stake; past history is relatively unimportant. As case studies, he examines the decision-making of Hitler and his generals during the crises over Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. "To this day, U.S. leaders ... are loath to reevaluate existing commitments for fear that doing so would signal irresolution. These fears, however, are greatly overblown." An example of US rigidity:
Gideon Rose on the end of the Vietnam War.
posted by russilwvong at 1:14 PM PST - 4 comments
If you can stomach (and run) Windows Media Player and are a musician*, perhaps you might find
the Muse On Visualizer somewhat interesting. It attempts to extract chord names from the music stream and display them realtime. Then again, maybe you are looking to
experiment with chords and music theory or else
figure out what you've been banging out.
* Yes, I realize +1 of you probably have problems with one or the other of these. Deal. Also, MuseOn is more fun-toy than genius-spot-on-makes-TABs-for-you.posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:37 AM PST - 16 comments
The Childbirth Centrifuge You must be pregnant to ride this ride. Why push your baby out when you can spin the sucker out? This device probably makes one mean martini, too. Unlike many patent applications, the Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force is described in great detail, making me wonder whether a prototype actually got constructed. Link goes to a summary. Click through for the completely confusing text of the patent.
posted by fleener at 11:18 AM PST - 38 comments
Why is Genarlow Wilson in Prison? Genarlow Wilson sits in prison despite being a good son, a good athlete and high school student with a 3.2 GPA. He never had any criminal trouble. On the day he was to sit for the SAT, at seventeen years old, his life changed forever. He was arrested. In Douglas County he was accused of inappropriate sexual acts at a New Year’s Eve party. A jury acquitted him of the allegation of Rape but convicted him of Aggravated Child Molestation for a voluntary act of oral sex with another teenager. He was 17, and she was 15.
On July 1st, the new Romeo and Juliet law went into effect in Georgia for any other teen that engages in consensual sexual acts. That change in the law means that no teen prosecuted for consensual oral sex could receive more than a 12 months sentence or be required to register as a sex offender. But since the law was not changed retroactively, Genarlow Wilson must serve his
mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison, without parole.posted by b_thinky at 10:02 AM PST - 179 comments
Helvetica, a documentary film. "
Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives."
posted by londontube at 8:16 AM PST - 25 comments
Heart attacks, not overdoses, number one cause of musicians' early demise. An almost-thorough list of dead rock stars, but there are some "cause" blanks that need filling in.
posted by usedwigs at 6:49 AM PST - 46 comments
Wanna get nuked? the
Active Denial System [just say no?] was launched yesterday - its a microwave ray gun that makes people feel like they're going to catch fire. Wasn't there a ray gun at a certain point in a
book we trashed a while earlier?
posted by infini at 5:21 AM PST - 46 comments
Willard Wigan The smallest sculptures can only be measured in
thousandths of an inch which is why they can sit, very delicately,
on a human hair three thousandths of an inch thick. When working on this scale [Willard Wigan] slows his heartbeat and his breathing dramatically through meditation and attempts to harmonise his mind, body and soul with the Creator. He then sculpts or paints at the centrepoint between heartbeats for total stillness of hand. He likens this process to "trying to pass a pin through a bubble without bursting it." His concentration is intense when working like this and he feels mentally and physically drained at the end of it.
(previously)posted by pmbuko at 4:42 AM PST - 25 comments
Fox goes after YouTube pirates. Fox takes a new approach to fight copyright infringers who post illegal content on YouTube. Going after the user who uploaded the copyrighted material instead of forcing YouTube to pull it from the web site should prove a more effective deterrent.
posted by jeyoung at 2:36 AM PST - 20 comments
January 24
My formula for success: (PosEn - NegEn)(NT)^i = R
PosEn is your positivity, positive emotions, positive ego
honesty, love, friendship, etc
NegEn is your negative emotions & energy & ego
hate, fear, jealousy, envy
N is network (virtual, personal, spiritual)
T is time
i is ideas and indivituality
R is results
the only thing you cant make more of is time
posted by nervousfritz at 11:14 PM PST - 26 comments
John Foxe's Book of Martyrs offers complete, searchable transcriptions of the 1563, 1570, 1576, and 1583 editions of Foxe's
Actes and Monuments... Readers can juxtapose two editions to see Foxe's alterations. The site includes images of the foldout woodcuts, along with the title pages. Other goodies include a raft of introductory essays and detailed commentaries on the illustrations to books 10-12. See also the
Foxe Digital Library Project at Ohio State University, which includes woodcuts, images of selected pages, and an exhibition catalog. There are more woodcuts from the 1610 edition at Penn's
Center for Electronic Text and Image and from the 1784 edition at
Kansas State University.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:11 PM PST - 10 comments
The Ad Generator is a generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. What it actually does is that it randomizes words and structures from real advertising slogans and pairs them with related images from Flickr, generating fake ads on the fly.
posted by sveskemus at 2:59 PM PST - 53 comments
The modern slave trade is thriving. The Dept of State
estimates that 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are trafficked - brought across borders and forced to labor. Among them, DOS estimates, hundreds of thousands are minor children. Some of those children - as young as 5 years old - are being sold as slaves and
kept in cages while they are raped and sold for sex, some servicing as many as
30 men a day. They are bought for as little as $10 from
desperate parents. But all is not lost:
Somaly Mam, a former child prostitute, is the Mother Theresa of Southeast Asian child prostitutes, using
AFESIP as her vehicle for saving them.
Glamour awarded her their Woman of the Year honor, and she has been lauded in
other ways internationally. Cambodian sex traffickers weren't as happy with her, though - her opponents kidnapped her 14-year old daughter, held her hostage for days, and raped her. It's hard to be on the wrong side of this issue, but
some advocates raise a few hackles by claiming legalized prostitution and porn contribute to sex trafficking and child prostitution. Sex trafficking, and child prostitution, is a
sizeable problem in the US as well. Although trafficking is
illegal in the US, combating trafficking is tough in part because victims often fear authorities, personal reprisals, harm to their families at home, or even deportation (although special visas -
T visas - are available to them in certain circumstances). In Southeast Asia (and throughout the world), child sex tourism is even harder to stop.
posted by Amizu at 2:51 PM PST - 41 comments
Stacey Finley convinced 22 friends, neighbors and relatives that she could have satellites scan their bodies for disease, then have CIA agents administer secret medicines to them while they slept. [
via]
posted by brundlefly at 12:30 PM PST - 22 comments
In the past, battlefields were loud. Death came in the form of a huge plane roaring overhead, in the boom of a cannon, in the whine of a bullet shooting through the air. In the near future, death might arrive quietly, in the form of an
insect buzzing around your head . . . posted by jason's_planet at 8:29 AM PST - 26 comments
January 23
The US Figure Skating championships are this week, but though the ice skaters in Spokane and elsewhere get all the press,
another group of skaters toil in near-obscurity.
Roller figure skaters (also called
artistic roller skaters) skate on
quad (
or sometimes inline) skates, do
all the moves that ice skaters do (and even more -- notice the "heel" and "broken ankle" spins in
this program, spins that are not possible on ice), and compete,
as they have for decades, in local,
national, and
international events. In 1978, skating was at a peak of popularity and
Time magazine wrote
"skaters are hoping to be included in the 1988 Olympics"; nearly 30 years later, roller figure skating still hasn't reached the Olympics, some roller skaters like Tara Lipinski have switched to ice to get famous, and the number of clubs and participants in the US have declined precipitously, but dedicated roller figure skaters still spend many hours practicing
school figures (on circles painted on the floor), dance, and free skating,
for the love of their sport. Want to see more?
Skating videos from RollerSportsTV.
posted by litlnemo at 6:17 PM PST - 33 comments
Politico.com has launched. Last year the venture made news due to the high-profile departures of John Harris and Jim VandeHei from the Washington Post. About 20 reporters from major newspapers have left their jobs to work at the new Web site which is devoted solely to politics.
* It’s launched by an established media company that owns several ABC affiliates - Allbritton Communications Company.
They also are publishing a
dead-tree version.
posted by ericb at 5:40 PM PST - 14 comments
Tracked In America --
the stories of 25 individuals who have been targeted by the U.S. government. The stories span from World War I to the post-9/11 world.posted by amberglow at 5:11 PM PST - 4 comments
Minimundus is an Austrian theme park with seemingly all the major architectural wonders of the world rendered in miniature; while their primary site is woefully low on imagery,
here's three pages worth of photos of their better exhibits.
posted by jonson at 3:40 PM PST - 20 comments
Andre the Giant, Greatest Drunkard of all Time The key to Andre the Giant is this — even as a youth he knew that his disease would dramatically shorten his life. He knew there was no cure, and lived every day with the understanding that death could shamble around the very next corner. Knowledge of this sort can darken a life. It did not darken Andre’s. He chose instead to pack his days with as much insane, drunken fun as they could hold. Instead of languishing in the darkness, he chose to walk in the sun.
posted by ColdChef at 12:38 PM PST - 96 comments
Tonight, G.W. Bush is expected to announce a major energy proposal, including
cutbacks in gas consumption and development of alternative fuels. High on the list is the development and subsidisation of
ethanol, primarily as derived from corn. The utility of corn-based ethanol in meeting energy needs is debatable: its probably weakly
energy positive, but not very good in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. More immediately, the US drive towards corn based ethanol has had major effects on the price of corn, and has caused the otherwise free market leaning Mexican President Felipe Calderon to introduce price controls on
tortillas. Earth Policy Institute's
Lester Brown: "
The competition for grain between the world’s 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and its 2 billion poorest people who are simply trying to survive is emerging as an epic issue.". (This post based on a column by
Barrie McKenna, unfortunately subscriber only.)
posted by bumpkin at 11:48 AM PST - 119 comments
"
Circos is designed for visualizing alignments, conservation and intra- and inter-chromosomal relationships within a genome, between genomes, or between any two or more sets of objects with a corresponding distance scale."
