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October 2006 Archives
October 31
BardoThodal the tibetian book of the dead, a way of life.This is what happens on the 49th day of our being dead. If you do not escape the Matrix, the day after you are inside a woman's womb.
part one part two
(Google video)
posted by hortense at 11:00 PM PST - 6 comments
High Security Fashion Miguel Caballero is walking around his company's showroom in Bogotá, Colombia, holding a .38-caliber revolver. "You!" he says, pointing to German Gonzalez, a 20-something salesman who's been on the job for just two weeks.
"You're next."
The latest in boardroom insanity? Nah, Miguel Caballero makes high fashion bulletproof clothes for presidents, state leaders and gangsta rappers and enjoys demonstrating how effective they are at stopping pistol fire at point blank range.
Its Armani-style combined with highly effective personal protection.
posted by fenriq at 10:08 PM PST - 15 comments
Fed up with old-fashioned boards and planchettes? Want to contact spirits the 21st century way? Try
iPod Ouija.
(not responsible for any possessions or nightmares. try at own risk.)posted by divabat at 9:15 PM PST - 2 comments
Maqam World contains much more than maqamat. Rhythms, genres, instruments - all presented with audio examples, pictures, and even pronunciation. The
podcasts are an added bonus. [Note: some multimedia features only work in IE, most audio in .rm (it's worth it, though)]
posted by imposster at 2:17 PM PST - 6 comments
My Rapist One day several years ago, I opened up my hometown newspaper and found a picture of my rapist on the Engagements page.[via nytimes]
posted by cgs at 12:10 PM PST - 142 comments
Your Disease Risk is an interesting new website that quantifies your risk of contracting various diseases. From a Wall Street Journal story on the site: "The site goes beyond the standard questions about age, cholesterol and family history and explores the variety of lifestyle choices, environmental issues and other factors that can influence health risk. The questions are based on risk factors that have been established through credible scientific studies."
posted by bove at 10:52 AM PST - 18 comments
Who Killed Ryan Harris? Eight years ago the body of eleven-year-old Ryan Harris was discovered in a
poor neighbourhood on the South Side of Chicago. What followed was a saga involving
the youngest children in U.S. history to be charged with murder; the subsequent dropping of the charges after exculpatory evidence surfaced and allegations of
coerced confessions; another (adult) suspect allegedly faking a low IQ and entering an
Alford plea; lawsuits against the prosecutors on behalf of the boys, later
settled out of court; and, earlier this year, one of the boys coming back into the news after being charged in connection with a
double shooting, with lawyers insinuating that his earlier ordeal was to blame for his criminal activity. One of the sadder stories I've heard in some time.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:10 AM PST - 9 comments
Paul Bugess, director of foreign-policy speechwriting at the White House from October 2003 to July 2005, probably hates you. And now he is fed up and wants you to know just how much he hates you.
posted by nofundy at 5:45 AM PST - 153 comments
Composer and arranger
Rogério Duprat passed away on Thursday. Duprat had a substantial career in music for films and commercials, but he is best known for shaping the sound of
Tropicalia, the revolutionary stew of Brazilian folk styles, bossa nova,
MPB, rock, jazz, blues and psychedelica.
Some youtube clips:
Caetano Veloso,
Gilberto Gil ,
Os Mutantes, and
Gal Costa.
posted by hydrophonic at 12:32 AM PST - 8 comments
October 30
By searching for the phrase "mic in track" in your favorite p2p file sharing program, you can find audio tracks people
recorded on their own computers and probably never intended for public broadcast. Lots of them are empty or otherwise pretty dull, but sometimes you can find some really interesting stuff. Metafilter's
starkeffect turns the cool ones into
even cooler music.
posted by thirteenkiller at 1:54 PM PST - 30 comments
Celebrity Baby Blog explains Babywearing, how to do it and what could be the best way to do it for you and your baby. "Wearing your baby is one of the best things you can do to promote healthy bonding and attachment between you and your little one. Did you know that babies that are worn cry less and are easier to soothe? There are four main types of soft baby carriers: wraps, mei tais, slings and pouches. All are excellent for different types of carries and or different aged children."
posted by k8t at 11:03 AM PST - 44 comments
Todd Skinner falls to his death Sport and free climbing pioneer/entrepreneur, Todd Skinner, died over the weekend in a 500-foot fall.
Sadly, it appears that his death was from a
"..very worn.." belay loop on his harness.
I met Todd about 10 years ago, and was struck by his warmth and enthusiasm. He spent almost three hours at a dingy Seattle climbing gym with about 10 neophyte femail climbers. He helped us all climb better and have more fun. He was generous with his praise, and offered truly helpful instruction - his ego did not get in the way (unlike many climbing instructors/"stars"). He'll be missed.
posted by dbmcd at 10:00 AM PST - 32 comments
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posted by four panels at 7:53 AM PST - 108 comments
No doubt taking their cue from MeFi's recent 30-bucks-for-the-best-post, YouTube wannabe
Metacafe is offering cash to those whose vids garner the biggest audiences. 2 million views? 10,000 dollars. More on this from
Wired News.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:47 AM PST - 10 comments
Sir Nicholas Stern, British economist, issues a
"Stern Review", warning of global warming (link contains 15-min video presentation, PDF executive summary, PDF slideshow, and news summary). Ends on an optimistic note for England to lead the world with solutions.
posted by stbalbach at 6:13 AM PST - 20 comments
October 29
TIBET is an artist who works entirely underground (literally) in Stockholm, Sweden. All of his work is done only in the most hidden of places, and very few people will ever get to see it. Each statue is made of concrete and are 11" tall and weigh about 5 pounds each. They are glued, welded or drilled into the solid rock and will stay there for a very, very long time.
viaposted by jonson at 10:53 PM PST - 14 comments
You see, when large trucks make a right turn, they swing a little bit wide to the left first.
Simple idea.
Many ways to express it. God
bless us all.
posted by signal at 4:33 PM PST - 35 comments
"Sonic fabric (woven from 50% cotton and 50% audio cassette tape) emits sound when you run a tape head over it. Because the tape retains its magnetic quality through the weaving process, it acts as a big wide band of tape." Here's an
interview with the creator.
{via Apartment Therapy}posted by dobbs at 6:48 AM PST - 26 comments
Operation enduring chaos: ... the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, with no end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out "irregular missions". ... From killing everyone named Omar (a Sunni name) who passes thru the wrong checkpoint, to simply marking businesses (and their owners) they want gone with red crosses, how various squads and militias and "armies" and "brigades" are running Iraq.
posted by amberglow at 6:25 AM PST - 48 comments
The Ins and Outs of Write-in (Candidates) Can you vote for a write-in candidate in your state? In 2004, Business Week said "Regardless of which state you live in, voting for a write-in contender is much more complicated than scribbling whatever name you please on the dotted line at the bottom of the ballot. Thirty-five states require that a write-in candidate must submit some form of affidavit and, sometimes, a filing fee at least one month before the election. In North Carolina, these candidates must circulate a petition. Then their names are posted on a list at the polling place, though not on the official ballot. All other write-in votes are tossed. "
In Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports
Write-in candidates face hurdle on paper ballots.
Wikipedia reports there have been some successes however (including Strom Thurmond's election to the US Senate).
posted by notmtwain at 5:14 AM PST - 16 comments
Fixavote.com Election Consultants
"provides unparalleled results by focusing on the outcome rather than the process. Using state-of the-art technology, we overcome the challenges of competition and ensure election results for our clients." (To make it even more evil, it's Flash-based) A food-for-thought satire or something more? When
A reporter called the site's 800 number, the person who answered "said that he had been contacted by representatives of about 30 political campaigns to date." (I'm thinking sting operation to catch dishonest idiot politicians. Whad'ya think?)
posted by wendell at 1:05 AM PST - 14 comments
October 28
Sheikh Hilali, the mufti of Australia, has raised more than a few eyebrows when he declared that
rape-victims are to blame for tempting men: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park and the cats come and eat it -- whose fault is it? The cats or the uncovered meat?" Needless to say, the mufti doesn't think the cats are to blame. Australians (including their PM) are not amused and
call for the mufti to step down. Even many
Islamic women think it's the mufti, and not the meat, that stinks. Others argue that at least the mufti (quickly christened the "
rape cleric" by some news outlets) will
force Muslims to fess up and take a stand on whether they really think that women are Satan's agents who incite rape with immodest dress.
The Sheikh himself found it wisest to go on a "
self-imposed holiday" to join the Hajj in Mecca, possibly to pray for attire with larger surface area, and left with the disingenuous remark that he
might step down if someone could "prove" what his *real* intentions were when he made his controversial comments.
posted by sour cream at 10:33 AM PST - 112 comments
October 27
Henry Smolinski and Hal Blake had a great idea: bolt the wings and engine of a Cessna to the body of 1971 Ford Pinto. Fly the Pinto to an airport near your destination, unlatch it from the wings, and drive it where you want to go. No need for rental cars...
It worked. Until the day it failed. Sometime late in 1973, Smolinski and Blake climbed aboard the "Mitzar" and rolled down the runway. During takeoff, the peculiar marriage of wheels and wings divorced, and the Advanced Vehicle Engineers found themselves sailing through the California sky in a very un-advanced vehicle, a wingless Pinto.
Pics here:
1,
2,
3posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:27 PM PST - 36 comments
Garbage In/Gold Out Which is more important: recycling or the garbage collector's bottom line? Some Oregon cities are backing up the garbage collectors over recyclers. Too bad. First time I've ever seen a dumpster diving company who has a web page with
testimonials from police officers.
posted by leftcoastbob at 8:24 PM PST - 24 comments
Meat is Neat. We are but tiny machines. Remember the YouTube video of a funky animation of cellular activity? Here it is with a voice explanation of what's going on. Absolutely mindblowing.
some sort of embedded video, dsl-quality with sound. see here for other formsposted by five fresh fish at 8:19 PM PST - 35 comments
Camille Paglia opines on how the Foley story coverage hurts not only
gays but Democrats; on how women have a stake In
Conoleeeza Rice's success; talk radio in general; and how the Democrats have to play the religion card well to win, not only now, but in 2008.
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:40 PM PST - 70 comments
DoubleJeu is a simple French flash game; balance a ball on one axis while playing pong on a reversed axis. Easier to understand if you just visit the link.
posted by jonson at 3:09 PM PST - 40 comments
Make your own Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Trailer. Sure, its an ad for the Simpsons, but with a neat interface and clips like Homer chanting "must eat, then poop," there is Friday Fun to be had. Can you put together something fun for the hivemind?
[To share a video, you can email a persistant link to yourself, and then post that link in the thread]posted by blahblahblah at 2:14 PM PST - 11 comments
K-Fed drops a heater. New album streaming in full. It is really bad. Whether or not he ruined
Britnety Spear's career or not is disputable, but if listening to this is any clue it seems likely. Featuring genius lyrics like :
"Girls say I'm cocky, I think I'm humble,
Basically ya'll just talk like Bryant Gumbel". Gumbel ryhmes wit' humble, basically, yo.