Illustrative (via).posted by stopgap at 11:08 AM PST - 2 comments
RobinHood 2.0. Make a wish - for the greater good or just for yourself. And maybe get $10,000 to make it come true.
posted by GuyZero at 6:59 AM PST - 15 comments
Designing With Microsoft? Evidently this is Microsoft's
attempt at competition with 'Macrodobe', the strange, hybrid beast (
lumbering?) that is the combined Macromedia/Adobe merger. Microsoft
has launched a full suite of products taking aim at Dreamweaver, (
is it better?) Illustrator-Photoshop and
Flash. For many designers who pretend to be developers (or vica versa) Microsoft's new "Expression" will be 3 or 4 orders of magnitude less relevant than that old Corel Suite. The central issue seems to be one of credibility: Can Microsoft escape the seemingly permanent "FrontPage" stigma, not to mention even
more recent design community letdowns?
posted by thisisdrew at 6:39 AM PST - 101 comments
We're all familiar with Peruvian ceviche/cebiche (and if you're not, you should be), but what about
ají de gallina (shredded chicken in walnut-cream-chile sauce)? There's also
papa a la huancaína (potatoes with spicy cheese sauce) and
ocopa (the same, but with pecans and huacatay/black mint). Oh, and don't forget
anticúchos (marinated beef heart skewers) or
causa limeña (hard to explain, but it's like a really amazing potato salad). Peru has a substantial and long-standing Chinese population, which has resulted in Chifa (some
debate on whether that's
Cantonese or
Mandarin), Peru's "indigenous" Chinese culinary tradition. A staple (and my comfort food) of chifa is
arroz chaufa (from Cantonese "chow fan," --> "fried rice").
Peruvian cuisine is getting a boost of interest around teh interwebs, thanks in no small part to dedicated blogs in English (
1,
2,
3) and Spanish (
1,
2). Even Wikipedia has a substantial entry in
English and
Spanish (and
French). And the tourism industry hasn't missed out on this
either (warning, food pr0n & YouTube).
posted by LMGM at 5:15 AM PST - 37 comments
January 22
“We work, we do not steal” is what the Rickshaw
Wallahs have to say about it, whose means of livelihood the Kolkata assembly plans to ban soon, but hasn’t figured out an alternate source of income for
yet. Meanwhile, the good old rickshaw has been finding a new home
abroad, albeit one of a more novel nature. (More on the state of
Transportaion in India, and a World Bank
perspective on the facilities provided by the subcontinent. Plus, some more
images of the Rickshaw.)
posted by hadjiboy at 10:42 PM PST - 8 comments
From 1977 to 1983, between 16-70 Japanese citizens were
abducted in their home country by agents of the North Korean government. 13-year-old Megumi Yokota was the youngest
. This is her story.
posted by JPowers at 10:15 PM PST - 48 comments
Since
Wordplay has come out, crossword puzzles have been on the rise. If you want to join in on the fun, read
this primer by Will Shortz to get started, then download
Across Lite, head to
Cruciverb, and do free puzzles in the right-hand sidebar.
Will Johnston's page contains a huge repository of Across Lite puzzles. If you get stuck, can't figure out why an entry is correct, or just want to chat about a grid's brilliant construction, try reading the crossword blogs. The best two are
Diary of a Crossword Fiend and
Rex Parker Does the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. (Caution! Spoilers abound!) And, if you want to try your hand at constructing some crosswords of your own (submission guidelines for various papers
here),
Crossword Compiler is an outstanding piece of software.
[Via this AskMetafilter question]posted by painquale at 1:07 PM PST - 26 comments
Magazine junkies New magazine in beta, looks promising. Nice interface lets you preview the entire issue online. Contains interviews with some of my favorite online personalities. I hope it flies!
posted by sparky at 6:04 AM PST - 17 comments
Amazon-ian Warrior. An unassuming Canadian chap has been quietly submitting
ludicrous reviews of products sold on Amazon.com for nearly 5 years. For example, his detailed commentary on George P Joyce's
A Comparative Analysis of Two Alternatives to Chemical Aircraft Paint Stripping:
Joyce is an alchemist, taking the leaden medium of technical report writing, and transmuting it with his warm spirit, pouring his pen over the obscured voices of the chemical aircraft paint strippers like a mellifluous caramel gold; redeeming them in a universal chorus of aircraft paint strippers, their individual spirits vibrating like strings in a cosmic harp.
Part of the fun is seeing how many people rated each review as helpful; for example, he gets 100% approval for his comments on
Flautist Angel Statuette (
This 'flautist angel' is crude, eschewing classical representation to debase itself in the distortions of folk art. A freak frisson of masochism prompted me to order an item that believes human anatomy is modelled upon slurry running from a faucet. Look at it.) while virtually no-one was impressed by his analysis of
How Conservatives Won The Heart Of America (
Thought-provoking. I did not know that the "heart of America" is an actual item the Conservatives won in a game of squash in 1972; I assumed it was a metaphor.)
Since Amazon started adding RSS feeds and enabling comments on reviews, he finally appears to be starting to
reach an audience; those wishing to keep updated with his sporadic but fantastic work may appreciate this
handy Feedburner URL.posted by rhodri at 3:26 AM PST - 56 comments
Eygption Police officer use a cellphone to film a man being sodomized by police. Egyptian opposition media have claimed that in the police academy, recruits are trained to use torture to extract confessions. (NSFW)
video on youtube.
posted by IronWolve at 2:36 AM PST - 51 comments
January 21
The Tax Man Cometh: "They believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that their citizen's understanding of the written law should, and in some Platonic sense does, trump the realities of dealing with the government. This makes them uniquely American rebels--more true, they maintain, to the nation's core values than those of us who follow the pragmatic advice . . . "You mess with that shit, you are going to jail."
Brian Doherty analyzes the tax resistance movement (from 2004). Meanwhile,
another ugly confrontation is brewing in New Hampshire, and
violence is in the air.
Mr. Brown, of course, has his views. posted by fourcheesemac at 7:28 AM PST - 112 comments
January 20
"You’re more worried about friction on the 'Desperate Housewives' set than the lack of health coverage at your tedious, soul-destroying job. You have no idea what is going on in the world, and you’re fine with that. You are why democracy doesn’t work."
YOU are #16 on
The Beast's
50 Most Loathsome People in America list.
posted by Hat Maui at 11:05 PM PST - 76 comments
Where in the world was your first kiss? Share your memories with the rest of the world at WhereIHadMyFirstKiss, a fun Google Maps mashup site. Visitors can place a marker to indicate where on earth they were when they received their first kiss, and can leave comments to share their good (or bad) recollections of the event.
posted by amyms at 8:30 PM PST - 75 comments
Tripcheck : Is an online service of the Oregon Department of Transportation. Zoom in on the map and click on a camera icon, and you can see a current image taken by a camera at that location.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:45 PM PST - 17 comments
Atlas Shrugged is again in the pipeline
to be made into a movie. BACK in the 1970s Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of “The Godfather,” first approached Ayn Rand to make a movie of her novel “Atlas Shrugged.” But Rand, who had fled the Soviet Union and gone on to inspire capitalists and egoists everywhere, worried aloud, apparently in all seriousness, that the Soviets might try to take over Paramount to block the project.posted by Brian B. at 1:46 PM PST - 142 comments
January 19
Who is going to care for your pets after you are raptured into heaven? Many Christians believe that animals do not go to heaven. So when Jesus comes back and you return with him to heaven, will there be somebody to take care of your dog or cat?
That’s what JesusPets is for. We are assembling a community of heathen pet-lovers to care for pets that are “left-behind.” We are coordinating with feed mills and kennels in preparation for your post-apocalyptic pet care needs.
posted by jcterminal at 10:53 PM PST - 40 comments
What's worse? MySpace or American Idol? How about
a website that finds all the MySpace pages for those aweful
American Idol contestants (you know- the ones we are supposed to laugh at because they suck)?
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 8:16 PM PST - 11 comments
Should have worked in a sushi bar. Newsoftheweirdfilter : before entering an hospital in order to have corrective surgery on your testicles, make sure your surgeon of choice isn't 1. slightly insane 2. short tempered 3.holding a scalpel (probably SFW, but may elicit a perpetual lack of trust in doctors).
posted by elpapacito at 6:49 PM PST - 39 comments
Sweep the Leg is a new music video by the band No More Kings. It is a parody of
The Karate Kid and it was directed by
Johnny himself. There are a couple of other funny cameos in the video as well.
This is also related to a cool list of the
best villains from 80s movies (Where Johnny is noticeably absent).
Oh, and Johnny (William Zabka) was nominated for an Oscar last year.
Via.
posted by bove at 3:45 PM PST - 40 comments
Ayiti: the Cost of Life. It's a unicef propaganda flash game, but pretty fun so far as propaganda goes. Reminiscent of Oregon Trail.