You are in for a listening treat.
(warning: steaming aol music site)posted by BrodieShadeTree at 2:08 PM PST - 62 comments
He added to Rock, Paper, Scissors and came up with RPS-15 (with 15 signs) and then RPS-25 (yep, 25 signs). Then he added on to
those games and made something "so complex, I highly doubt anyone will actually even want to attempt to play it."
Dear lord, it's
RPS-101. (
Previously)
posted by 23skidoo at 1:40 PM PST - 25 comments
Haw! Haw! Try and get this Levi's song out of your head. This and the
Nesbitt's Orange spot were two of my favorite TV commercials as a kid. I hope they brighten up your Friday a bit. (YouTube alert)
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:14 PM PST - 13 comments
His fog, his amphetamines and his pearls
Lofi shot off the monitor at the recent EMP exhibit, the entire footage of an
Eat The Document outtake recently edited by Martin Scorcese for
No Direction Home.
I don't entirely get the Chaplinesque--To paraphrase crunchland, Hey, Skeezix--it's a talkie...posted by y2karl at 10:36 AM PST - 31 comments
Smart marketing or shameless pandering? Country music star
Darryl Worley played to the largely conservative county music fanbase (and post-9/11 ultra-patriotic sentiment prevalent in the country at the time) in 2003 with his hit
Have You Forgotten which strongly supported the impending war in Iraq. Today, with support for the war in Iraq dwindling, Worley has now released, “I Just Came Back”, which depicts a more
”somber light on (the) war”.
posted by The Gooch at 8:55 AM PST - 119 comments
Thomas Pynchon Paper Dolls Something light because, yes, it's the run-up to the November 21st release of Against the Day, the new 1000 page doorstop from Thomas Pynchon.
The Modern Word is using the time to update their already vast Pynchon site. Good luck. (A whole lot of other paper dolls
previously.)
posted by OmieWise at 8:26 AM PST - 37 comments
October 26
Good Day Mr. Kubrick! In 1984 Stanley Kubrick placed an ad in Variety requesting audition tapes from unknown actors for his next movie, "Full Metal Jacket." This is allegedly one of those tapes.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:38 PM PST - 57 comments
12 tone scale? bah! Harry Partch: American composer, philosopher, publisher, teacher, satirist, instrument builder and designer, sculptor, theorist, experimentalist, adapted violist, conductor, author, retired hobo, seaman, sewer cleaner, vagrant, and graffitist. Until his death, Harry Partch had been doing his own thing for more than half a century. Partch's own thing began with his rejection of the European masters and the traditional bourgeois concert-hall performance.
partch created over 30 intruments to produce the sounds caught by the human ear not reproduced in concert halls. his life story is cool.
his thoughts (pdf) have influenced the path of contemporary experimental music.
one of the best of the bands influenced by him.
posted by localhuman at 9:20 PM PST - 20 comments
Baseball nerd fun: Type in which team's at bat, how many outs, which inning, how many on base, and the
Win Expectancy Finder will spit out the likelihood the team wins, based on actual game data from the periods 2000-2004, 1991-1998, and 1979-1990.
posted by ibmcginty at 7:45 PM PST - 12 comments
October 25
A manual for electoral apocalypse in America. Quite a bit's been written both
on MeFi and other places about how bad Diebold machines are. Rolling Stone wrote an article about election fraud in 2004 that was
discussed here on MeFi. Tonight, Ars posted a
very thorough, very clear article about how we are completely screwed if we do not enact expensive, fundamental changes in how we handle elections in America. It's too late to do anything about the elections in a couple weeks, but perhaps steps can be taken to fix things before 2008...
posted by sparkletone at 10:41 PM PST - 45 comments
Empire Falls. "They called it 'the American Century,' but the past hundred years actually saw a shift
away from Western dominance. Through the long lens of Edward Gibbon's history,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Rome 331 and America and Europe 2006 appear to have more than a few problems in common." By Niall Ferguson, whose views on the American hegemony have been
discussed previously.
posted by homunculus at 9:13 PM PST - 46 comments
When you have a blog , and you're the Special Representative of the UN in
Darfur,
be careful about what you write.
Jan Pronk's blog gives you a good idea in what a high level UN diplomat actually does, and how difficult it is to get anything done in a country torn by war. Oh, and check
these photos out, if you just want the non-political goodness.
posted by Harry at 11:30 AM PST - 11 comments
Last week, Pride Fighting Championships had their American debut in Las Vegas. Pride FC is a Mixed Martial Arts organization from Japan that boasts a lineup of fighters arguably superior to those of other MMA groups. Their heavyweight champion for example,
Fedor Emelianenko, is considered the best MMA fighter ever by most fight commentators. They are famous for their
operatic production values, regularly filling out 30-60,000 seat arenas in Japan.
However, many in MMA circles assert that their product is
"too foreign" for the US, and that they need to
"Americanize" their product for the mass market. Is this true? Given the popularity of
video games,
Anime and
Manga in the US, they might not have to change all that much.
posted by ishmael at 10:59 AM PST - 68 comments
Whipping cures depression. ”The whipping therapy becomes much more efficient when a patients receives the punishment from a person of the opposite sex. The effect is astounding: the patient starts seeing only bright colors in the surrounding world, the heartache disappears, although it will take a certain time for the buttocks to heal, of course,” Sergei Speransky told the Izvestia newspaper.posted by cgs at 9:43 AM PST - 70 comments
On 14 April 1988, the missile frigate
Samuel B. Roberts was damaged by a mine in the Persian Gulf. Some 45 years before,
Coxswain Samuel B. Roberts was killed when he guided his boat in front of Japanese lines on Guadalcanal in an effort to distract their fire from a rescue party evacuating wounded marines. In between was the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts, which on 25 October 1944 sailed into history in the
Battle off Samar. (Long post inside for history buffs.)
posted by forrest at 8:25 AM PST - 21 comments
September 30th, 2002, scientists intercepted a 10 minute radio burst from the galactic center, 26,000 Light Years away. 77 minutes passed, and it repeated. And again. The signal repeated 5 times that evening.
Some think those signals are
weird mysterious.
Others think they are
interesting mysterious. posted by Lord_Pall at 5:44 AM PST - 63 comments
Thomas Friedman: The First Law of Petropolitics, in short, argues that the price of oil and the pace of freedom operate in an inverse correlation. As the price of oil goes up in what I call petroauthoritarian states—like Iran, Sudan, Venezuela—the pace of freedom goes down. These regimes can afford to be less responsive to their people and outside pressure. And as the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up because these regimes have to open up to the world if they want to deliver for their people, and they have to empower their people more.
But how to lower oil prices and help freedom on its proverbial march? Many, from
Alan Greenspan to
Andrew Sullivan to
Ray Magliozzi from Car Talk think the answer may be to . . .
raise the gas tax? The
Pigou Club is an ever-updated list of economists, politicians and others who have advocated Pigouvian (or is it
Pigovian?) taxes to not only lower oil prices, but reduce greenhouse gases, fix the federal deficit and strengthen our national security. Though some remain more than a little hesitant to
jump on the bandwagon and others
remain skeptical that the movement is anything more than "just talk," this could be an idea whose time has come, especially since the gas tax
isn't as regressive one would think.
posted by joshuaconner at 1:32 AM PST - 57 comments
October 24
Men With Cramps. Watch the groundbreaking documentary and discover how Cyclical Non-Uterine Dysmenorrhea calls into question not only the shaping of world history, but the spelling of the word history.
posted by kindle at 6:38 PM PST - 27 comments
Conversing with the matchless Judith Martin I know you are all familiar with the
work of the inimitable (if syndicated)
Judith Martin,
alias Miss Manners, but I dared to presume that you have not come across this 2005 interview with her. In it she discusses the process of becoming Miss Manners, the cyclical nature of etiquette, her historical predecessors, sumptuary laws in Renaissance-era Venice, and the respective natures of aristocratic and democratic etiquette. Fascinating read.
posted by orange swan at 3:24 PM PST - 41 comments
Blaster Master ...
Solid NES Gold. Those who remember
the game do so
with fondness. Though
critically lauded on release, and later
spawning several sequels, the game was never as big a hit as its its spiritual predecessors, Metroid and Legend of Zelda. Like
Super Mario Bros. 2/Doki Doki Panic, Blaster Master was based on an obscure Japanese game, in this case
Chōwakuseisenki Metafight although the differences in this case are limited to the story. Blaster Master was also the first (and only "canon") book in the Nintendo
Worlds of Power series, in which various authors
novelized third-party games using the pseudonym "F.X. Nine."
Download the Blaster Master book here (MSWord zipped, "enhanced" by a fan). Lastly, some bonus links:
one,
two, and
three (!)posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:33 PM PST - 36 comments
Vote for James H. "Jim"? Voters in certain Virginia precincts will see electronic ballots featuring only part of some candidates' names. For some reason this is said to be "unfixable", even though this has been discovered two weeks ahead of election time. This problem only affects voting machines made by... not the one you'd expect, but
Austin, TX-based Hart InterCivic, whose motto is "Always Accessible". Senatorial Candidate James H. "Jim" Webb (D) is, one may assume, not amused.
posted by clevershark at 12:38 PM PST - 56 comments
Not In The Newsfilter: Yesterday, two men
attended their pre-trial hearing at Preston Crown Court, accused of possession of explosive material. As previously
reported only in
local newspapers, Robert Cottage was in possession of 'what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs', while a search of former
BNP candidate David Bolus Jackson's house 'uncovered rocket launchers, chemicals... and a nuclear biological suit'. Some
webloggers, and the
left-wing press, are wondering whether the story might have received more coverage if the suspected bomb-makers had been, say, Muslims. The BBC
blame reporting restrictions.
posted by jack_mo at 11:59 AM PST - 19 comments
Penguin Books is an all too brief Flickr Photoset of Penguin Book cover designs from decades past. For those interested,
this book is highly recommended.
posted by jonson at 10:08 AM PST - 9 comments
Chris Bowers of
MYDD is launching an
ambitious campaign to Google Bomb the top 70 congressional races with negative articles for the respective republican candidates. If you don't find this ethically perturbing you can find the code for pasting in to your blog
here.
posted by sourbrew at 9:58 AM PST - 39 comments
Using a physiological sensor called the
SenseWear by BodyMedia, researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have
created the XPod. The XPod "learns" a user's preferences, activities and even emotions, and then selects the most appropriate music to accompany any given situation. The
mood ring for the new millennium.
posted by terrapin at 7:27 AM PST - 14 comments
October 23
During the 19th century, thousands of men took to the seas to hunt for whales. The indigenous peoples of the Arctic practiced whaling for several millennia before that. Technological change and changes in mores have reduced the whaling industry to a heavily regulated shadow of what it used to be. But it hasn’t disappeared altogether. Even now, at the dawn of the 21st century, ships prowl the seas in search of a spout or a gigantic fin. A few months ago,
Outside magazine published an account of a whale hunt aboard the Norwegian ship Sofie. posted by jason's_planet at 10:34 AM PST - 21 comments
DrawSpace is a collection of dozens of highly detailed (multi-page) online drawing tutorials & downloadable PDFs for anyone who wishes they could draw a little bit better than they can. Probably not very useful if you're already a good artist, although the tutorials do range from beginner to advanced.
posted by jonson at 9:48 AM PST - 4 comments
TSA Alert: US Bans Vegemite. Is it because this yeast extract
tastes bad? Do the
Marmite^ people have some sinister influence? Has Australia
offended our government somehow? How is it that a product that has been around for
80 years suddenly becomes forbidden? Who would ban a product that can help prevent
neural tube defects (e.g., spina bifida)?