(via jayisgames)
That via link has some gameplay tips, so skip it if you want to figure things out yourself.
posted by juv3nal at 2:08 PM PST - 16 comments
Combining incredible hubris with deep incompetence,
Active Enterprises was probably the worst game company of all time. They released precisely two games in the early 1990s. The first was the insanely horrible
Action 52, (retail price: $200), which was designed to
take advantage of a "silent wave of anti, far-eastern [sic] made products," and featured an
unwinnable contest. More amazing, however, was the sequel to the 52nd game in their Action 52 cartridge,
Cheetahmen II. Never quite the breakout hit that Active intended, perhaps because it was crippled with
bizarre bugs and
middle school art, the world never got to see the second issue of the
Cheetahmen comic book, nor the planned set of
action figures, nor their
Action Gamemaster console.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:36 AM PST - 26 comments
Fields of Logic is a nice little game for Flash Friday that involves... Turning around televisions in a field. According to some obscure logic rules that you've gotta figure out as you go.
posted by Vamier at 8:44 AM PST - 25 comments
Some like him, some don't. Regardless,
today marks the 200th birthday of
Robert E. Lee. Check out his
first home,
his most famous home, and
not so famous home.
Read his letters,
including his thoughts on surrender, as well his
first major biography, and last, naturally,
his obituary from the New York Times. Oh, you can also
get married by his entombed remains.
posted by Atreides at 7:52 AM PST - 53 comments
An Impartial Interrogation One of the things I miss about my eighteen years in the US Senate are the stories of the old Southern Democrats. I didn't always vote with them, but I loved their technique of responding to an opponent's questions with a humorous story. Once when Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina had to handle a tough question from Mike Mansfield, he said, "You know, Mr. Leader, that question reminds me of the old Baptist preacher who was telling a class of Sunday school boys the creation story. 'God created Adam and Eve and from this union came two sons, Cain and Abel and thus the human race developed.' A boy in the class then asked, 'Reverend, where did Cain and Abel get their wives?' After frowning for a moment, the preacher replied, 'Young man--it's impertinent questions like that that's hurtin' religion.'"
posted by nofundy at 7:46 AM PST - 17 comments
January 18
Banksy is
giving away images of his work under the following terms and conditions:
Everything in the shop is free. All the images can be downloaded to print or use as a desktop.
Serving suggestion:
Prints look best when done on gloss paper using the company printer ink when everyone else is at lunch.
Please do not use this service to launch your own poster company or t-shirt line.posted by donovan at 11:55 PM PST - 64 comments
The Plantation Mentality The veteran broadcast journalist Bill Moyers spoke on Friday before 3,500 at the opening of the National Conference on Media Reform in Memphis. He announced his return to the airwaves and outlined his vision of media reform. "As ownership gets more and more concentrated, fewer and fewer independent sources of information have survived in the marketplace; and those few significant alternatives that do survive, such as PBS and NPR, are under growing financial and political pressure to reduce critical news content and to shift their focus in a mainstream direction, which means being more attentive to establishment views than to the bleak realities of powerlessness that shape the lives of ordinary people."
posted by nofundy at 7:37 AM PST - 48 comments
January 17
StumbleUpon is now
bigger than
del.icio.us, counting 1.3 million users. Is it just another social booknetworking site, or a way for me to finally "surf" the intertubes?
Just ten more Stumbles before bed, and this time I'm serious.posted by Area Control at 8:44 PM PST - 37 comments
What If...Bob Dylan wrote almost every song of the last 30 years in his heyday, but never got around to recording them properly? New York City's Post Show Ensemble dredges up lost footage for
No Direction, Period.posted by beaucoupkevin at 6:17 PM PST - 38 comments
“Oh, I took the roofs road" --just one of the fascinating things at a new Iraq blog--Inside Iraq--
daily life in a war zone through the words of Iraqi journalists in McClatchy's Baghdad Bureau as they risk so much each day to survive. These are unedited first hand accounts of their experiences. Their complete names have been withheld for security reasons.posted by amberglow at 6:13 PM PST - 9 comments
He stands a mere 5'1" but can drive a golf ball over 330 yards, and this past weekend he became the
youngest player in 50 years to make the cut and play on
a PGA Tour event. The golf media is ready to embrace Tadd Fujikawa as its Next Big(!) Thing. Of course, it was
quickly noted that the amateur Tadd outplayed, upstaged, and overshadowed another young Hawaii-bred golfer who did not make the cut at the Sony Open: the 17 year-old
Michelle Wie, who turned pro at age 16 and is raking in an estimated $10 million in endorsements from Nike and Sony (
but maybe we shouldn't break out the Hater-ade over that...). Michelle is widely known for drawing huge crowds while unapologetically ruffling feathers as she attempts to play in various men's tournaments.
Her critics note that she hasn't won against the
Ladies yet, let alone the men, and is no longer deserving of the hype. Thus the parade of talented and ambitious youth continues to plunge into the waiting, toothy embrace of marketing execs worldwide, shouldering the dreams of their parents and weathering the barrage of the critics' cynical ink...
posted by krippledkonscious at 5:16 PM PST - 16 comments
Victorian Turkish Baths - "Can the active, fox-hunting, cricketing, boating Englishman bear the same kind of treatment that benefits and gratifies the indolent, languid, luxurious Turk?"
posted by tellurian at 4:10 PM PST - 12 comments
Templar, Arizona is hands down my favorite webcomic find of 2006. Creator
Spike (AKA Charlie Trotman) is one of the growing number of artists eschewing conventional approaches to the (notoriously lagging) alternative print market, but she's more persistent (and consistent) than most. Also worth noting is the experimental, dialogue-free
Sparkneedle (recently completed). The self described "wankery" of her Sims-illustrated fiction vehicle
Playing With Dolls? Maybe not so much.
posted by nanojath at 9:30 AM PST - 9 comments
Billed as
TV's frst video arcade game show,
Starcade had its contestants battling
each other on video game trivia, as well as actual gameplay. Originally aired in the early 1980's, the show featured games like
Zaxxon,
Congo Bongo,
Star Trek and
Journey, to name
a few.
Ten full episodes are available online, for those of you who want a bit of video game nostalgia. And,
if nothing else, looking at
the contestants is pretty entertaining, in and of itself.
posted by avoision at 9:18 AM PST - 28 comments
Guess who we're having for dinner? Danish shock artist Marco Evaristti lippoed some of his belly fat,
fried meatballs in it and
served it, partaking himself. He also canned some of the
Polpette al grasso di Marco and sold at least two cans for
$23,200 each. Cannibalism? Extreme autophagy? Trenchant comment on plastic surgery, taboos and consumerism? Or just really really gross?
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:26 AM PST - 70 comments
No need to panic, but perhaps there's a need to
stay on top of the still-evolving H5N1 (bird flu) situation.
"
Infections in birds and people are increasing, particularly in Asia,
where the virus was first identified a decade ago. Viet Nam, Hong
Kong, South Korea, Japan and Nigeria reported diseased birds in the
past month, while Indonesia, China and Egypt found new human cases." (quote from
International Society for Infectious Diseases report, Feb. 16, 2007).
If keeping track via
FluWiki or the many
discussion groups isn't your thing, you could just check for the
the flashing red chickens every so often :-)
posted by Quiplash at 8:17 AM PST - 25 comments
The Ten Word Review Review anything you like, but in ten words or less. For example:
A Scanner Darkly: Rotoscoping gives Keanu a soul. Shame he opens his mouth.posted by chrismear at 8:01 AM PST - 35 comments
The coverup is always bigger than the crime. No matter what your political leanings, the Scooter Libby
obstruction of justice trial has something for everyone, including
testimony by memory experts, an
all-star witness lineup, including the Vice President of the United States and the Secretary of State,
phone calls to the press from the bowels of Air Force Two, the
first high-profile Federal court proceeding where bloggers have been given press credentials, some
interesting Voir Dire questioning of potential jurors [
pdf ] - and
the interesting responses thereof, a
book largely culled from research done by the Citizen Press, an unpopular war, an unpopular president, and an even more unpopular Vice-President,
full-frontal assaults on the credibility of the press, scrubbed newspaper archives, at least
one witness (a former White House Official?) who has been granted immunity, an
earlier leak of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq regarding WMD, and quite possibly substantial insight into the who, what, when, and where of the selling of the Invasion of Iraq.
posted by rzklkng at 7:08 AM PST - 28 comments
Thirty years ago today,
Gary Gilmore was executed at the Utah State Prison, the first prisoner to be put to death since the moratorium on executions was established four years prior, and the first execution in Utah in sixteen years. His refusal to appeal his death sentence confounded his lawyers and attracted the attention of the
ACLU, among others, who fought to keep Gilmore alive, against his wishes. His frustrations with the uncertainty of his sentence led him to attempt suicide in prison twice.
His life and death have been recounted in
several books,
films, inspired a
few songs, and even an
SNL skit. His final words, “Let’s do it,” led to a
major marketing campaign.
posted by Nathanial Hörnblowér at 6:28 AM PST - 24 comments
What I've Learned:
Al Green,
Alex Trebek,
Alyssa Milano,
Andy Grove,
Arianna Huffington,
Arny Freytag,
Arthur Miller,
Bill O'Reilly,
Billy Bob Thornton,
Bobby Bowden,
Burt Reynolds,
Carroll Shelby,
Charles Townes,
Christie Brinkley,
Christopher Reeve,
Clive Davis,
Conrad Dobler,
Curt Gowdy,
Dan Rather,
David Bowie,
David Brown,
Don Rickles,
Edward Teller,
Even Knievel,
Faye Dunaway,
Forest Whitaker,
Garry Shandling,
Gene Simmons,
Haley Joel Osment,
Heather Locklear,
Homer Simpson,
Hugh Hefner,
Hunter Clemons,
J. Craig Venter,
1=8991">Jack Bauer,
Jaime Pressly,
James Caan,
James Watson,
Jeff Bezos,
Jim Willett,
Jimmy Dean,
Joe Frazier,
John Kenneth Galbraith,
John McCain,
JR Simplot,
Julia Child,
Katie Couric,
Keith Richards,
Kirk Douglas,
Lou Reed,
Lucinda Williams,
Mark Burnett,
Mia Farrow,
Michael Wright,
Muhammad Ali,
Neil Young,
Ozzy Osbourne,
Pamela Anderson,
Peter O'Toole,
Phil Spector,
Philip Johnson,
Ray Charles,
Red Auerbach,
Richard Branson,
Richard Petty,
Rip Torn,
Robert Altman,
Robert DeNiro,
Robert Evans,
Rod Steiger,
Rodney Dangerfield,
Roseanne,
Roy Jones Jr.,
Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel,
Siegfried and Roy,
Suge Knight,
Tom Petty,
Tommy Franks,
Walter Cronkite. [Slightly More Inside]
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:01 AM PST - 59 comments
Now and again one comes across a word in English and has reason to remark “there really was no good reason to come up with that.” Today, this role will be played by
pseudomamma, from the same roots as the ‘pseudo–’ of any number of English words and the ‘mamma’ of ‘mammaries.’ Yes, doctors have a word for ‘third nipple’ to use in contexts where people not understanding what they’re saying makes their lives easier. Also starring, as the context for the use of this word, and as it so often does these days, is the internet. Specifically
BMEzine, the acme of body-modification exhibition sites; yes, one person in twenty has a third nipple, and yes a goodly number of them has piercings there. For your edification and distraction, its
gallery of third nipple piercings. Not safe for work.
That was the Coral Cache mirror, original here. Via the comments at Jamie Zawinski’s Livejournal. Warranty void unless customer resides in the European Union. Stocks and shares may fall as well as rise. posted by Aidan Kehoe at 12:31 AM PST - 37 comments
January 16
"Georgia Russell is a Scottish artist who uses a scalpel instead of a brush or a pen. She works with obsessive perserverance to create constructions that transform found ephemera, such as books, music scores, maps, newspapers, currency and photographs." Samples
here.
{via design dna}posted by dobbs at 11:02 PM PST - 18 comments
Eclectic is a solar, wind, and plug-in electric-powered "vehicle" making it [theoretically] energy autonomous. While
solar vehicles are not new, this pioneering consumer production model may find a niche market. June 2007, priced starting at 24,000€.
Summary.posted by stbalbach at 9:05 PM PST - 15 comments
Still more Ferrofluid fun The artist who produced 'Protrude Flow' has a new thing: A spiral tower, presumably full of electromagnets, which pulls ferrofluid up and down and all over it in weird black spikes. That's a hopeless description, so watch the (big .wmv) videos:
1 and
2 for full amazingosity.
posted by tombola at 7:10 AM PST - 23 comments
Adultery could mean life, Michigan's second-highest court reported that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison. Michigan's Supreme Court majority has held that it is for the Legislature, not the courts, to decide when the absurdity threshold has been breached.
posted by IronWolve at 2:56 AM PST - 122 comments
January 15
Making Fiends Cartoon is an online cartoon,
via BoingBoing of course, that features a good little girl named Charlotte from Vermont who tries to make friends and a bad little girl named Vendetta who makes fiends, which result in monsters. Apparently its been picked up by Nickelodeon. Features hilarious kitties and classmates.
posted by k8t at 7:12 PM PST - 19 comments
One of Geordi's first stops is to visit his good pal Wesley Crusher, who shows off one of his science projects (a mini tractor beam,) and one of his toys, a device that lets Wesley recreate speech from anyone on the ship. Any doubt that Wesley is a complete weenie is removed when we learn that he uses this device to have Captain Picard say things like, "Welcome to the bridge, Wesley," instead of having Counselor Troi say things like, "Smack my ass, Wesley, I'm a naughty, naughty bitch."
Wil Wheaton recaps Star Trek: The Next Generation.
posted by EarBucket at 2:07 PM PST - 53 comments
1956. France is losing Algeria. It’s lost Indochina. Sure, it’s culturally very productive, with
Nouvelle Vague cinema at its height and existential philosophy gaining ground in the world at large. But to the nation of Napoléon and to one that preferred to emphasise the Résistance in its more recent history, that wasn't enough. What to do? Why, propose political union with Britain, of course.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 11:25 AM PST - 53 comments
A year to the day before his death, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered
this speech at Riverside Church, New York City. In the last years of his life, King moved beyond anti-segregation activism to a broader indictment of American class structure and foreign policy. This is
The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV.
posted by Mister_A at 10:29 AM PST - 56 comments
The Morphable Face Model "captures the variations of 3D shape and texture that occur among human faces. It represents each face by a set of model coefficients, and generates new, natural-looking faces from any novel set of coefficients, which is useful in a wide range of applications in computer vision and computer graphics." Amazing/terrifying tech from
Herr Prof. Dr. Volker Blanz.
posted by gwint at 9:57 AM PST - 38 comments
Many people want to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana and other drugs, however, few know that many
U.S. states are content simply to tax. In fact,
even the federal government wants a share (middle of p. 89 of the PDF), and
used tax stamps in
early prohibition, but only the states have recently issued
issued cool
stamps (be sure to click "exhibit"). The point, of course, is not to actually tax the drugs, but to
penalize the drug dealers for tax evasion as well as drug sales.
They have brought in some money, though. A few interesting state government pages:
Conecticut,
Nebraska,
North Carolina and their
tax return form, and
Kansas.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:55 AM PST - 30 comments
Physician uses Google to Save Dying Family - Days from Certain Death .
Entire Family had Days to live from an almost 100% fatal poison.
Physician finds experimental cure in Google Scholar — but it is not approved in USA.
How do you get through theMassive FDA red tape in days, as the family is nearing the end?
Compassionate manufacturers and a persistant Doctor all came together to help - with mere days left for family already in the process of dying.
Read about the Miracles that finally occurred.
posted by Bodyguard at 2:33 AM PST - 42 comments
January 14
The King Dream Chorus and Holiday Crew Twenty years ago various rap artists got together to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (taking some inspiration from
Artists Against Apartheid). You'd think Grandmaster Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow, and Run-D.M.C. would be enough. But you'd be wrong. Lisa Lisa, Teena Marie, Fat Boys, and El DeBarge wanted in, too. All kinds of youtubey goodness here, including Ricky Martin as part of Menudo, and several solos by a scrumptious Whitney Houston.
Lyrics are
here, and you can buy the single
hereposted by Kibbutz at 11:01 PM PST - 2 comments
Dora McDonald, Martin Luther King's private secretary from 1960 until his death, has
died at age 81. While few have heard of Ms. McDonald, she was a very important figure in King's work, and was the one who had to tell
Coretta Scott King that her husband had been murdered.
posted by cerebus19 at 6:33 PM PST - 6 comments
Passivhaus/Passive house design that saves mucho energy, does not require air conditioning, does
not require heating even when outdoors it's 10 below! Since, for example, more than 30% of energy consumed in the UK is for homes and 82 per cent of that is space and water heating, [Monbiot, "Heat,"chapter 5, "Our Leaky Homes,"] changing our standards of home design is important.
Diagram
shows that basic solar design concepts are well understood and technically easy to implement in new construction. [If only my house could be turned 45 degrees!] Possibly through ignorance, and partly through the desire to cut corners instead of doing things right, we do not make these wise concepts a priority. There are lots of
cool alternative building techniques, many of which are
traditional and being revived. This
leading design standard saves 90% of energy used in the home. Here in Canada it's called the
net zero energy home.posted by Listener at 2:13 PM PST - 16 comments
A Photochrom is a color photo lithograph, produced from a black-and-white negative. They were especially popular in the 1890s and were frequently used on postcards.
Photochrom.com presents "over 1,300 different images of United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba." But that's nothing—the Library of Congress
presents 5,000 of them, from all over the world. The first page is nature shots from Ireland; I suggest clicking on the page links at the top, finding a region that interests you, and using the PREV PAGE - NEXT PAGE links to find more. Some favorites:
a street in Fiume (now Rijeka), the
harbor of Algiers, the
outskirts of Jerusalem. (LoC link via
wood s lot.)
posted by languagehat at 8:49 AM PST - 28 comments
January 13
Michael Brecker has passed away Arguably, one of the most influential saxophonists of all time, he has lost his fight against myelodysplastic syndrome. Truly a major loss for the jazz and rock worlds.
posted by milnak at 5:10 PM PST - 30 comments
Two days ago, the senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism was
interviewed (wma file, relevant remarks begin at 3:00) on
Federal News Radio, an internet-only all-news radio station aimed at government employees. What has drawn the attention and ire of both the mainstream (liberalish) media, e.g.,
(1) (2) (3), and intertubers, e.g.,
(1) (2), is that deputy assistant secretary Stimson
(pic) (a lawyer no less) is advocating that businesses boycott prominent law firms representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
posted by found missing at 11:26 AM PST - 49 comments
Metro-land: Railways Around Amersham & The Metropolitan Line. 'The name "Metro-land" was created in 1915 by the publicity department of the Metropolitan Railway. "Metro-Land" became the name of the annual publication of the railway's booklet which described the area the railways served through north west London, into Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. The Railway set up a separate company to develop housing and shops along the Metropolitan's line. Much of the area was extensively developed between the World Wars and created a distinctive atmosphere...'
A guide to the Metropolitan Line (prefaced by John Betjeman's poem 'Metro-Land') is
here. The London Transport Museum website has
an article on London Underground and 'Metro-Land'.
posted by plep at 8:34 AM PST - 4 comments
January 12
Through a Glass, Darkly How the Christian right is reimagining U.S. history--from Harpers.