Blame the FDA, whose has ruled that folate (
folic acid) "should be kept under 1 mg per day ... because higher intake may complicate the diagnosis of
pernicious anemia, one form of vitamin B12 deficiency, which especially affects older people." Of course pernicious anemia is rare (less than 10-20 cases/100,000 people per year in the US), as is the Vegemite market. But when has logic ever dictated policy. The
international fallout has already started:
"I am never going to America", vows Xochiquetal, while a commenter at Geelong blogger Bernie Slattery’s site foresees US regulators going even further down the road to absurdity, "Americans don’t know what they’re missing … they’ll be banning Tim Tams next."
If the government wanted to ban something Australian, the least they could have done is started
here.
posted by scblackman at 6:14 AM PST - 47 comments
This [very slow loading, but persevere, it's worth it] website "probably" contains the biggest digital image in the world. Some details are
here.
posted by tellurian at 2:05 AM PST - 56 comments
Printed Matter "Markus Dressen has taken the power of Google Maps towards a showcase of illumined manuscripts, Bauhaus design, and medieval whimsy"
posted by dhruva at 12:10 AM PST - 6 comments
October 22
Autostitch is the world's first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical). Don't miss
the gallery.
posted by crunchland at 8:38 PM PST - 54 comments
Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales asks: Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase copyrights to be made available under a free license. What would you like to see purchased and released under a free license? Photos libraries? textbooks? newspaper archives? Be bold, be specific,
be general, brainstorm, have fun with it. And they do.posted by divabat at 6:47 PM PST - 60 comments
The Smithsonian's Sackler gallery opened a unique and wide-ranging
new exhibit yesterday featuring fragments of Bibles from before the year 1000.
"
Most of the manuscripts have never been seen outside the countries where they are stored. [Some Smithsonian-owned documents in the exhibition] have never been exhibited and two have not been shown since 1978." Fragments of the
Codex Sinaiticus are included in the exhibit.
Along with the
archaeological interest, these fragments can pose theological and historical challenges for Christians. Some, like UNC's Bart Ehrman, have
lost their faith as a result of studying early Bibles; some, like Luke Timothy Johnson of Emory, believing that Christianity is about a
common cultural and spiritual experience, are unmoved by the "
corruptions" and
differences in the New Testament over time; other Christians try to
refute (MeFi link) claims that the text has changed.
posted by ibmcginty at 5:55 PM PST - 36 comments
The weird world of Deal Or No Deal. "My God," I thought, as I climbed off the treadmill, exhausted. "They're in a bubble. They've got no sense of reality. They have, in Noel Edmonds, a charismatic leader who believes in nutty things. It's like a religious cult! An incredibly nail-biting and entertaining cult, brilliantly presented by Noel, but a cult none the less."
Jon Ronson
(previously discussed here, here, here and here) goes behind the scenes of the wildly successful British version of Deal Or No Deal.
posted by afx237vi at 1:49 PM PST - 37 comments
"Welcome to the Archive of the Now. The Archive of the Now is an online and print repository of recordings, printed texts and manuscripts, focussing on innovative contemporary poetry being written or performed in Britain. It is part of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing, at Brunel University in west London, UK. At present, the Archive consists of readings by 65 UK-based poets. This number will continue to grow, and includes newly commissioned, recently acquired and historical recordings."
posted by jayder at 10:36 AM PST - 5 comments
The largely forgotten holocaust of the Ukrainian people began when Stalin imposed collectivism upon the farms, sealing state borders & refusing any seed grain until ficticious and unattainable production goals were met. The Ukrainian upper class were executed, the peasantry left to starve to death. In all, seven million people died, one out of every four citizens. At this Ukranian art site, a
collection of stamps commemorating the event & a
gallery of "genocide art" continue to speak for the dead.
posted by jonson at 7:41 AM PST - 55 comments
October 21
Feats Don't Fail: Thirty years ago,
Little Feat went on the road and began recording performances for their live album,
Waiting For Columbus. Until its release two years later, the band’s popular success never matched the
critical acclaim the band and their albums had received, as when
Melody Maker proclaimed, "Little Feat is the best U.S. band of the decade."
Lowell George’s Feat broke up again for the last time in 1979.
Little Feat, a slight return, reformed in 1988 with founding members Paul Barrere, Bill Payne and Richie Hayward. If the original Feat had enjoyed the rabid fan-base it does today—with its
grass roots marketing effort,
encyclopedic fan-assembled set lists,
organized group vacations, charity work, and of course, the
tape traders —it may never have broken up in the first place.
posted by spacely_sprocket at 1:24 PM PST - 28 comments
Old textbooks proposed as protective shields. One political candidate's idea is to reissue outdated textbooks and place them under desks so that students can use them defensively when a shooter opens fire. They actually stop most handgun bullets, although raise the specter of a passive bystander society.
posted by Brian B. at 11:13 AM PST - 67 comments
Sound Exchange Can't Find Wall of Voodoo Who else can't they find? Charles Mingus, Archers of Loaf, Art Blakey, T. Rex, Brand Nubian, Art Blakey, and thousands of others. The link is comprhensive list of the "missing," which is a long list indeed, but includes many who aren't that hard to find.
Nashville entertainment lawyer
Fred Wilhelms has tried to help
SoundExchange as he has
written about at least
twice in
Counterpunch.
SoundExchange is the organization put together by the R1AA and the major entertainnment companies to collect royalties for streaming (Internet, DMX, XM) radio performances protected by copyright and to distribute it to the artists. These, indeed, are some of the royalties that could be going to artists, if only SoundExchange could find them.
Unfortunately, many artists will not be getting pizzaid for performances from 1996-2000 if they do not register with SoundExchange by December 15 of this year (2006). SoundExchange was chartered to find these artists or their estates, but apparently they aren't looking very hard. Why? Because if the artists don't register, SoundExchange (read: R1AA and their corporate partners) GET TO KEEP IT!.
posted by beelzbubba at 9:03 AM PST - 21 comments
...Iraq may have started as a war of choice for the Bush administration, but it has become a war of great and unintended consequences. Immense risks lurk down every strategic road. Given the fractured state of the American body politic, it is almost certainly too late to rally the country behind an all-out war effort -- think tax increases; a war Cabinet; a full mobilization of the National Guard and the Reserves; a civilian reconstruction corps; a larger Army and Marine Corps; longer combat tours for troops; mandatory combat-zone deployments for U.S. diplomats and aid officials; a return to national service; and possibly even a limited draft. Yet absent a plan that puts the nation on either an all-out wartime footing or the firm path to retreat, the United States is largely condemned to some tweaked-around-the-edges variation of the administration's current approach on Iraq of "muddle through and hand over." And America, the experts agree, is already losing that war.
Endgameposted by y2karl at 7:55 AM PST - 60 comments
In 1966 the Tifton Record Company's efforts to cash in on the popularity of the Batman TV show resulted in the release of an LP called
Batman and Robin. Though the jacket credited “The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale”, the musicians were in fact members of
Sun Ra’s Solar Arkestra and
The Blues Project. The wonderful folks at
WFMU have made this unlikely collaboration's wonderfully infectious music
available for your downloading pleasure. Very fun, lively stuff, with a warm and rollicking sound. I've fallen in love with it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:59 AM PST - 19 comments
October 20
How Advertising Spoiled Me is a blog showcasing mainly magazine & billboard advertising from around the world, with pieces selected based on their inventiveness/cleverness.
If you're offended by advertising, you might want to skip this post.posted by jonson at 10:29 PM PST - 34 comments
Kizmeet. Craigslist's "
Missed Connections" can be an entertaining read, but it ain't exactly efficient if you're actually trying to locate that tempting hottie you lost in the crowd. At this new site, you can post and search for him or her according to the specific location (bar, gym, coffee shop, market, etc.) where your eyes first met. No word yet on
whether this actually works either. [via
Curbed, oddly enough]
posted by GrammarMoses at 5:35 PM PST - 7 comments
The
Allen Institute for Brain Science has made the Allen Brain Atlas
available online for public searches. It contains maps of gene expressions in a mouse brain, searchable by gene, anatomy, or with boolean syntax. They also offer Brain Explorer, a 3-D program that lets you highlight particular genes, and rotate the model in any direction.
Viaposted by owhydididoit at 1:09 PM PST - 14 comments
Amie Street: "[A] recently launched music Web site that carries independent -- and mostly little-known -- artists, is trying an
unusual model for selling music. Instead of selling songs at one fixed price, the site determines prices for songs based on how frequently they're downloaded." [
WSJ link].
posted by pfafflin at 11:08 AM PST - 6 comments
Shaq's Blue Ridge Thunder blunder just raided and attempted to ruin a Virginia farmer's life based on a "mistaken computer IP address". No mention has been made so far in the press beyond
a newspaper of the town closest to the mistaken raid.
Blue Ridge Blunder and SHAQ ATTACK.
"On Saturday morning, Sept. 23, 2006, many police vehicles appeared in our driveway. Men in black with flak jackets ran to and around our house. My wife was at home alone. I drove up and asked, “What's going on?”
Men ran at me, dropped into shooting position, double-handed semi-automatic pistols pointed at me, and made me put my hands against my truck.
I was held at gunpoint, searched, taunted, and led into the house. I had no idea what this was about. I was scared beyond description. I feared there had been a murder and I was a suspect.
My wife and I were interrogated about Internet crime. We are not avid computer users; we do not even e-mail. We knew nothing of what they were speaking.
After seemingly convincing them of our computer “illiteracy,” we were questioned about our children and made to doubt their innocence.
Our home was searched by a para-military search-and-seizure team.
Our computers, digital camera, disposable cameras, DVD's, and VHS tapes were seized.
We were held in our home under guard for five hours.
Our children came home and were also interrogated.
It was awful. We were accused of horrible crimes, crimes that even the mention of would ruin our reputations.posted by unpoppy at 7:02 AM PST - 104 comments
About as Subtle as a Terror Attack. We all know Bush doesn't do nuance. Well, apparently the GOP doesn't either, especially not in close midterm elections. The following is a (presumably web-only) video:
A ticking sound reminiscent of a bomb timer grows progressively louder until the last repeated phrase ("What is yet to come will be even greater") is shown, followed by the sound of a beating heart, fleeting images of explosions and terrorists in training, and ending with the message "These Are The Stakes. Vote Nov. 7."