...producing a flood of educational texts with which to wash away the stains of secular history. ...posted by amberglow at 2:02 PM PST - 111 comments
The Luce Foundation Center in the recently renovated and reopened National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, is more like a smörgåsbord-cum-antique store, packed in an overflowing archive rather than a more traditional museum layout. The collection is comprised of varying American art styles and genres in intimate display cases, with little in the way of context or reference. (Though the same site in this link is available on computers scattered throughout the gallery for further detail.)
posted by Dave Faris at 11:14 AM PST - 12 comments
"We're offering a fan amenity. Fans can elect to choose it or not choose it. We are offering basic ballpark fare that most fans enjoy." An
all-you-can eat section at the
Dodger stadium for the coming baseball season. Quintessentially American.
posted by jaimev at 11:00 AM PST - 47 comments
January 11
Black Sheep Bloodthirsty, murderous sheep are on the loose in a small farming village. Keep your fingers crossed, this upcoming horror movie from New Zealand just might be Snakes on a Plane 2!
posted by dhammond at 11:43 PM PST - 36 comments
The San Francisco Armory, was built in 1914 and its 200,000 square feet spans an entire city block. For 30 years empty, abandoned, defunct, its imposing architecture, modeled on a
Moorish castle, has long been an unsettling and intriguing curiosity for local residents. But new life will at least be breathed into this historic monument: the Armory has been purchased by
Kink.com [nsfw], a fetish porn studio that will soon begin filming
within its walls.
posted by bukharin at 7:02 PM PST - 41 comments
The MFF vs The Evil Dead is composed of over 200 audio and video samples taken from the following films: The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness. NO OTHER ELEMENTS WERE USED. (youtube filter)
hello negatendo!posted by boo_radley at 5:38 PM PST - 24 comments
CitizenRe is a solar power rental company for the home. Free to install (!), a monthly rental fee is equal to what would normally be paid to the power company.
Video.
posted by stbalbach at 2:04 PM PST - 67 comments
Water footprint - "of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation"
posted by Gyan at 1:09 PM PST - 9 comments
Pork flavored stamp. In celebration of the Year of the Pig, China is releasing a stamp that smells (when scratched) and tastes (when licked) of sweet-and-sour pork. I thought this was a pretty innovative idea for a stamp. But it's
not new. A few more
examples (scroll down to "scratch-and-sniff").posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 10:15 AM PST - 25 comments
Creativity, Inc: Dave Eggers of
McSweeney's is a proprietor. A shopkeeper. Perhaps even a franchise magnate! It was his keen perception of unmet needs in niche markets that led to the opening of a growing array of supply houses across the country. Among them:
The Pirate Store, for the well-outfitted swashbuckler;
The Boring Store, a subtle, unassuming purveyor of goods for secret agents; the
Superhero Supply Store, in Brooklyn, carrying all the eyewear and accessories today's world-savers require; and
Greenwood Space Travel Supply, where customers are reminded of the space-travel axiom "A lack of preparation is a prescription for mishaps." If these sound like curious business ventures for a celebrated author, there's a reason: the
storefronts, though real, are just that -
fronts. They're the streetside faces (and fundraising arms) of the nonprofit
826National, a family of learning centers for kids ages 6-18. The 826 'stores' provide free
field trips, creatively themed
writing workshops,
publishing, and
one-on-one instruction. Supported by an impressive field of
cultural types (including Ira Glass, Sarah Vowell, Sherman Alexie, and others), the program is growing. Coming soon: Michigan 826 will open
Monster Union Local 826, and
826LA will open the Echo Park Time Travel Mart.
posted by Miko at 7:44 AM PST - 51 comments
If you thought the video of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon was rather blurry, it might interest you to know that this was never broadcast as well as it could have been. The original video quality was much better. You can't view the original video today, because NASA has
lost the bleepin tape. Nobody seems to care, but the guys who once made the transmission possible are looking for it. An Australian
minister is on their side. If the tape hasn't been accidentally degaussed, there's only one machine left that is able to read it.
posted by Termite at 4:17 AM PST - 19 comments
Jan. 11, 2002, the first 20 detainees, shackled and blindfolded, arrived from Afghanistan .... and since then, nearly 800 prisoners have passed through the detention center in southeastern Cuba.
To mark the anniversary, demonstrations are planned Thursday in New York, London, Sydney, Australia, and other cities as well as dozens of small towns in the United States and Britain.
Gitmo Detainees Join Hunger Strike .... & ....
WikiPeidia History Articleposted by Bodyguard at 1:12 AM PST - 7 comments
January 10
Jorge Luis Borges "excerpts from two of the six Norton Lectures that Jorge Luis Borges delivered at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968. The recordings of these six lectures, only lately discovered in the Harvard University Archives, uniquely capture the cadences, candor, wit, and remarkable erudition of one of the most extraordinary and enduring literary voices of our age. Through a twist of fate that the author of Labyrinths himself would have relished, these lost lectures return to us now--in Borges's own voice."
In English - mp3
posted by vronsky at 6:11 PM PST - 46 comments
Orson Welles may be best known as the director and star of
Citizen Kane, but before he made movies he was a star of the radio. Although he gained notoriety by narrating
War of the Worlds in 1938, he was also the voice of
Lamont Cranston,
The Shadow, and had a successful run as the
creator and star of the
Mercury Theater On The Air, which, after gaining sponsorship, became known as the
Campbell Playhouse. Even after the heyday of radio, Welles provided his voice for
The Black Museum series (based on real-life cases from the files of Scotland Yard), and
The Lives of Harry Lime, a prequel to his role in the film
The Third Man.
posted by supercrayon at 4:09 PM PST - 38 comments
"To me, I've always looked upon the stage as a much-hallowed place, a place of worship for real artists, as I said just before. That doesn't just stem from rock n roll days; to me, Judy Garland was a real artist, Al Jolson was a real artist, people like that gave their all and everything for the stage and most of them finished up dying for it as well. In my view, nobody should be allowed to stand on a stage unless they can present the total professional thing, unless they really can sing and really can play. Punk was a total anti-attitude towards music."NWOBHM: How a now-little-known nostalgic reaction to punk called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal changed the world.
[much, much more inside]posted by koeselitz at 3:09 PM PST - 40 comments
Some people keep track of their receipts. Others keep track of their goals. And then there's
Nicholas, an artist/designer and DJ who chronicled his 26,059 iTunes tracks played, his 859.5 social drinks (including 293 Stella Artois) consumed, his 30,724 airmiles traveled, and, yes, his 49 cat photos in his own personal
2006 Annual Report. (via
Coudal)
posted by Alt F4 at 12:13 PM PST - 27 comments
Pho (pronounced fuh), Hanoi's signature beef broth scented with ginger and anise, is one of the world's great culinary glories. Turns out it's not an ancient dish, but a 1950s-era syncretic product of the French occupation of Vietnam, which introduced the notion of boiling beef in a
pot au feu (which may be the origin of the name). The heady, fragrant noodle soup is a global
hit, prompting an
international pho conference,
several good blogs, and a sensual national obsession: "
When Vietnamese talk of pho they think of sex: 'We say that rice is a spouse, whereas pho is a lover.' " "
Pho is life, love and all things that matter." Tips on
eating and
cooking pho - recipes and more inside.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:42 AM PST - 105 comments
Arcade '84, from Cinemarcade. (Warning: 32MB MPEG. Low bandwidth short version
here). Two liter bottle of Shasta and all Rush mix-tape not included.
For more 3d rendered arcade cabinet goodness, see
the TimeOut Tunnel movie project. Put together your own arcade and populate it with models and textures from the
3d Arcade at MAMEworld.
posted by cosmicbandito at 8:33 AM PST - 12 comments
Downtown Lives On Are the New Yorkers who lament the passing of cool, outre downtown (victim of high rents and a safer city) just not looking hard enough? Or are Ryan McGinley, Dan Colen, and Dash Snow just punks making bad art? Threat or menace?
posted by dame at 7:21 AM PST - 84 comments
San Francisco, 1967. CBS news is there: "This is the house of a popular local band that plays hard rock music. They call themselves the
Grateful Dead." In between some
seriously heavy-handed editorializing from grand old man of the news Harry Reasoner, you can catch an interview with Garcia and company plus footage of a Golden Gate Park concert. Jump ahead 38 years, and another CBS newsman, a rather more respectful Ed Bradley, pays a friendly visit to grand old man of the 60's,
Mr. Zimmerman.
[links to Google video]posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:46 AM PST - 97 comments
"Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's," one scientist remarked to another. The only problem is that Ben Barres and his “sister” Barbara Barres were the same person. An FTM transsexual offers a
unique view of the impact of gender discrimination in science, having seen it from both sides. Despite the fact that recent studies have shown that a woman has to be
2.5 times as productive to be judged as scientifically competant as a man in the sciences, many still argue that there is actually
a level playing field, a source of
some frustration for many women in the field. (For a somewhat easier to read and referenced response to the Physics Today letters, check out Evalyn Gates’ reply at the end.)
posted by kyrademon at 2:14 AM PST - 87 comments
January 9
The Man Who Shook Up Vegas is a fascinating and relatively brief Wall St Journal article about Bob Stoll, a college dropout whose statistical wizardry seems to be forcing the $96 Billion U.S. sports wagering industry to jump through hoops. Even if you don't follow sports gambling at all, the article is a very compelling read.
note: since the wsj.com is subscriber only, link goes to a reprint of the article.posted by jonson at 9:54 PM PST - 29 comments
Want to learn about investing? Morningstar, an independent investment researcher, is offering 172 free online "classes" on stocks, bonds, funds, and portfolio building. And there's nifty quizzes at the end of each lesson where you can earn points that can be used for Morningstar products.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:49 PM PST - 20 comments
Memoirs of Phillipe de Commynes. A first-hand account of the 15th-century military and diplomatic struggle between
Louis XI of
France, a master of intrigue, and his most powerful rival,
Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy. "At that time the subjects of the house of Burgundy were very rich because of the long peace which they had enjoyed and the great moderation of the prince under whom they lived, who taxed his subjects little. It seems to me that then his territories could well have been described as the Promised Land, more so than any others on earth. They were overflowing with wealth and they had a peace which they have not since experienced during the last twenty-three years. ... But today I do not know in this world a people so desolate, and I fear that the sins of the time of their prosperity have brought them their present adversity; most of all because they did not recognize that all these favours came from God who distributes them as it pleases him."
posted by russilwvong at 6:17 PM PST - 6 comments
Historian assaulted then arrested for jaywalking in Atlanta. A historian at the "Historians against the war" conference in Atlanta was stopped for jaywalking. Being from the UK, he thanked the officer, then realized the officer didn’t have any name tag or identification. He asked to see the police officers identification, and the police officer took offense stating "See my Uniform!". The officer kicked the mans leg out, pushed him to the ground and handcuffed him. The police officer had 5 other police officers step on the historian causing bruises on his neck. After being in jail for 8 hours, he arranged 1000 dollar bail. He refused to accept a please bargain that would effect his green card, so the case was dropped.
posted by IronWolve at 12:34 PM PST - 124 comments
Breaking News: Apple Announces Touchscreen iPhone. In this morning's MacWorld keynote, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, a touchscreen smartphone with only one button. Two years in the making, it runs OS X, works as an iPod, displays video on a 3.5" screen, and has the usual bells and whistles (Bluetooth, e-mail, Google Maps, WiFi, etc.), plus some other slick features like: a proximity sensor that turns the screen off when it's near your ear, an accelerometer that detects whether it's in portrait or landscape, and an ambient light sensor to dim the screen accordingly. I'm not usually a gadget person, but this thing seems pretty damn cool. Now let's just see how much it costs...
More live MacWorld coverage available at:
Engadget ,
MacRumors.
posted by EnormousTalkingOnion at 10:35 AM PST - 406 comments
The Ideological Animal. We think our political stance is the product of reason, but we're easily manipulated and surprisingly malleable. Our essential political self is more a stew of childhood temperament, education, and fear of death. Call it the 9/11 effect. Or the Metafilter effect.
[ducks]posted by gottabefunky at 9:55 AM PST - 44 comments
Poof and Foop. Can Metafilter tackle yet another horrible physics clusterfuck? Answers go
here, or we can just argue it out right here at home.
posted by tehloki at 6:01 AM PST - 136 comments
Beyond Belief. Google Video of the complete proceedings of the conference
Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion and Survival, which took place on November 5-7, 2006 at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. (There are ten sessions, which average about two hours each.)
Bios of the speakers who attended.
A NYT article on the conference: "By the third day, the arguments were so heated that Dr. [Melvin] Konner was reminded of 'a den of vipers.' "
Further conversation concerning the conference, in which Scott Atran writes, "I find it fascinating that among the brilliant scientists and philosophers at the conference, there was no convincing evidence presented that they know how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based. It makes me embarrassed to be a scientist and atheist."
posted by Prospero at 6:00 AM PST - 114 comments
Added January 8, 2007: The US Navy has a message for you(Tube) concerning the Navy Seals: "They are warrior diplomats and trusted teammates in the war against terrorism. They understand the political and cultural sensitivities of the countries in which they operate."
Added October 22, 2006: This former Marine commander has a message for you(Tube) as well, concerning "cultural sensitivities". Speaking of his part in the assault on Fallujah: "I started to cry... the woman seeing my reaction... put her hand on my cheek and said Insha'Allah... cause these people over there can accept it as God's will... but no, it wasn't God's will, it was my fucking order. I gave the order to fire those rockets into the building, and I killed her family. I have to live with that..."
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:51 AM PST - 29 comments
January 8
Please enjoy
chainsaw carving,
pencil carving,
bone carving,
turkey carving,
ice carving,
rice caving,
rock carving,
metal carving,
ancient carving,
airplane carving,
tooth carving, microscopic carving horray!
posted by joelf at 4:19 PM PST - 11 comments
Al Gore trains 1,000 people from around the world to share the message he presented in "An Inconvenient Truth".
"The goal had been to train 1,000 "presenters" to show slides of melting glaciers and charts of climbing temperatures, but many more have wanted in.
Those selected to gather at the Hilton Nashville Downtown last week included teachers, doctors, a meteorologist, ministers, Wal-Mart employees, actress Cameron Diaz, architects, retirees, veterans and financiers."posted by PreteFunkEra at 3:13 PM PST - 63 comments
"My Shtick? Being Black." You probably know Jordan Carlos from his role on
The Colbert Report. Like me, you may not have known he didn't actually work there: "'Saturday Night Live' has no black writers. 'The Daily Show' also doesn't have any, and neither does 'The Colbert Report,' a show on which I've played Stephen Colbert's black friend 'Alan,' a member of the staff. That's right. 'The Colbert Report' had to
hire an actor to play a black person who works on the show."
(via Oliver Willis)posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:01 PM PST - 180 comments
Rugs of War ::
"The traditional knotted rugs made by the semi-nomadic Baluch people of northern Afghanistan are famous for their distinctive designs, their rich yet subdued palette and the quality of their construction and materials, which feature traditional patterns and motifs.
The “war rug” is an evolution of these Baluch rugs through the inclusion of militaria and other references to the experience of war and conflict in the region. These significant changes became apparent almost immediately after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, when rug-makers began incorporating complex imagery of war planes, helicopters, machine guns, maps and texts into their designs."posted by anastasiav at 1:16 PM PST - 9 comments
The Colemak keyboard layout. Colemak is a new alternative to the QWERTY and Dvorak layouts. Designed for efficient and ergonomic touch typing in English, Colemak places the 10 most frequent letters of English (A,R,S,T,D,H,N,E,I,O) on the home row. Z,X,C are preserved in their QWERTY positions for easy copy and paste operations. It gets rid of the Caps Lock and replaces it with Backspace so you no longer need to move your hand off the home position to correct errors. Available for Windows/Mac/Linux/Unix it works with all standard keyboards, including laptops.
[via: Projects], [Previously]posted by Mitheral at 11:45 AM PST - 91 comments
"He shaves Lady X in swift, efficient strokes, and there is something gentle about this, something almost ancient. Like the ritualistic washing of a body in some cultures. It looks tender, at least until Joe uses a small hose to aim a stream of water down Lady X’s face to remove the cream — that somehow reminds me of the rinse cycle in a carwash."
posted by maudlin at 8:47 AM PST - 55 comments
"I yearn for that kind of a backpacking trip minus the bears." "I was much the happy to know this man was tremendously eaten ferociously by the grizzly bear." "Not bad but not enough black chicks."
The work of these online reviewers may not merit their own
special edition, but they're special in their own way. Doc Savage reviews 200+ items on Amazon, most of which he hates, unless they involve black women and/or
Carly Simon. At Netflix,
HV from Duvall is not nearly as prolific, but gets 5 stars for sublimely anfractuous English. And
DJAkin over at IMDB has written nearly 500 reviews, although most of them read like
Jackie Harvey's Mad Libs. He (or she) may not be the next
A. O. Scott, but if you can find me a critic with a more sincere and unsnarked love of cinema, I'll eat my britches.
posted by sonofslim at 8:20 AM PST - 27 comments
Guy Kawasaki interviews Aziza Mohmmand. What’s the most inspiring story of entrepreneurship that you’ve heard in 2006? My answer does not involve two guys in a garage who sell their company to Google for $1.6 billion. No way...my answer is a woman who runs a soccer-ball factory in Kabul, Afghanistan.
posted by davar at 4:04 AM PST - 6 comments
Top 'BRANDS' 2006, 2005, 2004 - Current List and Achive Overview on How survey was done.... What BRANDS have the most recognition and are the most popular with Americans? Here are the results of the current annual survey and achives from the past two years
"With the multitude of brand choices available to consumers, this survey is an important indicator of consumer activity and its correlation to social behavior .... Companies that can provide a clear and consistent brand to consumers, as well as harmonize with social changes
will find themselves in a promising position, as illustrated by top-ranking brands..."
posted by Bodyguard at 2:33 AM PST - 16 comments
Russia's discomfort with its Muslim minority stems from a fear that the higher-than-average fertility of the Muslim population (6-10 children children per woman among Muslims vs 1.5 per woman among non-Muslims) will make the ethnic Russians of eastern-orthodox persuasion a minority within the state. [More Inside]
posted by gregb1007 at 1:17 AM PST - 43 comments
The Surgery of Love. Dr. James C. Burt was an Ohio gynecologist who circumcised over 2000 women without their consent over a period of 22 years. He didn’t operate in secret, and actually published a book about it in 1975, which he called “The Surgery of Love”. He claimed that female genitalia were "structurally inadequate" for intercourse, and that by removing their clitoral hoods and "realigning" the vagina, he could turn women into
”horny little mice” (PDF). His surgeries often left women with
sexual dysfunction, infection and the need for corrective surgery. But although
other doctors in the area knew about him, they dismissed the problems with a laugh: “Oh, I see Jim Burt got hold of you.” At least 10 women who tried to sue Burt had their cases dismissed when no doctors would testify against him, and when one doctor finally reported Burt to the state medical board after treating one of his victims, he was
ostracized by the local medical community for breaking rank. But the lawsuits, and their attendant publicity, finally caused the Ohio State Medical Board to pressure Burt into
voluntarily surrendering his license in 1989. Further attempts to sue were dismissed because of statutes of limitation and a 1987 law giving hospitals
immunity from certain lawsuits. James Burt retired to a comfortable life in Florida, making no apology.