The video can be found
here.
posted by rzklkng at 5:48 AM PST - 91 comments
Ask A Man? "You have come to the right place for love, relationship and dating advice. Ask a man will provide you with the love, relationship and dating answers you seek. Our staff of amazing men have agreed to break the "man code" and tell you the absolute truth about what your man is really saying to you." For example: "Men want respect. In a man's world, men are nothing without respect. In a relationship, a man needs to know his woman respects him. "
posted by feelinglistless at 3:51 AM PST - 43 comments
Future Phone: Call a number in Iowa, give them the international number you want to call, talk for free - well, at American long-distance rates anyway. No headphones required.
posted by trinarian at 12:02 AM PST - 23 comments
October 19
Meet the man who "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth history" -
Thomas Midgley, Jr. Midgley invented leaded gasoline in 1921 to
stop cars from knocking. In the process, he created a huge new industry, increased by 500 times the atmospheric lead levels, and
was part of a multi-decade coverup of lead's effects that put the tobacco industry to shame [note: article is both terrific and very long] and still
continues today. Just a few years later, he invented chlorofluorocarbons, and, with
a dramatic demonstration of their safety, usured in an era of
cheap air conditioning and social change, as well as
ozone depletion. In the end,
he was killed by one of his inventions, though it was neither lead nor CFCs that were responsible. He is sometimes
remembered fondly, he is more often
vilified.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:47 PM PST - 30 comments
GamerDad, a site which has been around since 2003 (and is a registered trademark), has been a source of amusement and reviews for parents who play games, and parents who want to know what their kids are playing. Microsoft decided that they liked the name so much,
they would steal it. But at least they had the courtesy to
admit they knew about GamerDad before they stole the name.
posted by dejah420 at 10:41 PM PST - 19 comments
So Predictable - Malcolm Gladwell talks at the recent New Yorker Festival about success-predicting software for the music and film industries.
posted by forallmankind at 9:49 PM PST - 18 comments
The Grand Comics Database is aiming to become the IMDB of comic books cover art. I only tested a couple from memory, but they seem to have a pretty deep reservoir of content, and fairly large scans of the results. Searchable by series title, character appearance, writer, illustrator and a number of other criteria.
posted by jonson at 3:29 PM PST - 21 comments
Swords and Sandals .. Create a gladiator, arm him up with a variety of armour and weapons, and send him into battle against a horde of crazy gladiators.
[note: flash]posted by crunchland at 11:37 AM PST - 25 comments
A letter, written in Spanish , sent to an estimated 14,000 Democratic voters in central Orange County, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal
or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time." A fine example of often-GOP tactic called "
caging" but you can call it good ol' intimidation, and just for sake of irony the guilty appears to be the campaign of
GOP Congressional candidate Tan Nguyen who is himself an immigrant. You may also recall his party is fond of drafting legislation to complicate the ballot process with
voter id requirements and thus make caging a little more legal.
posted by StarForce5 at 11:16 AM PST - 66 comments
Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete just about continuously in marathon races. And if they’re not in a marathon they are in a triathlon — that daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.
It’s a remarkable record of exertion — all the more so when you consider that Rick can't walk or talk.
Quite possibly one of the most inspirational stories that I've ever encountered --
Team Hoyt.
posted by purephase at 10:53 AM PST - 20 comments
As Americans, we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.
posted by EarBucket at 10:19 AM PST - 47 comments
Larry Harlowe (born Lawrence Kahn) was a Jewish kid from a racially mixed Brooklyn neigborhood who discovered the
clave rhythm. Encouraged by his musician parents, he pursued his new love and became one of the genre's
most admired players and one of the first artists signed to the legendary
Fania (lovingly annotated reissues are on the street from this label), working with
legends of the form. He also was one of the men behind
'Hommy,' the first 'salsa opera,' about a deaf-dumb-and-blind conga player (gee, that sounds familiar). One of the more interesting and illustrious musical charcters of our time.
posted by jonmc at 9:12 AM PST - 13 comments
Fun Motion - a blog dedicated to physics-simulating games, currently with 49 reviews (and counting) of well known favorites like Stair Dismount and Truck Dismount, Towers of Goo, Toribash and many, many more. (A follow up to my
previous YouTube post.)
Kiss your precious, fleeting motes of productivity goodbye, cube-farmers!posted by loquacious at 4:21 AM PST - 26 comments
BramTV [flash] [possibly NSFW] Art + interaction = data-dandy behaviour. If you like to be in control you may well find this extremely annoying.
posted by tellurian at 1:07 AM PST - 12 comments
October 18
The Top 200 Universities in the World. [logon:mefier/pass:metafilter] For the second year, the Times Higher Education Supplement has exhaustively ranked the top schools in the world. The US, and, to a lesser extent, the UK, dominate the list, but Australia continues to have a strong showing, and China makes more appearances. If you don't like that list, try Newsweek's
Top 100 Global Universities, or the
ranking by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which looks at Nobel Prizes and highly cited articles, or just judge universities by their
age. All of this a little too global? Washington Monthly
rates universities by how they contribute to social mobility and the US as a whole, Mother Jones
ranks by social activism, and Young America's Foundation lists the
10 best conservative colleges.
[prev.]posted by blahblahblah at 10:42 PM PST - 69 comments
Charlie Darwin joins the fray. Yes,
The formation of vegetable mould, through the action of worms, with observations on their habits is there.
posted by jfuller at 6:12 PM PST - 19 comments
$250,000 Reward For Information About Election Fraud In The November Election VelvetRevolution is offering a $250,000 reward for information about election fraud and manipulation in the November 7th mid-term elections. That’s a quarter million dollars to the persons or persons who provide us with definitive and conclusive proof that a United States House or Senate election has been rigged by illegal means.
Meanwhile, Drudge runs this forthcoming piece
NYT: BE PREPARED FOR CHAOS ON ELECTION DAY; NEW MACHINES, LINES, CONFUSION
Wed Oct 18 2006 19:12:07 ET
With an unusually large number of tight races and dozens of states shifting to new electronic voting systems, election officials across the country are bracing for long lines and heightened confusion at the polls on Election Day, Nov. 7, the NEW YORK TIMES will front on Thursday.
"North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Mississippi and Missouri are among the states considered most likely to experience difficulties, according to voting experts who have been tracking the new technology and other election changes.
Developing...
posted by Postroad at 6:11 PM PST - 61 comments
The real James Bond —
Sidney George Reilly, the shadowy '
Ace of Spies' and
inspiration for Ian Fleming's
007, was born Shlomo/Sigmund Georgievich Rosenblum in Ukraine/Poland in 1874. Perhaps illegitimate,
dapper Sidney was a tireless self-promoter, patent-medicine
chemist, world traveller, and high-stakes gambler (not only at the tables: he married four women but divorced none.) A Czarist
Okhrana informer as a Parisian student, he was hired as an undercover agent in the late 1890s by
M of Scotland Yard. Reilly worked both sides of the
Russo-Japanese War, influenced
British oil interests in Iran, brokered
World War I arms sales, and volunteered for the
Royal Flying Corps in Canada. Sent to Russia by
C of Britain's
SIS in 1918, he joined a
plot to overthrow the Bolsheviks: it failed, but he escaped to London. Returning to Russia in 1919 to help the
White Army, he was later awarded the
British Military Cross. A staunch anti-Communist, Reilly schemed against them throughout his career.
Lured back to Russia by agents of the '
Trust' — an anti-Bolshevik trap set by the Soviet
OGPU — Sidney was arrested, interrogated, and shot in 1925.
posted by cenoxo at 5:16 PM PST - 14 comments
“
See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a last few wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster.
He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him.
Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did fall.
I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The Dipper stove.
The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off. The father never speaks her name, the child does not know it. He has a sister in this world that he will not see again. He watches, pale and unwashed. He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage,
the child the father of the man.”
--Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
posted by jason's_planet at 1:10 PM PST - 41 comments
Krishna Maharaj is a British businessman who was convicted of the 1986 murder of a Jamaican father and son in a hotel room in Miami, Florida. He was given the death penalty, but this was commuted to a life sentence in 2002 due to irregularities in his trial. Well, "irregularities" is an understatement: none of Maharaj's seven alibi witnesses were called to the stand. Maharaj is widely understood to be innocent, and another prime suspect has been identified. In 2001, 300 British politicians wrote to Jeb Bush, requesting a retrial. Considering this possibility in 2004, the Florida judge said that “newly discovered evidence which goes only to guilt or innocence is insufficient to warrant relief" and denied the motion. The US Supreme Court refused to take the case. Krishna Maharaj must now rely on the mercy of Jeb Bush.
BBC Newsnight with 2-part video documentary2004 FAQCampaign websiteposted by thirteenkiller at 1:08 PM PST - 58 comments
How Much Fossil Fuel Does Your Dinner Burn? Ingredients for the average American meal travel well over
1500 miles to reach your plate. Our food might be inexpensive, but it's costing the planet a lot (and doesn't taste so hot either, since it's bred to withstand shipping and have long shelf life rather than to taste good). So what happens when people reject the large-scale industrial food system? One recent development in the growing localism movement is the 100-Mile Diet, originated by a Canadian couple who spent a full year eating only foods grown or raised within 100 miles of their home. They'll even give you a road map to having a
100-Mile Thanksgiving. For other variations on the eat-local idea, check out ideas like the
Eat Local Challenge,
Slow Food, and
Locavores encourage you to rediscover your place on earth, build community, and enjoy the
Local Harvest.
posted by Miko at 12:56 PM PST - 66 comments
Tag, you're out! "I've witnessed enough near collisions" in the playground area, D'Elia said. "I support anything that makes the playground safer and helps teacher to keep track of them."
posted by setanor at 10:31 AM PST - 123 comments
October 17
The Best Stuff in the World -- "an open, organic, polymorphous site which, depending on the user, could take on diverse forms and meanings. The site simply asks you to input your
best stuff, whether that be a song that inspires you, your favourite little Indian restaurant, or the best explication of Kantian aesthetics ... it's up to you!"
{via mefi projects}posted by dobbs at 11:19 PM PST - 19 comments
Madonna and Child by
Duccio di Buoninsegna (ca 1300) “is widely considered a key forerunner of the Italian Renaissance style and a landmark in Western European painting”. The painting “resides in a Plexiglas case in the middle of a room of medieval Italian paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” and was purchased in 2004 for about $50million, the most expensive acquisition in the Met’s history. However
James Beck, Columbia professor, founder of
ArtWatch “established for the dignity of the art” (
previously mentioned in this forum), is emphatic: “
It’s a poor painting and
it is a fake.” In a recent interview to Paul Hond in the Columbia Magazine Fall 2006 issue he admitted that such a bold and counter-mainstream proposition is “…calling attention to the mistakes of our favorite institutions of great power would not have been readily available if I didn’t have tenure.”
posted by carmina at 9:55 AM PST - 18 comments
Why I Gave Up On Hip-Hop "Hip-hop was still largely about the break-beat and dance moves and brothers who battled solely on wax. It was Whodini, Eric B. & Rakim, Dana Dane, EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest. And always and forever, Lonnae Loves Cool James. I knew all LL Cool J's b-sides and used to sleep under a poster of him that hung on my wall. I still have a picture of the two of us that was taken one Howard homecoming weekend.