posted by kyrademon at 12:12 AM PST - 108 comments
January 7
Bubbleprice.com is the handy guide for Internet startup entrepreneurs to use to calculate their next investment round. If you've recently raised money for your startup, how do you plan to use it? If you're working for a startup, better hope
Matt Marshall doesn't tag you with the dreaded
bubble tag.
posted by gen at 11:56 PM PST - 7 comments
Some new gadgets, things and inventions:
solar bikini that charges your ipod,
paper soft wall,
waterproof laptop,
million dollar fishing lure,
Obvio hybrid micro-car,
needle-free injection,
hi-tech dummies that can speak, breathe, bleed, react to drugs & die,
dragon bag. Interactive sight, sound and physical
objects from the student artists of the NYU
Interactive telecommunications biannual showcase [video], including
Animalia Chordata and Botanicalls, building telecommunications between people and their plants.
posted by nickyskye at 9:06 PM PST - 22 comments
The Chevy Volt, GM's new plug-in hybrid electric car. For a customer driving about 40 miles a day or about 15,000 miles a year, compared to a 30 mpg car, the Volt would save about 500 gallons of gasoline per year. If the car is charged every night, the driver should be able to achieve that mileage using virtually no gasoline. That same example would also save 4.4 metric tonnes of CO2 every year from each car. All it needs for mass production is a supplier for its untested lithium ion battery concept.
posted by Brian B. at 7:37 PM PST - 68 comments
Iraq: The Lost Generation. This 47 minute long documentary was filmed by an anonymous Iraqi journalist. Broadcast on the UK's Channel 4 in November, it tells the stories of several young Iraqis whose lives have been changed by the invasion and occupation of their country.
posted by washburn at 3:30 PM PST - 11 comments
In 1933 an unassuming farmer, one Cecil Dill, was thrust into the spotlight for his 15 minutes of fame, on account of his astonishing musical talent. He played his
hands. Just his
hands. He was a practitioner
(actually the first we know of) of the little-known art of
manualism. The hands may be the most difficult "instruments" in the world to play, but there
are those still putting
palms together for the sake of melody. And what better accompanist for a virtuosic pair of hands than a
bicycle pump? And though he really should rethink the afro wig, this guy's rendition of
Purple Haze really must be heard.
[note: most links go to video sites with very flatulent audio]posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:40 AM PST - 32 comments
January 6
The Red Hill Guide is an amazingly detailed and well-written compendium of desktop hardware old and new, with a focus on PC and x86 compatibles. Look for your first CPU, hard drive or mainboard.
posted by loquacious at 11:01 PM PST - 40 comments
Ouch. You know that kid who just won't accept responsibility for his actions? Keeps making excuses, or denying the plain facts, or insists he never said such a thing...
Mom, you are soooo unfair!... Some of the Press haven't grown out of it. Glenn Greenwald gives them a spanking.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:18 PM PST - 99 comments
Israel leaks plans for nuclear strike on Iran. The details were leaked (on purpose it appears) from Israeli military personal in order to test the waters, prepare the world, and/or put pressure on others to act first. One source: "As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished." Glad I don't live in the Middle East.
posted by bhouston at 8:25 PM PST - 102 comments
The LA Times tagged the Gates Foundation today for harmful investment practices. The
Gates Foundation generally gets only positive PR for their great work on global health. But today the LA Times presented startling evidence that the foundation's own investments are actually causing much of the harm in the communities where the foundation is working. As the poster child of the free market capitalist system, is it time for
Gates to ask whether
globalization is a primary cause of the third world poverty his foundation is trying to fix?
posted by commonmedia at 4:30 PM PST - 56 comments
The Re-Animation of Ryan Larkin.
Ryan Larkin, the subject of Chris Landreth's haunting animated short
Ryan, has returned to animation after twenty five years of life on the street in Montreal with three station IDs that aired on MTV Canada on Christmas Day. And now he is at work on a new animated short,
Spare Change--
inspired by his panhandling days outside Schwartz's on The Main--where you can help with the film's funding by contributing via PayPal. (more within)
posted by y2karl at 2:41 PM PST - 10 comments
Animation collective Three Legged Legs' (
previously) newest piece,
Samurai (embedded quicktime
here, High Def direct download
here) is a really beautiful looking short cartoon in Japanese.
Warning to those fearing advertising, the piece was sponsored by GE, although it shows no branding or GE messaging of any kind.) Via.
posted by jonson at 12:32 PM PST - 5 comments
The story began quietly enough on May 18, 2002, when an angler caught an 18 inch fish in a
Crofton, Maryland pond. In
2005 a
fisherman is reported saying "We would throw one in the cooler, two others would jump out and we'd have to chase them through the woods."
Frankenfish,
timeline of the snakehead story in the USA. The snakehead is a voracious, predatorial
fish, capable of walking,
attacking men, living up to 4 days out of water and now
spreading from
state to state. Video of
snakeheads eating (disturbing). Another kind of snakehead, the
smuggler of humans. Mentioned
previously on MetaFilter. [
via]posted by nickyskye at 10:17 AM PST - 37 comments
Is "Apocalypto" pornography? "I am not a compulsively politically correct type who sees the Maya as the epitome of goodness and light... But in "Apocalypto," no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities." Traci Arden
posted by hard rain at 10:08 AM PST - 129 comments
A revised U.S. plant hardiness map has been put out by the National Arbor Day Foundation, based on numbers from 5,000 cooperative climate observation stations throughout the United States. The foundation
forged ahead with their own revisions since the official
USDA map update has stalled. One unofficial
draft [PDF] does exist. A USDA
spokesperson said their map delay is because of fine-tuning where to draw the zone lines; the agency also plans to incorporate other data such as wind.
posted by rolypolyman at 8:29 AM PST - 8 comments
Before you do anything else, just
listen to this. That's
eefing, a 100-plus-year-old vocal technique from rural Tennessee that's, well, the original hillbilly beatboxing. The undisputed master of the art was
Jimmie Riddle. His unique skill landed him
recording* and
TV (youtube) work. Want more weird sounds from the deep south? Try
Hollerin & Whoopin and
Ringing the Pig. *
[warning: on the "Little Eefin Annie" page, avoid the "click here to hear Rolf Harris Eeefin'!" link: it's a pesky popup.posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:16 AM PST - 51 comments
January 5
My coworker from Buffalo NY brought in a bunch of
sponge candy from back home and I was just about the only one who liked it. You can also
make the stuff at home. Well someone can. Apparently it can only be made in winter, on account of the temperature needing to be just right for the crunchy center to set. Don't let the hot wings steal your glory, sponge candy!
Which are also available, rendered in chocolate from the same site.posted by mzurer at 2:39 PM PST - 36 comments
Virginia woman could get 2 years in prison for throwing McDonald's bag - a jury in Stafford County, Virginia has recommended a two-year prison sentence for Jessica Julia Hall, a 25-year-old mother of three, for throwing a bag with a soft drink inside into the car next to her. She was convicted of a felony offense after getting into an altercation with another driver on
I-95 between Fredericksburg, VA and Washington, DC - widely considered to be one of the most congested stretches of
road on the East Coast. Anyone who drives in the DC area can tell you how
overcrowded the highways are. It gets worse in the summer when the tempratures rise and
tempers flare. This could be an example of excessive justice, or perhaps juries in this area
have had enough.
posted by smoothvirus at 12:22 PM PST - 146 comments
Fame and Infamy. In some sort of journalist version of two (geek) worlds colliding, graphic novel author
Warren Ellis, famous for his acerbic personality and sociocultural commentaries, starts a regular op-ed column for
Reuters, about the overly-hyped user-defined virtual world of
Second Life.
posted by jcterminal at 11:38 AM PST - 22 comments
January 4
Cancer Cure Patented A group of researchers claim that they are patenting a possible cure for cancer involving nothing more than sugar and short-chain fatty acid combination.
posted by TravisJeffery at 11:33 PM PST - 26 comments
Sir Paul McCartney is quoted a few posts below as having warned John Lennon against making fun of Paul's drug use. The rest of us, luckily, are free to point and laugh. This
Paul McCartney Drug Timeline should help you get started!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:32 PM PST - 60 comments
Fairfax County Public Library system ditches the classics. If titles remain untouched for two years, they may be discarded--permanently. "We're being very ruthless," boasts library director Sam Clay.... Books by Charlotte Brontë, William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, Marcel Proust and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have recently been pulled.
posted by caddis at 11:07 AM PST - 99 comments
...He expressed regret that he had said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus and enclosed a gift for the Oral Roberts University. After quoting the line "money can't buy me love" from "Can't Buy Me Love" he said, "It's true. The point is this, I want happiness. I don't want to keep on with drugs. Paul told me once, 'You made fun of me for taking drugs, but you will regret it in the end.' Explain to me what Christianity can do for me. Is it phoney? Can He love me? I want out of hell."