And if, gradually, we noticed a trend,
more violence, more
misogyny, more
materialism, more hostile sexual stereotyping, a general
constricting of subject matter, for a very long time
we let it slide (.pdf)"
posted by four panels at 8:40 AM PST - 118 comments
Straight Dope on the birth of the iPod from the sharp pen of WIRED's
Mac maven Leander Kahney. Quoth Steve Jobs: "Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
posted by rdone at 8:02 AM PST - 35 comments
Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite? Should the FBI's counter-terrorism chief know the difference? How about the head of the FBI national security branch? How about a vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence?
posted by caddis at 7:06 AM PST - 125 comments
Bob "Mad Dog" Lassiter, dead at 61. Bob was one of the most notorious and entertaining "confrontational radio" hosts to ever sit behind a microphone.
WFMU's The Professor
wrote , "every other talk host I’ve ever heard usually gets off on like-minded callers, but not Bob. In fact, he was often quite impatient with callers who agreed with him."
Bob was an absolute master of baiting the listening audience, ensnaring many callers who thought that they were clever enough to outwit him. Of course,
none of
them were. He once played "dead air chicken" with a belligerent caller for 11 minutes straight, saying absolutely nothing until the caller finally gave up and hung up his phone. Tapes of these
broadcasts have been prized by aircheck collectors for years, many of which are now available as mp3 downloads at
BobLassiterAirchecks.com.
Bob knew he was dying, yet he actively resisted any measures that would improve his health. He
blogged nearly every moment of his last days, often in
graphic detail. His
last written words were posted yesterday.
posted by melorama at 5:42 AM PST - 24 comments
One Day in History is a national blogging event organised by the
History Matters campaign in the UK. They want UK citizens (or anyone with UK ties) to blog a diary entry about their day today (17 October). The entries will be archived at the British Library, creating a snapshot of everyday life in 2006 for the bemusement of future generations.
posted by chrismear at 1:33 AM PST - 7 comments
October 16
As he read, Mr Sterling became convinced he had to publish the book. Jed Rubenfeld's "The Interpretation of Murder" had an intriguing cast of characters, an engaging plot and a dash of kinky sex. It was a historical thriller, one of publishing's hottest recent categories. It had the potential, he thought, to be the next "Da Vinci Code."
The Wall Street Journal details
the fascinating mechanics of modern-day book marketing as Henry Holt & Co labors to birth this year's must-buy publishing phenomenon.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:35 PM PST - 14 comments
For centuries mankind has wondered if the Alien (from the movie
Alien) could viably gestate in the plastic belly of a My Little Pony doll, and if it could, what would the offspring look like. Well,
wonder no more. Final images
here. Making of
here.
posted by jonson at 7:58 PM PST - 67 comments
Yahoo! Time Capsule , from the artist that brought you
justcurio.us (Mefi'd
here), is the world's first digital time capsule. Submit images, words, videos, and sounds to a digital archive that will be sealed up in Smithsonian Folkway Recordings - Users have until November 8th to make submissions, at which point the capsule will be sealed. Check out the
about page for a little more information on the project and the artist's statement.
posted by TheRoach at 7:09 PM PST - 6 comments
Hearing Aid waiting list The BBC reports that in some British NHS hospitals the waiting list time for a digital hearing aid is 200 weeks (in others it is 2 weeks...) and perhaps 4m people could benefit from an aid, but don't have one.
Not an NHS bashing - but what would the situation be elsewhere? Presumably in some countries - the US? - the waiting list for a digital hearing aid would be infinite, eg if you don't have the money you'll not get one? Does Medicare/Aid cover this over 65? What about Canada?
posted by A189Nut at 4:39 PM PST - 48 comments
The Transportation Research Board released their 3rd edition of
Commuting in America. Among their findings, a 50% increase in "extreme commuters", those with a one way commute of more than 60 minutes; 8% of Americans are now in this category. 25 years ago, 1 in 5 commeters carpooled. Today, only 1 in 10. And the dominant commuting pattern is now suburb to suburb or city to suburb. [via
NPR]
posted by jaimev at 12:40 PM PST - 31 comments
"Over the last few weeks I have been introducing you to eight schools of criticism – Biographical, New Critical, Marxist, Structural, Jungian, Psychoanalytical, Feminist, and Post-Colonial – giving a little history behind each, and showing how they can be used to critique the video game
Katamari Damacy for the PlayStation 2." [
Part One |
Part Two |
Part Three]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:03 AM PST - 63 comments
A 6.6. magnitude earthquake hit Hawaii on Sunday. The quake originated from 24 miles below the west coast of the Big Island. Mefi's own
pzarquon posted
photos of Honolulu without power, and there's also a
photo pool. AP reports: "Across the state, residents reported little panic, and for some the loss of power meant it was time to sit outside, set up barbecues and talk with friends and neighbors."
posted by NemesisVex at 9:07 AM PST - 12 comments
Peter Gabriel has introduced a new iTunes plugin for Windows XP called
The Filter. Using the All Music Guide in a fashion similar to
Pandora, the software builds playlists from your library for you after you select a few tracks. Their marketing copy tells you that you should "Prepare to be reengaged and reinvigorated by your iTunes library."
OS X, WinAMP, and WMP versions are slated for the near future.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 7:07 AM PST - 55 comments
Arguing Against Datamining MySpace in search of Pedophiles. In certain circles,
MySpace
has become the villain de jour for all sorts of debauchery
(
threatening
the President,
phishing
,
dismembered
women , etc.), as well as being fertile hunting grounds for the
pedophile. Given the
huge
size of MySpace, reported as 100 million accounts (although
estimates
of active accounts are far lower, at approximately 43 million ), and an
hypothetical and absurdly low natural incidence of pedophiles and pedarasts
(let's say just 1%), one could assume that there could be as many as 430,000
to 1,000,000 of them out there. Wired
contributor and reformed hacker (Kevin Poulson) has developed a script to weed
out the bad seeds
[
via].
His script was effective, although it took several months of sifting and
refining, as well as numerous false positives - 744 registered sex offenders,
497 with convictions for crimes against children. While such an
experiment has merit, how much time, resources, and law enforcement manpower
will be wasted chasing down the
""high-cost
"false positives", and what will be neglected and sacrificed for that
effort?
posted by rzklkng at 6:27 AM PST - 38 comments
Splice gives anyone, anywhere the ability to collaborate on music right through a web browser. Users can upload or record sounds, make songs, listen to other user's songs, make remixes, make friends and a whole lot more.
posted by crunchland at 5:14 AM PST - 7 comments
...Objectives This double-blind study evaluated the acute and longer-term psychological effects of a high dose of psilocybin relative to a comparison compound administered under comfortable, supportive conditions...
Results Psilocybin produced a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods including anxiety. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience. At 2 months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes rated by community observers.
Conclusions When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences. The ability to occasion such experiences prospectively will allow rigorous scientific investigations of their causes and consequences.
Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significanceposted by y2karl at 12:11 AM PST - 58 comments
October 15
Goodsearch is an Internet search engine with a simple concept and unique social mission. GoodSearch enables you to help fund any of hundreds of thousands of charities or schools through the simple act of searching the Internet.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:23 PM PST - 9 comments
Art Money is an alternative, worldwide currency in the form of
original works of art. The Bank of International Art Money is an independent organization directed by artists and free from any form of government financing.
posted by fandango_matt at 1:19 PM PST - 7 comments
No Music Day exists because music has run its course. No Music Day exists to give you time to decide what you now want from music. No Music Day is on the 21st November, this and every year. To register, visit
nomusicday.composted by Blue Stone at 8:52 AM PST - 81 comments
October 14
The Bobitos have been captured in an unknown dimension. They need your help to come back to their world... If you can guide the king to the central square and stop him there, a dimensional door to their world gets opened!
[note: Flash]posted by crunchland at 11:54 PM PST - 7 comments
Modisti is an online directory with information with regard to experimental music, it's performers and enthusiats, thru lists promotion activities such as concerts, festivals, etc., as well as record releases.
posted by onkelchrispy at 10:03 PM PST - 4 comments
In 1979 Paul McCartney asked a few friends, namely John Paul Jones, David Gilmour, Ronnie Lane, John Bonham, Kenney Jones, Hank Marvin and Pete Townshend to stop by the studio for a bit of a jam. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
Rockestra.
posted by punkfloyd at 7:00 PM PST - 40 comments
This video (set to The Album Leaf's "Outer Banks") is an absolutely gorgeous bit of time lapse photography, all shot around a cityscape I couldn't recognize. Watching it made me think
of this movie, which is another bit of ethereal time lapse urbanscape beauty, this time shot in a city I
did recognize (downtown Los Angeles & LAX initially, San Francisco later).
Direct download 480p version of second film here. Of course, watching the second film reminded me of this
previously posted third film (
Rivers of Light, by the Grass Collective) involving cityscapes(downtown L.A. again -
flash based preview here), this time in slow motion, and without audio. All links are quicktime, and HUGE, but highly recommended and very, very pretty.
posted by jonson at 6:08 PM PST - 19 comments
The Shape of a Mother There are a lot of sites out there that document the changes a woman's body goes through during pregnancy. The goal of Shape of a Mother (picture-heavy, NSFW) is to document what also happens
afterwards. Women from all over the world submit stories and pictures of how their bodies changed after giving birth and how it affects their self-image. From the site's creator:
"It occurred to me that a post-pregnancy body is one of this society's greatest secrets; all we see of the female body is that which is airbrushed and perfect, and if we look any different, we hide it from the light of day in fear of being seen."posted by LeeJay at 2:25 PM PST - 53 comments
October 13
Radio Lab! Already listened to everything This American Life offers or maybe looking for something a bit smarter and full of science? Maybe you'll like
Radio Lab. Maybe you'll like the mind-blowing and historically expanding episode on
music. Maybe
older history is your cup of tea -- how about
biblical times and how they sit in shoeboxes in Oxford. A stack of shows available via podcast, MP3 download
(and some .RAM, sorry).
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:20 PM PST - 11 comments
Air samples over North Korea show no radiation "It is possible there was no radiological data. That could be the case if: the North Koreans successfully sealed the site; it was such a small detonation and so deep underground there was no escape of nuclear debris; or the test was actually conventional explosives."posted by Artw at 2:10 PM PST - 57 comments
CBGB is closing at the end of the month. Yeah, newsfilter, NYCfilter, say what you will, and the club hasn't "mattered" in decades, but anyone who cares about punk rock will feel the pang. This should probably have been posted by jonmc, but I wanted to do it so I could highlight
this excellent piece by Paul Collins; besides the inevitable "I played CBs" anecdote, there's some wonderful history of the site. [Quote inside.]
posted by languagehat at 8:48 AM PST - 110 comments
Totems. It's in japanese, but the point of the game is to click the little guys before they go away. (flash friday)
posted by empath at 6:42 AM PST - 20 comments
October 12
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon as a soundtrack to its album art. Parts
1,
2,
3,
4, and
5 (YouTube).
For another painstakingly minimalist (though livelier) tribute, Kenny G's Intelligent Design show on WFMU recently featured Nick the Bard's a cappella rendition of the entire album. Playlist & link to audio archive
here.
posted by treepour at 9:37 PM PST - 26 comments
This American Life is now offering free podcasts. A while ago, someone noticed MP3s of This American Life episodes were sitting in a publicly accessible directory. People soon starting making podcasts. This American Life asked them to stop.
Most of them did. Fans of the show were disappointed. Now the podcast is available directly from TAL for free.
posted by scottreynen at 3:08 PM PST - 53 comments
The hard drive celebrates its 50th birthday Timothy Prickett Morgan reviews the history of the hard drive, introduced to the world in September, 1956 as the IBM 305 RAMAC . Imagine life without the hard drive, without the ability to store and quickly access
bootlegged MP3 and video files and pr0n large data collections. (To anticipate, yes, Mr. Morgan may know the history of technology, but firearm nomenclature, perhaps not so much.) Also Tom's Hardware Guide interviews Seagate's Senior Field Applications Engineer, Henrique Atzkern,
on the hard drive's future. posted by mojohand at 11:20 AM PST - 19 comments
Libertarians, the forgotten voters (pdf) For those on the trail of the elusive swing voter,
it may be most notable that the libertarian vote
shifted sharply in 2004. Libertarians preferred
George W. Bush over Al Gore by 72 to 20 percent,
but Bush’s margin dropped in 2004 to 59-38 over
John Kerry. Congressional voting showed a similar
swing from 2002 to 2004. Libertarians apparently
became disillusioned with Republican overspending,
social intolerance, civil liberties infringements,
and the floundering war in Iraq. If that trend continues
into 2006 and 2008, Republicans will lose
elections they would otherwise win. (via Andrew Sullivan)posted by caddis at 8:34 AM PST - 197 comments
Steven Foster is the perfect bartender. He wants to share his
ontology,
his reflections on what it means to be happy,
bird aquariums,
how to make margarita mix from scratch, solutions to the world's five most pressing problems [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5, or just read the summary on every page towards the bottom], and more drink recipes than you can shake a stick at. This man delivers.
posted by trinarian at 3:50 AM PST - 20 comments
October 11
Wondering what to do with your disquiet? Check out
Protest.Net and see who's taking it to the streets in your area. Angry, but your town isn't listed? Don't worry, maybe you can find a ride on
HitchHikers. Disgusted, but prefer a more decorous exchange? So do the folks at
Progressive Secretary.
posted by owhydididoit at 10:41 PM PST - 14 comments
Both are open 24 hours a day, and serve as a "mecca" to their respective worshipers. One was ordained by Allah as a place of worship on Earth to reflect the house in Jannah called al-Baytu l-Maˤmur. The other was built by the house of Jobs to showcase Macs and iPods. Is
Apple's Fifth Avenue Cube (QTVR) mocking the
Kaaba? Some Islamic website
thinks it's a new insult to Islam.
posted by jaimev at 10:14 PM PST - 97 comments
Linux filesystem developer Hans Reiser has been arrested on a charge of murder. Reiser and his company,
Namesys, developed one of Linux's most popular filesystems, ReiserFS, and are currently working on the next generation,
Reiser4. Reiser was
interviewed by KernelTrap last year:
A willingness to believe that data indicates that one is wrong, and sometimes perhaps that everyone is wrong, is essential to a scientist. Boys think that being brilliant will make them a great scientist. Men know that, in the words of Sir Francis Bacon "men are imperfect mirrors of the creator". and that rigor, thoroughness, and a belief in data over consensus are what really matters. I am a blind man with a stick, and my contribution to society is that I ignorantly poke where none have poked before because I am more sure that I am such a fool I'd better check it than anyone else in my field. My only true insight into the field is knowing what a fool I am.
Reiser has sometimes been
known as abrasive and arrogant in development circles, but no body has been found. The future of Reiser's two children remains unclear.
[more @ arstechnica]
posted by nasreddin at 9:22 PM PST - 80 comments
Interactive Toxic Town from Natl Library Medicine This NLM link shows relatively small everyday sources of toxics around town. Most worry over envirodisasters like
Love Canal and
Libby Montana but toxics in homes, schools, and small biz can add up to a bigger dose for most of us. The toxic town thread from June 2nd shows the incredible scale of industrial negligance at the nasty sites. Time capsules are neat when you stumble into something gramps left in the attic to remember his hey day. But hazwaste sites are time capsules of a different sort, left behind by industries escaping their environmental liabilities. These sites tell the story of utter disregard for the environment and community as hazwaste was poured down floor drains, dumped into soil and unlined lagoons, or directed into nearby streams. Most of us live far enough away from these chemical bullseyes to not be directly affected. But even more unbelieveably, sometimes the industry was able to pawn off its waste as "clean fill", getting rid of the stuff and spreading it all over town. Prime examples:
Grand Junction CO and
Stratford CT. But you don't need that for your street to harbor toxic waste - there are thousands of small waste sites in various stages of discovery or cleanup embedded in every state, rural/suburban/urban towns alike. Leaking tanks beneath gas pumps, dry cleaners, small industry, farms, nurseries,and even some homes can be toxics hot spots.
Vermont's statewide hazwaste site list broken down by town is an example - it would be smart to find the list for your town.
posted by whatstoxic at 8:30 PM PST - 12 comments
Did you bring bottles? They gave away dishes, encyclopedias, and Batman toys to get you in the store. Most have been replaced by mega-groceries, but David Gwynn remembers the
grocery chain ^ down the block.
posted by ?! at 7:40 PM PST - 19 comments
WaxDJ.com - an excellent source for free downloads and streams of original electronic music mixes of all sorts, from seasoned pros to beginning bedroom amatuers, all told numbering in the hundreds or thousands. My current brand new favorite is the very diverse and well-versed Detriot/Chicago techno stylings of DJ
Rubsilent. Recomended mix: Future Funk 23:
(Direct MP3 link) (Streaming mp3 link) But don't let me divert you - search for your favorite local DJ or browse for new ones.
posted by loquacious at 10:45 AM PST - 19 comments
the American God? The herders of this remote mountain village know little about America, but have learned from those who run a US-funded aid program about the American God. A Christian God. ...posted by amberglow at 9:35 AM PST - 32 comments
The end of cursive? When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters. "Cursive -- that is so low on the priority list, we really could care less. We are much more concerned that these kids pass their SOLs [standardized tests]."
posted by stbalbach at 7:03 AM PST - 243 comments
The invasion of Iraq may have caused 650,000 Iraqi deaths according to a study being published in the Lancet on Saturday. The work follows up a controversial late 2004
study by the same researchers that estimated "excess deaths" due to the conflict (at that time) to be 100,000. In response to criticism that the 2004 paper's margin of error was uselessly high (the 95% confidence interval was 8,000-194,000), the new results are based on a larger sample, yielding more reasonable range of 426,000-793,000. The paper is virtually guaranteed to reignite
debate over the accuracy of the most widely cited source for Iraqi casualty information, the
Iraq Body Count project (which currently gives a max of 48,893), and the media reports it relies on. The lead author, Les Roberts of John Hopkins, has
said that the original study's publication was timed to influence the 2004 elections, and it would appear that this one is as well. [more inside]
posted by gsteff at 12:54 AM PST - 214 comments
October 10
OH NO! THERE GOES TOKYO! GO GO
GODZILLA!
(Nearly) every Godzilla soundtrack.
(Thanks to my girlfriend for hipping me to this)
posted by klangklangston at 3:22 PM PST - 28 comments
Impossible Is Nothing. Yale student applies for job on Wall Street, includes
video detailing his physical prowess and philosophy of success. Hilarity ensues: "He single-handedly decreased trading volumes over the last two hours of the day because everyone was laughing too hard." Perhaps not surprisingly, there are
some problems with his story.
posted by Gamblor at 9:01 AM PST - 156 comments
The Sandbox A Doonesbury driven non-partisan non-policy community blog on the details of being human in a global war on terror.
posted by srboisvert at 3:21 AM PST - 22 comments
October 9
Underground Wonderland The RISD Museum is hosting a
retrospective of Providence's DIY marketing approach to underground shows. The exhibit, with every wall plastered from floor to ceiling, feels like a time-capsule.
Fort Thunder and its associated bands has been mentioned here on the blue before, but the sense of community that comes through, and which still runs through Providence's subcultures thanks to individuals like
Ryan Lesser and his "Lots of Noise" site deserves yet another post. Be sure to check out the Lots of Noise image and photo gallery for more fun stuff. (No direct links, sorry!)
posted by stagewhisper at 2:53 PM PST - 7 comments
Nihongo Bongo! - Latin music by Japanese artists from the 40s, 50s and 60s. "Mambo, rumba, cha cha cha, bossa nova, calypso, you name it... it was big in Japan. The exodus of Japanese migrants to Brazil ensured a lasting connection with South American culture as many Japanese artists toured Brazil."
posted by carter at 1:40 PM PST - 14 comments
The Incredible Mouth Band is the product of an idea. The idea was simple: Instead of people actually playing their instruments, why don't they just say their names out loud, to the rhythm of the music?
note: The organist tends to get a lil' creepy. Do not watch late at night if that kind of thing bothers you.posted by alona at 4:10 AM PST - 14 comments
October 8
Looking for a new religion? Something to save your soul? Do you like Elephants? Then consider becoming a
Babarist, a new religion that is seeking to spread the word of
Babar. Followers seek to influence and enhance every facet of their lives by asking "
What would Babar do?"
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:29 PM PST - 6 comments
Why is the elephant the symbol of the GOP? In large part, we can thank cartoonist
Thomas Nast, who, on November 7 of 1874, published
this cartoon, showing Republicans as a rampaging elephant tearing up the flimsy planks of the Democratic Party. He wasn't just a man who made elephants though; considered to be the father of political cartooning, Nast's illustrations helped bring down
Boss Tweed, argued for the
abolition of slavery, and hated the
Irish.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:36 PM PST - 20 comments
Peale’s Mastodon by Paul Semonin. "The skeleton preoccupied American patriots for another reason less scientific in nature–one which helps to explain why its bones were eagerly sought after by the Founding Fathers during and after the Revolutionary War. For many Americans, the great beast had become a symbol of the new nation’s own conquering spirit–an emblem of overwhelming power in a psychologically insecure society." An interesting article about Americans trying to understand mammoths, from
Common-Place, the web magazine of early American history. Semion wrote a book on the topic,
American Monster.
posted by LarryC at 1:49 PM PST - 4 comments
The Weather Channel launches
One Degree, a broadband channel dedicated to global warming - for the "weather obsessed", sexy-voiced climatologists Heidi Cullen brings global warming mainstream. Are you a "climatechanger"?
posted by stbalbach at 7:09 AM PST - 9 comments
October 7
So, what is an "
actroid"?