John Lennon's Born-Again Phaseposted by y2karl at 10:07 AM PST - 79 comments
At the end of the Korean War,
James Veneris was an American POW awaiting repatriation. But when his time came, he—
along with twenty other Americans and a Briton—declined to leave and chose to cast his lot with Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. Over time, almost all of these men became disillusioned with Marxism and eventually
returned to their homelands. The Cold War that informed their decisions has become a chapter in the history books but the story of Western defectors to the Communist bloc is just now being written.
posted by jason's_planet at 8:37 AM PST - 9 comments
"If you purchased a Carfax Vehicle History Report directly from Carfax at any time before October 27, 2006, you're a Class Member for purposes of
this settlement." Seems Carfax reports only include damage reports from 30 U.S state. Something Carfax nover bothered to mention.
posted by punkfloyd at 6:58 AM PST - 13 comments
Broken Embargoes. Given the long amount of preparation required to print an automotive "buff book" (US examples include
Car&Driver,
Road&Track,
Automobile, and
MotorTrend), automobile manufacturers customarily provide them with access to concepts and new production vehicles months prior to the "official" public unveiling, requiring them to
abide by an embargo on the images and data until a certain date has passed, usually to accomodate a carshow or other media event. In these cases, it was to coincide with the
North American International Autoshow (NAIAS, aka Detroit Autoshow, 1/13-1/21), with the embargo lifted with either 1/7/2007 online publication or February print issues, which the buff books dropped the last week of a December. As soons as that happened, web outlets like
blogs and
various forums released their embargoed materials for each model. As a result, many manufacturers have had their marketing plans torn assunder (list and more background inside)...
posted by rzklkng at 6:53 AM PST - 12 comments
While you compose that incisive comment, or scour the blogs for an interesting post, or photoshop your latest masterpiece, or whatever you do on your computer, perhaps you'd like to do it to the mellifluous strains of some
enchanting Indian vocal music. Learn more
here. Listen to more Indian music of almost every type
(including historic film music from decades past) here.
[previously]posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:14 AM PST - 15 comments
January 3
Diseases of the Skin by Gary M. White & Neil H. Cox. All you ever wanted to know about how bad your skin could be - full of images. Possibly NSFW, as some groin photos are included.
posted by youngergirl44 at 9:57 PM PST - 31 comments
The Rising Suns PV I found this techno PV (Japanese for 'promotion video') by Takkyu Ishino (of the band Denki Groove) to be pretty impressive (assuming the people are real & not CG).
[youtube] posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:35 PM PST - 11 comments
Get paid to blog Reveiewme.com is offering to pay you to blog. The site reserves the right to reject any submission but they do pay between $20 and $200 per each review taken. A new development or have we seen this
before?
posted by MrMerlot at 4:38 PM PST - 26 comments
“Maybe, yes, I am a diva.” Meet Ali Saleem, known on Pakistani TV as Begum Nawazish Ali, hostess of a popular talk show.
Mr. Saleem’s portrayal ... a middle-aged widow who, in glamorous saris and glittery diamonds, invites to her drawing room politicians, movie stars and rights advocates from Pakistan and India.posted by amberglow at 1:54 PM PST - 21 comments
Cerro Torre is a
magnificent,
bleak shard of granite in Argentina's
Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. In the Patagonian summer of early 1959,
Cesare Maestri, Toni Egger, and Cesarino Fava began their attempt to be the first to climb the daunting face of Cerro Torre's
northeast ridge. Halfway up the climb, at the Col of Conquest, Fava gave up and turned back, while Maestri and Egger forged on. Six days later, while packing to leave and despairing of ever seeing his friends alive again, Fava found a half-frozen Maestri wandering alone in the snow at the base of the east face. (more inside)
posted by the painkiller at 12:30 PM PST - 20 comments
Web-Building Is For Suckas (YouTube, approx. 2 mins.)... A bit of an update on Peter Witt's famous 1960s experiments on the effects of various drugs on spiders' web-building abilities (previously featured on Metafilter
here and
here)
posted by amyms at 7:18 AM PST - 59 comments
January 2
The Beaver Trilogy... Starring the Beaver Kid himself (circa 1979), Sean Penn (circa 1981), Crispin Glover (circa 1985) and a bathroom cameo by...
wait, is that Carrot Top? Oh my, Olivia Newton John has never looked so good.
Parts
1 -
2 -
3 -
4 -
5 -
6 -
7 -
8 -
9 -
10 -
11posted by miss lynnster at 11:24 PM PST - 29 comments
Undark and the Radium Girls is the fascinating true story of several female employees of the US Radium Corporation at the turn of the 20th Centry. The women were employed to paint radioactive "Undark", a glow-in-the-dark paint for military application (dials that needed to be seen at night, etc) onto the machinery. The women were given lethal amounts of paint & fine brushes, which they all routinely kept sharp by wetting the tips in their mouths. Twenty years later, as their jawbones disintegrated & the tumors began to spread, they started down the path to figuring out who had murdered them, and how.
posted by jonson at 10:03 PM PST - 68 comments
Wal-Mart and the Light Bulb [NY Times link] - Wal-Mart officials admit their push to sell 100 million
compact fluorescent lights per year is at least partially a marketing ploy, but if successful, it would increase the number of the energy-efficient bulbs in use by 50% while "saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and avoiding the need to build additional power plants for the equivalent of 450,000 new homes." Wal-Mart's environmental record is
less than perfect, of course, but if they managed to pull this off it would be hard to see it as a bad thing.
posted by mrbula at 9:19 PM PST - 111 comments
World Tales : See folk tales, myths and legends from around the world, brought to life by twenty Australian animators.
posted by dhruva at 7:07 PM PST - 7 comments
Hey, Mum, look at the hairless monkeys! A group of hairless monkeys are the latest exhibit at Adelaide Zoo. Some background information on the project is available
here (you may wonder, as I did, why it took a news site to provide the background to the project) and a live stream from the enclosure
here. [more inside]
posted by dg at 7:06 PM PST - 22 comments
Think you get a lot done? Isaac Asimov (
pronounced like "has, him, of" without the h's) , who would have turned 87 today, wrote or edited over
500 books, including
science-fiction novels, introductions to
organic chemistry (a field in which he held a professorship at B.U.) , indispensable
anthologies of early science fiction,
jokebooks,
guides to Shakespeare, and
collections of lively essays on science that have introduced thousands of people to the pleasures of thinking hard about the universe. He also found the time to write
a few essays and
write postcards to his fans. His story
"Runaround" , from his 1950 collection
I, Robot, is the only piece of fiction I know centered on the properties of a differential equation. His
Foundation Trilogy was given a
special Hugo award in 1966 as the best science fiction series of all time; a
movie version, to be written by Jeff Vintar and directed by Shekhar Kapur, is currently in development. Previous AsimovFilter:
here,
here,
here. Feel like a slacker yet? Stop reading MetaFilter and get to work!
posted by escabeche at 9:57 AM PST - 95 comments
Gregory Colbert's
Ashes and Snow has been linked to twice before on Metafilter. However, you can now view
10 minutes of his film as part of his Ted Talk--it's the most stunning nature footage I've ever seen. In the talk he also mentions a new concept he's developing called
Animal Copyright, which I think is long overdue.
posted by dobbs at 7:52 AM PST - 29 comments
January 1
This time-lapse video of an oil-painting being created by Pablo Picasso is brief, but captivating. The clip is a scene taken from the 1955 French documentary "
The Mystery of Picasso," in which director Henri-Georges Clouzot filmed the artist painting 20 different pieces. Bizarrely enough, almost all the art created for the film had to be destroyed upon close of production due to contractual obligation.
Viaposted by jonson at 9:44 PM PST - 28 comments
and there's nothing you can do about it, Bucko! (I think its a parody). As someone who came from Rochester, I bet this gets heavy circulation there, the company being the center of attention through all the
fat and lean years .......
(actually the company DOES alredy have kick ass digital products, but this is funny)
posted by celerystick at 8:56 PM PST - 35 comments
Start the new year with a new start page: a hundred or so internet start pages, most including nifty Ajax or flash features, and many with third-party modules.
Netvibes and its
ecosystem of developers is a favorite among many reviewers, but the new MS
Live and its
gadgets are also getting good press, at least among Windows users. Of course, there are are always
the standards. Alternately, you can select a
homepage for kids that will make your eyes bleed; a
site that lets you share your own portals; a homepage that
creates itself; or download the amazing
Orb 2.0 to create a personalized portal that lets you stream any media or files on your PC to any other device connected to the internet. What is your homepage?
[Warnings: Not all pages work on all browsers. Not having MeFi as your homepage may be viewed as a sign of disloyalty, but not having the RSS feed on your page certainly will.]posted by blahblahblah at 7:16 PM PST - 20 comments
Christopher Baldwin's comic Bruno is ending after over 10 years. The title character has been through numerous trials: two abortions, numerous romantic encounters, a stripping career, and several close brushes with death. Bruno joins
Madge's Diary,
Sheppard and May, and the twisted
Kim in Love as projects that never reached syndication as intended. Baldwin continues his daily comics in
Little Dee, along with other experimental side projects catalogued on his
main site.
Not everything in his archive is SFW.posted by mkb at 6:43 PM PST - 13 comments
In America, some rang in 2007 by watching
(a propped-up) Dick Clark rockin' the Eve away alongside Ryan Seacrest &
his crush (yeah, right), Christina Aguilera. Ho hum. Japanese television on the other hand? Well, my friends... television viewers in Tokyo enjoyed
this little extravaganza (It's SFW, they're wearing bodysuits.) Yokatta koto! posted by miss lynnster at 5:20 PM PST - 58 comments
Cold Ground for a Summer Love. A 19 year old visits the grave of her dead 19 year old boyfriend every day. Every day at Arlington Cemetery, she cries. The weekends are crowded there at Arlington, with so many families wishing
3000 dead soldiers goodbye.
posted by four panels at 12:44 PM PST - 135 comments
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