It's an android actor, and you can rent one for $3500 for 5 days, to do
presentations at shows or whatever else you want. They come in a number of
configurations and wear
a
variety of costumes. The latest one, Actroid DER2, is shown on
this
page in several high quality stills and 3 WMVs (in Japanese; click
thumbnails and links immediately below thumbnails). Why is she wearing a "Hello
Kitty" T-shirt? Because she was created by
Kokoro, a member
company of the Sanrio Group, which also does
the majority of "Hello Kitty" merchandising. So are they working on a
robotic Hello Kitty? If you need me, I'll be hiding under my bed.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:51 PM PST - 29 comments
No running in PE. I was talking to my kids about school the other day. We were discussing what they do in their different classes and the conversation came around to physical education (PE). I was shocked when they told me that their gym teacher forbids running in PE class. What?! No running in PE? It’s true.
posted by John of Michigan at 5:06 PM PST - 92 comments
Blake Leyh Sound designer for such films as The Abyss; Frida; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Y Tu Mama Tambien, and many others has a music blog. He also composed the end credit music for HBO's The Wire, which may be the best television show ever made.
posted by vronsky at 4:42 PM PST - 20 comments
October 6
I am facing forclosure A 24-year-old kid who leveraged eight houses in a dropping market with no-down loans from television get-rich-quick seminars is now $2.2 million in debt. Thanks, Donald Trump, you twat.
posted by parmanparman at 2:41 PM PST - 118 comments
Hooray for Kinky Friedman -- Friedman isn't going to solve Texas' problems, but neither is any other politician. The whole premise of his campaign is to mock the process—as his slogan goes, "How hard can it be?"
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:07 AM PST - 93 comments
Float (youtube) is the first of a series of short films designed to stir the imagination. The brief film shows the streets of Melbourne as the letters & numbers from every sign in town begin to peel off & float away on the wind. The project lives
here, and open contributions are being
listed here.
posted by jonson at 9:23 AM PST - 16 comments
The new series of the Gervais/Merchant sitcom "Extras" can be streamed from the BBC's website. This series is really excellent. There are two quality settings and Windows Media/Realplayer streams are available. Shows are only available for a few weeks after broadcast but there is still much to enjoy!
posted by mokey at 8:30 AM PST - 33 comments
Folkstreams.net has two goals. One is to build a national preserve of hard-to-find documentary films about American folk or roots cultures. The other is to give them renewed life by streaming them on the internet. The films were produced by independent filmmakers in a golden age that began in the 1960s and was made possible by the development first of portable cameras and then capacity for synch sound. Their films focus on the culture, struggles, and arts of unnoticed Americans from many different regions and communities. The filmmakers were driven more by sheer engagement with the people and their traditions than by commercial hopes. Their films have unusual subjects, odd lengths, and talkers who do not speak "broadcast English." Although they won prizes at film festivals, were used in college classes, and occasionally were shown on PBS, they found few outlets in venues like theaters, video shops or commercial television. But they have permanent value...
folkstreams.net Currently streaming are the films
The Land Where the Blues Began ,
Cajun Country ,
Jazz Parades: Feet Don't Fail Me Now ,
Talking Feet: Solo Southern Dance: Buck, Flatfoot and Tap ,
Ray Lum: Mule Trader and
Pizza Pizza Daddy-O , among
many others.
posted by y2karl at 6:19 AM PST - 14 comments
October 5
Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)
Some more up-to-date predictions:
science,
invention,
space travel,
colonisation,
immortality,
water
shortage,
flooding,
nanotech,
techno-apocalypse,
extinction,
mental health,
smart machines,
robots, mind uploading,
AI,
Asia,
economics,
demographics,
goverance,
cities.
What is your prediction?
posted by MetaMonkey at 11:24 PM PST - 54 comments
Nietzsche Family Circus : Family Circus cartoons randomly combined with quotes from Nietzsche. Remixing Family Circus is nothing new, but I find this one fascinating.
posted by Lirp at 8:43 PM PST - 30 comments
America's worst school violence ever was not a
recent event, but the
Bath School disaster of 1927.
Andrew Kehoe, a school board member upset with his tax bill, used dynamite and some
pyrotol from WWI-era military surplus to blow himself up along with the elementary school of
Bath Township, Michigan, leaving 45 dead and 58 injured. See a
1927 book on the disaster, a
list of victims, the
coroner's inquest, a
historical marker, a
memorial park, an
oral history from a witness, and a 1920s
KKK rant denouncing Kehoe as an agent of the Roman Catholic conspiracy.
posted by jonp72 at 1:45 PM PST - 14 comments
The Bijlmermeer Disaster Yesterday marked the anniversary of the 1992 crash of El Al Flight 1862 into the Amersterdam neighborhood of
Bijlmermeer, "whose sordid aftermath opened up a whole can of worms relating to secret weapons trafficking and unaccountable government." Six years after the crash, an investigation revealed that the flight had been carrying three of the four chemicals needed for
Sarin.
posted by frecklefaerie at 12:03 PM PST - 19 comments
It's October, and across the nation, the search for the most sincere Pumpkin Patch begins anew. For those unfamiliar (or those wishing to reacquaint themselves) with the rituals & lore of the Great Pumpkin, the
entire CBS Special is online here. Also, for the blind readers of this site, the long out-of-print spoken word radiodrama version of the Great Pumpkin
can be found here.
posted by jonson at 9:18 AM PST - 12 comments
Teleportation Breakthrough. Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.
But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.
A more technical explanation.posted by empath at 6:30 AM PST - 67 comments
The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive Is the recently aired work of Stephen Fry.
[1][2] a well know english comedian diagnosed as manic-depressive.Now also know as
bipolar disorder manic-depression is a class of mood disorders in which the person experiences clinical depression and/or mania, hypomania, and/or mixed states; a rollercoaster of highs and lows.Fry's work and personal involvment help shine a spotlight on a condition obscured by
the stigma associated with mental disorders.
posted by elpapacito at 6:26 AM PST - 27 comments
October 4
Here is the
Mississippi John Hurt Blues Foundation, the website, which is the creation of one Frank Delaney of Spokane. There's a great deal of guitar related material and a page of mp3's by fans, which includes several interesting originals by one Fred Bolden, a grand nephew. I always knew he had a son who played guitar and wondered why no one had ever tried to record him. Now there is a grand nephew playing, if nowhere near as sublimely as his great uncle, in roughly the same style.
Here is an interview of John Hurt from 1963, courtesy of Stefan Grossman's guitar video empire. It is a real delight.
Consider this a follow up to this
post. Not all of the links there are good. The
Mississippi John Hurt Guitar Tab Book, for instance, is now available only in
PDF format but well worth the download. And here is
an illustrated discography of John Hurt by another Stefan, Stefan Wirz, a subject of yet another
post back in the day.
posted by y2karl at 9:04 PM PST - 19 comments
The Specter of Recession in 2007. With the US housing bubble falling for the first time in over a decade, oil traders are dumping inventories (and driving down prices) in fear of a US-led global recession brought on by the end of the biggest housing bubble in history.
Previous.
posted by stbalbach at 8:06 PM PST - 40 comments
The Motley Fool's new CAPS stock-picking system keeps track of your stock picks and whether they outperformed or underperformed the market. Then everyone's picks are aggregated, weighted by the quality of their past records, to rank individual stocks.
Here's how it works. (more inside)
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:49 PM PST - 13 comments
The Work of Carol Rambo. (Warning, these articles are all PDF or .doc format.) Carol Rambo is a professor of sociology who paid her way through school by working as an exotic dancer. Rambo has written articles on the sociology of strip clubs, drawing upon her own experience as an exotic dancer.
In one article, Rambo writes about "the discourse of deviance" that exotic dancers use to "organize their identities" in a process Rambo calls "narrative resistance."
In another article, she writes about the concept of old age as it affects exotic dancers.
In a third article, drawing upon her own experiences as a "table dancer," Rambo writes about "Interactional strategies that table dancers use to cultivate counterfeit intimacy," and she concludes that dancers manage to "carve out an autonomous niche in an otherwise oppressive context." Also interesting is her article on growing up as the daughter of a mentally retarded mother,
"On Loving and Hating My Mentally Retarded Mother."posted by jayder at 4:05 PM PST - 54 comments
Ima Gangsta -- the motivation and the regret. "San Francisco has an out of control gang violence problem, but what motivates young people to join gangs? Ruben City Palomares -- in his first film -- explores the reasons young homies choose to get jumped into a gang and reveals the lifetime of regret older gang members carry as a result of their fateful decision to be a gangsta. Palomares, 16, is a filmmaker with
Conscious Youth Media Crew."
posted by derangedlarid at 11:01 AM PST - 23 comments
What Good Are the Arts? asks John Carey’s recent book of the same name. The New Criterion think Carey’s thesis is informed by cynical political motives rather than earnest convictions, and accuses Carey of dabbling in the risky art of aesthetic relativism: Obviously, art is ultimately about
“the search for truth” (a lesson we’d do well to remember before society falls apart). But as Carey and others point out to the contrary, the
Third Reich was all about art—and yet, art under the Third Reich had precious little to do with “searching for truth.” So just what good are the arts? Here’s what
a few others have to say on the subject.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:26 AM PST - 45 comments
Radio Sherpa We show you what is playing on your favorite radio station right now. If you see a song or program that you like, just click on the album art to make your selection. You can play the song, learn more about the artist or song, or even buy it. Only in Boston at the moment.
posted by srboisvert at 9:52 AM PST - 5 comments
Hadley Centre: Climate Projections Two computer models showing how the North Pole is melting and what the surface temperature of the earth will be like at the end of this century. A spinning globe visualises the changes. This is not hyperbole just lots of data.
posted by hard rain at 9:40 AM PST - 21 comments
Peekskill Riots The Peekskill Riots were anti-communist riots (with anti-black undertones) in the city of Peekskill, New York in 1949.
The catalyst for the rioting was an announced concert by black singer Paul Robeson, who was well known for his strong stand on civil rights and his communist sympathies. The concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27. Before Robeson arrived, a mob of locals attacked concertgoers...many names you might recall were involved in this blot on American history, and
Howard
Fast, the novelist, recalled his involvement in his book Being Red (1990), Howard Fast's memoir of his life on the left. Additionally,
some later writers recalled the involvement of relatives and/or friends..
Pete Seeger, present during the riot, wrote a song about it Later, gathering some of the rocks tossed at the lefty participants of the concert, he used the "ammo" to build a chimney on the cabin where he lived. The Lefty -sympathizing wonderful actress
Judy Holliday was summoned before the congressional committe in charge of rooting out communists during the anti-communist days, and gave a lengthy testimony about herself and many others.
And though the riots were sparked in part by local newspapers, editoriallizing against the "visitors" to their serene area, they and the good citizens of Peekskill quickly tried to ignore, forget, or bury lthe disgraceful riots. But
the memory lives on for some, and this sad event remains memorialized, a reminder perhaps of what hate, aggression, and just plain nastiness can bring about.
posted by Postroad at 5:54 AM PST - 30 comments
"
Injection is the real-life story of six health care workers falsely accused and jailed by an Arab dictator [
^], the deplorable conditions that led to their arrest, and the simple solution that might have prevented not only this injustice, but millions of needless infections. " [
full movie at google video]
posted by tnai at 5:51 AM PST - 7 comments
October 3
A new voting protocol from Ron Rivest [pdf] "
We present a new paper-based voting method with attractive security properties. Not only can each voter verify that her vote is recorded as she intended, but she gets a “receipt” that she can take home that can be used later to verify that her vote is actually included in the final tally. Her receipt, however, does not allow her to prove to anyone else how she voted." Another interesting property is that all ballots are scanned and put online, so everyone can perform their own count, if they like.
The only downside: People have to fill out
three ballots with special rules on how to do it.
Ron Rivest [wiki] is one of the inventors of public key cryptography
posted by delmoi at 11:30 PM PST - 39 comments
Today is the 70th anniversary of
the battle of Cable Street. On Sunday October 4th 1936,
Oswald Moseley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, attempted to lead a march through Stepney, at that time a predominantly
Jewish area. As the fascists met at
Royal Mint Street, around
300,000 people barricaded the roads of the East End, chanting
"No Pasaran" and
"They Shall Not Pass". When the police attempted to
break through the corden at Cable Street a riot ensued.
The police were repelled and Moseley and his acolytes were forced to march in the opposite direction, into the
empty streets of the City. With the Spanish Civil War at its peak, Cable Street saw
communists,
anarchists,
Jews, dockers and many other ordinary
eastenders fighting
the fascists together and has a
mythological place in
East London folklore. Celebrations will be held
this Sunday.
posted by criticalbill at 11:00 PM PST - 26 comments
MappyHour is a Google Maps and happy-hour mashup. It includes mostly US cities, with decent Australian representation ... plus Paris, France and Windsor, Ontario.
Sorry, direct city links don't seem to work.posted by mrgrimm at 5:43 PM PST - 21 comments
What inoffensive songs do people find scary? A list asked for by a curious
Jarvis Cocker, former frontman of the band Pulp.
My favorite entry:
"Laughing Gnome - Bowie. Scared the crap out of me as a kid. I remember getting my parents to check under the bed. My father, a bit of an evil electronics bastard put a speaker under my bed one night and played the song just as I was drifting off. He then ran in when I started screaming and pulled out a doll from under the bead and chopped its head off with a machete. God I need therapy."
posted by w0mbat at 9:14 AM PST - 152 comments
Music for Funerals - 5000 Brits were surveyed about songs they'd like played during their funeral. I'm warning you right now, Bon Jovi made the top 20.
posted by davebush at 5:43 AM PST - 173 comments
October 2
Extraordinary Hang Glider Murdered-- Sunday, August 20, 2006
Dan Murphy was just pulling up on his motorcycle at his favorite place to
hang glide in San Francisco.
Fort Funston, just south of the City, is known for having perfect conditions for the sport. But on this day a deranged man approached him in the parking lot, shooting him in the head at point-blank range. Before the man turned the gun on himself he also shot one of Dan's friends who was nearby. Dan died from his injuries, but he leaves behind a couple of short videos that reveal some of his amazing hang gliding feats, including an
Icarus-like crash, and perhaps his moment of glory when he successfully made a pinpoint landing into a stationary
wheelbarrow. Evidently Dan took great pleasure in twisting in the saddle on take-off. Here's his
signature move. R.I.P.posted by derangedlarid at 11:28 PM PST - 11 comments
The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths --
No longer satisfied with “mere acceptance” by our society, heterosexual political pressure groups have launched a well-planned, well-financed campaign, which, if left unchecked, threatens to destroy the most fundamental structures of American society. (actual report itself is a pdf from there--a takeoff on
this stuff, which is NSFHumans)
posted by amberglow at 8:40 PM PST - 24 comments
Some of you may have seen the feature film
Brick; I thought it one of the best of the year and among the better debuts I've seen in a long time. Writer-Director Rian Johnson
offers up the shooting script and original novella for free on his site. Fun for fans of noir, high school flicks, or MeFites gaggle of screenwriters.
posted by dobbs at 8:36 PM PST - 29 comments
FairPlay is turned about. "DVD" Jon Lech Johansen, of
DeCSS fame, has reverse engineered Apple's
FairPlay DRM technology, which has thus far prevented 3rd-party digital music players from playing music purchased from the iTunes Store. RealNetworks did
something similar in 2004, but Johansen is licensing it to whomever wants it.
posted by mkultra at 1:41 PM PST - 41 comments
The NSA Bibliographies The NSA internally publishes thousands of papers every year, on every topic from spycraft to cryptography to physics & aliens (no, really!). Each year the titles of these papers gets indexed & those indexes are also published internally. The Memory Hole has made a successful FOIA request for a large number of these, spanning almost 50 years. We don't get to see the actual papers, but just the titles are fascinating - including such page turners as "Computer Virus Infections: Is NSA Vulnerable?", "KAL 007 Shootdown: A View from [redacted]", "NSA in the Cyberpunk Future", "Telephone Codes and Safe Combinations: A Deadly Duo", "Coupon Collecting and Cryptology", "Cranks, Nuts, and Screwballs" & my personal favorite, "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages". When you're done browsing the titles, there's a sample form you can use to request some of the documents yourself!
posted by scalefree at 11:41 AM PST - 10 comments
I'm My Own Grandpa ^(embedded audio) is a funny and head-scratching song about, well, being your own grandpa (hint: dad's to blame). There's a
video using footage from The Sims, which includes a cover by Ray Stevens. Bonus points if you can figure it all out the first time you listen.
posted by zardoz at 5:40 AM PST - 22 comments
[MediFilter] The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to the discoverers of
RNA interference (RNAi) [Note: Links to original 1998 Nature paper .pdf]. The finding that cells have an intricate mechanism for
blocking viral RNA replication quickly spawned a new technology for investigating the role of different genes by allowing scientists to
quickly, (relatively) cheaply and easily "knock down" their expression and measure the effects. When
Kerry Mullis won in 1993 for the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), there was talk of whether or not the prize had gone to a technical advance and not a fundamental discovery. It will be interesting to see, in this case, which receives more focus: the discovery of a new technology or of a new cellular mechanism.
posted by scblackman at 4:16 AM PST - 18 comments
October 1
Shooting War: a graphic novel by Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman. The 11-chapter first act has been lauded in
Rolling Stone,
Wired and
The Village Voice. It's 2011: President McCain is fighting for political survival, America is stuck in Iraq, and there's another oil embargo. 'Vlogger' and indie icon Jimmy Burns happens to catch a terrorist attack in NYC on his web cam, making him the new face of wartime journalism.
posted by spaltavian at 6:39 PM PST - 36 comments
October 1 through till October 8 is
National Trichotillomannia Awareness Week. What is Trichotillomania
^ (or Trich, for short), you ask? Put simply, Trich is a compulsive hair pulling disorder that causes people to pull out their own hair from the scalp, eyebrows or pretty much anywhere on the body. Because they often pull repeatedly from the same spots, they may develop bald spots that are difficult to disguise and which sufferers are often very ashamed of. Sometimes they may even injest the hair, which is
sometimes fatal. It is unknown exactly how many people suffer from it, but it is known that the vast
majority of those afflicted are female. But for those few people who suffer with it,
help is at hand! There's a
documentary about it which you can watch,
a website devoted to helping people learn how to deal with it,
blogs and even an
anonymous AskMe question. For those interested in learning more about what National Tricotillomannia Week entails,
check out this page.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:52 PM PST - 30 comments
Revolutionary twelve pound folding bicycle designed by Clive Sinclair (who previously brought the world
calculators--including
a wrist calculator--,
computers, and an electric vehicle, the
C5. Sinclair has had successes and failures, but this new bicycle
may change the way thousands of people commute to work. Until now, "folding bicycles" have been little more than conventional bikes with hinging mechanisms and smaller wheels. The well known
Brompton and
Bike Friday bikes typically use 16" wheels, while
Montague makes full-size bikes that fold, and
Dahon makes both. Yes, they might fit in your car's trunk. Or you can check them as baggage with the airlines and have your own bike with you on vacation. But they all weigh 25 to 30 pounds, so while the size was a bit more convenient, they were not the breakthrough their makers claimed. The unconventional
Strida showed a glimpse of what was possible, but at 22 pounds, still was overweight for easy schlepping. Finally, with the A-Bike it seems that for the many folks that live a mile or two from a train or subway station, it will be practical to ride the A-Bike to the station, then fold it up (26"x12"x6") and carry it along. Short video
here, download "A-Bike Teaser Trailer." I want one!
posted by centerpunch at 3:16 PM PST - 159 comments
[NSFW] Much of contemporary liberal thought rests on the idea of the
Social Contract. In this scheme, we agree to give up a certain amount of freedom in exchange for the protection and opportunity that society provides. Our individual lives mirror this. We defer to others when politeness requires it. We assert ourselves and our needs with pleases and thank yous. Most of daily life has some power dynamic to it, expressed with the subtlety that civilization demands. And what is implicit in daily life is made explicit in the role-playing of
BDSM, based on the idea of a
Power Exchange, where one party explicitly agrees to give up a certain amount of power to another. For most people who are into this, the “scenes” are circumscribed by rules, usually discussed beforehand, such as appropriate safewords, time limits, etc. For a small subset of this group, the typical safeguards are cast aside and the slave
surrenders all aspects of his or her life to the master. The female submissive Polly Peachum has written about this lifestyle in her essay
“Violence in the Garden” about her life as a 24-7 slave and the sexual dimensions of that relationship.
posted by jason's_planet at 10:50 AM PST - 219 comments
The costs of climate change adaptation are
estimated at US$1 Trillion* (wordwide, by 2050), equal to
one year's growth.
"Our analysis suggests that there are technologically feasible and relatively low-cost options for controlling carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Estimates suggest that the level of GDP might be reduced by no more than around 2-3% in 2050 if this strategy was followed, equivalent to sacrificing only around a year of economic growth for the sake of reducing carbon emissions in 2050 by around 60% compared to our baseline scenario. But if this is to be achieved, it will take further concerted action by governments, businesses and individuals over a broad range of measures to boost energy efficiency, adopt a greener fuel mix, and introduce carbon capture and storage technologies in power plants and other major industrial facilities".
* that's less than half one cock-arse war!posted by wilful at 3:38 AM PST - 13 comments
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